Original Message:
Re: Redweek T/s Exchange - need to pay MF's in advance? (by Peter W.):
Well, I've changed my mind! Redweek, I'm in!
I have in fact just been on the phone to Orange Lake and paid an estimate of my 2009 maintenance fees for one of my weeks there, and then I deposited that week with Redweek. It shows up now as a "Deposit in Progress". Looks like I'm first at my resort village to actually deposit here.
So why did I rethink? Well, the main reason was that having considered all my exchanging options, I came to the conclusion that Redweek gives me the only route into a points based exchange system with my present weeks, as I will not entertain Orange Lake's Global Access programme.
As I believe I said before, I did, and still do, see a lot of good things in Redweek's exchange system. The only part that was bugging me initially was this maintenance fee thing. But as I also said earlier, I have never exchanged a timeshare week before, so this has been a learning curve for me too.
So I now have 3 years to utilise my points. I hope that Redweek's exchange programme will develop and expand, and that we will see more actual deposits and less provisional weeks as owners become more confident over time in the potential of this alternative to RCI, II, et al.
Best wishes, Redweek.