A Few Interesting Items Concerning Hyatt's Reservation Windows: Request First and Extended External Exchange

As most readers know, I own two weeks at the Hyatt Beach House.  I predominantly use those weeks to exchange into other timeshare brands through Interval International.  Hyatt has very lucrative exchange rates so I am able to covert EACH week that I own into about 5 weeks of vacation in studio units. 

For those of you who don't know, there are two ways that you exchange your Hyatt Residence Club points into Interval International.

Request First

Request First allows you to make a pending request in Interval International with various time periods and resorts.  When you make the Request First request, you pay the exchange fee and Interval International takes the points from the Hyatt Residence Club.  If you cancel the request or it does not make, those points get returned to the Hyatt Residence Club. 

Extended External Exchange

​Extended External Exchange allows you to transfer your Hyatt Residence Club points to Interval International.  You need to transfer the points you desire within 6 six months from the date of issuance.   Once you converted your Hyatt Residence Club points to Extended External Exchange, those points MUST remain with Interval International.  There is no way that they can be used for Hyatt internal exchanges. 

The most significant difference between the two is that with Request First, the points can be returned to the Hyatt Residence Club. 

The other difference is that the Hyatt Residence Club points are only valid for 1 year and the Extended External Exchange points are valid for 2 years. 

Therefore, by transferring your Hyatt Residence Club points to Extended External Exchange, you now can use those points for 2 years instead of 1 but you can ONLY use those points within Interval International. 

Time Matters

This is complicated but unfortunately gets even more complicated. 

In my recent experience, I put in a Request First exchange for Christmas week, 2019.  I try to book out as far as possible to get the highest demand weeks.  Since it takes a lot of time for some of these high demand weeks to match (some never match), you actually need to be aware of what points are being held by Interval International in order to avoid them being expired by the time a match occurs. 

For example, in my actual example, I received points for one of my weeks in June 2017.  I made a Request First reservation for Christmas week, 2019.  As of June 2018, no matches had occurred.  Since I used Request First instead of Extended External Exchange, I was recently informed that the points being held for the pending request expired so even if a match was found, I could not use the points already taken. 

Essentially, since your Hyatt Residence Club points are only valid for one year, you need to make sure that some match occurs BEFORE the one year anniversary of the point issuance.  Otherwise, your points will expire and you cannot use them. 

Recommendation

I tend to use Request First request more often as it gives me more flexibility.  If I decide to not use Interval International and confirm a Hyatt week, I can cancel any request, receive my exchange fee back and still have Hyatt Residence Club points to use. 

However, there are a couple important considerations.  If the Hyatt Residence Club points are older than 6 months, if you cancel your Interval International request, they will be put back as Hyatt Residence Club points.  However, instead of CUP points (club use period), they will become LCUP points (limited club use points) which means that you can only use them for reservations 60 days or less.  This is severely restricting. 

Based on this experience, if I am almost positive that I will use Interval International for my exchanges, it is highly beneficial to do the Extended External Exchange since you can now use your points for 2 years instead of 1. 

If you want to potentially use Interval International but may want to use Hyatt for its internal exchange if your week does not match, make sure that you cancel your request before the six month date.  Otherwise, you will receive restricted points. 

If you miss the six month window, you need to make sure to make a reservation before the one year anniversary.  Otherwise, the points will be expired and no-useable, effectively throwing away money. 

If the one year mark is coming up, it is highly beneficially to book ANY week as far out in the future as possible and include E-Plus.  By doing this, you then allow yourself to exchange that week for 2 years from the potential date of check in for no fee.  By doing this, you can effectively stretch the expiration of your points to 3 years. 

Chart

Hopefully, this chart can help you understand this process

​Conclusion

Timeshare reservation windows, points expiration periods, internal and exchange exchanges, etc. make timeshare ownership very confusing.  However, a solid understanding of these issues can help clarify these items and prevent point expirations. 

In my real world example, the points technically expired but fortunately, I was able to talk with Interval International and Hyatt, and they agreed to make an exception provided that i confirm a week while on the phone. I did this and added e-plus so that I can now book 2 years out from the date of check in.

The purpose of this post is to make sure that you understand these time periods.  If you are in doubt, you can call the Hyatt Residence Club or Interval International.  Otherwise, post below or comment in The Timeshare Guru Group on Facebook!  I am hopeful that other like-minded timeshare enthusiasts and travelers can assist.

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