Equity buyback offer I received today

[LUVourMarriotts]

We are currently staying at Barony Beach for Thanksgiving. I've been making all our reservations with my wife's account, as she gets more perks than I do on the Bonvoy side. So, she received the pre-arrival call, and was intrigued by the $350 off our MF's for an "owner's update", so she signed us up. This was our first presentation in 3-4 years. We had to drive over to the Hilton Head sales office, which is across the street from Grande Ocean, which was fine, very nice sales location.
The conversation led us to a discussion about why we own a week at Marriott's Fairway Villas (platinum), and elect points for it every year. They didn't like my answers, especially when I told them that the corporate office sales team told me on multiple occasions that MFV has no value in the Marriott portfolio. I brought my MacBook with me, so I could have my MVCPlanning.xlsx file up and be able to answer any questions they threw at me, and also do quick calculations when they fed me their "offers". I spoke about the many conversations I've had with MVC execs and sales about the possibility of converting my MFV to Beneficial Interests. Of course this opened the door for them to jump on the "Equity Buyback" program.
Our sales woman left for a bit, came back and said they have an amazing offer that was not available until the last year or so, and it would be a dream come true for us. Here's the "offer".

1. They take back my MFV week, worth 2075 points
2. They give me my original purchase price back
3. They sell me the 2075 points as BI's
   1. But since MVC always needs to have skin in the game, I need to purchase an additional 2000 points
   2. But since that would be 4075, and BI's are sold in 250 point increments, so I would need to buy 4250 (2175 more than I have now)
4. Current purchase price is $17.72, so that comes to $75,310 + closing costs
   1. I asked her if they'd accept cash, cuz that sounds like a no brainer (I laughed, she didn't )
5. The sales manager comes in, explains that they have an unbelievable 40th Anniversary equity program going right now, and I would be amazed at what they are offering (I'm sure)
6. The math

Initial Purchase Price	$75,310 (4250 x 17.72)
Equity buyback	-$17,900
"40th Anniversary incentive"	-$18,869
Promo Price	$38,541

The sales manager then pulled out the chart of the history of the points purchase price (which I took). He says, "We're letting you go back 14+ years on this pricing chart and still getting a discount off the initial $9.20 price. You're only going to be paying $9.07/point. So, do you want to pay cash or finance?" I looked at my wife, we both had the same thought, so I said it, "we don't want to finance, because we don't want to do this." We were already at the 90-minute mark, so my wife said, "we've gotta get heading back". They finished us up quickly, got the "quality" guy in to offer the Encore and we left. The Encore was 5 days/4 nights on HHI (Barony, SurfWatch or Grande Ocean) 2BR for $1099, with a $400 upcharge for July/August.

While we were waiting for the Encore guy, I did some other calculations. The buyback program and incentive is just smoke and mirrors. That $38,541 just happens to be the exact amount of buying 2175 points at $17.72, which is the additional number of points I would have been adding to my portfolio. They would just swap deeds on the backend.

 

[Jazdddy]

I was
Giving Marriott hope when I read title this post that they’d offer u actual cash to take back but silly me they know timeshare has no value

 

[TheTimeTraveler]

We are currently staying at Barony Beach for Thanksgiving. I've been making all our reservations with my wife's account, as she gets more perks than I do on the Bonvoy side. So, she received the pre-arrival call, and was intrigued by the $350 off our MF's for an "owner's update", so she signed us up. This was our first presentation in 3-4 years. We had to drive over to the Hilton Head sales office, which is across the street from Grande Ocean, which was fine, very nice sales location.
The conversation led us to a discussion about why we own a week at Marriott's Fairway Villas (platinum), and elect points for it every year. They didn't like my answers, especially when I told them that the corporate office sales team told me on multiple occasions that MFV has no value in the Marriott portfolio. I brought my MacBook with me, so I could have my MVCPlanning.xlsx file up and be able to answer any questions they threw at me, and also do quick calculations when they fed me their "offers". I spoke about the many conversations I've had with MVC execs and sales about the possibility of converting my MFV to Beneficial Interests. Of course this opened the door for them to jump on the "Equity Buyback" program.
Our sales woman left for a bit, came back and said they have an amazing offer that was not available until the last year or so, and it would be a dream come true for us. Here's the "offer".

