One of the great things about Marriott Vacation Club’s deeded week ownership is the ability to stay at your home resort. No one can ever take that away from you. Based on availability, you should always be able to reserve a week at the resort and season you own. It may or may not always be your ideal choice of dates, but as long as you reserve early enough, you will always have a week to use at your home resort.
What happens when you want to travel somewhere other than your home resort? Sure, you could always elect your week for Abound Club Points if you are an owner who is enrolled in the Abound program. However, using your week to exchange through Interval International will often provide you with far more value at the cost of some flexibility and additional work to pull off that perfect timeshare exchange.
Many Marriott Vacation Club timeshare owners avoid Interval International. They say it is too complicated; they don’t like waiting or not knowing if they will get the exchanges they desire. Many also say they’ve never received an exchange in all the years they have tried. These are all common complaints from frustrated owners when exchanging through Interval International. Personally, we have seen incredible success using Interval International and rarely use Abound Club Points to secure a reservation. Using our deeded weeks for exchange, we come out much further ahead than if we used points for the same reservations.
If you’ve been unable to navigate Interval International and unable to secure exchanges, these are likely reasons why.
Unrealistic Expectations
This is the top reason that people never get an exchange. With Interval International, you can only exchange what other owners or the resorts themselves are willing to deposit. Prime season deposits like weeks in the winter in Florida, the Caribbean, or Hawaii; Easter in Orlando or the summer in Hilton Head Island or Myrtle Beach; these are all prime times for travel.
Any time kids are traditionally out of school is a prime time for families to travel. This will mean more people use their home resort weeks instead of depositing them for exchange. The chances of getting confirmed exchanges during these times are lower. This is because there will be fewer deposits and more demand for the deposits that become available in Interval International.
Another expectation issue is depositing a low-value week and expecting a high-value exchange in return. If you own a low-season week in specific locations, you can’t always expect to get a high-value exchange into a resort on the beach in prime time. The laws of supply and demand are essential.
Checking the Travel Demand Index (TDI) on the Interval International website for the region in which the resort is located will help determine the relative demand for the resort and week you are using for exchange.
Not Depositing Early Enough
A significant factor impacting the likelihood of a confirmed exchange is the trade power of the unit deposited. If you know you will be using your week’s reservation for exchange, deposit it right away. You don’t need to wait. The longer you wait to deposit, the more the trade power will diminish.
You should be reserving your weeks with Marriott at 13 or 12 months and depositing as soon as possible. Unsure if you want to deposit? Please don’t wait more than six to eight months prior to check-in to deposit. This will help ensure you have the most trade power possible for your deposited week.
If you’d like to learn more about how to deposit your week to ensure your deposit has the highest trading power possible, check out this informative guide: Understanding Marriott Deposit vs. Owner Deposit When You Need to Deposit Your Week into Interval International.
Not Placing Requests
These are often referred to as OGS (Ongoing Search). Requests are a powerful tool you should be utilizing when you want to exchange into prime season and prime resorts. You may be missing out on a lot of potential exchanges if you only perform searches online. What you see online when doing manual searches are simply leftovers. Members who have set up ongoing searches have had their exchanges fulfilled before weeks ever show up online.
Setting Up An Ongoing Search
Setting up an ongoing search is easy. On the “My Units” page, there is a button labeled “Place Request”.
After clicking the button, search for and select the resorts you want to travel to. Then, choose your desired travel dates.
Keep in mind that the ongoing search can match you to any check-in date within the dates selected. There is no way online to pick a specific check-in date. You need to call Interval International if you want to only travel on a particular day. They will make sure to update your request accordingly. Be cautious though: limiting check-in days increases the likelihood of your request not being fulfilled due to limiting flexibility.
If you decide you no longer want to travel to the requested destination for exchange? Unfortunately, there is no way to cancel a request online. You will need to call Interval International to cancel a request that you no longer want.
Not Placing Your Request More than a Year in Advance
Following up on a request, another essential thing to do is place requests as far in advance as possible. Preferably more than a year, or even more than 13 months before you want to travel.
This is important because Marriott Vacation Club owners can make reservations to deposit when the reservation window opens for their weeks. Reservations for deeded weeks open approximately 12 or 13 months from check-in. You want to be first in line to match up with those deposits when owners start depositing them in Interval International.
Do you think you can’t make a reservation for a deposit to take advantage of placing a request this early? This isn’t an issue. Deposits are good for up to 36 months. You can use a unit you already have on deposit to place this request for any time in the next 24 months.
Including Non-Marriott / Westin / Sheraton Resorts in Your Requests
When you exchange Marriott to Marriott or even Marriott to Westin or Sheraton, you get either a $0 or a discounted exchange fee. When you include non-Marriott, non-Westin, or non-Sheraton resorts in your requests, that $0 or discounted exchange fee disappears. Even if you match a Marriott, Westin, or Sheraton resort, you can’t get the fee refunded. Please only include Marriott, Westin, or Sheraton Resorts if you’d like to take advantage of the discounted exchange fee.
You can also start out the request by only including Marriott, Westin, and Sheraton resorts. If you find later that you would like to add other resorts, you can just do so. Interval International will charge you the full exchange fee when you add a non-Marriott, non-Westin, or non-Sheraton resort.
Not Taking Advantage of Marriott to Marriott Priority.
Marriott to Marriott priority and even Marriott to Sheraton / Westin preference is a powerful tool. When an owner deposits a Marriott week into Interval International, there is a period when it is only available to other Marriott owners to exchange into. This is usually up to 24 days but may only be a few days. This provides you a big jump on non-Marriott owners when confirming exchanges, as you will be placed ahead in the queue for requests, above all other non-Marriott owners.
Not Checking Often Online
As great as placing a request can be, deposits do slip through the cracks. We have often seen weeks show up online that should have matched a request in place. Cancellations by other members may immediately go back into available inventory before going back through the request matching process. Even if you have a request in place, you should check to ensure that what you’re looking for isn’t available online.
If you are just searching available inventory online without requests, checking often is very important. We’ve found the best times of the day to check for exchanges are early in the morning, US Eastern time. Weekends also tend to be the days that larger bulk banks of deposits show up. A bulk bank is when Marriott deposits many units into Interval International. So, if you really need that exchange, you should be checking daily.
Conclusion
Exchanging with Interval International is a powerful tool. It is one of the best ways to get the most value from your Marriott Vacation Club timeshare ownership. Hopefully, with the extra knowledge from this article, you are better prepared to get your exchanges filled!
