Exchange vs. Staying where you own

[DaveNV]

Curious to know how often you stay where you own, vs. exchanging into another resort somewhere.

We have an upcoming trip that will involve staying in two different timeshares, and it just occurred to me that we own them both - no exchanging on this trip.

So I think I just saved myself $358 in RCI exchange fees. Can that be right?

Dave

 

[logan115]

We own DVC at SSR and plan on exchanging into another DVC resort most of the time. Like the resort and would not be unhappy if we were "stuck" there, but just happen to like (or want to try) the other DVC resorts more.

Probably not the response you were looking for, but that's all I got to work with (for know :hysterical: )

Chris

 

[Luanne]

We used to stay where we own every summer, until our kids' school schedule changed. We have a fixed week at the end of summer, and when the school district changed the start day to before Labor Day, we were ________. :ignore:

 

[dlpearson]

In 13 years of timesharing with 5 timeshares, we've occupied our home resort/weeks only 3 times. We're all about exchanging (or renting out). Too many amazing places to explore (for us anyway) to go back to the same place year after year.

 

[Phill12]

Almost every Fourth of July week we spend at our resort in Lake Tahoe.

When we did travel alot we always found no matter how nice it was we missed going to Lake Tahoe. After leaving timesharing for about ten years we came back and bought at the same resort we owned first time. Since we always use our week we decided few years ago to buy a second unit even year only. This way we get our week and can exchange or rent or use the second week every even year.

I have always recommended to anyone thinking of buying their first timeshare to try them out by renting first and only buy at the resort and area your family can go every year and be happy. By doing this you will always be a happy owner. To many families try and buy a top trader or location and few years later the kids growing up and going to places like Orlando or other locations that are built for the kids becomes useless to their family and now your trying to exchange every year with really no home base to use.

We thought years ago of buying Disney or Hawaii but once our daughter grew older we never go to Disney and after about six trips to Hawaii we really don't see going again and dealing with long flights and high rates.

We own in Lake Tahoe which is only a three hour drive so gas prices and other high cost don't bother our planning. We can always exchange for other places anytime we decide we want to travel so this is perfect for our family.

Also it is close enough for short trip like this May 6-9th my daughter had me book her and a friend for three days on my bonus time which is 50% off the price so for $152.00 she gets a full unit for a thru,fri and sat night. She did same last May and had a great time. This way she doesn't mess with air and all the problems that go with flying.

PHIL

 

[logan115]

Phil -

I sooooo wish that there was somewhere within driving distance that we wanted to go regularly ! Living just north of Chicago the only real option is the Wisconsin Dells and my wife isn't a big fan.

I think we need to move just to have more "local" TS options :hysterical:

Chris

 

[AMJ]

We don't exchange our 2 Hilton Head resorts or our Myrtle Beach one. We prefer to visit HHI and MB every year. We do trade our Orlando resort most years. We use Cypress Harbour to exchange into West Palm Beach, Aruba, and Hilton Head. Although I love Cypress Harbour and the Orlando area, my husband doesn't.

If I owned a week at Chetola Resort at Blowing Rock or Lodges at Cresthaven during the summer, I'd never exchange.

Joyce

 

[Icc5]

Depends on Resort

Lawrence Welk which we own at we stay about 2 out of every 3 years.
Worldmark we usually stay at one of them.
Donatello, we stayed at once because we don't care for S.F.
Orange Lake we have stayed at twice but don't go to Florida from California too often.
Bart

 

[brankatz]

We stay at our Ft. Myers Beach every year and stay the following week at our Sanibel Unit every other year to give us 2 weeks in a row same area different location. This year rented the Sanibel but still will be at Ft. myers unit. Always trade our Orange Lake and just got a Pts. Week to exchange exclusively.

 

[Dori]

We always trade our units, as we crave the sun during our cold winters. Two of our weeks are located about 90 miles from our home, so vacationing there would not seem much like a holiday. Our SA unit is much too far away to visit every year, so we trade that one as well.

Dori

 

[AwayWeGo]

Having It Both Ways.

Curious to know how often you stay where you own, vs. exchanging into another resort somewhere.

In recent years we've been renting out our timeshares & using what's left of the proceeds (after paying maintenance fees) for RCI Last Call & Instant Exchange reservations to stay at other people's timeshares.

We did that again this year with 1 of our timeshares, except that this year our Instant Exchange reservation was for a week right there at our own timeshare, exactly the same as what we rented out to somebody else.

Is this a great country or what ?

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.​

 

[BevL]

The only "resort" I own that I've used myself is our Shuswap Lake houseboat. Other than that I've exchange for two to four weeks a year.

 

[bdh]

The only known cure for "Keys Disease" is to return to Key West - so for "health reasons", we now go every year.

 

[Egret1986]

I always buy were we would be happy to go IF IT REQUIRED US TO DO THAT

Too many amazing places to explore (for us anyway) to go back to the same place year after year.

