E-plus exchange & timing question

[JeffW]

Hi,
I read over some posts, but am still not 100% sure of the best strategy and timing.

I have an II deposit that expires mid-Aug 2023. I believe if I select an exchange for as close to that as possible (say, 1st week of August), that gives me the maximum use time - 1yr from then, Aug 2024.

95% likely I'd use it for an exchange the 2nd week of Oct 2023. Are there any windows when I can make the first (of my available three available) retrades? I saw mentions to "59 days". I'm not sure if that applies to when my initial trade is relative to when it deposits (ie. could be Apr '23 for an Aug '23 expiration). Or how far in advance I can make the retrades for (ie. Apr'23 -> Jun'23).

I've seen that on a retrade, you can't trade to a larger unit. If I have a 2br deposit, should I try for a 2br exchange now, to keep available the chance for a future 2br retrade?

When doing retrades, is the trading power of the original unit maintained? Or does it become that of the new unit? I'm not expecting it to increase (that would be a nice loophole!). Just want to makes sure I don't have to be concerned about the power of the dummy initial first trade.

The likely Oct unit would be an international (Carribbean one), which I think costs more than domestic. Any advantage to making my first trade international (so that I pay that fee once, upfront)? If I do a domestic exchange, and then an international: 1) can I do that? 2) will they charge me then the difference in the domestic vs intl exchange fees?

Lot of questions, sorry. Thanks for all your help.

Jeff

 

[dioxide45]

As soon as you make the initial exchange, you can retrade out through the Eplus expiration. In your case, be sure to make the first trade prior to mi-June. It has to be before 60 days out from expiration. Also remember that expiration on a deposit is the latest date you can travel. Meaning, checkout date of your exchange. So you need to add an extra week in there. I suggest just doing the exchange any time between now and May. Then you won't get stuck in Flexchange. You want to make sure you never let kt get less than 60 days from checkin of any exchange you currently have, unless you want to travel on that exchange. Once inside 60 days, you are stuck in flexchange and can only see potential exchanges 59 days out from the current checkin date of the exchnage.

II no longer has a different fee for domestic and international exchanges.

Searching "Interval International Eplus" on YouTube also brings up a couple videos on the subject.

 

[HudsHut]

If you have a 2 br unit, you would typically exchange into a 2 br unit, but there is no penalty for initially exchanging into a 1 br. I wouldn't exchange into a larger unit and pay the upsize fee until the actual trade which I was going to use. (No need to pay an upsize fee on an initial trade to later find there are no larger units available at the desired destination.)