Good deal or should I rescind?

[margolism]

In a nutshell:

I am an owner at the Westin Lagunamar - 2BR Platinum Plus which I purchased for virtually nothing on the resale market 6 or 7 years ago.

I use the 1BR for Christmas or President’s week every year, as there are only three of us in my family. The 2BR is overkill for our stay, so the studio gets rented / donated to school auction / etc. We always tack on additional nights on either end (or both ends) to extend to 10 to 12 nights - 7 nights at the WLR just isn't enough for us!

Last year we purchased the Westin Explorer package (or whatever they now call it) for $2,000 and used that to tack on an additional four nights to our annual visit to the Westin Lagunamar. In addition to the four nights we got 150,000 Marriott points which I can extract quite a bit of value from - much more than the typical .007c per point.

Net net - at the presentation this year the last “offer” we were made was to get a 1BR gold week EOY in Westin Aventuras. Cost was $10K less what we paid for our Explorer package, so basically $8K in new cash. I am also getting 125,000 Marriott Bonvoy points. In addition, as part of this, they are retroing our 2BR Platinum Plus (148,100 StarOptions). This makes me Vistana 3* elite which honestly doesn't really matter that much to me. I also have the option to purchase 4 330,000 Marriott point bundles at .0069c per point. (I usually extract 2c to 3c per point in value.)

So on an annual basis we will have 170,100 StarOptions every year, or 192,100 EOY.

The maintenance on the new 1BR is $350 or so a year - which is actually about $100 to $125 less than the EOY 1BR maintenance at WLR.

Although week 1 is considered a Gold week, the cost of rooms that week is actually quite expensive. A 1BR villa that week is like $569 a night. As a Platinum Plus I cannot book that week with my unit, and as a resale owner, I cannot use the StarOptions from my studio to book those extra nights.

Net net - I would have paid under $10K in total for both a 2BR Platinum Plus week (EY) and a 1BR Gold Week (EOY), with annual maintenance for the two combined around $1850-$1875. With both in the network with full benefits.

I considered purchasing a mandatory unit but the maintenance fees were a lot higher, and I wouldn't have the ability to book at WLR 12 months out, nor would I have the 148,100 StarOptions from my resale retroed. I would rather pay a bit more up front and have a long term lower maintenance than pay little to nothing up front but be saddled with 2x to 3x the maintenance fee annually, at a property I have no real intention of using. I also considered getting a 1BR gold week resale but that doesn't give me the flexibility I need.

Thoughts anyone?

Cheers,


Mark

 

[Sicnarf]

So, considering the value of the 150k BV points, your net cost <$7k. So, is the ability to use your excess SOs to book other Vistana properties worth $7k? Do you need the additional 1 year booking priority for the Aventuras properties? If SOs is the only concern, you should be able to by a WKV 1br EY Plat for $7k with comparable MF and much higher resale value. But if you want the flexibility to use all your SOs at other Vistana properties, then $7k would make sense. BTW, I'm confuse how you get 170k SOs EY.

 

[margolism]

148100 + 22000 = 170,100

 

[margolism]

So, considering the value of the 150k BV points, your net cost <$7k. So, is the ability to use your excess SOs to book other Vistana properties worth $7k? Do you need the additional 1 year booking priority for the Aventuras properties? If SOs is the only concern, you should be able to by a WKV 1br EY Plat for $7k with comparable MF and much higher resale value. But if you want the flexibility to use all your SOs at other Vistana properties, then $7k would make sense. BTW, I'm confuse how you get 170k SOs EY.

The maintenance on a WKV 1BR EY seems to be about $1,000 vs the $700 ($350 per year) for what I acquired. A WKV 1BR would give me 81,000 StarOptions I could use every year, but this will allow me to access the StarOption value of my WLR 2BR Plat Plus. With the initial acquisition costs roughly the same, long term I will be paying more to own WKV (and yes, I might be able to recoup some of that back if I decide to sell.)

 

[jabberwocky]

If you will be going there for a long time in the future this makes sense to me. We did something similar with WFlex last year. We have a mandatory EOY WKORV-N OF unit and we wanted to add 3-4 days to our stay there every second year. We also own a SDO 2BR Plat Plus EOY. We retroed our SDO with the purchase of WFlex and applied the value of an explorer package to the purchase price.

