internal exchanges difficult?

We are disappointed that we were unable to obtain an internal exchange into a week 9 this year and ended up renting in another resort on the island in order to avoid being stuck with nothing. I was wondering if any other owners were having difficulty with internal exchanges. I had requested this in late September so there was plenty of time to accommodate us. What is the point of banking if you can't exchange afterwards? Chris

we are in the same position; we were trying to exchange our week 7 in February to week 51 or 52, but were unable to. we ended up having to exchange through RCI for week 51 and renting from another owner for week 52!