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Cost effective entry to MVC Points

kds4

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So it is not possible to buy an enrolled week resale in non-US locations? When weeks are sold, they lose their points component?

If I sold one of my enrolled weeks to you today, you would receive the week and the right to use or exchange that week but not the Destination Points value for that week because enrollment is based on when/how the week was purchased. This would be a resale after 6/10, so it would become unenrolled with no right to re-enrollment (other than whatever MVC's current terms and conditions are to enroll a post-6/10 resale). Sorry, if that is confusing.
 

dioxide45

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So it is not possible to buy an enrolled week resale in non-US locations? When weeks are sold, they lose their points component?
Any resale week, regardless of location can't be enrolled in DC. There are exceptions to that rule, but they aren't cheap exceptions.
 

bazzap

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So it is not possible to buy an enrolled week resale in non-US locations? When weeks are sold, they lose their points component?
When enrolled weeks in European resorts are sold resale (other than by MVC directly), yes they lose their points component.
You can buy resale weeks directly from MVC in European resorts and they will come enrolled, but at a price!
 

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So it is not possible to buy an enrolled week resale in non-US locations? When weeks are sold, they lose their points component?

Yes, you can buy in Aruba or Spain from Marriott directly, and those come enrolled. I bought 2750 points Spain week for around 13k. I never go there, just elect points every year. Cheapest one I've ever found.
 

Big Matt

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Stay Sunday through Thursday. That's the easiest way to get value out of a small points package. The resorts are just as good during the week and you don't blow your wad unnecessarily.
 

kds4

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Yes, you can buy in Aruba or Spain from Marriott directly, and those come enrolled. I bought 2750 points Spain week for around 13k.

If the OP's interest is not in going to Spain, but to having the points to use toward elsewhere, that would be a cheaper price per point than buying 1,500 points resale (based on what you paid).
 

ski_sierra

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Without a points account, the other owner has to make the reservation for you, hold it in his account in your name, so it's just like renting a week from an owner, with the same risks and issues.

Great point. It's a bit of hassle to not have control over your own reservations.

The downsides of buying the base interest and then renting what you need are:
  • Rented points can't be banked or borrowed, so you must project your needs accurately.
  • Because they can't be banked or borrowed, if you have to cancel a reservation, your options for reuse of the points may be limited.
  • Rented points aren't yours so they don't count toward status tiers.
  • There has to be someone willing to rent to you. It hasn't happened often, but there have been a couple of times when there were very no rental ads on VPE with points for the use year I needed.
I was gonna ask about this next but you read my mind. If rented points can't be banked or borrowed, that's a major risk since my plan was to wait for an exchange to come through while using a points booking as a backup.



Other than the 1500 point minimum purchase supplemented by rentals, you surmised correctly that to get enough points to regularly book 2BR units in most locations, even resale, it is going to cost you in the neighborhood of $30K. There may be some Aruba Gold weeks that you can buy enrolled from MVC for less than $30K, but probably not much less. Most week+points hybrid bundles that yield 3500-4000 points wind up being $25K to $30K.

One thing you need to ask yourself, is with your other ownerships, how often do you think you might use Marriott? If you might only need to tap your Marriott ownership every other year, then owning only 2000 or 2500 points could allow you to bank or borrow and have 4000 to 5000 points every other year. Buying resale points or a smaller-size hybrid might get you that 2000-2500 points for $14K to $18K or so. Maybe a little less if you could slip some cheap points past ROFR for $3 or so. This last option, where you control 2000 to 2500, might be the best compromise, since you would have a nice amount for EOY use.
I would like to use Marriott for 1 to 2 weeks per year as they have some nice locations that cannot be accessed by HGVC or Worldmark. I know the cost of booking with Marriott points is quite high but if the availability is better than other programs then sometimes it is worth paying $2500 in MF/rented points cost for a 2 BR.
 

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If one could find such a week, they might even enroll his existing week. They were willing to do that with my purchase.
 

Dean

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Great point. It's a bit of hassle to not have control over your own reservations.


I was gonna ask about this next but you read my mind. If rented points can't be banked or borrowed, that's a major risk since my plan was to wait for an exchange to come through while using a points booking as a backup.




I would like to use Marriott for 1 to 2 weeks per year as they have some nice locations that cannot be accessed by HGVC or Worldmark. I know the cost of booking with Marriott points is quite high but if the availability is better than other programs then sometimes it is worth paying $2500 in MF/rented points cost for a 2 BR.
Don't forget to pay attention to the yearly fees and what you might want to use. You might be better off buying one or 2 weeks you'll use and then exchanging the GC week than trying to do this on points or getting more trading options with Marriott depending on your flexibility. Buying HI is going to be more and higher fees though.
 

kds4

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If one could find such a week, they might even enroll his existing week. They were willing to do that with my purchase.