However, we'll never get to all the places that we would like to see in this lifetime, but it's sure nice trying see as many as we can. We've only stayed once in the last 10 or so years where we've owned. As long as we can get great exchanges to new areas, it's hard to imagine going to the same place over and over again when there's all those unexplored territories, and that's just in the Continental US. Never been to Alaska, Hawaii, Europe, Mexico, Canada (except day trip), etc, etc, etc.

 

[dougp26364]

Curious to know how often you stay where you own, vs. exchanging into another resort somewhere.

We have an upcoming trip that will involve staying in two different timeshares, and it just occurred to me that we own them both - no exchanging on this trip.

So I think I just saved myself $358 in RCI exchange fees. Can that be right?

Dave

Each resort we've purchased, we purchased with the intention of using the resort. As time has gone on some of those resorts have gone from personal usage to exchange. In some cases, it's been a matter of oportunity in which we're happy to stay at our home resort but, we'll put in a request first (we use Interval International) exchange request for places we think we'd like to go but, might be considered a difficult exchange.

We average at least six 7 night vacations each year. Using lock-out units and points based exchange systems, we actually own more timeshare than we can use. Some of our timeshare vacations end up being long weekend trips that don't require us to take time off from work (we have flexible schedules).

This year we'll only stay at two of the resorts where we have deeds. One was a completed request first exchange going from our Marriott Vegas ownership to another Marriott in Kauai. A second was an online exchange using a Vegas Marriott lock-out to go to Hilton Head Island. The third was using a studio Marriott lock-out for a Marriott resort in Breckenridge for a long weekend trip. In July we picked up an unexpected exchange opportunity using a rather weak ownership going from Branson to South Lake Tahoe. The final exhange involved an internal exchange opportunity that did not require an exchange fee for a weekend trip to Branson. So despite our intentions to buy where we're happy to stay, we've managed to exchange most of our ownership interests from something else.

In 2011 we've used hotel rewards points to pay the lions share of a cruise. This time we'll stay out the Marriott resort we own in Vegas. The third vacation will be an internal exchange to spend a week in Santa Fe, NM. Then we'll use another internal exchange opportunity to spend a week in Breckenridge, CO during the summer months. After that it's a little fuzzy but, the plans as they stand right now are to use a week we own in Branson, MO for a weeks vacation. Finally we'll use our Marriott ownership in Florida for a weeks vacation and, we'll make our yearly family Christmas lights tour trip to Branson, MO using the internal exchange option we have with DRI. So 2011 could potentially not involve the use of any outside exchange company at all and save us on all those exchange fee's.

Of course, the problem is, our plans tend to change. Sometimes I'll be searching online with a reservation I have and something to good to pass up comes along. That's how we managed to end up going to Hilton Head this year. Initially, I was going to make a Marriott to Marriott exchange to get to S. Lake Tahoe and probably just go to Branson in July and then Santa Fe, NM in September on a DRI internal exchange. But, as luck would have it, I was doing an online search with the weakest of the weeks we own, a one bedroom prefered week in Branson, and saw a two bedroom unit at The Ridge in S. Lake Tahoe pop up. Before confirming that exchange I took a look at what might be available using the one bedroom Marriott unit that I had an ongoing request in for Lake Tahoe and, a two bedroom unit on HHI popped up. So I made the HHI exchange then went back and made the Lake Tahoe exchange, thus changing about 1/3 of our vacation plans in one way or another.

So who knows how 2011 will really play out for us. The one thing I know is I really need to cut down on the airfare so I'd really like to take the three drive-to vacations I have planned out in my mind. Over the last two years we've flown to Barcelona Spain once and Hawaii twice. Flying out of a small mid-western airport, that really took a toll on our travel budget. At the very least, I must keep the airfares domestic and in the contenintal U.S. to get my travel budget back on track. But then you just never know what temptation that we just can't resist might present itself and off we go again.

 

[DanM]

10+ years and I've never stayed at any of the four timeshares I've owned. Always traded them for larger, more expensive (rent vs. my maintenance) and better located resorts. That said, I would stay at mine if I couldn't get a good exchange and have pretty much stopped depositing with RCI because the exchange pool is being creamed for rentals. I expect to use my resorts personally in the future and am "resetting" my portfolio accordingly.

 

[glypnirsgirl]

I am embarassed to admit this but ...

I bought Disney twice from the developer (and that isn't the embarassing part). I always have used my Disney weeks at Disney --- I like OKW so much that I don't even go to the other resorts very much.

I recently bought some "traders" so that I would go other places. Last year I rented at a couple of places on Maui (Sands of Kahana and Westin Ka'anapali) - got great deals on both of them - without the uncertainty of trading.

So what do I do? Yep, used my traders to get into DVC. And one of them was for OKW. I am really branching out now though, I used the other to go to the Beach Club.

Good grief

Elaine

 

[DeniseM]

Never been to...Hawaii.......

And that completely explains why you never go back to the same place. Go to Hawaii - you WILL go back!

 

[rhonda]

Curious to know how often you stay where you own, vs. exchanging into another resort somewhere.

We spend most nights (80%+) at places we OWN -- but may have used exchanges to get there.

