it is routine for RCI points timeshares to charge extra in housekeeping for stays of less than 7 days, I don't recall ever seeing it for 7 days or more though I have seen tipping the housekeepers STRONGLY encouraged but only outside the US and only where they have daily housekeeping (usually 6 days). The main justification, and rightly so, is that it costs extra to have extra cleaning and since they normally budget on a once a week format, the extra charges are not budgeted in maint fees. Now some do it reasonably and some appear to try to use it as a money making tool, it's not that much different than the All Inclusive fees that many of the AI resorts charge which can be even more ridiculous. One of the issues with timeshare exchanging is it generalizes timeshares in most situations. You may get credit for the demand of the resort and week but you often truly don't. You don't get credit for the view type so if you deposit an OF villa, you don't get extra credit with the exchange company over the garden view for example. DVC has very high fees, IMO overly so. There are very few situations where it works out reasonably for a DVC owner to exchange out, a few but very few. The same is true for other high demand/high end options. For that reason I never exchange or even take Destination Points on my Marriott Grande Ocean weeks, I rent them out when I'm not using them. I use other Marriott weeks for exchanging and/or destination points. One often does better exchanging if they're in the middle and not on the low or high end but even then it pays to be selective and to minimize the risk.
