how difficult is it to trade for other TS

[janischa]

i'm not sure if this is the right place to post this thread, so moderator, feel free to move me

i'm in the process of buying BWV points, but i was wondering, besides renting a DVC villa in WDW or DL or Hawai (or going for an RCI exchange or club intrawest or cordia), what else i could do with the points ? i know i can rent them out, but i also would like to hear some more on experiences you may have with trading DVC points for other timeshare points.

I live in Europe, so it'd be nice to be able to trade DVC points for stays in Marriott's or in Hyatt's. Only, how do i go about with this ? I mean, i've rented DVC points here before and my favorite check on the trustworthiness of the person renting out, is simply checking his history of posts. Disney freak ?? PERFECT but for this reason i'm very hesitant to go on other boards and exchange with people i can't 'check' up upon. Why don't they allow trades anymore here and only pure renting out or transferring points ?

 

[JimMIA]

i'm in the process of buying BWV points, but i was wondering, besides renting a DVC villa in WDW or DL or Hawai (or going for an RCI exchange or club intrawest or cordia), what else i could do with the points ?

Those are your options: DVC, RCI, Club Intrawest or Club Cordial...or rent.

...it'd be nice to be able to trade DVC points for stays in Marriott's or in Hyatt's.

There's no such thing as "trading points." The only way to do that would be to trade reservations with an owner of one of those resorts -- you make a reservation for them, they make a reservation for you. You can't do that here on the DIS, but there are other sites where you can.

 

[JimMIA]

Also, just as a general rule, exhanging with just about any timeshare is usually not a great value...and DVC is a particularly poor choice to use for that purpose.

(ETA: To get an idea, you might want to read the "500 Kingdoms" thread, which is about exchanging, or any of the other threads that are already here.)

If you want DVC for DVC, fine. But if you are purchasing DVC to use for exchanges, I'd rescind immediately while you still can.

 

[janischa]

thanks for your answer

i am buying dvc for dvc, but that doesn't mean i don't want to research what else i could do

i do understand that you can get better value through renting out your points and then booking again, but i just wanted to hear experiences of people with trading reservations

how popular is dvc when offering to trade reservations ?
why does disboards not allow such exchanges ?
where are the sites that i could do such exchanges and has anyone experience with this ? on dvc i know very well what to look out for (like i said, i check on previous posting messages history) but what with others like marriott and hyatt ?

 

[JimMIA]

... but i just wanted to hear experiences of people with trading reservations

how popular is dvc when offering to trade reservations ?

I don't think you're going to get many replies to this, because it's not something that's commonly done...and for good reason.

You know the rental process. Since you can't use my points, and I can't use yours, a "trade" is really nothing more than two rentals. When you are trying to "trade," rather than just a straight rental, however, you face several obstacles:

1. Because you have to find someone who wants DVC in return, you are greatly limiting your potential options for whatever resort or city you want to visit.
2. Because you have to find someone who has the capability to reserve the city/resort you want in return, you are greatly restricting your potential rental market for your DVC points.
3. And then, there's the question of accommodating the difference in pricing between two timeshare systems. DVC rentals fetch a very high rental price; most other systems rent for a fraction of the DVC cost. For example, my costs for a one-bedroom at DVC recently would have been $189 per night using my DVC points. Using my Wyndham points at Bonnet Creek for the same week, my normal cost would have been about $67 per night. (I got lucky and got it for $40, but that was a fluke.) TWO bedrooms at Bonnet Creek (a beautiful resort, BTW) are typically rented by owners for $600-700 for a FULL WEEK.
   
   So you're not going to have a "fair" even swap, and you'll have to not only find the right person for what you and they want, but you'll have to reach some kind of price agreement that both are comfortable with.

I think you are really over-complicating a very simple process. Just do two independent rentals. You greatly expand your options, you greatly expand your potential market for your DVC points, and you'll probably come out way ahead.

why does disboards not allow such exchanges ?

Because they don't. The purpose of the DIS DVC boards is limited to providing a venue for DIS DVC owners to rent their points. It's not intended to be a general marketplace for timeshare rentals, and I'm sure the DIS has no interest in such a marketplace.

where are the sites that i could do such exchanges and has anyone experience with this ?

Two that I'm familiar with are TUG (tug2net.com) and Redweek.com. Both of those require a paid membership. TUG is quite reasonable -- $15 per year; I'm not sure what Redweek is. I'm sure you'll find others with a simple Google search.

