Interval International exchange cancelled due to COVID, Resort Certificate given.

[amk1444]

Hi all,
I am new to this group and I am guess this may have been answered before. I own a week through Vistana (67,100 points) I was scheduled to vacation in Hawaii in June 2020. I waited until the last minute to cancel hoping the resort would open, it didn't. I was not offered the opportunity to get my points back or use it for another time. I was only given a resort certificate which is no different than the ones we get for "free". I called them and was told that as things get closer to June 2021 I should see better options in the list including Hawaii. Nothing like that has happened. There are very few options for June, nothing in Hawaii. I feel like I was ripped off when they could have easily given me the same resort/timeframe for the following year. I am on an odd year schedule. I booked another week for this year but had to use my current points, and feel like I have lost that previous year. Now I need to pay $99 for an extension for the certificate to use it passed June. I am not sure if I should just take the loss or if there is something I could do? I am tempted to just stop with Interval and only use Vistana but I don't have a lot of points and it is hard to get good resorts. Any advice is appreciated!
Ann

 

[Fried_shrimp]

Hi all,
I am new to this group and I am guess this may have been answered before. I own a week through Vistana (67,100 points) I was scheduled to vacation in Hawaii in June 2020. I waited until the last minute to cancel hoping the resort would open, it didn't. I was not offered the opportunity to get my points back or use it for another time. I was only given a resort certificate which is no different than the ones we get for "free". I called them and was told that as things get closer to June 2021 I should see better options in the list including Hawaii. Nothing like that has happened. There are very few options for June, nothing in Hawaii. I feel like I was ripped off when they could have easily given me the same resort/timeframe for the following year. I am on an odd year schedule. I booked another week for this year but had to use my current points, and feel like I have lost that previous year. Now I need to pay $99 for an extension for the certificate to use it passed June. I am not sure if I should just take the loss or if there is something I could do? I am tempted to just stop with Interval and only use Vistana but I don't have a lot of points and it is hard to get good resorts. Any advice is appreciated!
Ann

Normally, when you book a vacation through II, whatever you use to book it with is gone. It's quite possible that someone has already exchanged into your week which is why it can't be returned. I've never used one of their certificates so I don't know how they work but I don't see why you should have to pay anything else since they canceled your exchange instead of the other way around.

 

[robertk2012]

When did you trade? You might have only seen availability originally because they were closed/covid and now everyone and their brother and their sister and their mother and their friend and the neighbor want to go to Hawaii.....you guess how much availability there is.

I do see some availability in Kauai in early may.

You own real estate and are taking on risks like this when you purchase.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[klpca]

Hi all,
I am new to this group and I am guess this may have been answered before. I own a week through Vistana (67,100 points) I was scheduled to vacation in Hawaii in June 2020. I waited until the last minute to cancel hoping the resort would open, it didn't. I was not offered the opportunity to get my points back or use it for another time. I was only given a resort certificate which is no different than the ones we get for "free". I called them and was told that as things get closer to June 2021 I should see better options in the list including Hawaii. Nothing like that has happened. There are very few options for June, nothing in Hawaii. I feel like I was ripped off when they could have easily given me the same resort/timeframe for the following year. I am on an odd year schedule. I booked another week for this year but had to use my current points, and feel like I have lost that previous year. Now I need to pay $99 for an extension for the certificate to use it passed June. I am not sure if I should just take the loss or if there is something I could do? I am tempted to just stop with Interval and only use Vistana but I don't have a lot of points and it is hard to get good resorts. Any advice is appreciated!
Ann

Did you check your expiration date? Some of these certificates were recently extended. See this thread: https://tugbbs.com/forums/threads/i...-year-expiration-extended-to-dec-2022.316498/ There are a lot of different certificates floating around out there so I am not sure if yours is one of the extended ones. I am sitting on two certificates for a couple of canceled Getaway weeks - those have sadly not been extended, nor will they be extended according to II.

And regarding Hawaii - there isn't even much inventory in the regular exchange pool so it isn't your certificate that is the problem. For now it may be better to expand your horizons, take a look at some other areas, and chalk it up to covid. It's going to take a year or two for things to go back to normal. It's a bitter pill to swallow but all we can do is make the best of what we have.

 

[tschwa2]

I think the ones that were extended were Marriott weeks (owner weeks) that got cancelled due to covid. Marriott didn't have actual weeks to deposit into II, they got the certificates deposited into II instead of an actual deposit.

The ones that expired 1 year from your original cancellation (and not extended) were actual exchanges and getaways through II that were cancelled due to covid.

 

[klpca]

I think the ones that were extended were Marriott weeks (owner weeks) that got cancelled due to covid. Marriott didn't have actual weeks to deposit into II, they got the certificates deposited into II instead of an actual deposit.

The ones that expired 1 year from your original cancellation (and not extended) were actual exchanges and getaways through II that were cancelled due to covid.

Thanks. I didn't realize that it was only the Marriott week owners that were extended.

 

[zentraveler]

And regarding Hawaii - there isn't even much inventory in the regular exchange pool so it isn't your certificate that is the problem. For now it may be better to expand your horizons, take a look at some other areas, and chalk it up to covid. It's going to take a year or two for things to go back to normal. It's a bitter pill to swallow but all we can do is make the best of what we have.

This is what we are doing with even "regular" weeks that we would use for Hawaii; looking for other places to go this year that aren't so wildly popular. As robertk2012 rightly points out: "now everyone and their brother and their sister and their mother and their friend and the neighbor want to go to Hawaii". I know it hurts but there are other nice resorts in this country. Look at other warm places with more inventory (Florida for example...)

 

[frank808]

So you did an exchange with II and not using staroptions? What resort did you exchange into?

Sent from my SM-N975U using Tapatalk

 

[amk1444]

I used my points from Vistana for the original exchange. It was a resort on Maui that did not open over the summer of 2020. I could not go. All I wanted to do was to have the ability to re-exchange for this year. Properties through the certificates aren't comparable to the properties through a regular exchange. I receive the certificates on a regular basis and rarely use them. So there is no bonus to getting another certificate to cover my original exchange. I get COVID created problems. But I feel I lost my points through no fault of my own, and Interval is not helping. I was only given the year to use it or pay $99 to extend for 6 months. I will probably drop my Interval membership and just go with Vistana in the future.