Wyndham Rebrands DAE as 7Across

[TUGBrian]

Wyndham rebrands timeshare exchange program - Hotel Management

Timeshare owners can now apply for free membership to a rebranded Wyndham Destinations platform allowing them to exchange their timeshare.

www.hotelmanagement.com.au

 

[Tacoma]

Since they changed the availability to search several areas at a time I use DAE very little these days. When I put in a search in Canada I have to choose the province (only one each time) and then I think it only allows you to search about 3 months at a time. Too cumbersome to find almost no availability. If they let me widen the search and it returned too many results I could narrow it down. I believe I gave them feedback but nothing changed. When I got the notice of the name change I checked it out and the search parameters are the same as before. Not worth my time.

 

[Kozman]

Nothing has been said about 7 Across since this initial posting. We used DAE very successfully before it was bought out by RCI. They would allow us to deposit a booked Wyndham property using our wyndham points. And, if we got a VIP upgrade they upgraded the deposit. When RCI took over everything changed. No more giving Wyndham Points as a deposit. The exchange fee went up immediately by about $50. Using 7 Across now is frustrating. Although there is still no membership fee all the inventory is initially reserved for the upgrade membership. Almost all inventory is labeled upgrade and book. Gold membership is about $89 per year. Gold members get to book the first 3 weeks the inventory becomes available. So unless you plan to keep using 7Across ongoing it's not worth it. We have been giving our inventory to Trading Places.

 

[Carolinian]

DAE was a great exchange company. I primarily used the UK office which was a franchise and got some really great trades through them. When the Borg (Wyndham / RCI) assimilated the parent company based in Australia, there was some question initially of what would happen to the UK franchise, with some thought of it operating on its own, probably with a different name, but in the end, it got assimilated as well. That was largely the end of my interest in timeshare exchanging. I ditched RCI, once a great exchange company, when they went to points and points lite and went to the dogs. We still have a couple of exchange credits at UKRE, and once they are gone, we will stay out of timeshare exchanging, something I used to love in the heyday of the old RCI and DAE.

 

[regatta333]

My last exchange with them was in 2020 and I struggled to book that after two other weeks (a deposited week and a bonus week) expired in 2019 because I could not find anything worth booking. They used to have quite a bit of inventory in Italy, which completely dried up after RCI took over. As others have mentioned, the previously easy search process got completely decimated by RCI. I had to resort to using their exchange lists instead of the actual search function. I stopped using them after my last deposited week was used and never looked back.

 

[escanoe]

As someone who is not familiar with the history of this, did Wyndham buy DAE just to have it or was it part of a larger company Wyndham had other reasons to acquire?

 

[Carolinian]

As someone who is not familiar with the history of this, did Wyndham buy DAE just to have it or was it part of a larger company Wyndham had other reasons to acquire?

DAE had a computer reservation system that Wyndham wanted was one of the things an insider had indicated, but they were also the big dog in timeshare exchanging in Australia and New Zealand, which RCI also wanted to take out as competitors.

I once owned a t/s week in Australia, and our HOA newsletter always came with big ads for four exchange companies competing against each other, which in order of market share at that time were Interchange, Dial-an-Exchange, RCI, and II. The two homegrown exchange companies, Interchange and DAE were the big dogs and the international companies smaller players. Then DAE bought Interchange and merged the two, making them really the dominant player in the Australian market. Thereafter, DAE sold a franchise for DAE Europe, which the parent company had no ownership in but received contractual amounts of their revenue. The parent company from Australia then bought Donita's Vacations Unlimited exchange company in the US and used that as a base to create the US branch of DAE, which for the first year or so was called "Donita's Dial-an-Exchange". Donita herself continued for some time as an employee but had sold all of her interest in the predecessor company to DAE. They subsequently established a branch in South Africa as well.

I always liked being able to use the European branch of DAE as they had European inventory that was not seemingly shown to US members. I would report some great sightings on timeshare boards but US timesharers could not find them using the US site. One time when I was on a timeshare exchange in the UK, I was in the vacinity of the DAE Europe headquarters and dropped in on them. It was sort of neat meeting some of the people I dealt with on the phone and I went to a local pub for lunch with a couple of them.

 

[Kozman]

As someone who is not familiar with the history of this, did Wyndham buy DAE just to have it or was it part of a larger company Wyndham had other reasons to acquire?

From my point of view I saw RCI eliminating the competition.

 

[ronandjoan]

DAE’s inventory is much smaller now than it used to be , I can only suspect RCI takes some of their deposits. Despite that though, we have still had success getting requests filled .. when nothing had been in the general inventory list.

 

[timesharer]

What happened to Donita? The exchange fee used to be < $100, and the cancelation fee was < $20.

Before RCI bought DAE, I would get offers for 2 for 1 deposit. It does not offer it for any Red/Prime weeks anymore.
Who would deposit their weeks with DAE now?

 

[Carolinian]

What happened to Donita? The exchange fee used to be < $100, and the cancelation fee was < $20.

Before RCI bought DAE, I would get offers for 2 for 1 deposit. It does not offer it for any Red/Prime weeks anymore.
Who would deposit their weeks with DAE now?

She left DAE before the RCI takeover, and, if memory serves, resumed using the business name Donita's Vacations Unlimited, but I am not sure what that business did. It was not an exchange company, and I guess there were non-compete clauses in her contract of sale to DAE, but it apparently did something in the leisure travel business. Prior to its purchase by DAE, Donita's Vacations Unlimited was one of the larger independent exchange companies with 4 offices across the US.