Tag: exchange agreement

Arranging an exchange, Home exchange guide

Starting An Exchange Agreement

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You’ve searched and contacted and chatted online with lots of nice people and now you have found exactly the right partner for this year’s exchange. You are ready to start the exchange agreement? This article is for you.

Starting the Exchange Agreement

Before you get started, have a look at your member home page and be sure that your listing is marked as available for exchange.
Be sure your listing is still available for exchange.

You will find the Exchange Agreements section of our site by scrolling down in the member navigation to the My Membership section and click on Exchange Agreements.

Screenshot of the ongoing exchange agrements page

From here on it’s pretty straightforward. If there is not an agreement already started by your partner, the only thing you’ll need to get one started is your exchange partner’s listing id. At the top of the Exchanges overview page, you should see the blue “Start Exchange Agreement button”. Click on it…

Start Agreement via Listing ID

First, you will see the legal text for your agreement after that, you can choose to search for your partner’s listing via their listing id, or if they are already on your favorites list, you can look there.

Screenshot - First steps in starting your next exchange agreement

Start Agreement via Favorites

In this tab, you will find each of the listings in your Favorites. Each favorite will have either a tag explaining why it is not possible to start an exchange agreement with that listing (expired or trial member for instance) or else it will have a Start Exchange Agreement link.

Screenshot - Finding your partner on your favorites list.

Clicking the Start Exchange button will create your exchange agreement and, moreover, it will automatically fill in your name and address as well as your partner’s name and address. Your partner will be notified that you have started the agreement process. You will see a new ongoing agreement card on your Exchanges overview page.

The Ongoing Agreement Card

This screen is your control panel for the progress of your exchange agreement. Just by starting, you are already 20% finished.

The next step is to click the “Edit Your Terms” button and fill in the form. Please be sure that you add at least one participant (yourself, for instance). Also, add the dates you will be arriving and leaving your partner’s home.

Member Questions

 What does that mean: Use “n/a” if the field does not apply to your situation.?

The abbreviation “n/a” is commonly used in English and it stands for “not applicable” (does not apply) or “no answer”. For the purposes of our exchange agreement, you can also use a “–” or any other abbreviation common in your language. The main thing is you should not leave any of the text fields blank.

Arranging an exchange, Home exchange guide

Filling out your Exchange Agreement Form

intervacwebmaster

Filling out the form

Ok, first off, I’m going to go through the whole agreement form in this post. It is a bit long, but I hope this helps you with your next exchange agreeement.

Contact Details

Screenshot - Partner Information on Exchange Agreement

Having chosen your partner and clicked the Start Exchange Agreement button our system made one of these forms for you and one for your partner. You can see here that it has automatically filled in both of your names and contact information. You can choose to show your email address and/or mobile phone number on your working exchange agreement. This information will only be displayed here. It will not be visible to other members or your exchange partner via the contact information on your listing.

Holiday Dates [required]

Screenshot - Holiday Dates on Exchange Agreement
In the next section you should give the dates you will be staying in your partner’s home. Remember, your partner’s form is independent of yours so be sure to put the dates you are planning to be there. Your exchange partner should put the dates they are planning to be in your home.

Member Questions

Member Question Question: What if it is a non-simultaneous exchange and one party doesn’t know their dates yet?

The form requires that you add dates in order to save it. Since non-simultaneous exchange usually requires more planning, we recommend you choose something close. You will be keeping in touch with your exchange partner anyway.

Member Question Question: I am having trouble getting the dates to work. What am I doing wrong?

Exchange dates calendar
These date-picker calendars on the web all work slightly differently and that can be troublesome. Here is what you need to do to use ours:

  1. Click on the white date field (highlighted with a blue frame).
  2. Set the year by clicking on the year – it will give you a menu to choose from.
  3. Choose the month via the little dark triangles in the gray Month bar (first red arrow)
  4. Then choose on the day that you want by clicking on it.
  5. The date-picker calendar will disappear and the year, month and date you chose will appear in the box.

Exchange Participants [required]

Screenshot of exchange participants section of the exchange agreement
This is where you list all of the people who will be staying in your partner’s home. You will not be able to save your form if you do not have at least one person in this section.

The new form loads with space for one participant. To add another one participant, click the grey button “Add a Participant”. Fill in the name and age of the next person traveling with you.

To remove someone from your party, just click the red “trash” button next to the name of the person who will not be accompanying you after all.

About our Cars

Screenshot of our cars section of the exchange agreement
Next, you’ll find a text box where you can write any important details about your car. If you need more room to write, just click and drag on that little “handlebar” in the lower right-hand corner of the text box.

Some things that you might want to mention are:

  • Where you will leave your car keys and where your partner should put them when they go home.
  • The condition of your gas tank when your partner arrives and when they leave.
  • Whether or not you expect your partner to wash or vacuum the car before they leave.
  • If you have more than one car, which one(s) are available for your partner’s use.
  • Other insurance details beyond the scope of the checkbox.

