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[2017] Just Joined Marriott Vacation Club - Was it a good choice?

What is the equivalent USD value of a DC point when booking travel?


  • Total voters
    25
Hi all, I'm back on TUG for the first time in 2 years for selfish reasons again (seeking more advice about increasing ownership in another thread!) but I thought I'd check back here and just give a few updates.

- Since joining MVCI we've took trips to Marco Island (property is just ok but I have a cousin that lives there so it was a good trip), Newport Beach (pretty great), Ko Olina (awesome), and Ritz St Thomas (awesome too, and the island is good to go so highly recommend coming down). We also have trips coming up to Hilton Head (SurfWatch)-April/May, Tahoe (Timber Lodge)-August, Ritz Vail-February 2020, and then planning to use our Ocean Pointe week after that likely April/May 2020.
- We really couldn't be much happier with the MVCI points system. Mostly it's about the ease, flexibility, and units. It's so hard to find 2-bed/3-bed units through normal hotels. I travel a lot for work so have over a million Hilton and Marriott hotel points, but have a really hard time using those for family travel. Even on the rare occasion you can finagle your way into a presidential suite or something, you typically don't have 3 bedrooms and a full kitchen.
- The financial part of this makes sense for us too. For the heck of it I've kept track of what each of our MVCI trips would have cost on the interwebs, and on average our trips would cost about $1.40 per DC point. A couple of our trips avoided one of the weekend nights, e.g. a Sunday-Saturday trip, which helps with that calculation.

Thanks to SueDonJ, Saintsfanfl, JiminNC, Quilter, and everyone else that provided such great advice to us 2 years ago! Offer still stands on drinks in case we cross paths!
 
I think this IS that thread. Note it's 22 pages, starting Feb 2017.
 
I have read some of your 2017 thread in the beginning with 4k points now 8k you seem pretty happy and very much into the math like me.
I also noted many people suggested the Hybrid deeded week option.
My hybrid package gives me nearly 30k points and I am able to rent part of my points to cover all my MF's so I can travel on 16k for FREE. You recoup all your upfront cost very fast this way. even faster with lower MF's. To me the best of all worlds. With a hybrid the MF are only 30 cents per point vs .58 cents, and the total cost per point under $3.50.
 
I have read some of your 2017 thread in the beginning with 4k points now 8k you seem pretty happy and very much into the math like me.
I also noted many people suggested the Hybrid deeded week option.
My hybrid package gives me nearly 30k points and I am able to rent part of my points to cover all my MF's so I can travel on 16k for FREE. You recoup all your upfront cost very fast this way. even faster with lower MF's. To me the best of all worlds. With a hybrid the MF are only 30 cents per point vs .58 cents, and the total cost per point under $3.50.

If I'd known what I was ultimately going to spend on Maui fixed winter weeks, something like what you are doing would make more since...though I'd still have to make the AM calls to reserve my weeks.
 
Just saw that the OP GoldenVIKE now has approx. 40,000 available points (via a VPE point rental listing), so once he got in the game, he apparently got in big time. GoldenVIKE, if you are still active on TUG, how about an update of how you ended up with all of those points.
 
Just saw that the OP GoldenVIKE now has approx. 40,000 available points (via a VPE point rental listing), so once he got in the game, he apparently got in big time. GoldenVIKE, if you are still active on TUG, how about an update of how you ended up with all of those points.

As our second purchase, we ended up doing something similar to what GRCTahoe was describing. We purchased a hybrid that ended up being around 30,000 electable points for $3.77/pt and average $0.22 annual MFs. With what we originally purchased that gives us close to 40,000 total points now. That's more than we can use until we retire (another 20 years probably!) but renting out excess points on www.vacationpointexchange.com, www.ownertrades.com, and TUG has been pretty easy.

Arguably had I known about this second type of package initially, I would have just done that and not bought the original hybrid package (4000 DC points + enrolled week = 7850 points for $6.81/pt plus $0.49 annual MFs)... but doing that type of thing as a first purchase is probably not realistic given it's over $100k up front, and I'm not sure if MVCI would even agree to do that for someone that hasn't established a baseline first. (Good question for their SLC sales office) As it is, we're likely going to sell our 4000 DC points back and take a loss of around $20k on that piece of it

Knowing what I know now, here'd be my advice to new MVCI buyers:
  • For people that want to spend < $40k, and stay at the same handful of place(s): buy resale weeks and use II to trade if needed.
  • For people that want to spend < $40k and stay at many different places: buy resale points
  • For people that want to spend > $40k and stay at many different places: buy hybrid package from MVCI
  • For people willing to spend > $100k, stay different places, travel like a fiend, and justify ROI: call SLC office and inquire about the kind of thing GRCTahoe and I are describing.
 
