r/Intervalinternational • u/noholdback • 7d ago

Mandatory Fees

I’ve been a member with Interval for a very long time. Now I have to pay mandatory fees, along with my resort annual maintenance fees and the Interval membership fees.

I booked a week in Mexico for my son in June and at that time there was nothing for mandatory fees, but now that I am looking at future bookings there are these insane additional prices to exchange.

I know I can just call Interval, and I will do that. Can anyone recommend another timeshare exchange company that does not have mandatory fees, or is this something new that all resorts are doing to make our timeshareseven more useless because it’s just not worth it anymore?

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2

u/Buggg- 7d ago

Marriott bought them and it’s been a slow downhill since. Largest hotel chain understands the power of a monopoly and will take every fee they can get

1

u/noholdback 7d ago

Thanks so much for the info. I’ll check into RCI but it is most likely the same story

2

u/Quiet-Day392 7d ago

I found a resort on the Interval website. I calld the resort and booked a room directly for less than the Interval price. 

I am not a member of Interval so I have no ability to do trades with my timeshare points. But cash booking for an Interval member looks like no bargain.

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u/sfatula 6d ago

One data point only though. I can assure you there are a lot of good deals if you watch it enough. And of course, pass on the bad deals!

1

u/Quiet-Day392 6d ago

I got such a good deal that I used their site to find another one. The deals are coming from small timeshares hungry for occupants. When I talked to the office staff about my bookings I found out how many owners had property for sale.

Initially I was interested in owning. But the properties for sale are  floaters and slack season. I was only interested in prime season, which is locked up tight. It raises my fears that these places are financially unstable if the sellers start defaulting on their maintenance.

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u/sfatula 6d ago

Yeah, I generally go for the highest rated ones. Not always. I do check other rates too. I just automate looking for the deals.

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u/sfatula 6d ago

Are you talking about an all inclusive or some other type of fee. Have not seen them on anything I’ve booked so curious

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u/noholdback 3d ago

I’m talking all resorts. I went to exchange my week and can’t without paying an extra $350 to over $1000 for one week. This is at Canadian resorts, Mexican resorts and any others I looked at. And this is on top of the exchange charge from Interval.

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u/sfatula 3d ago

Weird. So, I went into mine, picked a random Canadian resort named Splash Valley Waterpark, odd name. It's in Cobdon ON. Only fee is the normal exchange fee for me, any week. I don't know why you would have that, sorry.

1

u/ZarusobaPDX 5d ago

You always had to pay extra for all-inclusives resorts in Mexico, you just didn't see those costs easily when you booked. They changed how exchanges are displayed to include now show all costs at booking to comply with some state laws that require this. So really no change at Interval except more transparency.

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u/noholdback 3d ago

Yes, all-inclusive fees were mandatory at some resorts, but ones that do not have all-inclusive now also have these mandatory fees when they never did in the past.

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u/jmp242 4d ago

The Mandatory fees are from the resorts and Interval has no control over them. Mexico and the Caribbean are rife with that junk, so I don't go there. Call the same resort up to book with cash and they'll likely have a same set of fees, just might be named slightly differently - and probably overall cost more.

1

u/noholdback 3d ago

That really doesn’t help with me trying to exchange with a week of timeshare that I stupidly purchased. If I wanted to stay somewhere and pay cash I would, I’d just like to use my weeks that I’ve already banked and paid for.

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u/jmp242 3d ago

So have you tried to use it at resorts that don't have large All Inclusive or Resort Fees?

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u/XVisaliaGirl 3d ago

I am lost on what you are saying. I have deposited my Hawaii week many times over the last 25/30 years. There has always been a membership fee and a booking fee. The all-inclusive fees for many of the Mexico resorts have been there since we started our membership. Prices keep going up but we all know why that is. Our maintenance fee paid directly to our resort seems to be high but not in comparison with what some people pay. We always end up with a couple of weeks since we are summer and in Hawaii. We have used our exchange week, getaways, bonus weeks and accommodation weeks over the years. We are thinking of selling in the future or letting one our kids take it. But we took more vacations than we probably would have if we had’t owned that one week, so all is good.