Telephone and Internet


Update: This section used to be called “Regarding Long Distance Calls” but has been changed to better reflect how members are using it. (March, 2014)

Some things you might want to clarify here are:

  • Whether your partner may use your phone for making toll calls and how payment for them is to be handled.
  • The availability of Internet and any connected costs + how payment for these is to be handled.
  • Where you will leave the wifi credentials. For security reasons, please don’t leave them in your exchange agreement.

Special Cleaning Requests

Screenshot of Cleaning Requests section of the Exchange Agreement

In this box members often write about:

  • Linens: Should your partner wash them before they leave? Change the beds? Do you prefer to do this yourself?
  • Yard work/plant watering that needs to be done while you are away.
  • Where your partner can find cleaning supplies.

Regarding Keys to My Home

Screenshot of Regarding Keys to Our Home section of the Exchange Agreement

That one is pretty clear. This is the place to arrange pick-up and drop-off of keys.

Regarding Pets

Screenshot of the Regarding Pets section of the Exchange Agreement

Anything you want to agree with your partner about taking care of your pets?

  • Location of pet food.
  • Number of times a day to feed pets.
  • Exercise schedule (how many times a day Fido needs to go outside and where his leash is kept).

Other Special Requests

Screenshot of other special requests section of the Exchange Agreement

What have we missed in the list above? This is the place to mention it.

Stipulations

Screenshot of stipulations section of the Exchange Agreement

Three easy checkboxes to give your partner explicit permission to use your linens (or not), to bring their guests into your home (or not), and to bring their own pets.

After that, it’s time to save your form – and that is all this button does. It does not send your terms to your partner but assumes that your agreement is a draft. When you are ready to send your terms to your partner for review, you will find a button on the Exchanges Overview page.

Arranging an exchange, Home exchange guide

Sending & Reviewing Terms

intervacwebmaster

Sending and reviewing terms and conditions

You’ve filled out your form and you are all ready to send your terms to your partner for review.

Sending Your Terms To Your Partner

You can do this from the Member Home navigation. Scroll down to My Memberships > Exchange Agreements > Then click the View link near the agreement you want to send.

Screenshot of an ongoing agreement ready to send terms to a partner
Clicking the blue “Send to partner” button will send your partner an email to let them know that the exchange process is moving along and that you are ready for them to read the terms you filled in.

Member Questions

Member Question Question: I am unable to edit my terms. What am I doing wrong?

Because of the back-and-forth nature of exchange agreements, our system keeps a lock on each form allowing only one party at a time “edit” access. When you send your terms to your partner, your partner receives “edit” access – by which they are only able to Accept or Decline what you have written. They can not make changes to your text.

If you need to make a change at this stage, it’s best to contact your partner and ask them to decline the term you want to change and send the agreement back to you for edits.

Reviewing Your Partner’s Terms

When your partner is ready for you to review their terms, you’ll see a button in the box for your Partner’s Terms.

Screenshot of an ongoing agreement ready to review the partner's terms

Click the button and you will see the form that your partner filled out. Underneath each item is a set of buttons. Each of your terms is shown to your partner with two buttons “Accept” and “Deny”.

Screenshot of an ongoing agreement ready to accept or decline the partner's terms

To signal your approval with each set of terms that your partner has written, click the “Accept” button.

Not In Agreement? Have a Question?

If you are not in agreement with something your partner has written, or more likely, if you have questions, use the “Decline” button. When you click it, you have the opportunity to write a note to your partner

Screenshot after clicking the Decline button

… and that note will show up next to the title of the category when they look at their terms.

Member Question Your partner will also receive an email that there were updates to an exchange agreement process as well as notification message on their member overview page the next time they login.

Once you have made changes to your terms based on any suggestions your partner has, be sure to save the form and send your terms to your partner via the blue Send to Partner button again.

Late Editing Your Terms

It is important that your terms are clear and you are satisfied with them. So, don’t be shy about making changes back and forth up until your agreement is signed.

Once your partner has accepted all your terms though if you want to make changes to them – you will need to click the Unlock Agreement button in the upper right-hand corner of your agreement form. This button is a reminder that any changes you make to already accepted terms will set the process back and require that you send your terms again for your partner to review and accept.

/blog.intervac.one/assets/pages/guide/exchange_agreement-unlock_agreement.png

Once you and your partner have reached an agreement, and you’ve accepted each other’s terms it is time to get on with Signing Your Exchange Agreement.

Arranging an exchange, Home exchange guide

Finalizing Your Exchange Agreement

intervacwebmaster

Finalizing your agreement

Once you and your partner have reviewed each other’s terms and accepted the conditions your agreement is ready to finalize. You can tell that it’s time when the green “Review and Sign Agreement” button shows up.

Screenshot of an exchange agreement ready to sign

Remember, if you want to edit your own terms, you must first click the red Unlock Agreement button in the upper right-hand corner of the form. Any changes to your terms will set the process back and require you to send your terms to your partner for agreement again.