If the OP could accomplish what they want with points by buying a Spain week worth more than 1,500 points for less than the cost of 1,500 resale points AND get to enroll their existing EOY MGC week too, that would be my recommendation. I don't know what an EOY MGC week is worth in points, but even if it was worth only 1,000 points that is significant.

2,750 points from a Spain week plus 1,000 from the EOY MGC would give the OP 3,750 points annually for about $13,000. That's about $3.47 per point. A 1,500 resale points purchase would be around $7 per point all in.

Steve's scenario would actually get more points for the OP at about half the cost per point over just buying resale points, and the OP would have banking/borrowing ability year to year as well.
 
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DannyTS

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Just go out and buy a cheap Vistana week, take the gamble and hope that within a year or two they somehow allow you to enroll that week in to the DC program on the cheap and open up all the wonderful possibilities Marriott has to offer. This would be the cheapest option, but with the highest risk. ROLL THE DICE! :rolleyes:Given the uptick in resale prices of Vistana weeks on the resale market, I suspect many people are doing this.
The Vistana title department has been very busy lately. This can be in part because they merged the dept with MVC but I also suspect they may just have more volume to handle for the reasons you mentioned.

With that in mind, would you buy now mandatory or voluntary? I am thinking, mandatory may have an additional chances to be part of the club but you can find voluntary for really cheap with lower MF and potentially more points.
 
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The Vistana title department has been very busy lately. This can be in part because they merged the dept with MVC but I also suspect they may just have more volume to handle for the reasons you mentioned.
I picked up two more. But mandatory resorts. I’d look into voluntary with a high trade value. I wouldn’t be opposed to making a minimal flex purchase to retro the resale voluntary week back into the VSN either. But the gamble of a voluntary week is a big gamble. They may never truly combine or may make a third product. It’s a huge gamble, one that may never pay off.
 

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If one could find such a week, they might even enroll his existing week. They were willing to do that with my purchase.
That's interesting.

how many weeks would they allow you to enroll with a purchase like that? I might as well buy a few other weeks resale if I'm spending $13k.
 

DannyTS

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I picked up two more. But mandatory resorts. I’d look into voluntary with a high trade value. I wouldn’t be opposed to making a minimal flex purchase to retro the resale voluntary week back into the VSN either. But the gamble of a voluntary week is a big gamble. They may never truly combine or may make a third product. It’s a huge gamble, one that may never pay off.
Flex resale may be a good candidate for retro because they were only sold recently so they had higher cost so more credit when they take them back.
 

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Stay Sunday through Thursday. That's the easiest way to get value out of a small points package. The resorts are just as good during the week and you don't blow your wad unnecessarily.
I have actually considered that. Begin stay on Sunday and then stay Fri/Sat night using hotel points at another location in the area. The Hilton aspire card restricts you to using free night certificates on Fri/Sat/Sun and they are easy to come by. We have 5 cards so far and are trying to get our total to 7 or 8.
 

CPNY

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Flex resale may be a good candidate for retro because they were only sold recently so they had higher cost so more credit when they take them back.
But their annual maint fees are generally higher. Say I buy a voluntary worth 148K options. Then make a flex purchase of 10K to retro, heck I’d pay a fee just to retro the resale with a low maint fee. Another question, if I buy a resale, then make new purchase and retro that resale back into the VSN, then sell that developer purchase, the retro resale still stays in the network correct? It wouldn’t fall out?
 

ski_sierra

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Just go out and buy a cheap Vistana week, take the gamble and hope that within a year or two they somehow allow you to enroll that week in to the DC program on the cheap and open up all the wonderful possibilities Marriott has to offer. This would be the cheapest option, but with the highest risk. ROLL THE DICE! :rolleyes:Given the uptick in resale prices of Vistana weeks on the resale market, I suspect many people are doing this.

Yeah. I'm working on that. It's a lot cheaper than getting into MVC points system. Low upfront and ongoing cost with high potential upside. No wonder, pickings are slim.
 

JIMinNC

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That's interesting.

how many weeks would they allow you to enroll with a purchase like that? I might as well buy a few other weeks resale if I'm spending $13k.

Generally a $13K purchase from MVC is not enough to enroll a post-2010 resale week.

The recent summer promotion they ran allowed resale weeks purchased externally like your MGC to be enrolled with the purchase of 3000 points from MVC (two weeks required 4000 points, enrolling up to 7 weeks was 5500) or by spending a similar amount of money buying an Aruba or Spain week. Someone posted back in April they were offered a Gold Aruba Surf Club 2BR OS for about $28K that was worth 3075 points on its own and that purchase would also enroll one EY or two EOY weeks. To enroll two EY weeks would have required purchase of a 2BR Platinum OV at Surf Club worth 4075 points for $36.5K.

