Is 7Across a scam since bought by RCI?

[Dpeyton]

We have owned timeshares for 25 years. We don't trade much because we were advised to "only buy something you want to use, skip thinking about trading" many years ago.
We soured on RCI years ago, with its annual fees that have to be paid through the period when you would use (not just exchange) a TS. Of the others (free or at least better designed exchanges) out there we had good experience several times with dae. They were bought out by RCI several years ago, but the "no membership fee" structure remained. There is a fee for exchange, which I have no problem with.
So I gave them a California week (Hyatt Vac Club, ex Welk, Palm Desert) to see if I could exchange for a week in Washington or Oregon. There was nothing available at the time, so I listed Custom Requests. That was 6 months ago, and I have only heard to one match sent me by email: it was in New Mexico, and not the months I requested. I called Cust Svc and the agent told me "I"ve never seen an exchange for WA or OR".
Looking today (1/13/23) on their Availability list there are no exchanges listed for either state, and the area (Pacific Coast) has only 3 listed (for California) in March, 0 for April 23, and 2 (Palm Springs) for May 23. Otherwise you get this from almost every time period and location area:

"We don’t have any availability matching this search right now. Select another country, region‌ or month to see what else we might have available or click here to place a custom request."

Has anyone else had experience with them?

 

[JeffC]

I wouldn't call them a scam but they always had fewer deposits than RCI. I had some luck using them a few years ago. Since RCI bought them the the number of available bookings has gone down. I wouldn't give them a week without having an exchange lined up already at this point.

 

[Carolinian]

DAE was a great exchange company. We used the UK office and got some great exchanges. When Christel deHahn sold RCI to its present owners, they really screwed up RCI from what it used to be. They have done the same thing to DAE which they have renamed 7Across. I was an active exchanger in the old days, but now just own to use, and if we can't use our week for any reason, we can rent it.

 

[timeshare trader]

DAE was a great exchange company. We used the UK office and got some great exchanges. When Christel deHahn sold RCI to its present owners, they really screwed up RCI from what it used to be. They have done the same thing to DAE which they have renamed 7Across. I was an active exchanger in the old days, but now just own to use, and if we can't use our week for any reason, we can rent it.

DAE was always extremely limited inventory. I own pretty ordinary timeshares and my expectations for them in RCI are far too high to consider using DAE which seemingly has a pretty pitifull amount of inventory. I believe DAE was started by one of the Australian developers so there strength was never the U.S. The few times I have looked at them post acquisition it appeared that RCI was sending some space over to DAE for distribution. I prefer RCI because I know my points or TPU and the few times I Have tried to use interval it did not seem as transparent as RCI. For a Hyatt deposit with the high maintenance fees I would recommend to keep that solely with Interval.

 

[Kozman]

We used DAE regularly until RCI bought it. Their inventory was limited but their exchange fee was very reasonable.I think the fee jumped $40 or $50 the minute they took over. We were also able to book units with our Wyndham points and deposit that week. The verification process was a little complicated but it worked well to utilize points we couldn't use.

We have booked our final vacation with 7-Across and will not be giving them any of our deposits again. i get the feeling most of their inventory is rejects from RCI. Plus most of their offerings are now rentals or reserved for Gold members.

 

[Carolinian]

DAE was always extremely limited inventory. I own pretty ordinary timeshares and my expectations for them in RCI are far too high to consider using DAE which seemingly has a pretty pitifull amount of inventory. I believe DAE was started by one of the Australian developers so there strength was never the U.S. The few times I have looked at them post acquisition it appeared that RCI was sending some space over to DAE for distribution. I prefer RCI because I know my points or TPU and the few times I Have tried to use interval it did not seem as transparent as RCI. For a Hyatt deposit with the high maintenance fees I would recommend to keep that solely with Interval.

I joined DAE Europe before the US branch was even organized. I used them to trade into Europe and got some really good trades - Venice in spring, French Riviera in summer, Croatia coast in summer, UK canal boat in summer, Ireland in spring, a number of UK resorts in spring and summer, Polish coast in summer, Dordogne, France in late spring, Scotland in summer, etc. In the US, I got an OBX summer (Hatteras High) and in the Caribbean a beachfront resort in Puerto Rico near San Juan. I also got a nice resort in overbuilt, and therefore easy to trade into, Canary Islands.

Since I had an address in Europe, I could keep using the UK office after they started to push everyone to the office in their home countries. Losing DAE Europe is what I really miss.

