Home Exchange Last Minute

Unless GTI Home Exchange members are seriously overlooking the option to add the tag "Exchange Request Fulfilled" to their listing as Bob and Jan have done on their listing HE19401 there are still many wonderful exchange opportunities available for the months of July and August. I know that we constantly repeat that exchangers should try to plan ahead and not arrange their exchanges in a hurry at the last minute to give themselves plenty of time to get to know their exchange partners, but if you have been prevented from contemplating an exchange until now for one reason or another, you have not yet "missed the boat" (excuse the cliché) and there is still plenty of choice.

For last minute exchanges it is probably wise to not be over ambitious and limit your choice to within your own continent or country rather than contemplating long-haul, but this still offers plenty of scope. To cover all corners since new members are registering daily, look at both the Hot List of Newest Listings as well as the Last Minute Offers list for exchange availability.

Whilst I would not wish to encourage members to emulate "Shirley Valentine", you could still get away to an idyllic Greek island, listing HE19898 in Skiathos Island,













locate a break in Italy in an apartment in Giuncarico, Tuscany, listing HE19911,














or a house in Morleschio, Umbria, HE19917.













Other Last Minute locations include a cottage in SINT-KATELIJNE-WAVER, BELGIUM - HE19428, or an Anglo-Swedish family in Stockholm HE18197who have a very specific destination request for North Yorkshire, preferably Beverly, Guisborough, and Bedale.


Wishing you happy hunting and happy home exchange.

Choosing your Home Exchange Club

With the plethora of home exchange clubs now in existence choosing the right club must be daunting to anyone considering participating in the world of home exchange travel for the first time. At one time the name of the club was all important to differentiate itself from others, but with so many new clubs struggling to include the words "home" and "exchange" in their web-addresses to optimise their search engine results, all the club URLs are now very similar, leading to a degree confusion. Some might claim that the more clubs there are, the greater the home exchange opportunities for all, but this is not necessarily the case for a number of reasons which I will try to clarify below.

As far as I can ascertain the number of home exchangers is not growing exponentially as fast as the number of home exchange clubs. As the home exchange market matures, just as copies are made of branded goods and offered at a much reduced price, so many of the new clubs are simply copying the style and format of long-established clubs, but whilst imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, because they need to grow a client base rapidly many choose to offer their services free of charge.

Now 'free' may seem to be good on the surface, but dig a little more deeply and you may begin to question if this is so. People who are not really serious about home exchange may register for free on the spur of the moment with a free club. Members who have paid for their listings with other established clubs may register with a number of the free clubs to spread their net more widely - we often receive communications from people who have forgotten which clubs they have actually registered with and so confusion reigns. Far more important considerations than whether or not the club is offering 'free' membership are whether or not their members' exchange success rate is high; whether their members are pro-active in seeking exchanges ie they do not just sit back and wait for offers; whether they have satisfied members ie their members renew their membership year on year.

What is really worrying about the new clubs offering 'free' membership for a limited period is that they may be here today, appear to succeed for a while, and be gone tomorrow when they discover that it takes much more time, comittment, energy and investment than they ever imagined to launch a successful home exchange club. If this is a potential exchangers first encounter with home exchange and they do not manage to arrange an exchange through such a club before it disappears they may be lost to the concept of home exchange travel for ever.

Now, from the above, you may think that the aim is to eliminate new competition. This is not so. Fair competition keeps us all on our toes. But some clubs are not always ethical - they have been known to register with other clubs under false names or email addresses in order to gain access to contact information so that they may solicit other clubs' members, or to try to poach other club's representatives.

As far as the more established clubs are concerned, some are consolidating by collaboration with or acquisition of other smaller clubs. Others choose to play the numbers game (a stance encouraged by journalists who always want to know how many listings a club has without regard to whether the listings are balanced, how long they have been in circulation with join and expiry dates shown, whether the numbers include rental offers too etc.) Others have extended the periods of membership offered, even including lifetime membership (one wonders how current these lifetime membership listings are). Others, of which Green Theme International Home Exchange is one, aim to provide the very best of services by constantly upgrading their web-sites and introducing innovative features.

So to return to the initial question, how to choose your home exchange club. The answer, of course, is with care. Study a club's web-site in depth, see if you like their proposition, the clarity of the information provided, and get a feel for the people behind it from the style of their communication.

• Be prepared to pay a modest subscription for the privilege of membership.
  
• Ascertain whether the club has built up a good reputation, been around a long time, been recommended by others, including the press/media?
  
• Is privacy important to you? If so, choose a closed site, open to members only, that has no visible contact information.
  
• Where do you live and where do you want to go? Most established clubs have worldwide listings, but some clubs may be stronger in particular areas than others.
  
• Some clubs offer a Reverse Search feature: which allows an exchanger to look for other exchangers who are interested in coming to their location.
  
• Do you have specific needs for your home exchange: eg pet care required, disabled access etc? Choose a club with Advanced Search features which enable you to select listings matching your specific criteria.
  

We hope, of course, that you will choose Green Theme International Home Exchange as your home exchange club.
You can rest assured that we will try to live up to your expectations.

Go Green with The Trainline European and International rail travel

In the GTI Home Exchange blog article Going Green on Home Exchange published in February, we suggested that for non-intercontinental travel it is a good idea to let the train take the strain because this produces fare less carbon emissions than other forms of transport. The drawback was that travel by train tends to be expensive, but passes are available which help reduce the costs. Eurail passes aren’t only good for slower, state-run trains. Customers also have access to privately owned, premier, high-speed trains in the countries their passes cover. For example, there’s Artesia between Italy and France; Thalys in Germany, Belgium, and France; and the Eurostar between England and France. Pass holders do need to pay a small fee for a seat reservation.

For United Kingdom based GTI Home Exchange members, TheTrainline have announced that they now offer European and International rail travel. Whether it’s an InterRail pass for backpacking through Europe or a luxury holiday in Australia they can cater for all international rail needs. See below for what’s included.

COMPETITION
To celebrate TheTrainline have teamed up with Rail Europe to offer 2 pairs of tickets* to one of the following destinations – Paris, Lille, Brussels, Calais or Disneyland Resort Paris®. To win simply email competitions@thetrainline.com with your answer to the following question:

Q. What is the capital of France?
- London
- Sydney
- Paris

Good luck and happy travelling!

THETRAINLINE EUROSTAR DEALS
Travel to Lille, Paris or Brussels and take in the delights of those beautiful cities.

Lille from £55pp
Paris from £59pp
Brussels from £59pp

INTERNATIONAL RAIL
Try out the new InterRail pass. Choose a single country or a global pass.

Europe rail pass
One country from £24**

USA passes
USA Amtrak Rail passes from £90**

Australia passes
Australia rail passes from £44**

UK based GTI members may book their Eurostar deal tickets or International rail passes from our Travel Partners page at TheTrainline.