Reviewing the Agreement

Clicking the “Review and Sign Agreement” button will show you again the agreement, but this time in full with your dates and conditions as well as your partner’s – all in a single, printable document.
Screenshot of an exchange agreement ready to sign

Finalizing the Agreement

Screenshot of the exchange agreement sign button

In this screenshot, you can see that the agreement form keeps you up-to-date with the process by giving you a button to “Sign the Agreement” and also telling you, in the blue box, that your partner has not signed the agreement yet.

Or, in the green box, that you partner did already sign.

Cancellation?

Even though one of you has signed, it is still possible to cancel the agreement.

As soon as both parties have signed, the cancel button is no longer available and the agreement is moved
from:
Exchange Agreements > Overview
to:
Exchange Agreements > Future Vacations.

You can view and print the agreement any time you like but you can no longer cancel it.

I hope you have found this series helpful and wish you happy home exchanging!

Home exchange guide, Your Listing

Understanding References

intervacwebmaster

We get a lot of questions about exchange references. At first glance, it seems like references should be easy, doesn’t it? If ours are a little bit complicated it is because a reference requires an agreement between you and your partner. Let’s begin with what our references functionality does and what it doesn’t do.

Our references functionality does:

  • Allow you to decide which of your partner’s listing numbers appear on your listing.
  • Allow you to decide for whom of your partners you are willing to provide a reference.

It does not:

  • Allow you or your partner to place comments about the exchange on your listing.

How To Get References

If you have filled in and “signed” an exchange agreement the system will handle this for you. After you return from your holiday you will see your partner listed in your references section and “Act as Reference” will automatically be marked Yes. If you prefer not to provide a reference for your partner, you will want to change this to No.

Screenshot of the References page

Assuming your partner would like to provide a reference for you, in order to show their listing in your References section, you will need to also check the “Allow as Reference” checkbox.

Important: A reference will only appear on a listing if both parties have agreed. This is the functionality behind Act as Reference and to Allow as Reference.

If the system tells you it is awaiting approval, it is because your partner has not agreed to allow you as a reference. The best thing to do is to contact your partner and ask them to take action on their side.

But, We Didn’t Have an Exchange Agreement

No problem, in case you forgot to finish it or had trouble with the exchange agreement, you don’t have to go without a reference from your partner. You can request it manually via the References page.

How To Request a Reference

  1. In the My Membership section of the navigation click on References.
  2. Enter the member number of the Intervac member with whom you made your exchange.
  3. Click the button “Send request”.

The system will send an email to your exchange partner asking them to confirm. After they click the link in the email the reference will appear on your listing.

Member Questions

 But, what if I don’t want to be a reference for my partner?

No problem, via Act as Reference you can choose, for every exchange for which you have a reference, if you are willing to allow your listing id to be displayed on their references list.

And if I don’t want my partner acting as a reference for me?

If you don’t want the one of your partners listed as an exchange reference, just uncheck the Allow Reference box and their listing id will not be displayed on your references list anymore.

Arranging an exchange, Home exchange guide

Exchange Agreement Questions

intervacwebmaster

Exchange agreements - Collected Questions

Starting An Agreement

What does that mean: Use “n/a” if the field does not apply to your situation.?

The abbreviation “n/a” is commonly used in English and it stands for “not applicable” (does not apply) or “no answer”. For the purposes of our exchange agreement, you can also use a “–” or any other abbreviation common in your language. The main thing is none of the text fields may be left blank.

Filling Out the Form

 Question: What if it is a non-simultaneous exchange and one party doesn’t know their dates yet?

The form requires that you add dates in order to save it. Since non-simultaneous exchange usually requires more planning, we recommend you choose something close. You will be keeping in touch with your exchange partner anyway.

Question: I am having trouble getting the dates to work. What am I doing wrong?

Screenshot of the date-picker calendar
These date-picker calendars on the web all work slightly differently and that can be troublesome. Here is what you need to do to use ours:

  1. Click in the white date field (highlighted with a blue frame).
  2. Set the year by clicking on the year – it will give you a menu to choose from.
  3. Choose the month via the little dark triangles in the gray Month bar (first red arrow)
  4. Then choose on the day that you want by clicking on it.
  5. The date-picker calendar will disappear and the year, month and date you chose will appear in the box.

Sending and Reviewing Terms

Question: I am unable to edit my terms. What am I doing wrong?

Because of the back-and-forth nature of exchange agreements our system keeps a lock on each form allowing only one party at a time “edit” access. When you send your terms to your partner, your partner receives “edit” access – by which they are only able to Accept or Decline what you have written. They can not make changes to your text.

If you need to make a change at this stage, it’s best to contact your partner and ask them to decline the term you want to change and send the agreement back to you for edits.

Signing Your Exchange Agreement

No questions so far… If you have one, leave a comment.