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Bought Westin - good incentives do you think i should rescind?

Keep or rescind purchase

  • Keep

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Rescind

    Votes: 25 100.0%

  • Total voters
    25

Tchunky

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Thanks for having a wonderful forum and saving many people of heartache and regret. I am considering rescinding my purchase but am tempted to keep it because of the incentives they gave. I wanted the experience of this group to help me decide whether there is value in it:

177000 options, Westin 8 resorts including westin kaanapali, scottsdale, etc per year
Upfront 350k options and then 177k starting 2021, maintenance fee waived until 2021
Price 55k
Maintenance fee 3500k per year starting 2021
3 star elite status
6 coupons to buy 330,000 bonvoy points for $2200 each ***

So...looks like redweek is selling this package for 22k.

The truly tempting thing for me is the 6 coupons of bonvoy points. I feel like the value of that can be a lot if I use my points well. We are saving up points for some nice international airplane tickets.

What is the groups thoughts about the value of this package?
 

Grammarhero

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Rescind. You can probably get cheaper than $22k. Even saving $33k is a big deal.

Think if TS is for you. TS works best for people with flexible schedules who can make definitive plans. If you cancel reservations, that’s possibly lost points and money.
 
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Grammarhero

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Grammarhero

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Again. Think long and hard about TS. Westin has 25 resorts. Marriott has 80. More selection.
 

grgs

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CalGalTraveler

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This sounds like a Westin Flex package. Forget the incentives. Your timeshare package will be worth next to nothing the minute you pass the rescission period when you resell because the units in the trust portfolio are limited, and your buyers cannot trade into other Vistana resorts with staroptions. Who wants that?

Look at Westin resale mandatory properties. Those come with StarOptions to trade into ALL the Westins AND Sheratons. Get credit cards for the Bonvoy points. Read the TUG stickies and threads to learn more.

Rescind this dog now.

Research TUG and elsewhere

Buy Resale Mandatory.
 

vacationtime1

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This sounds like a Westin Flex package. Forget the incentives. The timeshare package that will be worth next to nothing when you resell because the units in the trust portfolio are limited, and your buyers cannot trade into other Vistana resorts with staroptions. Who wants that?

Look at Westin resale mandatory properties. Those come with StarOptions to trade into ALL the Westins AND Sheratons. Get credit cards for the Bonvoy points. Read the TUG

Rescind this dog now.

Research TUG and elsewhere

Buy Resale Mandatory.


^^^^^^^ This is excellent advice.
 

goaliedave

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Thanks for having a wonderful forum and saving many people of heartache and regret. I am considering rescinding my purchase but am tempted to keep it because of the incentives they gave. I wanted the experience of this group to help me decide whether there is value in it:

177000 options, Westin 8 resorts including westin kaanapali, scottsdale, etc per year
Upfront 350k options and then 177k starting 2021, maintenance fee waived until 2021
Price 55k
Maintenance fee 3500k per year starting 2021
3 star elite status
6 coupons to buy 330,000 bonvoy points for $2200 each ***

So...looks like redweek is selling this package for 22k.

The truly tempting thing for me is the 6 coupons of bonvoy points. I feel like the value of that can be a lot if I use my points well. We are saving up points for some nice international airplane tickets.

What is the groups thoughts about the value of this package?
I was going to give away my 162,000 star options on here and redweek, loved visiting Westin/Sheratons in Kauai, Scottsdale, Palm Springs, etc but have bought others now. MF $3000.

Let me know if you want them. Guess I should check first around if others are selling them!



Sent from my SM-J327W using Tapatalk
 

Grammarhero

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I was going to give away my 162,000 star options on here and redweek, loved visiting Westin/Sheratons in Kauai, Scottsdale, Palm Springs, etc but have bought others now. MF $3000.

Let me know if you want them. Guess I should check first around if others are selling them!



Sent from my SM-J327W using Tapatalk
I think you just saved the day.
 