1. They take back my MFV week, worth 2075 points
2. They give me my original purchase price back
3. They sell me the 2075 points as BI's
   1. But since MVC always needs to have skin in the game, I need to purchase an additional 2000 points
   2. But since that would be 4075, and BI's are sold in 250 point increments, so I would need to buy 4250 (2175 more than I have now)
4. Current purchase price is $17.72, so that comes to $75,310 + closing costs
   1. I asked her if they'd accept cash, cuz that sounds like a no brainer (I laughed, she didn't )
5. The sales manager comes in, explains that they have an unbelievable 40th Anniversary equity program going right now, and I would be amazed at what they are offering (I'm sure)
6. The math

Initial Purchase Price	$75,310 (4250 x 17.72)
Equity buyback	-$17,900
"40th Anniversary incentive"	-$18,869
Promo Price	$38,541

The sales manager then pulled out the chart of the history of the points purchase price (which I took). He says, "We're letting you go back 14+ years on this pricing chart and still getting a discount off the initial $9.20 price. You're only going to be paying $9.07/point. So, do you want to pay cash or finance?" I looked at my wife, we both had the same thought, so I said it, "we don't want to finance, because we don't want to do this." We were already at the 90-minute mark, so my wife said, "we've gotta get heading back". They finished us up quickly, got the "quality" guy in to offer the Encore and we left. The Encore was 5 days/4 nights on HHI (Barony, SurfWatch or Grande Ocean) 2BR for $1099, with a $400 upcharge for July/August.

While we were waiting for the Encore guy, I did some other calculations. The buyback program and incentive is just smoke and mirrors. That $38,541 just happens to be the exact amount of buying 2175 points at $17.72, which is the additional number of points I would have been adding to my portfolio. They would just swap deeds on the backend.

Such a tempting offer.........NOT.











.

 

[Fasttr]

I asked her if they'd accept cash, cuz that sounds like a no brainer (I laughed, she didn't )

Best line in your post. ;-)

 

[AlmostRetired]

We're letting you go back 14+ years

If they would let me go back 14 years, I would pay them the $38.541 and they could keep the points.

 

[jmhpsu93]

Well, just think...you'll be spending about $200/year less in maintenance fees, though!!!

 

[dougp26364]

Liars figure but figures don’t lie.

It’s amazing how they’ll spin the numbers to trick someone into spending money they don’t really need to spend. I wonder what would have happened if you’d have countered with an offer of $9.20 per NEW point ($20,700) plus the junk fees of $3 per point MVC charges on resale points, or a total of $27,450. Assuming that resale points deal would pass ROFR, I’d propose that as the top dollar I’d pay, understanding that as a resale buyer I can always offer lower on deals until I eventually found the true bottom dollar MVC is willing to go. However, I might be willing to pay the $9.20 plus $3 to them assuming they’d still take back the deed on the original property. You’d probably give the closer a headache thinking about how close they were to a deal, but just out of reach. unless they happen to be desperate of course and they actually agreed to the deal.

That’s usually the math I keep in my back pocket when I want to make a deal and add some points. The last time I did anything like that, it took me three years to get a sales manager desperate enough to close the deal. At that time I did want to move up a level and wanted the extra points. I just wasn’t willing to spend the time trying to buy them resale and wasn’t in such a need for the points I felt hurried. Today, I don’t need the extra points, so there’s not much incentive for me to attend a presentation, waste my time and annoy my wife, so we don’t go unless they put enough cash on the table to make it worth annoying my wife.