And just to add to above, there are certainly other legit strategies of using MCVI too, which other posters have mentioned, like:
  • buy as few points as possible (like 1,000) and then just rent out more points from those points rental sites I mentioned
  • don't buy anything at all, and just rent off of redweek.com or similar sites
  • if you have lots of Marriott hotel points, just book MVC properties with those points and don't buy into MVCI
All of these things have pros and cons when it comes to things like booking windows, ability to get in-demand resorts/times/units/views, cost commitment up front, cost commitment in annual dues, how much time and effort is needed to manage system, and how much flexibility to you have in choosing specific data and knowing well in advance when you'll be traveling.

All that said, I don't really see too many scenarios where buying as straight DC points package direct from MVCI is the BEST option for anyone.
 
As our second purchase, we ended up doing something similar to what GRCTahoe was describing. We purchased a hybrid that ended up being around 30,000 electable points for $3.77/pt and average $0.22 annual MFs.
Looking through the maintenance fees/points for deeded weeks, I could only see 1 or 2 places with $0.22/point. Did you buy only platinum plus week deeds?
 
Looking through the maintenance fees/points for deeded weeks, I could only see 1 or 2 places with $0.22/point. Did you buy only platinum plus week deeds?

Exactly--in addition to platinum plus type weeks, some of the fractionals at Grand Residence Club in Tahoe have very low MFs. There are a couple of timeshare resale brokers in the Lake Tahoe area that list a number of these deeds for resale if you're looking for some examples. Our package was a fractional at GRC and a week 52 at St Kitts.
 
We just bought a similar hybrid deal 3,000 points plus a week at Ocean Pointe that converts to 4325 points for $6.81 a point MF feed approx .48 point.

I just read through this thread and other threads and it helped confirm our decision to buy this way particularly since the resale points are approximately the same priced per point.

For the enrolled week I was wondering what the potential downsides are? Here’s my list.
1. Exposed to more risk from potential MF increases since its isolated to one property rather than the entire trusts.
2. Potentially different inventory.
3. Unable to resale to another person and keep the enrolled option.

Anything else that I’m missing as potential negatives.

Also a big thank you to Goldenvike and others who contributed to this thread. It should be a must read for any person consider seeing ownership.
 
We just bought a similar hybrid deal 3,000 points plus a week at Ocean Pointe that converts to 4325 points for $6.81 a point MF feed approx .48 point.

I just read through this thread and other threads and it helped confirm our decision to buy this way particularly since the resale points are approximately the same priced per point.

For the enrolled week I was wondering what the potential downsides are? Here’s my list.
1. Exposed to more risk from potential MF increases since its isolated to one property rather than the entire trusts.
2. Potentially different inventory.
3. Unable to resale to another person and keep the enrolled option.

Anything else that I’m missing as potential negatives.

Also a big thank you to Goldenvike and others who contributed to this thread. It should be a must read for any person consider seeing ownership.

This is awesome to see other new owners getting benefit from this thread! The MVCI salespeople have a monopoly on information vs. their marks (i mean customers) so if this helps some of those customers be more educated and get better deals, then that's great! As to the risks:

1. agree in concept but the trust MFs are so high, this seems a pretty low overall risk.
2. not sure what you mean by this. when you convert an enrolled week to points, those points work exactly as DC trust points would work.
3. i don't think resale value should ever be factored in when buying a TS (just assume $0)

The only other major drawback i see of an enrolled week vs. trust points is potential exposure to property losses (special assessments) that are more pronouced for individual resort ownership and more diluted for trust ownership.

All that said, I'd guess you probably paid $3-5/pt plus $0.30-$0.40 MFs for the deeded week at OP, so even if some of these risks are legit, they're more than offset by the up front and perpetual MF savings that you get.

Nice job that's a great deal! And also noteworthy they sold an enrolled week worth more than the points you bought. In the past, they've sometimes stuck to a rule that you can only buy an enrolled week worth UP TO as many DC points that you bought.
 
clarification: property losses = fires, hurricanes, earthquakes, etc - so most relevant to places on major EQ faults and in FL, St Thomas, St Kitts, etc.
 
Nice job that's a great deal! And also noteworthy they sold an enrolled week worth more than the points you bought. In the past, they've sometimes stuck to a rule that you can only buy an enrolled week worth UP TO as many DC points that you bought.

