Best value for trading?

[bmccuske]

Hi--We stayed at Mountainside last week and really loved our Park City experience. I'm a rewards points member b/c of work travel and we had an invitation to stay for $69 a night and take the tour of Summit Watch. We're about a 5 hour drive away, so Park City is a great home base.

If we wanted to get into one of these units in Ski Season and have a decent trade (thinking Hawaii for sure), what should we be looking for to purchase? Our kids are older teenagers, so thinking we can definitely travel again during the off-season if that helps get a good deal.

We already own an EOY membership from Raintree, which also gets us some nice trips. Any help you can give would be great!

 

[dioxide45]

Hi--We stayed at Mountainside last week and really loved our Park City experience. I'm a rewards points member b/c of work travel and we had an invitation to stay for $69 a night and take the tour of Summit Watch. We're about a 5 hour drive away, so Park City is a great home base.

If we wanted to get into one of these units in Ski Season and have a decent trade (thinking Hawaii for sure), what should we be looking for to purchase? Our kids are older teenagers, so thinking we can definitely travel again during the off-season if that helps get a good deal.

We already own an EOY membership from Raintree, which also gets us some nice trips. Any help you can give would be great!

You may actually want to purchase a week in ski season at this resort if it is important that you are able to get this more years than not.

 

[Dean]

Hi--We stayed at Mountainside last week and really loved our Park City experience. I'm a rewards points member b/c of work travel and we had an invitation to stay for $69 a night and take the tour of Summit Watch. We're about a 5 hour drive away, so Park City is a great home base.

If we wanted to get into one of these units in Ski Season and have a decent trade (thinking Hawaii for sure), what should we be looking for to purchase? Our kids are older teenagers, so thinking we can definitely travel again during the off-season if that helps get a good deal.

We already own an EOY membership from Raintree, which also gets us some nice trips. Any help you can give would be great!

As noted, you likely want to buy a week if you want prime ski season. It should trade well but would likely be an expensive trader. Given your children are older teens and assuming you will be fairly flexible in timing going forward, you may want to consider a more reasonably priced trading week and try to trade back in during Jan for example.

 

[bmccuske]

still figuring out how to ski!!!

Thanks so much for your responses.

I'm still trying to navigate all of the Marriott nuances. A couple more questions....

It looks like the best ski properties from the reviews are the ones in Park City. I'm also looking at a Vail platinum week. Does anyone know if Vail platinums float or are fixed weeks?

The Park City resales during ski season seem very expensive... I'm also looking at Platinum weeks at MCV, MPD, and NCV. Would they trade into ski season?

Also, I've read several threads that discuss the 53 week advantage. Is it necessary to get a resort with a Thursday check-in to maximize this advantage? Does anyone know which resorts have them off-hand? I originally understood the 53 week advantage was based on owning in the same resort and booking concurrent or consecutive weeks, but now I'm thinking you can own in two different properties and book consecutively?

So much to figure out!!! Definitely addling my brain!

I did figure out that I need to go resale rather than buy directly from Marriott. Can't believe the differences in what we were quoted during our visit and what things are going for and even passing ROFR!

Thanks for letting me ramble ....all help is appreiciate!

 

[dioxide45]

I don't know what the 53 week advantage it. There is a 13 month advantage if you are booking concurrent or consecutive weeks at two resorts you own. It becomes a bit better advantage if one of the resorts you are booking has Thursday checkin because you can call a day before those with only Fri, Sat, and Sun checkins. You need to own two weeks to take advantage of the 13 month reservation window. If you only own one week then there is no benefit over anyone else since you can only reserve at your home resort in your season.

 

[Dean]

Thanks so much for your responses.

I'm still trying to navigate all of the Marriott nuances. A couple more questions....

It looks like the best ski properties from the reviews are the ones in Park City. I'm also looking at a Vail platinum week. Does anyone know if Vail platinums float or are fixed weeks?

The Park City resales during ski season seem very expensive... I'm also looking at Platinum weeks at MCV, MPD, and NCV. Would they trade into ski season?

Also, I've read several threads that discuss the 53 week advantage. Is it necessary to get a resort with a Thursday check-in to maximize this advantage? Does anyone know which resorts have them off-hand? I originally understood the 53 week advantage was based on owning in the same resort and booking concurrent or consecutive weeks, but now I'm thinking you can own in two different properties and book consecutively?

So much to figure out!!! Definitely addling my brain!

I did figure out that I need to go resale rather than buy directly from Marriott. Can't believe the differences in what we were quoted during our visit and what things are going for and even passing ROFR!

Thanks for letting me ramble ....all help is appreiciate!

As dioxide45 mentioned, there is a 13 month reservation rule but the way it works right now is you can call from 13 months out from the first day of the reservation weekend for the resort in questions. If the resort has a Thursday date, you can call 13 months out but you could reserve a Sat or Sun if you wanted. And you do have to own two separate weeks even if you own a lockoff and you must book them concurrently or consecutively. They do not have to be at the same resort or the same Marriott season, one could be platinum and one bronze if they could be booked together.

IMO, Vail is a major risk. Marriott has already separated themselves from part of that resort and it's likely that the resort and Marriott will go their separate ways eventually, I'd say within 10 years. It's also a resort that's not quite up to the overall Marriott standards from what I can gather. There's also Breckenridge and Tahoe as other Marriott ski locations.

There's no resort you can consistently count on to trade to top ski weeks/resorts but a Platinum desert or Newport Coast likely will as well as anything else. Not sure what MPD is, ? MPB (Ocean Pointe). IF you want a prime ski week EOY, you should buy it but as you say, it will be big bucks. With the current economy though you might be able to get something cheaper than a couple of years ago. If you want to take the chance and try to trade in for some years, there are many good choices to do so and a lot more that are not good choices. If there is another location you'd likely go repeated, that might be a better choice to own for your stated purpose and try to trade to ski weeks part of the time.

 

[bmccuske]

Thanks for your help! So obvious I'm a newbie!

I hadn't heard anything about Vail, but realized it was selling much lower and the ratings weren't nearly as good.

I understood that you could book 53 weeks out with 2 properties, but it's really 13 months. I guess that is a real advantage.

I think we're probably going to look at the two Palm Desert properties in Platinum season. We can get there fairly easily from Denver and even might be able to get cheap airfare to Vegas and drive the 4 or 5 hours to save a few hundred dollars.

We're not golfers, and prefer lounging at the pool, shopping, good restaurants, that sort of thing. Any advice on the two properties? Is it reasonable to expect to get in at platinum at less than $10K?

 

[Dean]

Is it reasonable to expect to get in at platinum at less than $10K?

I'm not as versed on resales there. I've certainly seen platinum go for less recently on ebay. You might want to look at Gold as well.