1st TS purchase - debating 2 EOY's for versatility vs EY

[BrandenC]

1) Where do you want your home resort to be? Unknown / Strong Trade & low MF, Live in NorCal if that helps

2) Do you want to visit your home resort at least half the time, or do you want to trade more than half the time? Trade

3) What are your 5 top trade destinations?
Hawaii, Southern California, Florida (Orlando), Las Vegas, Tahoe
4) How many people do you usually travel with?
3
5) Can you travel any time, or are you locked into the school schedule?
Flexible now, school in a few years
6) Can you make firm plans 12 or more mos. in advance?
yes, but want option to take trips 3-6 mo out
7) Can you vacation for a full week at a time?
yes
8) What level of accommodations do you prefer on a scale of 1 to 5 stars?
3-5
9) How much can you afford to spend upfront, without financing?
2500
10) How much can you afford to spend every year for a maintenance fee that will come due right after Christmas, and increase each year?
$1600 w/ exchange fees
11) Are you a detail oriented planner?
I try to be
12) Do you understand that once you buy a timeshare, it may be very difficult to sell or give away, and you are responsible for all fees, until you do? Yes
__________________
Sorry long post...

I have been to several timeshare resorts over the years and attended numerous presentations such as Worldmark (when it was Trendwest), Marriott, Wyndam and several smaller Mexico resorts. I never could get past the cost of the resort prices (I found resale rather quickly) and had my fun entertaining my wife and myself heckling the salesman during some of the outlandish presentations.

Over the years I have considered resale at various time but never found a deal that made sense considering the maintenance fees. In talking with my wife recently I realize how much money we have actually spent on resort style hotels over the years and now a timeshare purchase might be worth it.

We now have a 5 year old and don't travel as often as we did when we were DINK (double income no kids). My goal with a purchase would be a big trip to Hawaii or Disney World every other year and several smaller driving trips to Southern California (Disney Land, Lego Land, San Diego) at other times.

My thoughts are maybe buy an EOY 2br Sheraton Vistana Villas (Bella/Key West) for the 81k StarOptions to get us a 1bd 81k StarOptions in a Westin Kaanapali property, coupled with Worldmark points or a Grand Pacific Resort property for the California trips. The only issue is the yearly SVN fee adds to the cost of owning the EOY timeshare. I'm not sure we would be able to use a Starwood resort on a yearly basis, but EY would seem to be the more efficient MF at a low purchase price due to the SVN fees.

I also like the Marriott resorts and have toured Ko Olina which is nice. Owning a EOY Hawaii Marriott or Westin Kaanapali may be doable eventually, but I would like to avoid the higher MF by trading into Hawaii and I thought SVN StarOptions would give me the best consistency for that. Would I get that same consistency by buying a cheaper Marriott to trade into the Hawaiian Marriotts with II?

I also figure what ever we get with a goal towards Hawaii, then it will trade well into other places. A secondary goal would be driving trips to coastal California locations or using something like II getaways could suffice I think.

I just need some outside experienced opinions to focus my options...

 

[ronparise]

Worldmark has resorts in the west, as you know but what you may have missed are the properties they have in Orlando. My point is that you don't have to buy another system to get those once in a while trips east

The other thing you should know is that Worldmark allows you to "rent" credits from other owners and the going rate is actually less than mf

So you can buy a small account (with small mf) and rent in enough credits each year to do the vacations you want. Meaning you have a very small ongoing mf commitment and pay for your vacations on a "pay as you go basis"

 

[sjsharkie]

My thoughts are maybe buy an EOY 2br Sheraton Vistana Villas (Bella/Key West) for the 81k StarOptions to get us a 1bd 81k StarOptions in a Westin Kaanapali property, coupled with Worldmark points or a Grand Pacific Resort property for the California trips. The only issue is the yearly SVN fee adds to the cost of owning the EOY timeshare. I'm not sure we would be able to use a Starwood resort on a yearly basis, but EY would seem to be the more efficient MF at a low purchase price due to the SVN fees.

I also like the Marriott resorts and have toured Ko Olina which is nice. Owning a EOY Hawaii Marriott or Westin Kaanapali may be doable eventually, but I would like to avoid the higher MF by trading into Hawaii and I thought SVN StarOptions would give me the best consistency for that. Would I get that same consistency by buying a cheaper Marriott to trade into the Hawaiian Marriotts with II?

I also figure what ever we get with a goal towards Hawaii, then it will trade well into other places. A secondary goal would be driving trips to coastal California locations or using something like II getaways could suffice I think.

I just need some outside experienced opinions to focus my options...

Focusing on the fact that you like Marriott and Starwood, I am going to let others comment on WM (I own in all 3 networks).

For Starwood, whether you buy an EOY or EY, you will get dinged with the club fee every year -- so it does not matter EOY or EY unit unless you are buying multiple units (in which case Starwood tacks on a slightly smaller amount for the 2nd unit). Because you will be locked into the school year soon, it is unlikely you will get prime summer trades with Interval. As such, I think the 81k SO route in Plat season is good -- you can either get there with a 2BR or 2 - 1BR units (2 x 44k). The 2 - 1BR units are actually cheaper per SO but you will have an extra 7k options which you may or may not use.