My understanding (not personally confirmed) has always been that the "matching points" rule for the enrolled weeks bought from Marriott Resales was capped at 3000. So If the resale week you are buying is worth 2500 points you have to buy at least 2500. But if the week is worth 4000 you only have to buy 3000. JGo80's post would seem to confirm that 3000 Trust points is the max requirement.
 
doh, i wish i'd have known that when we bought our 4000 points + 3850 enrolled hybrid in 2017. our salespeople definitely suggested we cant buy an enrolled week worth more than 4000 points at the time, but it's very possible that they just forgot to tell the truth.
 
My understanding (not personally confirmed) has always been that the "matching points" rule for the enrolled weeks bought from Marriott Resales was capped at 3000. So If the resale week you are buying is worth 2500 points you have to buy at least 2500. But if the week is worth 4000 you only have to buy 3000. JGo80's post would seem to confirm that 3000 Trust points is the max requirement.

It all depends on what Marriott is willing to do at the time to make the sale. When I began negotiating with Marriott during my Hybrid weeks purchase (Aruba week instead of 3000 points) they told me my resale week that I chose would have to be equal to or less than the points of my Aruba week. A week or two later after I was still on the fence about the purchase, I was told that I could select ANY resale week. I went to sticky here on TUG and looked at what the point value was for every week on the list and outside of Hawaii which had the higher maintenance fees and Crystal Shores, Ocean Pointe had the highest points election for a 2 bedroom platinum at 5375 DC points. This was a deal because maintenance fees for Ocean Pointe are .32 per point this year Ocean Pointe 2 bedroom OF as opposed to .58 per point DC points.

The OP paid under $7 per point which is good. Resale would be $4 per point plus add on Marriott’s junk fee of $3 and it would have been $7
 
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I was told it was a special offer that they were allowing to exceed the cap of points. I may have been able to buy less points with the hybrid deal but didn’t press after I was offered this deal. We basically told them that if we can’t make a purchase for around $7 a point we weren’t interested. I wish we would have had started in the beginning here, we would have had more time to peruse the list of available weeks. This one seemed to have the best point value and MF’s front m the ones on the list.
 
It all depends on what Marriott is willing to do at the time to make the sale. When I began negotiating with Marriott during my Hybrid weeks purchase (Aruba week instead of 3000 points) they told me my resale week that I chose would have to be equal to or less than the points of my Aruba week. A week or two later after I was still on the fence about the purchase, I was told that I could select ANY resale week. I went to sticky here on TUG and looked at what the point value was for every week on the list and outside of Hawaii which had the higher maintenance fees and Crystal Shores, Ocean Pointe had the highest points election for a 2 bedroom platinum at 5375 DC points. This was a deal because maintenance fees for Ocean Pointe are .35 per pointe this year Ocean Pointe 2 bedroom as opposed to .58 per point DC points.

The OP paid under $7 per point which is good. Resale would be $4 per point plus add on Marriott’s junk fee of $3 and it would have been $7

Minor clarification . . .

It's 5375 DC points for a 2 bedroom Oceanfront. M/f's for 2020 are $1735.16, making it $.3228 per DC point. The oceanside is only 4325 DC points. Same m/f so each DC point is $.40119.

It's hard to give up those oceanfronts for DC points.
 
Minor clarification . . .

It's 5375 DC points for a 2 bedroom Oceanfront. M/f's for 2020 are $1735.16, making it $.3228 per DC point. The oceanside is only 4325 DC points. Same m/f so each DC point is $.40119.

It's hard to give up those oceanfronts for DC points.

Thank you for pointing out that maintenance fee error. I corrected it in my post. I used the 2018 maintenance fee instead of the 2019 (not 2020) reduced maintenance fee. I am used to that number going up and not down. :).

I am okay with giving up an ocean front if I can receive one. I will be ocean front at Oceanwatch next summer and I am 700 DC points ahead. I can extend my stay there. :)
 
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Established industry participants like Marriott will not do something that will dramatically increase market transparency because doing so has the potential to kill their golden goose. This type of asymmetric thinking has to come from a new market participant. But the timeshare industry is not glamorous and we have not yet seen a new creative player who has tried this yet. Until then, we will have a small group of informed timeshare owners who use this lack of information transparency to significantly maximize their resale timeshare holdings and experiences as many on TUG do. The vast majority will have only themselves to blame, as SueDonJ points out, for not educating themselves and understanding what they were getting into. As always, caveat emptor.

