- Joined
- Jun 6, 2005
- Messages
- 31,901
- Reaction score
- 9,003
- Points
- 1,049
- Location
- The Centennial State
- Resorts Owned
- Wyndham Founder; Disney OKW & SSR; Marriott's Willow Ridge,Shadow Ridge,Grand Chateau;Val Chatelle; Hono Koa OF (3); SBR(LOTS), SDO a few; Grand Palms; WKORV-OF (2),Westin Desert Willow.
Someone pinch me because here I am, staying in this gorgeous unit at Marriott's Ocean Pointe, about to head to Marriott's Crystal Shores for a second week.
Our success is the combination of lucky timeshare purchases (resale) and airline miles, mostly built with Chase and American Express credit cards. Our old SPG Amex now sits in a drawer, unused for months because of the changes to Starwood with Marriott's takeover. The Chase Sapphire Reserve is now my go-to card for everything. I get 3X points on travel (including timeshare maintenance fees), restaurants and gas.
Rick and I were poor as kids. We grew up in North Denver, before it's heyday of today (an average house now rivals the prices in some of the most expensive areas of the country). Rick was at more of a disadvantage, living with a single mom who cleaned houses to make a living. My dad was an upholsterer and barely made ends meet, and he had three little girls and our mom to support.
Neither one of us had even been to a motel when we married in 1973. I went to Nebraska as a kid to visit my grandparents' farm, which is an experience I wish my kids and grandkids could have. That was the only state I ever visited. Rick had only been to Wyoming to camp once at Yellowstone, before his parents divorced. Camping was his only vacation experience.
Our first vacation together was in 1976, when Rick decided we needed to drive to Disneyland and see it for our first time. It was June and magical, just as we always thought it would be. We drove different routes going to/ from California and saw several states along the route. We had a brand new 1975 Dodge Charger Special Edition, plus we already bought our first house. We had just turned 21. Rick had been on the fire department for one year, and I was working in customer service at World of Sleep. Life was becoming great.
We didn't vacation again until we bought timeshares in 1981. We bought near Winter Park, CO, Twin Rivers, and we stayed there every year for five years. In 1985, when Rick said, "Hey, let's take the kids to Disneyland!" There was a deal at the credit union for a stay at The Grand Hotel, car rental, and airfare for four, so we booked it and had a wonderful time.
Two years later, we wanted to do Disneyland again. We wanted to try for an exchange. We now owned two timeshares, having purchased a gorgeous unit at Val Chatelle in Frisco, CO, so we traded to Lawrence Welk Vacation Villas for one week, then a second week in Washington state on the ocean (Point Brown). It was a drive to Disneyland from Escondido, but we enjoyed the drive each day, anyway.
After those two trips, we were hooked on timeshare exchanges and didn't really stay in our units again. We bought more to use for exchange, we even got a ski week for free, when owners defaulted on fees.
When we went to Hawaii for the first time in 2000, we were sure we would never get to Hawaii again. We thought it was a one-time deal. We were celebrating our son's graduation from School of Mines. Now we go twice a year and own a timeshare literally less than 40 feet from the ocean in West Maui, and we now own three weeks.
I used to envy the girls at school after their summer and school breaks to exotic places like Florida and Hawaii. Now Rick and I are living it up with our airline miles and our timeshares. We haven't paid for airfare in at least four years now, and we traveled first class to Fort Lauderdale. Timeshare maintenance fees and some manufactured spending have built our points to a high level. I remember reading Million Mile Secrets years ago and wondering if I could pull that off, and I have done incredibly well with the tips shared liberally on that site.
We have made some great decisions for timeshare purchases since our first few, and we honestly do not even own the same weeks we owned before at Val Chatelle and Twin Rivers. We bought off-season weeks from the developer, at ridiculous prices, too.
Now we own a lot of timeshares, and a lot of them our daughter rents to make a little income for herself and for us. We had some good fortune with cheap conversions of weeks we owned in Hawaii to get us status with Wyndham. That was a total fluke the first time, then a second purchase was purposefully engineered by yours truly. I then bought some weeks at Sheraton Broadway Plantation to use ourselves, and for our daughter to rent. I bought Marriott for trading purposes only (for trips like this one). You cannot beat the value of a Marriott exchange through II (cheap exchange fees).