I'm not sure if that promo is still going on. It was supposed to end on July 7, but some posted it had been extended. Another poster just reported doing a big deal to enroll about 70K points-plus worth of weeks in the San Francisco sales office, so it may still be going on. Not sure. The catch may be the summer promotion required that any resale week to be enrolled had to be closed by 2/28/2019. I think you said you just bought yours in May, so it wouldn't qualify unless they changed the cutoff date when they extended the promo.
 

DannyTS

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But their annual maint fees are generally higher. Say I buy a voluntary worth 148K options. Then make a flex purchase of 10K to retro, heck I’d pay a fee just to retro the resale with a low maint fee. Another question, if I buy a resale, then make new purchase and retro that resale back into the VSN, then sell that developer purchase, the retro resale still stays in the network correct? It wouldn’t fall out?
I agree with you, the best value currently is to retro a high point/ low MF 2 bdr platinum for 10k. We own Lagunamar and that fits the profile. Lagunamar has a higher purchase prices though. We contemplated retro-ing but we decided not to do it, we are happy with the ratio of mandatory/voluntary in our portfolio.
 

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I agree with you, the best value currently is to retro a high point/ low MF 2 bdr platinum for 10k. We own Lagunamar and that fits the profile. Lagunamar has a higher purchase prices though.
Problem is you have to buy ANOTHER interest. I’d pay 10K as a “fee” without buying flex. I don’t want a bill at the end of the year for 1,200 just for 25k star options. It defeats the purpose of buying a lower cost maint fee unit to retro
 

ski_sierra

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Problem is you have to buy ANOTHER interest. I’d pay 10K as a “fee” without buying flex. I don’t want a bill at the end of the year for 1,200 just for 25k star options. It defeats the purpose of buying a lower cost maint fee unit to retro
Can I politely request that this discussion be moved to another thread?
 

CPNY

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Yeah. I'm working on that. It's a lot cheaper than getting into MVC points system. Low upfront and ongoing cost with high potential upside. No wonder, pickings are slim.
I think this is why people are questioning how/when to get into MVC cheap. Granted, you responding to buying vistana here as another alternative to MVC. The pickings are slim on the vistana side and the MVC side resale is a higher price. But what is the end goal? To get into MVC DC program? Or just get into the “MVC family”? I’m also looking for the most economical way to enhance my VOI portfolio as well. Is it more VSE ownerships or add in an MVC enrolled week or straight DC point?
 

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Can I politely request that this discussion be moved to another thread?
Yeah, I'm getting confused by the hijack too. I know people are speculating about future integration but ...."Cost effective entry to MVC Points."
 

kds4

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Generally a $13K purchase from MVC is not enough to enroll a post-2010 resale week.

The recent summer promotion they ran allowed resale weeks purchased externally like your MGC to be enrolled with the purchase of 3000 points from MVC (two weeks required 4000 points, enrolling up to 7 weeks was 5500) or by spending a similar amount of money buying an Aruba or Spain week. Someone posted back in April they were offered a Gold Aruba Surf Club 2BR OS for about $28K that was worth 3075 points on its own and that purchase would also enroll one EY or two EOY weeks. To enroll two EY weeks would have required purchase of a 2BR Platinum OV at Surf Club worth 4075 points for $36.5K.

I'm not sure if that promo is still going on. It was supposed to end on July 7, but some posted it had been extended. Another poster just reported doing a big deal to enroll about 70K points-plus worth of weeks in the San Francisco sales office, so it may still be going on. Not sure. The catch may be the summer promotion required that any resale week to be enrolled had to be closed by 2/28/2019. I think you said you just bought yours in May, so it wouldn't qualify unless they changed the cutoff date when they extended the promo.

Although, even if the OP cannot enroll her EOY MGC by buying a Spain week, if she can get just a Spain week worth 2750 points for around $13k, that is still a better value than buying 1,500 resale points for around $10k.
 

JIMinNC

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Although, even if the OP cannot enroll her EOY MGC by buying a Spain week, if she can get just a Spain week worth 2750 points for around $13k, that is still a better value than buying 1,500 resale points for around $10k.

Yeah, I missed the post by @Steve Fatula that he bought a Spain week from MVC for $13K. Didn't realize those were that cheap. That's only $4.75/point enrolled. That is a killer deal just by itself. And I just noticed from Steven Ting's MF/Points list, the MF is only about $1135, so that's only $0.41/point. Hmm...intriguing option if we ever decide to abandon the thought of enrolling our two EOY Hawaii weeks and just add to our points instead.
 
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