You have mentioned that your ownership has given you free airfare, and that much of that comes from going to presentations. I'm assuming what you mean by that is you take Marriott Rewards points as your "gift" and have used them to generate frequent flyer miles in your chosen airlines. Can you estimate how many Rewards points you've earned in this manner and how many presentations you had to endure to get that many?
I sure can, I know most people hate those so that's up to them. We don't mind at all. In 21 years, I would estimate we've gone to 50 presentations, fewer early on and more now. I would say a fair average has been 20,000 points per presentation as I simply don't recall what we used to get in the early 2000's likely I am under guessing, some less, some more (got several 30,000 lately). So, that's 1,000,000 MR points. Of course, that's just presentations, you are aware that CC charges of MF (we pay no interest of course) give 6x, used to be 5x, your MF. That's quite a few MR points over the years as well, no idea what that might come to but as a guess, maybe an average of 15,000 per year (less early on since we owned less, much more now), so, say another 300,000 points from MF. Obviously, I am not saying that the more you charge the more you gain, just saying some does come back. This does not include MR points we got for a couple of TS purchases. None of those would we get if we were not owners. Plus MR points from stays (other purchases while there), that I can't even fathom to guess. But I would imagine close to 1.5 million MR points just between those. Add in several new customer signups, bonuses, etc., and I am sure we've topped more than 2 million MR points not even counting spending, directly related to TS only. But spending of course you could do without owning so I do not consider that. We only use MR points for packages, as that gives the best miles benefit. Of course, those are more expensive now but we redeemed a ton of miles last year before the increase. But they also were a lot less early on, and we initially received 300,000 MR points in 1999 for the purchase where those went a long way of course (I recall at least 2 travel packages with I think some points remaining I think they used to be back then 125k MR points?) and we took our first trip to Australia that way almost entirely for "free". And we only use miles for overseas flights where you get the most bang for the mile. After our trip to Uganda in 2020, we will likely be out of points for a few years. But, we will have hit our major foreign travel goals as well.
Yes, I realize one can do presentations without being an owner, but it's not the same. You have to get there, it's short, you do incur costs and you do not make one cent. When you are there already on a stay, there is no additional cost. So, it is definitely a "perk" if you can tolerate them. Or, you can consider them punishments as many do.
But there is no way I would ever consider them punishments given the amount of money we have earned off of them. The math might have changed now with the MR changes, will have to figure that out moving forward as far as what is the best thing to take in return for sitting through one. But going back in time, just the value of those MR points (timeshare related only) and nothing else has probably ending up giving us a value of $30k (more in the old days, less now). So, by itself, it paid for much of what we own even at developer prices (paid for DSV2 and Playa Andaluza purchases). So, when I compute our cost/night, I always know that the actual cost is much lower due to this. The only remaining purchase we had were a minimal # of points when DC program came out, and, a higher number of very cheap resale points.
But this obviously gets harder and harder to figure as there are so many considerations. The reality is, it would have been impossible for us to travel as much as we have if we had not spent the money, don't need to calculate to know that. And, it is not cheaper (for us) to rent, no possible way this can be true. And we have never had an interest of staying at the same place over and over, that's just not us (other than DSV2). We want to go somewhere different all the time.
I don't think this is as easily replicated today though, things are more expensive than they used to be. But ownership even at developer prices, is likely the best thing I have ever spent money on. But obviously, one has to make a fair effort to squeeze value. But I am retired, so, it's my salary now (saving), lol
