WorldMark Owner Information

    Fred in Colorado, One WorldMark Owner

Exchanges
This is the third part of the Owner Education section. In this section I will try to explain how to use the exchange companies to expand your vacation horizons to resorts outside of the WorldMark family. While I have used exchanges a number of times to visit other timeshare resorts, I do not claim to be an exchange expert. I do know the basics of the exchange process and that is what I present here.

The Exchange Companies Confirm First Deposit First
Instant Exchange (Flexchange) Exchange Cancellation Extra Vacations (Getaways)
Plan Ahead With Flexchange Exchange or Getaway Back to the Basics

The Exchange Companies     Top
There are over 70 resorts in the WorldMark family plus another 10 or so Wyndham resorts that WorldMark owners can book directly with their credits. That gives you a lot of choices, but it also leaves out many areas where owners might wish to vacation. That's where the exchange companies come in. In addition to the WorldMark locations they have listings for resorts in many of those areas where there is not a WorldMark resort. By using the exchange companies you have the opportunity to exchange your WorldMark credits for time in one of the xxchange company affiliated resorts.

There are two main exchange companies that are normally associated with WorldMark.  New WorldMark owners are given a years membership in RCI, which used to be known as Resort Condominiums International but now uses just the initials as its name.  RCI is a subsidiary of Wyndham Worldwide.  For those of us who purchased some time ago that membership is a "weeks" membership, and deals with full week increments for resort stays.  Owners who purchase today, or who upgrade their account and become TravelShare members, receive an RCI points account and can exchange for less than a week.  I'll be talking about the traditional weeks account but all of the features I'll discuss are also available in the points version.  The other exchange company is Interval International, or II.  For a period around 2002 new owners were given a years membership in II rather than RCI, and all owners still have the opportunity to join either or both organizations.

Both companies offer the opportunity to exchange your WorldMark credits for time at a non-WorldMark resort.  The following table shows some facts concerning the two companies.

 RCI II  

Number of Affiliated Resorts 

 Over 4,400 Over 2,200
 Annual Membership Fee $89 $84
 Domestic Exchange Fee $164 $139
 Guest Certificate $59 $39

A couple of comments concerning the table. First, there is a lot of commonality among the resorts affiliated with each organization. Many resorts are in both RCI and II. Some of the resorts that will be found in only one of the exchange comanies are the Marriott resorts which are exclusively in Interval International and the Wyndham/Fairfield resorts which are predominately in RCI. The Disney resorts used to be exclusively in Interval International but now you will find them in RCI. If you are interested in exchanging into a particular resort you need to determine which organization handles it before deciding which to join.

Second, the annual fee shown is the basic fee for a one year membership. There always seem to be discounts available. RCI offers multi-year discounts and a couple of years ago had an added special of 5 years for the price of 4. That made the effective cost $60 per year. II has had a 2 for 1 special in effect for several years now which reduces the cost to $42 per year. You need the code from their advertisement in Destinations, which is available online if you don't have a current issue.

Confirm First     Top
Confirm first is the normal exchange process. What confirm first means is that you do not give up any of your WorldMark credits until you have confirmed your exchange through the exchange company.

The basic process is fairly simple. You tell the exchange company where you want to go, when you want to go, and what size unit you need. For RCI you have to call, II allows you do search online. If there is something available that meets your needs you can book it, giving up WorldMark credits in exchange for unit you book.

If nothing is currently available they will place an ongoing search for you. The search can be for a specific resort; for multiple resorts; or for a location. It can also be for a specific check in date or it can span a range of dates. The broader your criteria the more likely it is that a match will be found. With RCI you can either have them confirm the exchange automatically or you can have them contact you if something becomes available.

The credits needed for an exchange are shown in the following table.

Unit Size  High SeasonMid Season  Low Season 
 Studio 8,0006,000  4,000 
 One Bedroom 9,0007,000 5,000 
 Two Bedroom 10,000 8,000 6,000 
 Three Bedroom 12,0009,000  7,000 

You will notice that the table lists credit requirements for a week. With an RCI weeks account or a standard II account almost all exchanges are for a full week. You normally do not have a partial week option. Check in days are usually on the weekend, with Friday or Saturday check in being the most common. You will find a few resorts that offer Sunday check in and an even smaller number which offer mid week checkin.

