The New Vacation Revolution

Once you buy a timeshare interval, you may want to exchange it to vacation at another resort.

A fundamental concept behind many large timeshare exchange companies is that they strive to provide a “like for like” resort exchange. This rule is set to prevent members from feeling as if they have been swindled.

As an example, consider the owner of a Manhattan New Year’s week 3 bedroom interval. Since New York City is a popular vacation destination, the demand for their interval is quite high. This timeshare owner would be disappointed if the only available exchange was a studio in Idaho in low season.

In order to ensure this balance, resort exchange companies have developed complex algorithms incorporating what we refer to as “trading power”. Basically, it is a computer model to ensure that everyone that spacebanks a week gets a fair trade from the system.

Trading Power is a somewhat subjective view of how well a timeshare week performs when it is used to search for other desirable vacation weeks through a given exchange company. It does not usually take the form of a number or anything quantifiable because there really is no way to express the rank of individual timeshares other than by what they can trade for.

Typically, a measure of a week’s trading power takes the form of a list of what resorts and locations the owner has been able to find using a particular timeshare week through an exchange company, and comparing those results with another week.

In addition to customer satisfaction, timeshares tend to be valued by general location and availability, unit size, and the time of year or week of use. Resorts in areas with a larger concentration of timeshares will tend to have a lower trading power than resorts in less developed areas, assuming demand is equal.

Colors such as red, white and blue typically refer to the demand level of particular timeshare weeks. Red time is generally the highest in demand, such as winter for a ski-resort. In contrast, “blue” weeks are typically the least desirable, and the most difficult to trade. While most developers follow this color guide, you may find some confusing variations.

Despite their best goals, the large exchange companies have millions of members that own millions of resort intervals around the world. Thus their resort exchange system is a set of complex computer algorithms that compiles details such as supply, demand, season, and Vacation Experience Profile to ensure potential exchanges meet the desired “like for like” criteria.

Smaller exchange companies such as Dial-An-Exchange allow all members to exchange for any week in the pool, eliminating the need for complex computer algorithms. Since high-demand intervals are booked quickly, you may find it difficult to book higher demand exchanges.

These smaller exchange companies sometimes offer specialized vacations that the larger companies may not offer. For example, some exchange companies offer a large inventory of weeks in Europe and Australia.

Ultimately your timeshare exchange experience will be what you make of it. Though there are never any guarantees of what you will get, if you try to remain a bit flexible you may find some grand vacation opportunities right in front of you.