Caveat if you buy an EOY is that if you need to borrow, you can only borrow into an odd or even year, depending on your EOY ownership. So for example if you own odd, you can borrow into 2015 using your 2017 points. You will not be able to borrow into 2016 (unless they have changed the policy) or any other even year.

Marriott has more options in terms of number of units in Hawaii, but the challenge is being locked to the school year. It is a bit more challenging to achieve a trade in II for Hawaii Marriotts in the summer -- the exchanges options are slim, and you will typically get the exchange up to 60 days in which doesn't leave much time for planning. You won't be able to use their points program because you are resale, unless you are able to buy into their program (at additional cost) sometime in the future. Therefore, you are dependent on II for prime Marriott trades.

Hope this helps. Good luck!

-ryan

 

[Here There]

Combo of Worldmark and/or GPX

3) What are your 5 top trade destinations?
Hawaii, Southern California, Florida (Orlando), Las Vegas, Tahoe
9) How much can you afford to spend upfront, without financing?
2500
10) How much can you afford to spend every year for a maintenance fee?
$1600 w/ exchange fees

We now have a 5 year old and don't travel as often as we did when we were DINK (double income no kids). My goal with a purchase would be a big trip to Hawaii or Disney World every other year and several smaller driving trips to Southern California (Disney Land, Lego Land, San Diego) at other times.

Based on your smallish purchase & annual vacation budgets, I second Ron's suggestion that you do not over-commit with too much ongoing mf and pay for your vacations on a pay as you go basis. What has worked for me as I revamped my portfolio is:
- 5000 Worldmark credits ($1500 all-in purchase price, $470mf) plus
- an EOY 13,500 pt package at Riverpointe Napa (almost free on ebay, ~$500mf) -- the benefits which I outlined in an earlier post:
http://tugbbs.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1759660#post1759660

Owning WM credits would allow you to travel to all 5 your top trade destinations without exchanging, along with the ability to rent more credits as needed and to buy cash getaways at a rate lower than MF.

Owning at Riverpointe would get you a free membership at GPX with their SoCal beach resorts and some DRI inventory (eg, Ka'anapali Beach Club) which you could either exchange into or rent as bonus weeks:
http://www.gpxvacations.com/gpx-bonus-week-inventory.aspx
GPX has frequent promos such as 50% off bonus weeks or free size upgrades in trades (which I take full advantage of by offering up each of my 3 EOY Riverpointe studios.)

As an owner of either resort you can then join Interval Int'l to take advantage of their getaway specials and learn the best strategies to trade into a Marriott, Starwood or other Hawaiian resorts. After you get your feet wet with such a starter package, you will have a better sense as to whether owning a more expensive Marriott or Starwood resort for trading purposes would be right for you.

 

[BrandenC]

Thanks all for the good advice...

I do think Worldmark is a good value and would allow me to learn the art of using a timeshare with a relatively low cost. This may be my first purchase choice (470yr MF + rent extra pts above the 5k Pts pkg and/or bonus time costs).

Starwood - I like the idea of getting into Hawaii with a SVV resort StarOptions and need to further analyze how often I would travel there to see if I would utilize an EY SVV 81k points (or 88k as sjsharkie suggested). Most likely I would stay within the StarOptions system for trading here and also use the property for DisneyWorld trips (2016 MF+SVN fee 2br - EY 1278yr and EOY 709yr)*.

Marriott - At first glance a Ko Olina EOY 2br lock-off may be an option down the road to guarantee a Hawaii property around a school schedule. Initial purchase price would be more than I want to spend but the MF are doable, especially considering I can use the lock-off feature to have the studio one year and the 1 bedroom the next year. I would use them, trade in II or rent out (2016 MF for 2br LO EOY = 1035.80)*.

One question for Here There, I like the GPX option for the Carlsbad/SoCal properties since that is a location we would drive to for the beach, LegoLand and San Diego. How easy is it to get any of the Carlsbad/SoCal properties May-Sep? Doable with an exchange or through a bonus week?

Again thanks for the information.

*(I used the Marriott's 2016 MF post and the SVN KeyWest MF database for quoting the MF above)

 

[Here There]

A quick search through GPX shows:
- 4 SoCal beach units available with 5/15/16 checkin,
- 4 more + non-beach Grand Pac Palisades for 5/21-22, GPP again for 5/29,
- a virtual drought from June thru mid August,
- 4 GPPs for >8/20 + 1 Oceanside for 8/28
- 4 SoCal beach unit with 9/3-4 checkin...
with plenty of inventory after 9/11. This pattern seems typical afaik.

Also keep in mind that exchangers pay a ~$15 daily resort fee, most GP resorts belong to RCI and do not lock out.

 

[Here There]

Forgot to add: GPX exchange & bonus time inventory are nearly the same.

 

[onenotesamba]

I suspect that the buy-in price might be more than you're looking to spend, but your locations (except for Tahoe) match locations where Hilton has properties. The points system would allow you flexibility to go to different places--Disney one year, Legoland the next, Hawaii after that--and you might be able to do it with an annual MF much lower than your annual budget. But your buy in would be more, most likely.