 

[bucs0721]

We are currently staying at Barony Beach for Thanksgiving. I've been making all our reservations with my wife's account, as she gets more perks than I do on the Bonvoy side. So, she received the pre-arrival call, and was intrigued by the $350 off our MF's for an "owner's update", so she signed us up. This was our first presentation in 3-4 years. We had to drive over to the Hilton Head sales office, which is across the street from Grande Ocean, which was fine, very nice sales location.
The conversation led us to a discussion about why we own a week at Marriott's Fairway Villas (platinum), and elect points for it every year. They didn't like my answers, especially when I told them that the corporate office sales team told me on multiple occasions that MFV has no value in the Marriott portfolio. I brought my MacBook with me, so I could have my MVCPlanning.xlsx file up and be able to answer any questions they threw at me, and also do quick calculations when they fed me their "offers". I spoke about the many conversations I've had with MVC execs and sales about the possibility of converting my MFV to Beneficial Interests. Of course this opened the door for them to jump on the "Equity Buyback" program.
Our sales woman left for a bit, came back and said they have an amazing offer that was not available until the last year or so, and it would be a dream come true for us. Here's the "offer".

1. They take back my MFV week, worth 2075 points
2. They give me my original purchase price back
3. They sell me the 2075 points as BI's
   1. But since MVC always needs to have skin in the game, I need to purchase an additional 2000 points
   2. But since that would be 4075, and BI's are sold in 250 point increments, so I would need to buy 4250 (2175 more than I have now)
4. Current purchase price is $17.72, so that comes to $75,310 + closing costs
   1. I asked her if they'd accept cash, cuz that sounds like a no brainer (I laughed, she didn't )
5. The sales manager comes in, explains that they have an unbelievable 40th Anniversary equity program going right now, and I would be amazed at what they are offering (I'm sure)
6. The math

Initial Purchase Price	$75,310 (4250 x 17.72)
Equity buyback	-$17,900
"40th Anniversary incentive"	-$18,869
Promo Price	$38,541

The sales manager then pulled out the chart of the history of the points purchase price (which I took). He says, "We're letting you go back 14+ years on this pricing chart and still getting a discount off the initial $9.20 price. You're only going to be paying $9.07/point. So, do you want to pay cash or finance?" I looked at my wife, we both had the same thought, so I said it, "we don't want to finance, because we don't want to do this." We were already at the 90-minute mark, so my wife said, "we've gotta get heading back". They finished us up quickly, got the "quality" guy in to offer the Encore and we left. The Encore was 5 days/4 nights on HHI (Barony, SurfWatch or Grande Ocean) 2BR for $1099, with a $400 upcharge for July/August.

While we were waiting for the Encore guy, I did some other calculations. The buyback program and incentive is just smoke and mirrors. That $38,541 just happens to be the exact amount of buying 2175 points at $17.72, which is the additional number of points I would have been adding to my portfolio. They would just swap deeds on the backend.

We're here at the Barony, too. And we also went yesterday for an "owner's update". We probably passed you in the sales office. Long story short, they wanted us to buy 2000 at the same $17.72 ("quarterly increase will be coming soon"). The initial 'no' from us turned into a special offer of 100k Bonvoy points, 1,000 bonus MVC points if we bought 1000 at $17.72. Oh, and we could finance with them at 14.5% for 5 years. A last 'no' from us & they were gone - 60 minutes total. They said something about a survey as they quickly left the room. We waited a couple of minutes & then left before anybody came to us.
We took the $350 cash offer & have enjoyed dinner this week at: One Hot Mama's (plus smoked turkey carryout for today), Skull Creek Dockside & Crazy Crab on Jarvis Creek. And we have a Friday night reservation at Benny's to close out the week. I'm going to start doing this every trip we take.
It seems the best option to add points is to buy them on the open market. I saw a sale on rofr.net for $2.00/point was approved on 10/30/2024.

