Adding Platinum Canyon Villas Week Vs Kierland Villas Week

[Daytripz]

We are looking to eventually “snowbird” to Phoenix every winter for a few weeks. I don't want a second home, but I do want a home base, and I have found I like the timeshare experience.

We currently own one week at Willow Ridge. It is enrolled, but it is a gold week, so we never see the weeks we want to book in Phoenix at either Canyon Villas or Kierland Villas.

I originally thought I would just use Getaways and try to string some weeks in January together, but the more I think about it, the more I’d like a platinum week for better planning and exchanging. And I’d really like to be able to drive and stay for two weeks - one in the large side, one in the small side. Adding to our portfolio through resale seems to be fairly inexpensive. I’ve found Marriott weeks for 1k and Kierland weeks for 2k. And the maintenance fees between the two properties are comparable at $2127 CV vs $2447 WKV

I’d love your opinions on what would work better and if there is anything I’m not considering.

Questions about Canyon Villas:

I know we can use the JW Marriott waterpark BUT is there a fee? And does it exclude all of spring break, or just the weekends at spring break? I know when we stayed at Lakeshore Reserve, we could use the JW but the weekend was blocked off. I think it was around a $50 fee.

Is the king second bedroom a more popular option than the 2 queens? If we were to book a two bedroom and bring our kids, the two queens would be preferable. But if we were to lock off and stay in it ourselves, I’d prefer having the king. Does it matter what we own versus what we can book?

How many abound points does a 2 bedroom villa convert to? Around 4000? Although I’ve never elected points because our Willow Ridge week is worth so few, I can see wanting to convert to points and stay at some of the city properties they are adding such as Charleston and Nashville. Or maybe even the Ritz in Vail.

Questions about Kierland Villas:

I really like the location of the Kierland villas. I have the same question about the JW Marriott - can we use it during spring break and what are the fees?

How well does a Westin week trade into Marriott? I’d definitely like to trade into some of the Marriott properties such as Spain or Marco Island at peak season. For this reason, I am favoring the MCV property.

Thanks so much for any help/input

 

[dioxide45]

You're not going to find a WKV Platinum Plus week for $2000. Those weeks are likely Gold Plus. Expect to pay over $10,000 for WKV perhaps even closer to $13K. Don't buy WKV with the plan to trade in II, the StarOptions are more valuable to use within VSN.

 

[iftravel]

We are looking to eventually “snowbird” to Phoenix every winter for a few weeks. I don't want a second home, but I do want a home base, and I have found I like the timeshare experience.

We currently own one week at Willow Ridge. It is enrolled, but it is a gold week, so we never see the weeks we want to book in Phoenix at either Canyon Villas or Kierland Villas.

I originally thought I would just use Getaways and try to string some weeks in January together, but the more I think about it, the more I’d like a platinum week for better planning and exchanging. And I’d really like to be able to drive and stay for two weeks - one in the large side, one in the small side. Adding to our portfolio through resale seems to be fairly inexpensive. I’ve found Marriott weeks for 1k and Kierland weeks for 2k. And the maintenance fees between the two properties are comparable at $2127 CV vs $2447 WKV

I’d love your opinions on what would work better and if there is anything I’m not considering.

Questions about Canyon Villas:

I know we can use the JW Marriott waterpark BUT is there a fee? And does it exclude all of spring break, or just the weekends at spring break? I know when we stayed at Lakeshore Reserve, we could use the JW but the weekend was blocked off. I think it was around a $50 fee.

Is the king second bedroom a more popular option than the 2 queens? If we were to book a two bedroom and bring our kids, the two queens would be preferable. But if we were to lock off and stay in it ourselves, I’d prefer having the king. Does it matter what we own versus what we can book?

How many abound points does a 2 bedroom villa convert to? Around 4000? Although I’ve never elected points because our Willow Ridge week is worth so few, I can see wanting to convert to points and stay at some of the city properties they are adding such as Charleston and Nashville. Or maybe even the Ritz in Vail.

Questions about Kierland Villas:

I really like the location of the Kierland villas. I have the same question about the JW Marriott - can we use it during spring break and what are the fees?

How well does a Westin week trade into Marriott? I’d definitely like to trade into some of the Marriott properties such as Spain or Marco Island at peak season. For this reason, I am favoring the MCV property.

Thanks so much for any help/input

MCV is not very hard to get in Winter (I exchanged into a Christmas week with a non-Marriott deposit and if you have enough trading power, you should see the inventory right now), but can be really hard in Spring Break. WKV seems much harder in winter and impossible in spring break if you want to exchange into.

If you like both, consider buy at WKV, and exchange into MCV?

 

[Pamplemousse]

We are looking to eventually “snowbird” to Phoenix every winter for a few weeks. I don't want a second home, but I do want a home base, and I have found I like the timeshare experience.

We currently own one week at Willow Ridge. It is enrolled, but it is a gold week, so we never see the weeks we want to book in Phoenix at either Canyon Villas or Kierland Villas.

I originally thought I would just use Getaways and try to string some weeks in January together, but the more I think about it, the more I’d like a platinum week for better planning and exchanging. And I’d really like to be able to drive and stay for two weeks - one in the large side, one in the small side. Adding to our portfolio through resale seems to be fairly inexpensive. I’ve found Marriott weeks for 1k and Kierland weeks for 2k. And the maintenance fees between the two properties are comparable at $2127 CV vs $2447 WKV

I’d love your opinions on what would work better and if there is anything I’m not considering.

Questions about Canyon Villas:

I know we can use the JW Marriott waterpark BUT is there a fee? And does it exclude all of spring break, or just the weekends at spring break? I know when we stayed at Lakeshore Reserve, we could use the JW but the weekend was blocked off. I think it was around a $50 fee.

Is the king second bedroom a more popular option than the 2 queens? If we were to book a two bedroom and bring our kids, the two queens would be preferable. But if we were to lock off and stay in it ourselves, I’d prefer having the king. Does it matter what we own versus what we can book?

How many abound points does a 2 bedroom villa convert to? Around 4000? Although I’ve never elected points because our Willow Ridge week is worth so few, I can see wanting to convert to points and stay at some of the city properties they are adding such as Charleston and Nashville. Or maybe even the Ritz in Vail.

Questions about Kierland Villas:

I really like the location of the Kierland villas. I have the same question about the JW Marriott - can we use it during spring break and what are the fees?

How well does a Westin week trade into Marriott? I’d definitely like to trade into some of the Marriott properties such as Spain or Marco Island at peak season. For this reason, I am favoring the MCV property.

Thanks so much for any help/input

I believe MVC has a longer in brand priority exchange period on II and Sheraton/Westin has a lesser priority period for MVC (but some before units are available to all). Unless that has changed recently.

 

[dioxide45]

I haven't really tracked the brand priority of MVC in practice through the Sightings forum, but I have watched some of the Vistana priorty threads. I know in the past it was always said that the Vistana priority was 30 days and the Marriott was 24 days. At least in the last decade, it has never really been that long for either brand priority. I think the longest I saw recently was 10 or 11 days on Vistana deposits before deposits moved in to the cross brand preference period.