Home Exchange for Vegas trips
I've done around 10 trips to Vegas from Northern Europe over the course of 15 years and I've always stayed in a hotel or a rented house. I'm considering something different for lodging for the next trip: doing a home exchange instead of a hotel or Airbnb. The resort fees are ever increasing and cost of literally everything else is up as well. Airbnb is a money pit as well. I very much like visiting Vegas for lowstakes poker, shows, great weather and good food but the value proposition is simply not that great anymore. I don't pretend to make money these trips when poker isn't even the main focus of the trip so it would be nice to save on something when everything else is more expensive than ever.
There are obviously websites for home exchanges but they come with fees and other hassle. Of course the upside with an official site is that people need to verify themselves, and that there might be some kind of insurance included. An embedded insurance is negative EV because the home is insured already, and I generally like the idea of cutting the middleman. If there are significant costs involved with an exchange, I'm tempted to just book a some cheap Caesars property for two weeks like we've done a few times. However, when traveling with the wife and a small kid, a strip hotel is not that tempting of an idea anymore.
I find the whole concept a bit of a double-edged sword:
+ Exchanging homes with a poker player (doesn't need to be a pro player) can be very easy when you both live in a city that has live poker. For example Vegas versus and a European capital. You don't need much "culture" when you have games running every day. And in a big city you always have other things to do as well.
- The downside of a home exchange is of course having to trust someone you don't know (and there are more than enough degens among poker players).
- You need to find a property of matching value. I would not trade a 1000 sq ft condo in a good area to a studio in a bad area. This is probably one thing that the exchange site try to solve by using some sort of point systems. But on the other hand i equate this to "hassle".
Has anyone tried a home exchange using the official sites or word of mouth for poker trips? How are your experiences on this?
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My mom has done this for many years and it has been absolutely awesome. She is not a wealthy woman. However she has a decent condo in Los Angeles, in a pretty good location. Nothing special, but semi-close to many tourist spots. Home exchanges enabled her to travel the world. Bali, Paris, all over Spain, Tunisia, Turkey and about a dozen more. At least in the past, a car was also part of the deal sometimes. I don't know if that is still the case. You can also save a lot of money by having a kitchen.
There have been few negative experiences and they were pretty minor. Like, in Hawaii, she thought the house was messy. One time someone issued a petty complaint against her. No theft or having to stay in a dangerous area or anything.
I wouldn't worry much about getting a "fair" exchange. That isn't the point of it. The point is to go to your desired destination and have a good time. She has stayed in places that would cost far more or far less than her own. You shouldn't stay at a studio apartment in a bad neighborhood. But that's because it would make for a crappy trip, not because it is an unequal exchange.
Edit: I would be far more comfortable going through a service than trusting some poker player to that degree.
