@dawsonar802 hope this helps...
What is done is done. Don't throw good money after bad by speaking with Wesley Group. Lear the system. The people who are best of are legacy owners with Hawaii/Beach and platinum weeks in either system. You have Sheraton Flex Home Options of 65 300 points. This means you have priority to reserve 12 8 months out at any of the resorts within the Sheraton Flex Trust before anybody else.
These resorts are:
- Sheraton Vistana Resort (FL)
- Sheraton Vistana Villages (FL)
- Vistana's Beach Club (FL)
- Sheraton Desert Oasis (AZ)
- Sheraton Broadway Plantation (SC)
- Sheraton Steamboat Springs (CO)
- Sheraton Mountain Vista (CO)
- Sheraton Lakeside Terrace (CO)
- Sheraton Kauai Resort Villas (HI)
You can check this link and see how many points you need to reserve in the Sheraton Flex system between 8 month and 12 months with priority:
https://vistana-web-static.s3.amazo...assets/pdf/charts/staroptions_value_chart.pdf. Between 1 day and 8 months you can reserve at any of the other resorts in this link by using Staroptions. This sounds confusing but all this means is that your Home options are turned into Staroptions. One benefit of owning in the Flex system is that you convert only as many Home options (1:1) for Staroptions as you need. Weeks owners have to convert their whole week and then loose the 8-12 month priority at their resort(This is simplistic as there are other ways at play like locking off etc. but, I am just trying to keep it simple).
Now if you look carefully at the chart you will see that Mon-Wed costs the least amount of points. Thursday and Sunday costs a little more. Friday and Saturday costs the most. Your 56 300 points could therefore allow you to stay in a 1 bedroom villa during Platinum season in Hawaii(Oceanfront) from Monday to Saturday(5 days) and you will have some change left that you could bank into next year or in Interval International. Unfortunately you will have to bank 1 year and borrow from the next year(3 years of points) to stay in a Hawaii 2 bedroom for a week and then it will not be Oceanfront. However, it will take 2 years of points to stay in a premium one bedroom (Oceanfront) in Hawaii for a week. You can look at these charts and work out more scenarios. If you bank all your points for one year forward, you will be able to book studios or 1 bedroom(non premium) villas for 5 years by combining points over the time period. Then you will have to take a year off and start the process again. The only caveat is that if you do this by combining points you can only reserve 8 months or less out. Most Vistana owners have reported that they still get good inventory if you reserve at 8 months on the dot. The fact that you own developer points allow you all the above flexibility. If you owned resale points you would only be able to reserve within your trust and this is why resale points are worthless.
Now, because you own developer(bought from Marriott) points you have other options as well. Partly you pay a club fee and then do not pay membership in Interval International(The exchange company) to allow you to deposit your Flex Home Options or Staroptions to be able to exchange to other resorts that are within the exchange company. The good thing about Flex is that you can exchange back to other Vistana or Marriott resorts. If you own Abound points(the points Marriott sell at the Marriott resorts) you cannot exchange back into Marriott resorts. If you look at the chart below you can see how many points it will take to exchange into other resorts. For example to exchange into a 2 bedroom resort during the highest peak time(mostly during holidays) it will take 110 000 points. This will therefore cost less than booking into the same for instance a Hawaii resort in a 2 bedroom during platinum season. The catch is that it is subject to availability and the view is not guaranteed. However if you put a request in 12 months out with flexible dates you are likely to get an exchange but I must reiterate the view is not guaranteed. There are also tricks that allow you to browse for instant exchanges where you will see what is available. Vistana exchanges are held for a couple of weeks when available for Vistana owners to exchange too. Then Marriott resorts become available after crossing their priority time for a few days before becoming available to other exchangers outside the Marriott/Vistana system. Disney exchanges in Interval International which makes it a good exchange system to be in.
Because you own a developer purchase of Sheraton Flex you also have the option to convert your points to Abound points 34:1. That means you can get 1655 Abound points to reserve Marriott resorts and Vistana resorts in the Abound trust. You can convert intervals of 20 000 Flex points or all off your points. If you convert for example 2 x 20 000 points you will have 16 300 Sheraton Home options left. You cannot convert the last points because it is not a full 20 000 point interval. You have to decide before converting if it is an all or some scenario you want to use. People say Sheraton Flex MF's is expensive but you can do much worse. As stated in the beginning of this piece the owners who are making out well in terms of MF/abound point are the platinum weeks owners in Hawaii/beach resorts. If you take the current Sheraton Flex MF for your points and consider how many abound points you get your cost per Abound point is about 75cents. This is below last years Abound MF which was 82cents per point.
Lets move on. Using the converted Abound points allow you to book at 12 months out unless you have a certain status due to the amount of points you own or own multiple weeks. Again there are nuances according to your status. There are rules such as paying premium for reserving a week/days at 12/13 months out if you are at lower tiers of ownership. If you cancel there could also be penalties involved if you are in a lower tier. I suggest you read the sticky in the Marriott forum for more information. Just like with Flex points the cost per day for Sunday to Thursday is the cheapest and then Friday/Saturday is most expensive to reserve per day. Marriott does not have a full list available in one PDF like Vistana(too many resorts) but you can look at points charts on the Marriott owners site. Because you are a developer owner you will be able to access this site too do everything a Marriott owner can do. I see this as another perk that a Flex owner has because Marriott owners cannot access the Vistana owners site to reserve etc. You will have the flexibility of applying many scenarios according to resort, peak time, and type of villa just like in Vistana to allow you to make the best use of your points. You will be able to bank and borrow points to allow reserving bigger units in higher demand peak times with certain view types. I can tell you that Hawaii 2 bedrooms during peak times are unlikely to be reserved for a full week by combining 3 years worth of points as they are usually north of 5000 Abound points to reserve. This counts for other beach and platinum resorts as well. There may be resorts in Orlando or less high demand places such as Branson where you may be able to reserve a platinum 2 bedroom week. Skiing for 5-6 days over Christmas is possible if you stay in a 1 bedroom or studio by using around 1600 Abound points. As you can see there are possibilities and options Abound(pun intended).
Lastly you could deposit the Abound points you converted into Interval International but as you can see from the chart below it is not quite as gainful to use Abound points for exchange as it is using Flex points. You will not be able to exchange for a 2 bedroom during the highest peak period with two years worth of points. You can also not exchange to any Marriott properties but Vistana is available. Exchanges to other resorts outside the Marriott/Vistana bubble such as Disney are also available. Just remember it is subject too availability.
In a nutshell I just want to say that you could have done a lot worse but also a lot better. With what you have hopefully you can make it work and your purchase more palaptable.
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