(In reality, my answer could have been titled, "It's complicated!" My first take at replying to your simple question took half a page of text with various evaluation factors, rules/exceptions to arrive at the simple conclusion stated above.)

 

[LLW]

Curious to know how often you stay where you own, vs. exchanging into another resort somewhere.

We have an upcoming trip that will involve staying in two different timeshares, and it just occurred to me that we own them both - no exchanging on this trip.

So I think I just saved myself $358 in RCI exchange fees. Can that be right?

Dave

Worldmark is the only resort that we own.

* WM: WM itself has 71 resorts (ranging from 13 units to 430 units at each; U.S., Canada, Fiji, Mexico). We have visited 24 of them in 8 years of ownership, many multiple times, many for 1-4 nights at a time. There are only about 5 that we use most frequently, all of which are drive-tos. We make 1-2 timeshare visits every month, and have about 30 outstanding reservations on the books at any time, but cancel easily 3 to 4 times that many in a year. Booking and cancelling may all be done on line. There is no booking fee; we can cancel from 2 to 30 days in advance of check-in with no penalty (depending on how far in advance we have booked - 30 days if we have booked from 91 days to 13 months; 10 days if booked from 15 to 90 days; 2 days if booked within 3 to 14 days). MF for a classic, built pre-Wyndham (the majority of the WM resorts) 2BR week in high season ranges from about $400 to about $700, depending on whether you have a large or small account. Low season costs about 1/2 of that.

* Affiliated/associated resorts: there are 47 where we can directly book without booking fee: Wyndham, Vacation International, and others. But availability is limited. We have visited 2 of them and don't anticipate visiting many in the future.

* Exchanges: We use II only. The II membership costs us about $45 a year, with the 2-for-1 special that they have for WM. We do about 4 exchanges a year, the cost in exchange and maintenance fees ranges from about $339 to about $639 (we have a medium size WM account). These include DVC, Westins, Marriotts, Four Seasons (Aviara and Troon North); Continental North America, Hawaii, and Europe. We have visited some many times. WM trades very well, but it's II's Deposit First and Flexchange that help minimize the cost. Haven't used Short Stays yet.

 

[scrapngen]

And that completely explains why you never go back to the same place. Go to Hawaii - you WILL go back!

That's so funny, yet so true Denise!!

We went to HI, then went back a few years later. Then decided when we go it had to be at LEAST 2 weeks (partly because of the price of airfare) Pretty soon it was every other year, then every year. Finally bought a TS as it seems like a better idea than what we'd always cobbled together renting and has obviously become a place we want to return to over and over.

To the OP, can't answer that question yet, as our first use of our TS will be at our home resort this Christmas/New Year. :whoopie:

 

[zcrider]

both

This is a really fun thread to read!
I have two timeshares one at Harborside at Atlantis we bought to use, only need a two bedroom but bought a three b/c MF's are the same and by renting out the one small lock off side it pays the lion's share of the total MF making our two bedroom side very inexpensive ($400 this year difference).
Then I wanted some Marriott preference for trading so I bought an EOY in Branson (close enough to drive to if we can't trade it for something else we want) but the only reason we bought it was to trade it.
There are several TS's I want to own, Worldmark being next on the list.....but I don't want to over commit to too many manditory MF's and I find that II has a WONDERFUL selection of getaways that go for much less then the MF to own there, and so many great locations get posted for cheap rent here on TUG's last min. postings also, so I can't really find a good "excuse" to buy more timeshares right now. But it is tempting when you see a good deal not to grab it....women's instinct.
I love timesharing and I love Tug!!!!

 

[KarenP]

Bought timeshares to trade

I bought my first timeshare in Maui to trade and had such good luck, that I bought a second week in London to trade. Never went to either place, but got some awesome trades during Spring breaks and school holidays. My kids still talk about all the places we went. Sold the weeks after the kids graduated for what I paid for them (thanks to TUG).

When I saw the threads about the South Africa weeks on Tug, I bought there, too, and got great trades to Orlando, some beaches in Florida, and Las Vegas during "off" seasons. My membership with RCI ends next year, so I'm giving up my South Africa week and will no longer be trading with RCI.

Now I've purchased a Marriott and look forward to using that week with future grandchildren and trading in the Florida Club.

 

[jamstew]

We used to stay where we own every summer, until our kids' school schedule changed. We have a fixed week at the end of summer, and when the school district changed the start day to before Labor Day, we were ________. :ignore:

Same situation for me--late summer week stopped working with new school calendar + football two-a-days, so my original ts (purchased in about 1983) became a trader. Ill never see my Vail week 52, but my kids will use it two out of three years and I'll rent it the third year to cover about two years worth of MF. I use my October beach week on the Texas coast and all my DVC & Wyndham points.

 

[Hophop4]

We have owned our Branson week since 2000 and never have stayed in that unit (because of bonus time) but plan to use it this June. My Panama City Beach July 4th week we go every year. My Seaside week is a toss up sometimes we use it and sometimes we deposit with RCI depending on how the dates fall with DH work schedule. This year we get week 53 free and it is already deposited to RCI.