Lack of transparency is absolutely key to their sales approach. I just recently went down for a sales presentation on an offer of 3 nights for $199 if we sit through the presentation. Before going down, I asked was there any literature or anything I could look at before coming down, things like how many points to reserve this week at this resort. Nope, your sales rep will go through that at the time of the presentation. But I'm a person that likes to do a lot of research - I'm much more likely to buy if I think I thoroughly understand the product. Nope, we just don't have anything like that.
So during the presentation I asked, do you have a book that I can look at to show how many points for this week at this resort. No, we don't have any of those here. Apparently didn't have it in PDF either, or they didn't volunteer it.
I'm sure part of the thought process is if there are lots of details, the potential buyer will be confused and overwhelmed and end up leaving without buying. And somebody like me that wouldn't have been confused probably wouldn't end up buying any way.
I probably could have done more research before attending, but I think that even the resale market for Marriott is too expensive, so justifying a developer purchase would have been nearly impossible. So I didn't know off the top of my head how many points it would take to book a week in Orlando for a 2 BR during regular summer season (not independence day). (It's 2450 points at the cheapest Marriott resort in Orlando, one of the Royal Palms or Imperial Palms family). The salesman told me I could book Cypress Harbour for a week for about 1000 points. Actually, I'm pretty sure I can't. If I'm reading the chart correctly, it takes 1750 points for the lowest cost week, which would be the period 5/3 through 6/6 or 12/6 through 12/19.
 
but I think that even the resale market for Marriott is too expensive,

I guess it depends on what you compare it to. If you compare it to other large hotel/brand-affiliated programs like HGVC, DVC, Westin, Sheraton, Hyatt, etc. , Marriott Vacation Club resales are priced in the same ballpark. Yes, they are more expensive than many of the other non-branded timeshares out there, many of which can be acquired for free, but there is value in the brand on the sign for many folks, and the upside is when you own these branded properties, when you want to sell, there will probably still be value there for potential buyers.
 
Lack of transparency is absolutely key to their sales approach. I just recently went down for a sales presentation on an offer of 3 nights for $199 if we sit through the presentation. Before going down, I asked was there any literature or anything I could look at before coming down, things like how many points to reserve this week at this resort. Nope, your sales rep will go through that at the time of the presentation. But I'm a person that likes to do a lot of research - I'm much more likely to buy if I think I thoroughly understand the product. Nope, we just don't have anything like that.
So during the presentation I asked, do you have a book that I can look at to show how many points for this week at this resort. No, we don't have any of those here. Apparently didn't have it in PDF either, or they didn't volunteer it.
I'm sure part of the thought process is if there are lots of details, the potential buyer will be confused and overwhelmed and end up leaving without buying. And somebody like me that wouldn't have been confused probably wouldn't end up buying any way.
I probably could have done more research before attending, but I think that even the resale market for Marriott is too expensive, so justifying a developer purchase would have been nearly impossible. So I didn't know off the top of my head how many points it would take to book a week in Orlando for a 2 BR during regular summer season (not independence day). (It's 2450 points at the cheapest Marriott resort in Orlando, one of the Royal Palms or Imperial Palms family). The salesman told me I could book Cypress Harbour for a week for about 1000 points. Actually, I'm pretty sure I can't. If I'm reading the chart correctly, it takes 1750 points for the lowest cost week, which would be the period 5/3 through 6/6 or 12/6 through 12/19.
Yes the resale market for Marriott is higher. Especially in regards to DC points. There are other options to buying into a program besides MVC. I own Vistana in mandatory resort so I get the ability to use star options to book in Vistana network. Also that comes with interval membership and I just booked a 2 bedroom in MVC grand vista prime week getaway for 375 bucks this week through interval. You don’t need to own MVC to get into MVC especially in Orlando! Interval getaways is cheaper than annual fees on points and you can pretty much always count on Orlando availability. If you wanted only Orlando, I’d suggest looking into DVC. Everyone loves their DVC membership.
 
Yes the resale market for Marriott is higher. Especially in regards to DC points. There are other options to buying into a program besides MVC. I own Vistana in mandatory resort so I get the ability to use star options to book in Vistana network. Also that comes with interval membership and I just booked a 2 bedroom in MVC grand vista prime week getaway for 375 bucks this week through interval. You don’t need to own MVC to get into MVC especially in Orlando! Interval getaways is cheaper than annual fees on points and you can pretty much always count on Orlando availability. If you wanted only Orlando, I’d suggest looking into DVC. Everyone loves their DVC membership.

Valid point about Orlando. I wasn't sure if SabresFan was interested in going to Orlando or was just using that as an example. No need to spend a lot of money if all you want to do is go to Orlando. Even the quality places are easy to get there. We own HGVC in Orlando, but only because in HGVC points are points and home resort priority desert mean as much as in other systems - so we bought where we could get into HGVC at the best price. No need or plans to go to Orlando any time soon. We did the annual Disney thing when the kids were young - been there, done that, got the mouse ears. Never again - unless we have grandkids some day before we get too old.
 
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