- Joined
- Sep 11, 2006
- Messages
- 8,285
- Reaction score
- 7,297
- Points
- 749
- Location
- CA
- Resorts Owned
- SDO, Quarter House, Seapointe, Coronado Beach, Carlsbad Inn, Worldmark
I don't hate SFX but I don't love them either. I love to "shop" online for exchanges and with SFX you can't do that so it tends to not be my favorite. But I have to give credit where credit is due and they really came through for me this time.
In a moment of truly unfortunate timing Wednesday, just hours before the governor of Hawaii made the announcement about lifting the quarantine, I decided to pull the plug on our August vacation and move it to late Sept. I used e-plus to change a week on Kauai to a week at Ko Olina, canceled our car rentals, but put off calling SFX to change our week there. I was truly worried about being able to change that one. Now that the governor had made his announcement I didn't have a "covid" excuse to change the week, but luckily I had purchased their insurance so I could make a change but unfortunately had to pay another exchange fee. (You can't win them all). Being that it was SFX I just didn't have a lot of confidence in my ability to find another trade with them.
I spoke to a woman named Felicia and she was great to work with. I asked for something on Kauai or the Big Island for either the week before our Ko Olina week or the week after. I had choices! I couldn't get Kauai (but there were weeks available - they just weren't my dates) and on the Big Island I had a choice of a 1 bedroom at Kingsland or a 2 bedroom at Kohala Suites. They are now offering Diamond memberships on an annual basis for $99, so the exchange fee drops from $209 to $149, plus you get free upgrades. So I was able to upgrade to the two bedroom at Kohala Suites for about $50 more, plus I have the Diamond benefits for another year. I was happy with the way that this turned out. I wish that I didn't have to call, but all in all it worked out pretty well.
Based upon this experience, SFX seems to work better when you have a destination in mind and call in and ask for that. That's not really the way that my brain works, but with that in mind, I can see using them when I have a specific destination in mind for the future, especially Hawaii.
In a moment of truly unfortunate timing Wednesday, just hours before the governor of Hawaii made the announcement about lifting the quarantine, I decided to pull the plug on our August vacation and move it to late Sept. I used e-plus to change a week on Kauai to a week at Ko Olina, canceled our car rentals, but put off calling SFX to change our week there. I was truly worried about being able to change that one. Now that the governor had made his announcement I didn't have a "covid" excuse to change the week, but luckily I had purchased their insurance so I could make a change but unfortunately had to pay another exchange fee. (You can't win them all). Being that it was SFX I just didn't have a lot of confidence in my ability to find another trade with them.
I spoke to a woman named Felicia and she was great to work with. I asked for something on Kauai or the Big Island for either the week before our Ko Olina week or the week after. I had choices! I couldn't get Kauai (but there were weeks available - they just weren't my dates) and on the Big Island I had a choice of a 1 bedroom at Kingsland or a 2 bedroom at Kohala Suites. They are now offering Diamond memberships on an annual basis for $99, so the exchange fee drops from $209 to $149, plus you get free upgrades. So I was able to upgrade to the two bedroom at Kohala Suites for about $50 more, plus I have the Diamond benefits for another year. I was happy with the way that this turned out. I wish that I didn't have to call, but all in all it worked out pretty well.
Based upon this experience, SFX seems to work better when you have a destination in mind and call in and ask for that. That's not really the way that my brain works, but with that in mind, I can see using them when I have a specific destination in mind for the future, especially Hawaii.
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