Swaping Vs. Renting

I need some advice. This is the third year I have had a timeshare and I have to tell you I must not know too much because everything seems impossible to do. I understand I should never have bought with the idea of exchanging in mind but we did. Swaping is near impossible it seems and I just came across this site not too long ago. With the new redweek exhange program am I better off trying to sell off my weeks to use that money to buy another timeshare week where I would like to go or should I take the chance of submitting my weeks for points and hope something comes up. I have been searching the exchanges and you can barely find anything that isnt provisional and shows any acutual points of the resorts you would like to exchange for. I just dont want to get stuck. Thanks!

carriet21 wrote:

I need some advice. This is the third year I have had a timeshare and I have to tell you I must not know too much because everything seems impossible to do. I understand I should never have bought with the idea of exchanging in mind but we did. Swaping is near impossible it seems and I just came across this site not too long ago. With the new redweek exhange program am I better off trying to sell off my weeks to use that money to buy another timeshare week where I would like to go or should I take the chance of submitting my weeks for points and hope something comes up. I have been searching the exchanges and you can barely find anything that isnt provisional and shows any acutual points of the resorts you would like to exchange for. I just dont want to get stuck. Thanks!

If you have now started to read these sites then you are now learning things you really should have done before buying.

It sounds like this is your first timeshare and your first bad move was to buy just for trade unless you bought from the developer then buying for trade is second mistake.

You didn't say if you belong to Rci or II so its hard to give you answers.

One problem might be your trying to exchange to late to get what you want or your resort just not good enough for exchanges you have tried to get.

It takes some work and time to come up with what you want but thousands do it so you must be doing something wrong.

Remember when you just surf around you do not see all the resorts because owners with deposits and request get these units before you would see one.

Surfing and you will see many units that no one jumped on at this point and sometimes you can get lucky.

I'm guessing because your post didn't say but it also sounds like your just looking around on your exchange site and finding nothing. This is what we owners do when we can go on last minute exchange and it works for this.

You really want to go somewhere nice then you need to make deposit and make your request and with Rci it needs to be a year out and hope.

If you belong to II you can do same or use request first and keep your unit if you don't get what you want. Since you only bought this unit for trade I would say just deposit it and do your request for locations you want.

We had five resorts few years ago and made good deal on couple resorts just for trade and found they just didn't pull anything we wanted. Lucky for us we paid very little money so selling both units was easy.

Your post sounds like you are putting all your eggs in one basket using Redweek. You should check out other sites and learn more.

Another great site and best in my opinion is Tug.com.

Don't try selling one trade unit just to buy another. Buy some place your family would enjoy going most years with trading just a bonus.

Remember many new people buy less than ideal resort thinking they can trade to Marriotts in Hawaii then are mad when they find this not going to happen.

You can see what points Redweek offers you to get a idea what trade value your unit might draw for exchanges.

Good luck and keep learning. BETTERHALF

I think you should try depositing with Redweek. You can accrue points with each deposit that you can use within 3 years (you didn't say how many weeks you own). That way you will have a much better chance of getting an exchange you desire with your total accrued points.

BTW, if you're thinking of selling your weeks, you must price them to attract the market (buyer). If you bought from a developer you will get nothing near on the resale market that you paid the developer.

Dear Carriet21 - Would you mind telling us a little more about the resort ownership you have? Are you in a points system or do you own a floating or fixed week? If you do want to exchange through RCI (or any other exchange company) the advice to bank early is good but what you can "pull" with your week depends on when and where it is. (In other words, if you don't ever want to go there, why would anyone else?) That said, I'll admit that we have contracts at three resorts we have not yet visited but, since they all allow free exchanges within their own groups, this does not much matter. We do plan to spend time at two of them in 2008. Maybe we'll get to the third eventually! MD