It is rumored that getting peak season weeks at the best RCI or Interval International resorts, designated as Gold Crown and Premier respectively, is impossible because the owners of those weeks use or rent them to make big profits. If the premise were true, it would follow that we would not have access to these top weeks as they would never enter the exchange pool of RCI or Interval International. But is not.
The reason this rumor exists is because many timeshare owners do not know how the exchange process works and are not using it correctly. These best weeks are there, they are just hard to come by. I’ve been trading my 1-bedroom summer week at an unrated resort in Whistler, British Columbia for Gold Crown resorts for 20 years.
One of the top 3 reasons people buy a timeshare in the first place is to change it. Certainly, the owners of the best timeshare resorts affiliated with RCI or Interval International are less likely to deposit them for the exchange, especially in the first few weeks, but we are only talking about 1-3% of the almost 8000 resorts that exist.
As for timeshare owners who rent their weeks, in the 20+ years that I’ve been in the timeshare business, I’ve only worked for one company that had a rental program for their owners: Lawrence Welk Resorts.
None of these very high quality properties that I have worked for in the past, Four Seasons Scottsdale, Westin Cabo San Lucas, Fairmont Heritage Club Ghirardelli Square, Sol Mar and Sheraton Hacienda del Mar, had a rental program. Renting a timeshare on your own is difficult and not very profitable, which is why few people make it. Try it for yourself sometime.
I just used RCI’s improved search feature to pull out a bunch of Gold Crown, prime red weeks with my less powerful trade week. It also kicked off August 2010 weeks in Hyannis, South Yarmouth. While none of the resorts in the Cape Cod area are Gold Crown, they are too old, so getting a summer week there is extremely difficult. My exchange week didn’t attract Key West for August 2010, but it did attract every other high-demand beach area in Florida except Sanibel and Captiva Islands. Since my exchange week did not attract Key West, Sanibel, or Captiva Islands, it could naturally be interpreted to mean that none of those weeks are deposited into the exchange pool.
Actually, it means that the owners of those resorts have not yet been able to deposit their 2010 weeks. I know from past experiences that if I have maximized both my exchange and my application power, and started a pending search now, I would get it. Certainly, far fewer weeks leave these areas than Orlando, but availability will only increase from now until March of next year, when many timeshare owners will begin depositing their August 2010 weeks. Timeshare owners will continually want to trade. your timeshares and experiencing new places.
Plus, you can forget about the “like-alike” basis in timeshare swapping – you have to own a Gold Crown resort to trade it for a Gold Crown resort. It is rarely applied, as all the great exchanges I’ve had in the last 20 years demonstrate. My One Bedroom Week just released a 3-bedroom Gold Crown at Club Velas Vallarta in March 2010. And it also released many other Gold Crown, 2-bedroom units in Florida, including the Hilton Grand Vacation Club, Cancun, Mazatlán and Cabo San Lucas in March too, all this with a bedroom in an unclassified RCI Resort.
Don’t believe the rumors and stop trying to switch to the best resorts during peak season. There are many steps to learning how to get good trades, so learn what it takes to get it right and you will enjoy your timeshare much more.
