We hear a lot of complaints from timeshare owners about exchange availability. So what’s the real story?
Exchange promises
Timeshare owners rarely buy their home resort as a stand alone holiday solution. As stunning as the property may be, most people know that they will want to travel to other locations for some of their future holidays.
“No problem,” enthuses the shiny, uber-friendly timeshare salesperson. “You can exchange to over 4300 equally high quality resorts all over the world. 4300 choices should be enough for you, right?”
The prospects are then taken through a spellbinding, imaginary tour of spectacular resorts in exotic locations via a glossy brochure or slick website. The logic makes perfect sense: “The owners who bought in those 4300 other places don’t want to go to their own resorts every year either. So they put their week in, and take out a week that someone else put in.”
Sold! It wasn’t just purchasing membership of one resort. You were buying access to a world of five star opulence in nearly 100 countries.
Sadly, those grand holiday plans never seemed to manifest. But why not?
Everyone wants the good ones
Yes, there are over 4300 resorts in the biggest timeshare exchange network, RCI. Yes, theoretically you can ask to exchange to any one of them. But in real life it rarely works out that way.
The 4300 resorts are of vastly varying quality, and in locations of heterogeneous desirability. Add to that the fact that certain times of year are being sought after far more than others (school holidays for example, and ski season at winter sports resorts.)
Everybody wants to stay in the best resorts, at the best times. And there is just not enough room.
A Timeshare Advice Centre survey revealed that less than 1% of timeshare owners get the exchanges that they want. So let’s have a look at what that looks like in terms of demonstrable availability…
Regular holiday accommodation availability
At time of going to press (November 2025) we did a search on Booking.com for available holiday accommodation in a school summer holiday week on the Costa del Sol. July 25th to August 1st. Eight months away from the moment of the search.
We chose a full week as most timeshare resorts only allow bookings in blocks of one week. Obviously Booking.com and similar sites have no such restrictions.
As you can see from the screenshot, there were 13,655 available one bedroom units on the Costa del Sol in that week. Of course it will be less if you filter for the superior resorts (“exceptional” review scores only: 9.5+ out of 10). With that filter the figure drops to 5236 units. These are the best of the best. Plenty of choice.
Granted, the timeshare availability will be less. But is there still enough choice?
Timeshare exchange availability
No. There just isn’t.
The same search made minutes later through the RCI exchange website for Spain on the same dates yields a mere TWO available units!
That is not a mis-print. There were only two holiday units available for the whole of Spain. (The Booking.com search was limited to the Costa del Sol.)
Of the two available timeshare exchanges, only one was on the Costa del Sol. The other was in an out of season ski resort in Granada.
There are 3.8 million RCI members. These two resorts are all that are available to them in Spanish holiday locations with eight month’s notice.
You can see the problem.
Exclusivity issue
“Lack of availability is generally in the top two complaints of every timeshare owner we speak to,” confirms Greg Wilson, CEO of European Consumer Claims (ECC), the company taking bad actors in the timeshare industry to court over mis-selling.allegations.
“The other major problem is maintenance fees. These are rising often to higher costs per year than regular holidays, so when timeshare owners can’t even get the holidays they are paying for, its easy to understand why they are angry.
“Perhaps the biggest factor of all affecting timeshare exchange availability is the reality that almost no timeshare resorts are exclusive to their members any more.
“Since new member timeshare sales has all but ceased in Europe, most resorts made the paradigm altering decision to rent ta portion of their inventory to the general public. A necessary decision to keep their businesses afloat, they would argue. But imagine if you had paid £20,000 or more for membership of an exclusive resort, and suddenly that resort is available to people who never paid to join. Often those non-members can stay in the resort for a lower cost than the members pay in maintenance fees.
“If only those members had waited a few years, they would have been able to stay in the same resorts without paying a joining fee, and often for less money per visit than they are paying now.
“Those non members taking up inventory that previously would only have been reserved for members is a huge reason for the lack of exchange options available for timeshare owners today.”
Does this reflect your experience?
If you are a timeshare owner who feels that they were mis-sold, and for any reason the product is not performing as promised, get in touch today for confidential, expert advice.
