rtaslet,
Welcome to TUG.
We are glad that you have found us and we are especially glad that you will be getting value out of your ownership during 2012-2013 even though you will not personally be using your reserved space at Umbrella Resort.
Based on your posting you purchased primarily to use your owned property.
That was a good choice; but as you have come to realize you can get good value through an Exchange especially if you plan ahead and act as early as possible.
To find out more about how the Weeks Exchange Program Works and to experiment prior to paying your subscription fee go here:
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You can buy a subscribing membership for as little as $89 for one full year.
OR
You can buy a two year subscription ($168); 3 year subscription ($229); 4 year subscription ($289) or 5 year subscription for $349.
You did not identify the specific unit that you have reserved so in doing the analysis I simply used Unit A1 which is a 2-BR Unit with a full kitchen and, of course, I used Week 23 which is the time that you have reserved.
Based on the above (Week 23 using Unit A-1 at Umbrella Resort) if you deposited today with RCI the deposit would fetch 24 TPU.
Had you deposited at the Maximum period that was available you would have received 27 TPU. But because you have waited you have effectively lost 4 TPU.
Having said that, the most you can get with a Week 51 using the same Unit is 24 TPU so that part of the equation is a wash. There would be no advantage to you by making the swap. But, there would be an advantage to the resort because they could assign your more desirable Week 23 to another owner who then could use the week.
By staying with the Unit you have reserved and depositing that Unit with RCI you can expect to get a trade for a Unit that requires no more than 24 TPU between the date of deposit and throughout all of 2013.
You will actually have until the end of June, 2014 to confirm and complete the use of the week that you exchange for using RCI.
Under RCI's current method of operation you can reserve an exchange with RCI that will require less than 24 TPU and RCI will credit your account with the remaining TPU which you will have available for a subsequent exchange.
If that scenerio eventually unfolds you can use the smaller TPU value up until the end of June, 2014 or you can make another deposit with RCI and COMBINE (for a fee) the TPU for that subsequent deposit with the left-over TPU and extend the time that you can use the COMBINED result.
I sincerely hope that the above information is of some help to you and I recommend that you go to the RCI site and/or call their toll free number (1-800-338-7777) to get additional information.