The Low, Mid, and High seasons for the exchange companies are similar to the Blue, White, and Red seasons that WorldMark uses. The dates are not necessarily the same though so if you are making an exchange you need to determine the season that applies. Credits are deducted from your account based on the exchange companies seasons. In addition the the WorldMArk credits, you must pay the exchange fee and housekeeping charges apply just as they do to all WorldMark reservations.

As a final note for the confirm first exchanges, I would recommend that you attend an owners education exchange class as a first step. The class will provide a good overview of exchanges and offers the opportunity to ask questions about things you don't understand.

Deposit First     Top
To Be Added

Instant Exchange (Flexchange)     Top
Here is another version of the exchange credit requirements table.

Unit Size   High SeasonMid Season Low Season 
 Studio 4,000 4,000 4,000 
 One Bedroom 4,000 4,0004,000 
 Two Bedroom 4,000 4,000 4,000 
 Three Bedroom 4,000 4,000 4,000 

There is no misprint in that table. Any season, any size unit for 4,000 credits plus the exchange fee. In RCI it's called an Instant Exchange, in II it's a Flexchange. So what's the catch (there's always a catch)? The catch is the lead time. With RCI you can book an Instant Exchange at 45 days or less before the check in date. With II, a Flexchange can be booked at 59 days or less before check in. Any exchange booked inside those limits is 4,000 credits. Any exchange booked beyond those limits is a full fare exchange and the credit requirement depends on the unit size and season.

That time limit might seem restrictive but it is about the same as you will find on WorldMark Inventory Specials. If you are flexible and can travel on relatively short notice these exchanges offer some real credit saving opportunities. A week that would normally cost 7,000 to 12,000 WorldMark credits can be booked for only 4,000 credits. Don't jump in too quick though, there are some other considerations. The exchanges are for full weeks and the cancellation policy is not anywhere near as liberal as the WorldMark policy. The exchanges are also subject to availability which will vary with season and location, just as it does with any of the WorldMark resorts.

You normally cannot place an ongoing search with either RCI or II for these short lead time exchanges. You have to continue calling in, or searching online with II, if nothing is initially available. There have been exceptions though, when the agent for the exchange company sets up a search. You can always ask, that doesn't cost anything.

Exchange Cancellation     Top
WorldMark has a very liberal cancellation policy. You can book a reservation 13 months in advance and cancel it up to 30 days before check in with no penalty. If you book 90 days or less in advance you can cancel up to 10 days before your scheduled arrival with no penalty. Book 14 days or less in advance and you can cancel up to 2 days before your scheduled check in. In all of those cases, your credits will be returned to your account or if it was a cash booking, such as Bonus Time or an Inventory Special, you will receive a complete refund.

If you book an exchange you lose most of that flexibility. For example, here's what I was quoted for a recently booked exchange through RCI. You have 24 hours to cancel with no penalty. That gives you time to check airfares; to confirm that everyone involved can go; or to verify any other details you need to ascertain before committing to the exchange. If you cancel 60 days or more before the scheduled check in date you will forfeit $119 of the exchange fee. If you cancel less than 60 days before the scheduled check in you will forfeit the entire $164 exchange fee.

The WorldMark credits used for the exchange will be returned to your WorldMark account if you cancel more than 3 weeks before check in. If you cancel the exchange reservation within 3 weeks of check in the credits will be retained in your RCI account and can be used as a deposit first exchange.

So while exchanges give you flexibility to go places where there are no WorldMark resorts, you lose much of the WorldMark flexibility. A big deal? Only you can decide, but it is something to be aware of when booking an exchange.

Extra Vacations (Getaways)     Top
Extra Vacations (RCI) and Getaways (II) are similar to WorldMark Inventory Specials. They are cash deals that do not require you to give up any of your WorldMark credits. You can book one of these special deals online at either the RCI or II web site. The prices range all the way from as low as $249 to well over $1,000 for a week. The advance booking date also varies widely. I have seen Extra Vacations available as close as a few days before check in and as far away as well over a year before check in.

For both exchange companies you can do a search online. You cannot place an ongoing search. If a unit you want is not available you will have to keep checking periodically. You can search by state, by city in some cases, or for a specific resort. You can also specify the time span for your search. The broader your search parameters the better your odds of finding a match.