What is a girl like me doing in a place like this? I must be dreaming. Pinch me, but not too hard because I bruise easily.
I wish I had known all of this sooner, but with good health we should be good for at least another 20 years of travel. Sure, things can change, we don't know what the future holds for us, but for now, we feel so incredibly blessed and fortunate.
Please share your story, TUGgers!
Our success is the combination of lucky timeshare purchases (resale) and airline miles, mostly built with Chase and American Express credit cards. Our old SPG Amex now sits in a drawer, unused for months because of the changes to Starwood with Marriott's takeover. The Chase Sapphire Reserve is now my go-to card for everything. I get 3X points on travel (including timeshare maintenance fees), restaurants and gas.
Rick and I were poor as kids. We grew up in North Denver, before it's heyday of today (an average house now rivals the prices in some of the most expensive areas of the country). Rick was at more of a disadvantage, living with a single mom who cleaned houses to make a living. My dad was an upholsterer and barely made ends meet, and he had three little girls and our mom to support.
Neither one of us had even been to a motel when we married in 1973. I went to Nebraska as a kid to visit my grandparents' farm, which is an experience I wish my kids and grandkids could have. That was the only state I ever visited. Rick had only been to Wyoming to camp once at Yellowstone, before his parents divorced. Camping was his only vacation experience.
Our first vacation together was in 1976, when Rick decided we needed to drive to Disneyland and see it for our first time. It was June and magical, just as we always thought it would be. We drove different routes going to/ from California and saw several states along the route. We had a brand new 1975 Dodge Charger Special Edition, plus we already bought our first house. We had just turned 21. Rick had been on the fire department for one year, and I was working in customer service at World of Sleep. Life was becoming great.
We didn't vacation again until we bought timeshares in 1981. We bought near Winter Park, CO, Twin Rivers, and we stayed there every year for five years. In 1985, when Rick said, "Hey, let's take the kids to Disneyland!" There was a deal at the credit union for a stay at The Grand Hotel, car rental, and airfare for four, so we booked it and had a wonderful time.
Two years later, we wanted to do Disneyland again. We wanted to try for an exchange. We now owned two timeshares, having purchased a gorgeous unit at Val Chatelle in Frisco, CO, so we traded to Lawrence Welk Vacation Villas for one week, then a second week in Washington state on the ocean (Point Brown). It was a drive to Disneyland from Escondido, but we enjoyed the drive each day, anyway.
After those two trips, we were hooked on timeshare exchanges and didn't really stay in our units again. We bought more to use for exchange, we even got a ski week for free, when owners defaulted on fees.
When we went to Hawaii for the first time in 2000, we were sure we would never get to Hawaii again. We thought it was a one-time deal. We were celebrating our son's graduation from School of Mines. Now we go twice a year and own a timeshare literally less than 40 feet from the ocean in West Maui, and we now own three weeks.
I used to envy the girls at school after their summer and school breaks to exotic places like Florida and Hawaii. Now Rick and I are living it up with our airline miles and our timeshares. We haven't paid for airfare in at least four years now, and we traveled first class to Fort Lauderdale. Timeshare maintenance fees and some manufactured spending have built our points to a high level. I remember reading Million Mile Secrets years ago and wondering if I could pull that off, and I have done incredibly well with the tips shared liberally on that site.
We have made some great decisions for timeshare purchases since our first few, and we honestly do not even own the same weeks we owned before at Val Chatelle and Twin Rivers. We bought off-season weeks from the developer, at ridiculous prices, too.
Now we own a lot of timeshares, and a lot of them our daughter rents to make a little income for herself and for us. We had some good fortune with cheap conversions of weeks we owned in Hawaii to get us status with Wyndham. That was a total fluke the first time, then a second purchase was purposefully engineered by yours truly. I then bought some weeks at Sheraton Broadway Plantation to use ourselves, and for our daughter to rent. I bought Marriott for trading purposes only (for trips like this one). You cannot beat the value of a Marriott exchange through II (cheap exchange fees).
What is a girl like me doing in a place like this? I must be dreaming. Pinch me, but not too hard because I bruise easily.
I wish I had known all of this sooner, but with good health we should be good for at least another 20 years of travel. Sure, things can change, we don't know what the future holds for us, but for now, we feel so incredibly blessed and fortunate.
Please share your story, TUGgers!