Home Exchange Club Memberships vs Classified Advertising
Usually I try to keep abreast of the multitude of things being written on the web on the subject of home exchanging. On an average day I will find several new postings and if appropriate I like to spend a few minutes responding.
Recently I’ve become more than a little concerned by the number of of postings encouraging potential home exchangers to bypass the multitude of home exchange clubs now available to them and instead seek home exchange partners via CraigsList or CouchSurfing.com. The latter site is fundamentally a hospitality exchange network, it’s especially popular among students and young people in general traveling the world, but neither is a substitute for a good, reliable, established home exchange service.
In all the years Exchangehomes.com has been in business (22+), we’ve never received a single report of theft or vandalism or malicious damage. We’ve very occasionally had to deal with a situation where a member was let down at the last minute, but in all but two cases the cancellations were caused by accidents or totally unexpected illnesses. Each time we were able to “put out the word” via this blog, our newsletter and even specialized mailings to members in the area to which the let down family was planning to travel and were usually able to locate a suitable alternative.
In fact, on one occasion we were even able to help while we were living in California by doing a last minute swap ourselves with a family from Bristol.
The point of all this is to illustrate the very important fact that when you join a good, established home exchange organization you are essentially paying for much more than simply publishing you home exchange requirements. All of the “for fee” clubs offer a Customer Service and if they are anything like Exchangehomes.com they will pull out all the stops to help in an emergancy. On the other hand who is going to help you if you have an issue with a potential CraigsList home exchange partner?
Last year and already this year we’ve been contacted by folk who were under the impression that they had reached firm, committed agreements with people they had found via CraigsList, only to have them either cancel at the last minute, or even more despicable, simply cut off all communication. One had even changed his email address and phone number.
I fully expect a lot of people will interpret this post as being “sour grapes”, but that’s not the case at all. I believe I’m justifiably proud of the good reputation generally enjoyed by home exchanging and it concerns me when I see a very definite possibility of that reputation being compromised. Other clubs should feel the same way as well. By choosing not to stay in a hotel or rent a vacation home, potential home exchangers are already saving themselves a substantial chunk of change, so why begrudge the comparatively small fee charged by a reputable home exchange organization?
That fee even covers a full year’s membership and with just a little forward planning, several home exchanges can be arranged before it expires.
© ExchangeHomes.com All rights reserved.
