I was fortunate to find two super convenient and comfy home exchanges for my holiday travels this year. Neither were simultaneous exchanges. But while traveling we hosted a couple in our home. I started trying to diagram these points-based exchanges and went down a rabbit hole of daisy chained swaps. The holiday home exchanges related to my travels looked something like this:
Each color circle represents a different family, we are in blue
Not pictured: the woman who lives in the condo in San Diego and the woman who lives in the condo in Palm Springs. I’m pretty sure the folks whose homes we stayed in were just out of town visiting family and not staying in a home exchange. But by looking at the reviews written and received on the Home Exchange network I can quickly see that the chain of swaps goes backwards from us.
The Oregon couple who stayed in our home hosted a couple from Las Vegas. And the Las Vegas couple hosted a family from Atlanta. This was all basically overlapping. And it looks like that Atlanta family traveled from Las Vegas to Flagstaff to Joshua Tree to Fresno and then back to Las Vegas, all on home swap points. I don’t think the Atlanta family hosted anyone during this time on the HE network but they might have hosted on another network. And I could continue this diagram looking backwards at the people who hosted them. Perhaps those folks also stayed in a home swap network over the 2019 holidays.
This is how home exchange points should work. And it’s pretty fun to see it in action. I also want to point out that all of the reviews for all of these people were excellent. Everyone hosting and traveling ended up very happy with their experiences. I know that sometimes things go wrong, expectations aren’t met, and people are sad about this. But that is the exception in a community that is mostly super respectful and friendly.