Yikes! My inexperience is painfully obvious- while i haven't had any need for ongoing searches, "bulk banking" is totally foreign to me. I really need to read more on TUG. I appreciate all the suggestions regarding the different locations, though it is apparent I need to become much more "savvy" real quick if I hope to be successful acquiring a week next July. Thanks again for all posts.
Bulk banking means that the resort puts in a whole bunch of weeks that the resort chooses, basically. Usually it means that when an owner calls to reserve their week, it has basically been pre-deposited and the resort just assigns a deposited week to the owner.
Often it means that owners can't really choose what week they would like to deposit, they just have to take what the resort gives them. On the flip side, if a person decides to deposit very close to their use period, they will get the advantage of having a week that has been sitting with RCI for a while, rather than a late deposit.
On the exchange side, it often can play out that a resort will not deposit prime weeks, but save them for owners who actually want to use them rather than exchangers.
If it was me, personally, I would be calling the resorts that you are thinking of exchanging into or their management company and asking what their policy is. And even if there are some summer weeks deposited, you really should start an ongoing search ASAP, as it is quite likely a lot of people want those weeks. Not likely prime weeks will make through all the people standing in line for them to show up online.
I hope my explanation doesn't sound too simplistic. THere's lots of discussion here on TUG about the pros/cons of bulk banking but it mainly relates to owners who like it or don't - not so much about the impacts on trying to get your exchange.
And as previously mentioned, I really hope your plans come through.
Bev