RCI also has Last Call vacations. These are the same as Instant Vacations with a short lead time. Last Call vacations can not normally be booked more than 45-60 days in advance of your check in date. Other than that, all the rules about Extra Vacations also apply to Last Call bookings. Last Call reservations cost less than Extra Vacations, currently $199 for a studio, $219 for a one bedroom unit, and $249 for a two bedroom unit. Note that a unit at a resort does not automatically switch from an Extra Vacation pricing to Last Call pricing as the check in date approaches. Last Call vacations are not offered at all resorts in the RCI system.

Like WorldMark Inventory Specials, housekeeping is included in price of these special deals. And like exchanges, the cancellation policy is not nearly as liberal as the WorldMark cancellation policy. You can cancel within 24 hours of making a reservation with no penalty. After that you will forfeit a portion or all of the fee you paid to book the unit. Check the cancellation policy closely before you book, it can be expensive if you have to change plans.

Plan Ahead With Flexchange     Top
One of the drawbacks of the RCI Instant Exchange and the II Flexchange is that you cannot book a resort far in advance. That makes it difficult to do advance planning and can be problematic if you need to make airline reservations. Often by the time the Flexchange window opens the discount airfares will have disappeared, with only higher cost flights available.

There are ways to take advantage of the Flexchange opportunities even in those cases. What you need is a backup plan. When we decided we wanted to go to Florida for spring training baseball, I booked a week at the WorldMark Orlando resort. I made that reservation in August, 7 months in advance of our Florida arrival.

A WorldMark reservation made that far in advance can be cancelled up to 30 days before check in with no penalty. When the Flexchange booking window opened at 59 days I began looking at Interval International to see what was available in Orlando. I found the Marriott Cypress Harbour resort was available as a Flexchange and booked it. After I had a confirmed reservation at the Marriott I cancelled the WorldMark reservation. 11,000 credits were returned to my WorldMark account for the cancelled Orlando reservation and 4,000 credits were removed for the Flexchange. Overall I think it was a good deal. I saved 7,000 credits, ended up in what I consider to be a nicer resort than the WorldMark Orlando resort, all for a total of the $139 exchange fee. Plus there was probably a happy WorldMark owner when their wait list request came through after I cancelled that Orlando week.

Will this work for you? It depends on when and where you want to go. There are three areas where this will normally work fairly consistently. Those areas are Orlando, Las Vegas, and Branson. The summer season is probably one of the toughest to try to use the Flexchange swap approach. At any other time of the year you will find much more availability. And if nothing comes through for the Flexchange you stay at the WorldMark resort that you booked far in advance as a backup. Either way you can make your plans in advance and know where you are going on your vacation.

Note that even though I used Interval International for the example, you can do the same thing with RCI. The Instant Exchange window is shorter, it opens at 45 days before check in, but that is still 15 days before the last cancellation date for the WorldMark unit. I also want to add that this is not an idea that I came up with. I first remember hearing discussions about using the Flexchanges in this manner when the WorldMark Orlando resort opened, which was in 2002. There was a lot of discussion about the exchange possibilities for Orlando on the WorldMark forum, before the open discussion area of that forum was closed.

Exchange or Instant Vacation     Top
In the example I used for planning ahead while using short notice exchanges I showed how you could reduce the credits required for an Orlando stay from 11,000 to 4,000 by using a Flexchange. There is often another approach that will save more credits. Nothing is free, for this example it will cost you more cash.

Rather than using Instant Exchange or Flexchange, in many cases you will find that the resort that you want to exchange into is also available as an Extra Vacation or Getaway Vacation. For the Orlando Marriott example I used, the unit was available as a Getaway for a cost of $609. That is the total cost, no credits are required and there is no exchange fee or housekeeping fee.

Which is the better deal? That depends. I won't go through the math for this example, but in terms of total cost for the week the Flexchange is lower. But if you want to save the most credits the Getaway does that for you. By using the Getaway you will get all 11,000 credits that you used for your backup reservation at the WorldMark resort returned to your account, rather than just 7,000 from the Flexchange. It comes down to whether you want to save the most cash or save the most credits. In this case I chose to save the cash.