In my case the Marriott points program has been a great benefit to me, and each year I trade in two of my weeks for 220,000 MR points to replenish what we use every second year for a very nice trip using business class air. Because my kids are adults, this empty nester bought with the intent to make maximum use of the Marriott 'air+hotel' packages which includes a 7 night stay in one of their hotels and 120,000 FF miles for your selected airline. Because I have 4 weeks left each year that I don't trade for points, most of which are lockoffs, I still get between 4-6 weeks of timesharing...and with bonus week AC's from Interval I always have more weeks than I can use, often giving one or more to top staff producers in one of my companies. For me it works --- if I had young children buying for the points program might not work as well. On the other hand if one year I didn't want to TS I could trade in all my weeks for about 700,000 points and just clean out some II banked week inventory instead.
Just take a look at the prices for a 7 night stay at the Category 7 Marriott hotels in Paris, London, Paris, etc. and you'll see what the 'value' would be if you had to pay cash instead of points. Then, check Expedia and price out business class air fares from USA to Europe ... we're talking thousands of dollars per seat! Take a stopover (ie. a week in London followed by a week in Paris) and you could easily pay upwards of $12k for such a holiday.
If the economy stalls with TS sales, you might see points incentives increase from Marriott. In 2001 and 2002 EACH of the TS I bought direct came with over half a million points including pre-construction non use years. That's a pile of points -- and a great benefit for platinum prices that were at that time under $18000! Considering I could sell any of those weeks for close to what I paid -- all that extra points travel seems like it was free. Today, prices are higher and incentives are less ... something has to give if direct sales slow down.
I should say that my system of maximizing points trading only works with platinum weeks, not bronze, because the annual maintenance is almost the same but the points you get vastly different.
You can purchase up to 50,000 MR points directly to acquire enough points for a package, and spouse can do it too ... but 100k points a year takes longer to get enough to play the game unless you stay at Marriott hotels a lot. Even then, to earn 110,000 points will take you 55 nights in a $200 a night Marriott. One last point...as an elite MR member you do get point saver and special savings on some hotels, so you can get discounts on hotels if a member...but you don't have to trade your TS in to belong - it's free.
Brian
