What keeps you from using Redweek Exchange?

I am just curious what keeps others from using Redweek Exchange? For me, I have two issues: first, the long term viability of the program itself. For example, the RedWeek Development Blog hasn't been updated since May 2008. If this is a new program, which it is, and RedWeek is committed to its growth and expansion, there isn't anything new to blog about since May? That concerns me.

More importantly, to me, is the fear that if I was to deposit and have my points, that I will never find a suitable exchange. I can only travel certain weeks each year. The exchange program appears to have no way to show availability of an exchange in a week range, regardless of the location. The only thing that I can do is view availability by location. To find the dates, I have to click on every location and see the dates. That can take hours, and it makes me simply not use the program.

The exchange program has been active for quite some time, yet, as far as I can tell, we've seen no further development on any features of the program on the website (like date based searches). It makes me question what they've been doing all this time? Is there a future to this program?

Jeff, you have "Hit the Point" exactly on the HeaD.

Exchanges make a 'Simple Process' into a Complicated, more costly, Time Consuming and problem filled procedure for which at least one party will be confused and become angry.

RedWeek fees for Membership and Adverts are VERY Reasonable.. Prospective renters can contact Owners DIRECTLY and negotiate a deal . Only two parties need be involved... Simple! Exchanges are 4x as complicated because of the extra people involved. Someone generally feels they got the 'short end of stick' ...

I don't see what's so complicated about Redweek's exchange system .... am I missing something? You have your timeshare evaluated for points by Redweek .... you either agree or disagree with that evaluation and you you then decide to deposit or not deposit after you have reseached timeshares that have been deposited that you would possibly like to trade into and how many points it would take. Extra points can be carried over or points can be bought if you don't have enough.

No guessing .... it costs nothing to have your timeshare evaluated pointswise. I just don't see a complicated process here.

Are you kidding us jayjay?... REALLY? Ok.... let's understand Simple.. A Dollar is a dollar is a dollar is a dollar across USA (and even around the world). Even those of us who do NOT carry "Greenbacks" know what a Dollar looks like and it's VALUE... agree??

Complicated: Anything that requires "evaluation, depositing, carryover, trade, points, decision, exchange, etc, etc, decision,etc" .....

POINTS: How many people Fully Understand the concepts of "Extra Points", "Carryover Points", "Bought Points".... and AGREE 100% on their Value? Then, there are II points, RCI, Redweek points, Airmiles and GreenStamps.. MY head hurts!

Lets not confuse "Convenience" with Simple.... We have to PAY EXTRA for Anything that is classified as 'Convenient'... that IS a Simple Fact.

Surely, with "Experience" we gain confidence and most proceedures become easier. jayjay has had lots of experiences, and I suspect he learned something from each case.

Jeff expressed the POINT of This Thread Very Clearly in his second paragraph. That is, FEAR that he will never find a Suitable Exchange . As one who 'lost' a week that was "Banked" with the Hope of obtaining a Future Specific Week in a Specific Resort, I can attest that Jeff's fear is Well Founded. Availability:... read Jeff's statement.. it is Clear to me . Finally, Jeff says he cannot EASILY Find Suitable Exchange... I agree that is not a Simple Process. Time Consuming too yet.

The issue of "complicated" really has nothing to do with my post. It doesn't reflect my feelings on the issue, and is not a sentiment that I share with you. The exchange system itself is rather straight forward and was not the point of my message.

jeffcarp wrote:

The exchange program appears to have no way to show availability of an exchange in a week range, regardless of the location. The only thing that I can do is view availability by location. To find the dates, I have to click on every location and see the dates. That can take hours, and it makes me simply not use the program.

It would make sense that this search can also be accessed from the "Timeshare Exchange" tab. I've passed along the suggestion a couple times (just recently via a "Live Chat" with Jamie). It might be easier just to combine the two pages into one "Timeshares for Rent, Sale or Exchange".