 

[timeshare trader]

The few times I looked it seems like their sweet spots were as you mentioned Europe and Australia. Did not work for me as we were more interested in u.s. Southeast/Mexico destinations. Awesome you had such great success.

 

[Carolinian]

The few times I looked it seems like their sweet spots were as you mentioned Europe and Australia. Did not work for me as we were more interested in u.s. Southeast/Mexico destinations. Awesome you had such great success.

The company was founded in Australia always outdid RCI and II there. Indeed, when I owned a week in Australia, our HOA newsletter always had competing ads from four exchange companies seeking deposits - Australian companies DAE and Interchange, and RCI and II. In order of volume of exchange business, Interchange was on top, followed by DAE, followed by RCI, and with II bringing up the rear. Then DAE bought Interchange and after that they were really the big dogs in the Australia market.

My best DAE exchanges in the US were before they set up their US affiliate, and those included SoCal coast in summer and OBX (Hatteras High) in summer.

 

[Dpeyton]

UPDATE BY ORIG POSTER March 11, 2023 (8 months after orig deposit):
I have not received any further matches on my customer requests. Very limited inventory and only in the next few months appear online.
BEWARE!

 

[Carolinian]

RCI ruined their own exchange system. There was no doubt in my mind they would ruin this one, too, when they bought it. The old RCI when it was run by its founder Christel deHahn was wonderful, but it started going downhill soon after she sold it.

 

[escanoe]

RCI ruined their own exchange system. There was no doubt in my mind they would ruin this one, too, when they bought it. The old RCI when it was run by its founder Christel deHahn was wonderful, but it started going downhill soon after she sold it.

My personal view considering my usage and being able to exchange into what I need is that RCI is the WORST exchange … EXCEPT for all the others.

It is ashamed it is over priced, not that digitally efficient, and that it buys or enters into anti-competitive contracts with competitors or potential competitors.

I still find value from it and do most of my exchanging there despite being a critic.

I agree to disagree with you on the Points and TPU system. I think they improved the system. But if I had invested in the best traders before it was reworked, I would probably be a bit bitter about it as well.

Some of the boutique exchanges appear to have some promise. I have looked at a bunch, explored SFX a lot … but not really bought into the notion that any of them would be that great for me.

 

[Carolinian]

My personal view considering my usage and being able to exchange into what I need is that RCI is the WORST exchange … EXCEPT for all the others.

It is ashamed it is over priced, not that digitally efficient, and that it buys or enters into anti-competitive contracts with competitors or potential competitors.

I still find value from it and do most of my exchanging there despite being a critic.

I agree to disagree with you on the Points and TPU system. I think they improved the system. But if I had invested in the best traders before it was reworked, I would probably be a bit bitter about it as well.

Some of the boutique exchanges appear to have some promise. I have looked at a bunch, explored SFX a lot … but not really bought into the notion that any of them would be that great for me.

The big problems with the points and points lite systems are that values are not dynamic but rigid, and that with published values, it has led RCI to collude with developers still in developer sales to overvalue their inventory while that of sold out resorts is often undervalued. It is a corrupt system of valuations no longer based on supply and demand.

A good example is the overbuilt areas, which in a true supply / demand valuation would have rather low values, but with RCI they do not because there are too many developers still building there. Those areas get built because of efficient of tour flows for buyers not because more timeshare is needed there. We used to have an RCI employee who posted on TUG who went by Bootleg, and he constantly told us that the overbuilt areas that always had plenty of inventory were Orlando, Williamsburg, Branson, and Massanutten. Once he was asked what the resort with the biggest oversupply of inventory in the RCI system was and he responded it was Vacation Village at Parkway in Orlando. When one looks at the values given to those places, it is very clear that it is not based on supply and demand and the values are therefore corrupt.

RCI was a wonderful exchange system when it had honest exchange values and I am very glad I was able to experience it in those days. Now, I would not touch it with a ten foot pole. We own two timeshare weeks which we use ourselves, and will when we decide to go back to the UK use our credits at UKRE. Then we will be done with exchanging.

 

[HudsHut]

@Dpeyton
you need to ask them what they do have and select from that in order to get any value from your deposit.
The majority of the resorts in WA and OR are WorldMark. WorldMark owners can no longer deposit to 7across / DAE. (Even when we could, the inventory DAE had was meager, and very few WM Owners used DAE.)