Admittedly it’s tough to imagine growing tired of week long stays at a luxury home on Barbados, but a growing network of fractional ownership exchange networks are betting that buyers of such shared ownership properties will crave vacation diversity. Fractional real estate inherently promises flexibility, but such exchange networks offer a forum for owners to swap time for stays at another similarly luxurious property in a different corner of the world.

But just how easy is it to trade your stay for time at another private residence club? While big resort companies like Ritz-Carlton and Starwood offer their own fractional trading options which we’ll explore in a later article, there are also fractional exchange programs that have aggregated smaller, and often stand alone private residence clubs, to add swapping as an amenity.

There are a handful of exchange collections in place and each offers a different level of property availability and cost. As a whole, each network allows owners at fractional developments in their group to use their alloted weeks for stays at other fractional locations in the group, but the similarities end there.

So what else can you get?

Both the Registry Collection and the Elite Alliance have built large, international portfolios of residences in locations like Mexico, Bermuda, and golfing destinations in the southwest that appeal to a broad range of travelers. The Registry Collection even includes several luxury yachts in its line up. Registry charges a fee of $250 per year, plus $250 per exchange, and all exchanges are handled on a credit system. Members input credits based on the location and type of their primary fractional residence, as well as how many nights they have banked and whether the planned vacation is during peak or off-peak season. But not all credits are created equal. In fact your one week of time might not translate into a week of vacation at a more luxurious property.

Elite Alliance also charges a $250 fee. The system works by inputting planned time at the residence club into the system and designating it peak or non-peak. Peak vacation swappers can secure any property while non-peak owners are limited to booking vacations at properties in the off-season. Translation? Don’t expect to be able to swap a week at La Quinta in the southern California desert for a week at a property in Bermuda mid-summer.

There are other options out there as well. Boutique Club International is a smaller collection of five fractional residences with affiliation at 35 additional partner properties. MembersTrade, a newer fractional exchange system takes the free market route and let’s owners post their properties online to arrange a trade. While the concept is unlike anything else in the fractional luxury real estate market, the system has been slow to get off the ground. We were only able to track down four listings of properties available for a trade.

Also on the horizon in 2008 is Preferred Residences, an alliance between Interval International, a time share company, and Preferred Hotel Groups. The new brand hopes to gather a collection of luxury fractional residences that can be traded.