I find Redweek's exchange system much easier than RCI or II and I accumulate enough points to go anywhere that is offered in Redweek without having to buy more points. It's cheaper than RCI which is useless to me.

diannek12 wrote:

I find Redweek's exchange system much easier than RCI or II and I accumulate enough points to go anywhere that is offered in Redweek without having to buy more points. It's cheaper than RCI which is useless to me.

Exactly, you can go here to see what's been deposited by state/region and how many points you would need for an exchange .... no hidden exchange formula like RCI ... all is out in the open on Redweek:

http://www.redweek.com/exchange/browse?path=%2F&submit=Go

this exchange system has a lot of flaws, simple as it may be. key is lack of availability, even if transparent (albeit hard to track using time criteria, as u noted). this provisional week stuff is a joke, who really cares??

after an unacceptable redweek offer, i went back to II to trade my week, since they came out with a money back guarantee to get what you want when you want. their getaways also tend to be better than most rentals here pricewise, and they are plentiful.

think u get what u pay for, this is good site for info and sales and negotiable rentals, but for an exchange look elsewhere.

In all fairness to RedWeek, it is my personal opinion that "exchanging" is almost ALWAYS a bit of a crap shoot anyhow --- REGARDLESS of the individual exchange company involved. RCI rents out some of the best deposits directly to the general public, never even making them available to RCI members for exchange. RCI also has a "deposit first, then just hope and pray" policy and a secretive, mystery evaluation process for deposits (although this might well change after the ongoing lawsuit against RCI). II has a "search first" option, but only 1/3 the number of affiliated resorts when compared to RCI and II also has a "like for like" policy which limits what an exchanger can even "see" as being available as deposited in the first place. RedWeek has a welcome, transparent advance (but still seemingly inconsistent) evaluation process, but limited inventory and a very difficult to navigate search mechanism.

In short, there simply IS no "perfect system" in the exchange world...

jeffcarp wrote:

I am just curious what keeps others from using Redweek Exchange? For me, I have two issues: first, the long term viability of the program itself.

I can only speak about II as we haven't had to deal with Rci in more than twenty one years now and never will again.

With II you can make a exchange and its timeshare for timeshare and no extra money in someone's pocket. II has top rated resorts and Redweek gets lower tier resorts and off weeks/seasons. Many of these can be found on last minute rental listings on Tug for few hundred dollars. These are great if you can go in a short time period.

The provisional list is a waste of time because most will never be deposited. As seen since the start Redweek doesn't get many of these higher tier resorts and when one slips by its off season or bad weather weeks. We have had many postings on getting rid of it but this is free advertising for Redweek.

When a higher tier resort with a good week shows up there are people on speed dail to grab them to rent because Redweek lets anyone rent your timeshare out for profit! This is something Rci and II and others do not allow! This was the subject of another long heated posting few months back.

One reason for not using this exchange is I just do not see anything getting better like Redweek spending some of its own money to bring in some higher quality resorts. I will not give Redweek my Premier rated resort like last year July 4th week in Lake Tahoe that was full and pay them more money to stay in a timeshare that has less value than ours!

Seems every move you make on here cost you more money in Redweeks pocket. I think the best statement that comes to mind about the whole Redweek site is they nickel and dime you to death! Instead of having one fee to become a member with all rights to this forum they charge a fee to join and then charge for rental ad or sales ad or wishlist ad. They charge extra fee to someone to exchange and then a extra fee to upgrade your exchange. I'm shocked they haven't found away to charge for every post or reading one yet!

A few members on here question why you could go on the Redweek rental forum and rent same resort and weeks for a third of the cost they wanted in a exchange without giving them your unit with never a reply from Redweek!

Rating system is way out of line when you find a resort on the rental site for $700-$1000 and on the exchange Redweek wants something like $2350 points/dollars for the week. They list this charge as points but each point same as a dollars. When you say points it just slides off people's back but say dollars and it gets people's attention.

Also one of the questions has been does Redweek charge the same amount of money for the unit as they gave the owner or do they build in more profit by charging more and again no answers.These are questions Redweek has not answered!

