Question about Interval Bonus Weeks

[SanDiegoDana]

Howdy!

I am a Marriott (Points and Weeks) owner and so I get an Interval account as a result, but TBH I have never _used_ it.

Well, Interval keeps giving me these certificates and apparently I have like 6 saved up or something.
I only know this because I have received a phone call from a group (apparently rentmytimenow dot-com) who wants me to pay them to sell those weeks for me (the idea apparently is they will give me $2000/week for each of them, but I have to pay them $399/week to do it all for me. They want me to pay up front and I get the money in 60-90 days. SOOOOO many alarm bells going off in my head )

As I know nothing of Interval and these week certificates: is this (yet another) scammer? Do these things have value? Should I get rid of them some other way?
(As I have never used them, it would be nice to get a valuable return on them, but I have no idea how to evaluate this kind of offer....)

Thanks for any suggestions or advice

 

[SanDiegoDana]

I only know this because I have received a phone call from a group (apparently rentmytimenow dot-com)

Also: Insert here my general annoyance with Interval that they would sell my info about this kind of thing to a third party

 

[BJRSanDiego]

It is a classic scam that has been around for years. You pay and then get nothing.

Also, it is against interval's T&Cs. If caught they could suspend your membership and cancel the reservations.

 

[VacationForever]

First of all, you are correct that it is a known scam that they call owners and tell them that they would rent out their bonus/free weeks etc for a tidy profit. First of all, II does not allow rentals exchanged or booked through them with bonus or getaway weeks.

We all get free Accommodation ceritificates which you can pay a small sum, usually $250 to $350 per week to book excess inventory - summer week in Palm Desert for instance. The value is that you can use them for a low fee. You are not allowed to rent them out.

 

[VacationForever]

Also: Insert here my general annoyance with Interval that they would sell my info about this kind of thing to a third party

II does not sell the information. The scammers glean your information from various social media and county recorder websites. I am a long time Interval International member, i.e. for the past 15 years and I have never gotten one of these calls. I am also very careful with social media.

 

[SanDiegoDana]

MOST of the scam calls I get are from (people who claim to be) law firms asking me to hire them to sue to get out of my timeshare (which is an unlikely thing for me to do: I _like_ Marriott's Maui Ocean Club ) so this one was different: not claiming to be a lawyer, not claiming to be trying to get me to do a lawsuit, but offering money instead.

My interval account only shows 1 certificate (not 6) so it definitely sounds like a scam but I didn't know how to validate it (especially given my lack of knowledge of how II works)

Thanks! I will add them to my block list and ignore them from now on

 

[dioxide45]

No need to validate, it is a scam. They cold called you and asked for money up front. That is all the validation you need.

 

[bnoble]

The scammers glean your information from various social media and county recorder websites.

It can be done simply by county real estate records without any need for social media. If I know you own a Marriott (and I can learn that from recorded deeds) I know that Interval periodically gives you these bonus weeks. As they are not exactly easy to use, most go unused (as you've noticed) so with high probability if I call a Marriott owner with this "offer," there will be unused bonus weeks sitting in that owner's II account.

I didn't know how to validate it

No one calls you out of the blue to offer you a 5x return on your money in the space of a handful of months. No one. If I knew I could sell these for $2400, I wouldn't ask for only $400 up front to give you $2000 later. Why would I leave that much money on the table? But, you have to get past your own "ooo, free money!" response to realize that it is a bunch of BS---and that's an unconscious response that is hard to notice if you are not looking for it. It's just the human condition.

As I have never used them, it would be nice to get a valuable return on them

As noted, you cannot rent them. But they do make fantastic gifts. I sent my brother to Big Bear Lake as a wedding gift. It was an early September week, so nice weather, but kids are in schools, so low demand. They didn't have kids (yet), so no problem there. It cost a few hundred bucks--about what I would have spent on one or two of the place settings in their china pattern, but a lot more memorable. They got a nice vacation out of the deal that would have cost easily 3x that. Winning all around!

They are also good for "I feel like getting away somewhere in [name a month], and don't much care where." I may use one to do some hiking in Colorado in the second half of May. Not prime time, but Spring is starting to spring then, and I have hiking gear appropriate for cooler weather. For a few hundred bucks plus a shoulder-season airfare, not a bad deal.

 

[jules54]

I love AC bonuses It does take some effort to find what your looking for. I’ve also noticed if it’s last minute and it shows up in an exchange search it might be able to be booked with an AC. Also there are several types of AC some have higher trading pull and some have higher cost. If your obsessed with you timeshare resorts as I am it’s fun to fool around with what and what wont happen. If you can book the resort you want with an AC instead of using a banked week I think most of the time your going to pay less with the AC.