The most obvious pitfall that you face when trying to rent out your timeshare week is failing to find a taker. Advertising on Web sites and in newspaper classified sections can easily cost you $100 or more, and that will be money that you lose in addition to the lost time on your unit, for which you will already have paid in mortgage and maintenance fees.

It can be worth the gamble if you do your homework and price your unit competitively, but you must be prepared to eat the marketing costs should you end up advertising for renters during a peak time when the market is even more crowded than usual. There is no way of knowing when these peak times might be, so you will simply be at the mercy of the marketplace.

Another pitfall to watch out for is trying to rent out a week for which you have exchanged. In other words, if you own a week's worth of timeshare use at a resort in Orlando, and you trade it for a week's worth of timeshare use at a resort in Phoenix — and then try to rent out that week in Phoenix — your exchange company can ban you from all future exchanges for the rest of your timeshare ownership. Would you always get caught? Not necessarily. But do you want to take the risk and put the entirety of your timeshare ownership on the line? Most definitely not.