 

[janischa]

thanks for taking the time to so elaborately explain to me ! i'm seeing sense in what you're saying..... i guess i will indeed, if ever i don't want to use my own points, simply rent out and rent points from another system

 

[CarolAnnC]

thanks for taking the time to so elaborately explain to me ! i'm seeing sense in what you're saying..... i guess i will indeed, if ever i don't want to use my own points, simply rent out and rent points from another system

You mention in your first post you are primarily interested in trading to places like Marriot, or Hyatt - why not purchase another timeshare then such as Marriot? Unless you are going to use your DVC to visit the DVC Resorts for the most part, it may not be a good fit for you.

 

[Lynne M]

I think the problem comes in seeing DVC as a one-size-fits-all solution for all of your vacations. DVC is great for some things (staying at DVC resorts), not so great for others (staying anywhere else ).

If you plan to use your BWV points mostly for stays at DVC resorts, and maybe trading for another timeshare on rare occasions, it's no big deal to rent out your points, or trade.

If you're thinking of staying at DVC resorts every other year, or every third year, or less often, and trading for all of your other stays, I'd advise seriously re-thinking your decision to buy DVC.

DVC is a spectacularly expensive way to trade for timeshares. You can purchase contracts for top-name timeshares for a tiny fraction of the cost of DVC. Often a few dollars. Really. Why spend upwards of $16K to buy something you can trade for only some RCI resorts when you can spend a few dollars and get access to all of the RCI resorts?

That's another point - with DVC, you can only trade to a limited number of RCI resorts. You don't get access to the whole system.

I'd recommend buying only enough DVC points to cover your stays at DVC resorts. Remember that you can use banking and borrowing - if you plan to stay at a DVC resort every other year, you can buy a 50 point contract, bank your points in the off years, and have 100 points available for your DVC stays.

 

[janischa]

i do intend to primarily use my points for DVC resorts; i already took into account the fact that i live far away and likely will only be travelling once every 3 years to disney... i'll be buying 150 points, which gives me each time 450 points, a little more than i'd need 3 yearly (we stay longer and often in 2br) so even just taking into account our disney travel, it'll be well worth it....

like i said, i was only looking into what other possibilities are, simply out of interest..

 

[akl-fan]

I posted this on another thread recently this was my experience:


We had Disney developer points to use that we couldn't use at WDW in 2009 as I was going through a difficult pregnancy and couldn't travel to the USA. We called and tried to get an exchange in Scotland.... Nothing available......in England.....Nothing available.....Wales......Nothing available.....Ireland....Nothing available...France.....Nothing available. We then asked them to search for the whole of Europe for all of 2009.....nothing available. We did eventually get an exchange in January 2010. The place was horrible, what I would call it a bad three star bordering on two star. The pool area was so nasty I would not allow my new DD to use the facility. The one bed room was desperate for a refit. I cried when I first saw it. I was just so disappointed.
I didn't buy to exchange but though it would be a good option if one day we needed to, Needless to say I will never exchange my precious points again.

I think it is very sad that Disney has not done anything to ensure that the RCI property it exchanges with are of a good standard.

 

[JudyS]

While it is possible to use RCI to trade a DVC week for another timeshare, this is often a very poor deal. The DVC point charge is very high for RCI trades, and RCI has almost no resorts that are of DVC quality.

Marriotts and Hyatts generally trade through Interval Int'l, not RCI, so you can't get them, through RCI. (A few of the older Marriotts trade through both II and RCI, but not the nicer, newer ones.)

The independent exchange company SFX accepts Disney units and often has some nice weeks, but I've never traded through them because they won't take a Disney studio. A 1-bedroom costs too many points to use for trading, in my opinion.

I second the idea to just buy DVC points for staying at the DVC. You can either rent other timeshares, or maybe buy a Marriott.

It's also possible to purchase a non-DVC timeshare and use it to trade *into* the DVC. This can be far less costly than buying DVC, although it is much less flexible.

 

[JudyS]

I posted this on another thread recently this was my experience:

We had Disney developer points to use that we couldn't use at WDW in 2009 as I was going through a difficult pregnancy and couldn't travel to the USA. We called and tried to get an exchange in Scotland.... Nothing available......in England.....Nothing available.....Wales......Nothing available.....Ireland....Nothing available...France.....Nothing available. We then asked them to search for the whole of Europe for all of 2009.....nothing available. We did eventually get an exchange in January 2010. The place was horrible...

Unfortunately, RCI has very little available in Europe (other than Spain, Portugal, and the Canary Islands.) What is available is generally much more basic that the typical US resort, and far, far more basic than DVC. It's a shame RCI isn't clearer about this.

Just renting out your points, or trading via SFX, would be a better choice for getting Europe.