 

[LUVourMarriotts]

We're here at the Barony, too. And we also went yesterday for an "owner's update". We probably passed you in the sales office. Long story short, they wanted us to buy 2000 at the same $17.72 ("quarterly increase will be coming soon"). The initial 'no' from us turned into a special offer of 100k Bonvoy points, 1,000 bonus MVC points if we bought 1000 at $17.72. Oh, and we could finance with them at 14.5% for 5 years. A last 'no' from us & they were gone - 60 minutes total. They said something about a survey as they quickly left the room. We waited a couple of minutes & then left before anybody came to us.
We took the $350 cash offer & have enjoyed dinner this week at: One Hot Mama's (plus smoked turkey carryout for today), Skull Creek Dockside & Crazy Crab on Jarvis Creek. And we have a Friday night reservation at Benny's to close out the week. I'm going to start doing this every trip we take.
It seems the best option to add points is to buy them on the open market. I saw a sale on rofr.net for $2.00/point was approved on 10/30/2024.

Enjoy your stay! We were there for a 9am presentation. We’ve been to HHI 15+ times now, and have been coming for Thanksgiving for the past 6-7 years. We are heading to Dockside today for Thanksgiving meal. We did One Hot Mama’s pickup meal during a Covid year and it was great.

One thing that really turned me off about the whole presentation was the saleswoman we had didn’t seem to know the program well, as she explained some of the owner benefits very poorly. Yet she kept saying she is a Chairman level owner and has been for 15 years.

 

[bucs0721]

Enjoy your stay! We were there for a 9am presentation. We’ve been to HHI 15+ times now, and have been coming for Thanksgiving for the past 6-7 years. We are heading to Dockside today for Thanksgiving meal. We did One Hot Mama’s pickup meal during a Covid year and it was great.

One thing that really turned me off about the whole presentation was the saleswoman we had didn’t seem to know the program well, as she explained some of the owner benefits very poorly. Yet she kept saying she is a Chairman level owner and has been for 15 years.

Thanks! This is our first time to HHI. We spent Sunday at Heritage as MVC couldn't match up our 1 night OF reservation to the 5 night OS reservation. So we decided to try a different resort. Staying at the Heritage gave us a chance to explore Sea Pines so it worked out for us. We've made it a point to visit all of the MVC locations so far this week.
We had hoped to hear some new information about MVC but it was not to be. He did tell me I could book II directly from the MVC website. I didn't bother to correct him as I wanted to make the session as short as possible.
Enjoy your stay! We're headed to Charleston on Saturday for 3 days.

 

[bazzap]

Enjoy your stay! We were there for a 9am presentation. We’ve been to HHI 15+ times now, and have been coming for Thanksgiving for the past 6-7 years. We are heading to Dockside today for Thanksgiving meal. We did One Hot Mama’s pickup meal during a Covid year and it was great.

One thing that really turned me off about the whole presentation was the saleswoman we had didn’t seem to know the program well, as she explained some of the owner benefits very poorly. Yet she kept saying she is a Chairman level owner and has been for 15 years.

Especially as Premier Plus level was still the highest level ownership just 10 years ago?!

 

[frank808]

Yet she kept saying she is a Chairman level owner and has been for 15 years.

DP program started in June 2010 so there is no way she could have been Chairman's club level for 15 years. Plus there was no chairman's level when program started.

What is it when timeshare sales weasels move their lips?

Sent from my SM-S928U using Tapatalk

 

[T-Dot-Traveller]

Liars figure but figures don’t lie.

........Today, I don’t need the extra points, so there’s not much incentive for me to attend a presentation, waste my time and annoy my wife, so we don’t go unless they put enough cash on the table to make it worth annoying my wife.

This is a true nugget of wisdom

 

[Fishcampww]

We're here at the Barony, too. And we also went yesterday for an "owner's update". We probably passed you in the sales office. Long story short, they wanted us to buy 2000 at the same $17.72 ("quarterly increase will be coming soon"). The initial 'no' from us turned into a special offer of 100k Bonvoy points, 1,000 bonus MVC points if we bought 1000 at $17.72. Oh, and we could finance with them at 14.5% for 5 years. A last 'no' from us & they were gone - 60 minutes total. They said something about a survey as they quickly left the room. We waited a couple of minutes & then left before anybody came to us.
We took the $350 cash offer & have enjoyed dinner this week at: One Hot Mama's (plus smoked turkey carryout for today), Skull Creek Dockside & Crazy Crab on Jarvis Creek. And we have a Friday night reservation at Benny's to close out the week. I'm going to start doing this every trip we take.
It seems the best option to add points is to buy them on the open market. I saw a sale on rofr.net for $2.00/point was approved on 10/30/2024.

