Question about exchanging

[pvermilyea]

I have a question about the exchange process. I received a one for one certificate from my home resort (Morritts Tortuga Club, Grand Cayman) and a 1 year membership to RCI this past fall since our resort was wiped out by the hurricanes last year. In December 2005, my wife and I decided to go to Mallorca June 2006. I called RCI and put us on a wait list for the 2 resorts that we were interested in. I was told by the RCI agent that I should have no problem getting a unit in one of those places.
I've talked with the RCI agents twice since then with no luck. A few weeks ago, I expanded our search to include all 6 RCI resorts on Ibiza and Mallorca. At this point, all 6 resorts have no availability.
The question I have is: do the chances of getting into a requested resort increase or decrease with each passing week? How often should one call RCI to check on availability? What are the factors that determine if a unit comes open? Thanks for the explanation and help.

 

[Madge]

pvermilyea,

The majority of ongoing searches in our system are filled within 14 days. If the travel dates are a year or less away, and the search has been active for a couple of months and no units have matched, that's a red flag. Either supply is low, demand is high, or Trading Power is not sufficient. It might be a combination of all of these things, but it's time to broaden the request. Include more dates and/or locations as you can think of others you would consider.

It's like fishing with a net instead of a line -- you may throw a few back, but you're more likely to find one that you can keep.