Bottom line for us using II is I can make a better quality exchange with II and no paying out extra money. Second is I can use the getaway and again get better resorts in most cases at a third of the cost!

It seems that this exchange is headed the wrong direction and no improvement and less inventory and even more lower tier resorts if that is possible. It isn't even talked about much any longer except once in a while someone will ask on Tug what is wrong with this exchange or has anyone used it lately with very few responses.

Redweek requires you to pay your maintenence fee before making a deposit into their exchange. Our dues are paid on Jan 10th of each year so we couldn't even deposit our week until then which gives you less points. You then would need to line Redweek pocket with extra money to get most exchanges.

We can just do so much better and no hassles and no lining the pockets of this exchange with extra fee's.We will stick with II to make our exchanges! This is my reasons for not using the Redweek Exchange!

The last time I checked out the listings (2009) it was worse than at the beginning and I see no hint of improvement.

PHILL12

Owners of RCI Points weeks cannot deposit their unit into the RedWeek exchange system. That represents another segment of timeshare units that are unavailable for exchange. Redweek has to be more consistent with their valuations. I still keep an open mind, and I keep my eyes open for a good exchange, but I've yet to see anything worth giving up my units.

I just don't understand the system. My timeshare is with Marriott's Grand Chateau in Las Vegas. I have weeks 1-51 available. To check the valuation of my unit, were I wanting to offer it for exchange, I submitted it for exchange the week of 9/12/09 to 9/19/09. It is a 2bd/2bt that sleeps up to 8. I chose that date because there was a studio at the same resort listed for the same dates (but only sleeps 4). I received a valuation of 963 pts. The studio, is listed as costing 1212 pts. Why would I only receive 963 pts for a much bigger/nicer unit, almost 9 months out, when a much smaller unit for the same time, would cost me much more in pts? Doesn't make any sense, but enough confusion to keep me from being willing to offer my unit. Seems like someone is profitting other than me.

Thanks to anyone who can clarify this.

robertj384: You have "double posted" this exact same material here within this very same forum, the matching post below being entitled "New to Timeshares" (where I have already replied). That's your prerogative, certainly, but staying within a single thread with an identical post might yield more responses, better flow of input from others and more overall continuity of material. Just a thought...

Better stated below by jayjay.

robertj384 wrote:

I just don't understand the system. My timeshare is with Marriott's Grand Chateau in Las Vegas. I have weeks 1-51 available. To check the valuation of my unit, were I wanting to offer it for exchange, I submitted it for exchange the week of 9/12/09 to 9/19/09. It is a 2bd/2bt that sleeps up to 8. I chose that date because there was a studio at the same resort listed for the same dates (but only sleeps 4). I received a valuation of 963 pts. The studio, is listed as costing 1212 pts. Why would I only receive 963 pts for a much bigger/nicer unit, almost 9 months out, when a much smaller unit for the same time, would cost me much more in pts? Doesn't make any sense, but enough confusion to keep me from being willing to offer my unit. Seems like someone is profitting other than me.

Thanks to anyone who can clarify this.

Something's not right here .... contact Redweek at the bottom of this page voicing your complaint.

ken1193 wrote:

robertj384: You have "double posted" this exact same material here within this very same forum, the matching post below being entitled "New to Timeshares" (where I have already replied). That's your prerogative, certainly, but staying within a single thread with an identical post might yield more responses, better flow of input from others and more overall continuity of material. Just a thought...

Our tech team is working on the search feature. It seems to get more complicated then one would think.

As far as the valuation that robertj384 received, I'm checking into the inconsistency of that and will report back when I hear from DAE.

Our forums don't have the ability to combine threads. Sometimes posters will add their question or comment in more then one category because it might apply in both places. If their post is answered in one thread it isn't necessary to answer them again. It's strictly your choice.

Thanks, Marty

marty8084 wrote:

As far as the valuation that robertj384 received, I'm checking into the inconsistency of that and will report back when I hear from DAE.

In any case, thanks for the update. Mike