DannyTS

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Thanks for having a wonderful forum and saving many people of heartache and regret. I am considering rescinding my purchase but am tempted to keep it because of the incentives they gave. I wanted the experience of this group to help me decide whether there is value in it:

177000 options, Westin 8 resorts including westin kaanapali, scottsdale, etc per year
Upfront 350k options and then 177k starting 2021, maintenance fee waived until 2021
Price 55k
Maintenance fee 3500k per year starting 2021
3 star elite status
6 coupons to buy 330,000 bonvoy points for $2200 each ***

So...looks like redweek is selling this package for 22k.

The truly tempting thing for me is the 6 coupons of bonvoy points. I feel like the value of that can be a lot if I use my points well. We are saving up points for some nice international airplane tickets.

What is the groups thoughts about the value of this package?
Rescind now. You can buy resale mandatory resorts (that transfer with Staroptions). You can also buy voluntary resort resale and buy a small contract from Vistana to enroll the resale contract. Both will save you a ton of cash both upfront and in annual fees.
 

Tchunky

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Thanks for everyone’s recommendations. I think I will rescind especially with goaliedave’s offer! Now, I didnt see this in the instructions listed on the forum but if the contract is in the name of the trust _ then it should be signed as John, trustee rather than John, husband?
 

Passepartout

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Thanks for everyone’s recommendations. I think I will rescind especially with goaliedave’s offer! Now, I didnt see this in the instructions listed on the forum but if the contract is in the name of the trust _ then it should be signed as John, trustee rather than John, husband?
Yes.
 

goaliedave

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fyi i Will look mine up and post when I get home; they are 2 x 2BR lockoffs at SVV, I think St Augustine weeks 37 38. A member dm'd me that staroptions dont transfer with St Augustine only the deeds ... warning while I investigate :)
 

jabberwocky

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This sounds like a Westin Flex package. Forget the incentives. Your timeshare package will be worth next to nothing the minute you pass the rescission period when you resell because the units in the trust portfolio are limited, and your buyers cannot trade into other Vistana resorts with staroptions. Who wants that?

Look at Westin resale mandatory properties. Those come with StarOptions to trade into ALL the Westins AND Sheratons. Get credit cards for the Bonvoy points. Read the TUG stickies and threads to learn more.

While in this case I think the right action is to rescind and buy a mandatory week since the package is too expensive, I'd like to know what objective evidence do we have that the Westin Flex packages lose all value on resale - I don't recall seeing enough of them hitting the secondary market? I think this conjecture is based solely on what has happened with Sheraton Flex (which I agree is worth $0).

Sure, Westin Flex resale doesn't get StarOptions. So what? You still get home resort to the majority of resorts that are most highly desired in the Vistana system for trade in at 12 months and unlike a mandatory purchase you can book partial weeks within the 8-12 month period. To me this would make a resale flex package more valuable than a voluntary WPORV week which do sell for more than $0 on the resale market. I'd be willing to pay a few grand for this as a resale.
 

DeniseM

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100% rescind - you can save a fortune buying resale and you don't want to buy Flex. Vistana created Flex to sell inventory that they couldn't unload otherwise, to unwitting buyers. DON'T DO IT!
 

wtrjock

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fyi i Will look mine up and post when I get home; they are 2 x 2BR lockoffs at SVV, I think St Augustine weeks 37 38. A member dm'd me that staroptions dont transfer with St Augustine only the deeds ... warning while I investigate :)
This is true. Only mandatory at SVV is Keywest and Bella. All others will not transfer StarOptions.
 

DannyTS

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While in this case I think the right action is to rescind and buy a mandatory week since the package is too expensive, I'd like to know what objective evidence do we have that the Westin Flex packages lose all value on resale - I don't recall seeing enough of them hitting the secondary market? I think this conjecture is based solely on what has happened with Sheraton Flex (which I agree is worth $0).

Sure, Westin Flex resale doesn't get StarOptions. So what? You still get home resort to the majority of resorts that are most highly desired in the Vistana system for trade in at 12 months and unlike a mandatory purchase you can book partial weeks within the 8-12 month period. To me this would make a resale flex package more valuable than a voluntary WPORV week which do sell for more than $0 on the resale market. I'd be willing to pay a few grand for this as a resale.

