Your February 9, 2007 article on fractional ownership requested comments from people with exchange experience.

We own one week at Lake Tahoe, California and one week at Kauai, Hawaii. We are members of RCI’s core program, not the luxury Registry Collection program that was the subject of your article. Nevertheless, some of the properties available to us for exchange are luxury and even appear in both RCI programs. Our Kauai property, for example, is located in the upscale Princeville resort area. It has two bedrooms, two baths with a full kitchen with granite counter tops. It is not only fully furnished, but are very tastefully decorated.

Exchanging for another property is not quite as easy as advertised. It is very easy to deposit your property. The problem occurs when you try to reserve a week at another resort. If you want a specific week in a particular location you must reserve it ten months to a year in advance. Even then the limited availability may require you to take a different week or even a different resort. We’ve been on a waiting list for Borgo de Vagli in Italy for a year. Now we are up against the deadline for flight reservations so today we must cancel and seek other accommodations.

Another problem is that not all resorts are equal. RCI’s best resorts in their regular program are judged to be “Gold Crown”. They have two grades below that. We’ve found some Gold Crown resorts to be outstanding in design, maintenance and amenities and some to be marginal. Some resorts are behind on refurbishment allowing the suites to become somewhat shabby. Since it’s the least desirable locations and/or the oldest suites at a facility that are traded out on exchange, (local owners rightly get the best and newest), we have occasionally been disappointed.

With reasonable flexibility in both travel timing and the resort you’ll accept, you can visit some wonderful places and stay in luxury accommodations at a reasonable price.

If you can live with the limitations a timeshare exchange program can be a great way to travel. It sure beats spending a week in a single hotel room, no matter how nice the hotel.

Hope this commentary helps. —Jim (Visalia, California)