Open and Closed Home Exchange Systems
Home Exchange Blog
These days when choosing your home exchange company, you must be aware of the two major differences between the clubs: either they operate with an open or closed system. Simply put, a club following an open system allows non-members to contact
their listed members, while a club following a closed system restricts contact to being between members only.
ExchangeHomes.com firmly believes that the closed system is the best because it provides our members with the security of knowing that we have payment records and contact information validating everyone who contacts them.
Furthermore, many of our members have confirmed to us that they prefer to be contacted by people who have made a firm commitment towards a home exchange by taking the time to list their own home and paying the small membership fee.
They see it as we do, if the person contacting them for a home exchange can’t be bothered to list their home themselves, why should they risk their vacation plans by entering into discussions with them when they could vanish at any time with absolutely no come-back. The club has no idea who they are.
We are occasionally contacted by members of an open system home exchange company who ask how they can contact one of our members. Or, they have already visited one of the open system clubs where they were encouraged to initiate contact without
committing to a membership themselves and are looking for the same privileges on our website.We explain that to contact our members they first have to join and become a member themselves.
To emphasize our belief, in all the years we’ve promoted home swapping vacations, we’ve never had a report of any of our members just vanishing from a perceived home exchange arrangement at the last minute. On the other hand, we’ve heard of it happening several of times with open system members.
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