While I agree with you that there is not enough evidence about the market value of Westin Flex, it does not matter much in this context. The OP would pay 55k for this package. If the same is zero or 5k resale it does not change anything since we are still so far from the developer price.
 

needvaca

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Rescind ASAP
As wise Denise said above, flex has no resale value.
After you rescind, take some time to learn about Vistana on TUG

Buy a resale mandatory resort.
You can get a 2BR Westin Kierland platinum 148,100 staroptions for $15,000 or below, maintenance fee about $1700.

Or you can get 2 2BR Sheraton vistana villages platinum Bella or key west section, 162,000 staroptions for $3000 or so, maintenance fee about $2300.
 

CalGalTraveler

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While in this case I think the right action is to rescind and buy a mandatory week since the package is too expensive, I'd like to know what objective evidence do we have that the Westin Flex packages lose all value on resale - I don't recall seeing enough of them hitting the secondary market? I think this conjecture is based solely on what has happened with Sheraton Flex (which I agree is worth $0).

Sure, Westin Flex resale doesn't get StarOptions. So what? You still get home resort to the majority of resorts that are most highly desired in the Vistana system for trade in at 12 months and unlike a mandatory purchase you can book partial weeks within the 8-12 month period. To me this would make a resale flex package more valuable than a voluntary WPORV week which do sell for more than $0 on the resale market. I'd be willing to pay a few grand for this as a resale.

This...

Although this is a single datapoint, I haven't seen anything to make me believe otherwise.

upload_2019-9-7_10-40-25.png
 
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rickandcindy23

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Definitely rescind. You can buy Westin Kierland Mandatory Options (resale only) and save a bunch of money in MF's and in purchase price. You will be happier to save a lot of money. People are saying 148K options is about $14K and about $1,200 in MF's. That is a good deal. I kind of wish I could do it, but we have too many timeshares.
 

jabberwocky

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This...

Although this is a single datapoint, I haven't seen anything to make me believe otherwise.

View attachment 13881

That was a good deal then (just under 10% of retail), but hardly what I would call "worthless". The winning bid was more than most of the prized SVV weeks go for.

I'm all for the OP rescinding. It was a bad and overpriced deal. All I'm saying is that there are some good things about Westin Flex that make it attractive for certain purposes (for me Sheraton Flex is a completely different discussion).
 

jabberwocky

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While I agree with you that there is not enough evidence about the market value of Westin Flex, it does not matter much in this context. The OP would pay 55k for this package. If the same is zero or 5k resale it does not change anything since we are still so far from the developer price.

Agreed - OP made the right choice to rescind. I'm just merely pointing out not all Flex programs are the same and I think we'll see the market recognize this in the future.
 

DannyTS

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Agreed - OP made the right choice to rescind. I'm just merely pointing out not all Flex programs are the same and I think we'll see the market recognize this in the future.
The market is waiting for validation of the Flex programs inventory. Given what we suspect so far that most weeks in the trusts are shoulder season at the less desirable locations, there is a lot of room for disappointment if everyone tries to book the best weeks in Hawaii etc.
We also have to start to see the ROFR data. If Vistana does not exercise its right at 0-10% of the retail price we will know what they think about the value of the trust.
Westin flex is close to $0.2 per point (MF). SVV Bella 2 bdr platinum (mandatory) is $0.15 per SO. Because the SVN inventory is very decent, you are going to have a hard time convincing me to sell my Bella (less than 2k resale value) to pay more upfront for something with higher annual fees, unknown inventory, and with ROFR. Because all the resort in the trust are "home" resorts I see those that want to rent out Hawaii without high maintenance fees being interested in Westin Flex but there are plenty of people who rent reservations made with SO (not allowed I know but Vistana does not enforce the rule so far) so even that interest should be rather low.

There is one more aspect about the retail value. Because these are new programs, we do not have a lot of people wanting to sell YET. In time though, because health, financial and family circumstances change, a certain percentage will have to sell and I do believe all the flex programs, including Westin Flex will suffer from oversupply and cheap viable alternatives.
 
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