One timeshare week, two families: alternate years or split the week

Two families can share one timeshare week in two ways. Either one household takes the whole week and the other takes it the following year, or both go every year and the week gets cut in two. Most families pick one in about a minute, usually at a holiday dinner, and find out a few years later what they actually agreed to.

This post is the mechanics. The money side, what the week costs a night and what a second household does to that figure, is in what a timeshare week costs per night. Here the question is how the week gets divided, and how to decide who goes first without someone feeling cheated in year four.

Option one: alternate years

One family takes the even years, the other takes the odd ones. Each gets a full week every second year, each pays half the fee every year, and there is exactly one check-in and one check-out per year. Nobody has to coordinate a handover, clean up for the next family, or agree on who gets the bigger bedroom.

It suits families who would rather have a real week every other year than a short trip every year. It is also the only version that works when the two households live far apart or have kids on different school calendars, because each year only one of them has to make the dates work.

The cost is the gap. Two years between visits is a long time for small children, and a family that skips its year for a wedding or a move can go four years without seeing the place unless there is a rule for swaps.

Option two: split the week

Both families go every year. One takes the first four nights, the other the last three, and the bill is divided by nights, so the four-night family pays four sevenths. Next year the halves flip, so nobody is always stuck with the shorter stay.

On paper it is fairer. In practice it runs into the resort. Many resorts have one check-in day a week, so the second family arrives midweek to a unit nobody has cleaned. Some will book a midweek clean for a fee. Some will not check in anyone who is not the owner without a guest certificate, and some charge for that too. Call the resort and ask both questions before agreeing to split, because the answers decide whether this option exists at all.

There is a third version that skips the problem: both families go together for the whole week. That needs a unit with enough bedrooms and two households who enjoy seven days in the same kitchen. Where that is true it is the best deal of the three. Where it is not, nobody suggests it twice.

The even years are not always the good ones

A fixed week is a number, not a date. Week 27 on the resort calendar starts on a Saturday that moves a day or two earlier each year and then jumps forward a week every five or six years. So whether a given week holds a holiday changes from year to year, and it does not follow even and odd.

Here is week 27 worked out on the site's timeshare week calendar, Saturday check-in, with the even and odd years marked as if one family had each.

Over these eight years week 27 holds the Fourth in 4 of 8 years, two for each family. That is balanced, but only by luck, and only across the whole stretch. If the arrangement ends after 2032, the even family has had the holiday in two of its three turns and the odd family in one. With a different week number, or a different holiday, the split can lean one way for a decade.

Deal the years, do not just flip for them

Even and odd is easy to remember, which is its whole appeal. A fairer method takes ten minutes. List the next eight years, mark the ones with the holiday in them, and let the families take turns choosing years until all eight are taken, with the family that chose second in the first round choosing first in the second. Write the result down with both names on it. That is the schedule, and it is good until the list runs out, when you do it again.

The same method works for a split week. Mark which years the front half holds the holiday and deal those years out first. Then the halves fill in around them.

Agree on these before the first year

• Which option. Alternate years, split nights, or go together, and what you switch to if the resort will not allow a midweek check-in.
• The year list. Eight or ten years, each with a family's name next to it, written down and kept by both households.
• Swaps. A family that gives up its year gets one back, and the list says which. A swap is one year, not a change to the rule.
• Banking and exchange. Whose decision it is in a year nobody can go, and the date it has to be made by.
• The bill. Split evenly every year under alternating years, or by nights under a split, and paid before the fee is due.
• Leaving. How much notice a family gives, and what happens to years it has already been dealt.

If more than two households are involved, or the place is a whole cabin rather than one week, the problem gets bigger but the same tools apply. Three siblings sharing a lake house is that version, and the guide to sharing a cabin covers the setup.

The list is the part that gets lost

Nobody fights over the first year. The trouble comes in year five, when one family swapped away 2029 and the other remembers it differently, or the holiday has drifted and someone notices they have not had it since the kids were small. A list on paper fixes that only if both families can find it.

AllDibs keeps that list where both families see it. Each household gets its weeks, swaps are recorded as they happen, and the calendar shows whose year it is. Look up your week number first. If the holiday years fall unevenly, deal them out by name and put the week on AllDibs so the years stay divided the way you agreed. It is free for your first five items.