We just received the same pitch. We have owned 2-weeks at Marriott Grande Ocean and purchased 1750 MVC points about seven years ago; that was a sales job as we have yet to see the value, and the maintenance fee is higher per point than our deeded weeks.
Today they played the "fear" card, that assessments were on their way to Grande Ocean ala the Surfside collapse in Florida. Over the next 10 years, we would pay over $207,000 in maintenance fees and assessments. We currently pay approximately $4500; when I stated that an average of $20K a year, he said incrementally. I asked for the math but didn't get it. The offer: Trade in my 2 weeks and receive 11,500 points for $46,518 or $4 a point. Per the salesman, that gives me $156,000 in value for my 2 weeks. But what about the trade-in of 2 weeks? That's within the discount to get to $4 a point. My new yearly maintenance fee would be $10,733 on 13250 points ($0.81 per point). So by trading in 2 weeks and paying $46,518, I get an increase in my maintenance fee. What am I missing here?
Per our salesman, our 2-weeks are worth zero, but they are giving me $156,000, and 82% of people like me have done this. Help?

 

[gsb]

We just received the same pitch. We have owned 2-weeks at Marriott Grande Ocean and purchased 1750 MVC points about seven years ago; that was a sales job as we have yet to see the value, and the maintenance fee is higher per point than our deeded weeks.
Today they played the "fear" card, that assessments were on their way to Grande Ocean ala the Surfside collapse in Florida. Over the next 10 years, we would pay over $207,000 in maintenance fees and assessments. We currently pay approximately $4500; when I stated that an average of $20K a year, he said incrementally. I asked for the math but didn't get it. The offer: Trade in my 2 weeks and receive 11,500 points for $46,518 or $4 a point. Per the salesman, that gives me $156,000 in value for my 2 weeks. But what about the trade-in of 2 weeks? That's within the discount to get to $4 a point. My new yearly maintenance fee would be $10,733 on 13250 points ($0.81 per point). So by trading in 2 weeks and paying $46,518, I get an increase in my maintenance fee. What am I missing here?
Per our salesman, our 2-weeks are worth zero, but they are giving me $156,000, and 82% of people like me have done this. Help?

There is no indication of a planned assessment at Grande Ocean. If there was, sales persons wouldn’t have advance notice over owners. The Florida assessments, which I believe to be temporary, are due to a law passed by the Florida legislature. Again, there is no indication South Carolina will follow suit.

The idea your maintenance fees will add up to $207,000 over the next ten years is crazy. While there’s no way to know with certainty how much fees will increase, it’s almost certain they will not be nearly that high. I‘m no mathematician, but if fees continue to increase at about 6% a year, fees for a week at Grande Ocean will be closer to $3,600 than to $25,000

You are basically being asked to pay $17.72 a point for the difference between the election value of your current weeks and the 11,500 points you are purchasing.

Marriott offers resales of Grande Ocean Platinum weeks. I’m not sure about gold weeks.

 

[Hindsite]

Today they played the "fear" card, that assessments were on their way to Grande Ocean ala the Surfside collapse in Florida.

As GO is a US resort there is inventory in the Points trust, so if there are huge, or any, assessments and increases in maint fees, you'll see those reflected int he maint fees for your club points.
As you have found, buying club points does not insulate you from increases in maint fees for US resorts, it exposes you to all of them, and the impact of the lower season inventory held in the trust, which has high m/f per club point ratios.
The only thing going on in this deal is the salesperson is looking to find ways to make a large commission from you, by selling you something you don't need. Such a shame they have so little of interest to sell that they have to resort to this.
If you want or need more club points buy them resale as you can get them for less than half of what MVC is selling for them for, even with the fee you have to pay MVC. Resale club points work just the same as the ones direct, only lots cheaper.....