It doesn't work for everyone, but there are instances where developer purchases make sense. For you I think it does.

Just a note - with Aventuras you're buying points, not time in a specific season, so you can book into platinum season during the home resort period - it just requires more points.

 

[DannyTS]

In a nutshell:



Net net - at the presentation this year the last “offer” we were made was to get a 1BR gold week EOY in Westin Aventuras. Cost was $10K less what we paid for our Explorer package, so basically $8K in new cash. I am also getting 125,000 Marriott Bonvoy points. In addition, as part of this, they are retroing our 2BR Platinum Plus (148,100 StarOptions). This makes me Vistana 3* elite which honestly doesn't really matter that much to me. I also have the option to purchase 4 330,000 Marriott point bundles at .0069c per point. (I usually extract 2c to 3c per point in value.)

I thought points were points with Aventuras, you do not own a season. To mask that the maintenance fees are more expensive than what you own, the presented it to you this way. Basically what you are buying is the equivalent of a studio every other year and if you compare you will see that the MF are 50% more expensive plus you will pay the VSN fee of 155 per year.

My personal conclusion so far is that when we travel to Lagunamar (only platinum season) it is still cheaper to use our resale ownership weeks even if we do not use multiple of 7 days. For example if we use SOs from SVV Bella, our annual cost is close to 1k for 5 days in a 1 bdr which is more expensive that using a whole Lagunamar week and stay only 5 days out of 7.
If you are interested in travelling in the gold season the calculations will change because you only burn 57% of the points you would use for platinum and this deal may start to make more sense.

 

[margolism]

I thought points were points with Aventuras, you do not own a season. To mask that the maintenance fees are more expensive than what you own, the presented it to you this way. Basically what you are buying is the equivalent of a studio every other year and if you compare you will see that the MF are 50% more expensive plus you will pay the VSN fee of 155 per year.

My personal conclusion so far is that when we travel to Lagunamar (only platinum season) it is still cheaper to use our resale ownership weeks even if we do not use multiple of 7 days. For example if we use SOs from SVV Bella, our annual cost is close to 1k for 5 days in a 1 bdr which is more expensive that using a whole Lagunamar week and stay only 5 days out of 7.
If you are interested in travelling in the gold season the calculations will change because you only burn 57% of the points you would use for platinum and this deal may start to make more sense.

I think that in some cases the maintenance fee can be much higher, but in some cases it can be lower, since it IS tied to points.

My 44,000 EOY is equivalent to owning a Gold season 1BR EOY. The maintenance for a 1BR EOY (traditional unit, not Aventuras) is about $500 per year (regardless of season.) I will be paying about $350 or so per year. Yes, I will need to pay the VSN fee but I can also cancel my Interval International membership which I pay $89 for annually.

I looked into getting a 1BR WLR gold week resale but long term it was more expensive and less flexible. And buying a mandatory resort for StarOptions was also long term more expensive due to the higher annual maintenance fees.

I've always been in the camp of "don't buy from the developer" but given that my net cash outlay is about $8K (not including the value of the Bonvoy points I am getting), this seemed to be a rare situation where the math seemed to work.

 

[DannyTS]

I think that in some cases the maintenance fee can be much higher, but in some cases it can be lower, since it IS tied to points.

My 44,000 EOY is equivalent to owning a Gold season 1BR EOY. The maintenance for a 1BR EOY (traditional unit, not Aventuras) is about $500 per year (regardless of season.) I will be paying about $350 or so per year. Yes, I will need to pay the VSN fee but I can also cancel my Interval International membership which I pay $89 for annually.

I looked into getting a 1BR WLR gold week resale but long term it was more expensive and less flexible. And buying a mandatory resort for StarOptions was also long term more expensive due to the higher annual maintenance fees.

I've always been in the camp of "don't buy from the developer" but given that my net cash outlay is about $8K (not including the value of the Bonvoy points I am getting), this seemed to be a rare situation where the math seemed to work.

I think they managed to confuse you (no disrespect intended, that is what they do best). Are you going to travel in the gold or the platinum season? From what I understand you only travel during the platinum season when you own. Calculate everything based on that and you will see what I mean.

 

[jabberwocky]

I looked into getting a 1BR WLR gold week resale but long term it was more expensive and less flexible. And buying a mandatory resort for StarOptions was also long term more expensive due to the higher annual maintenance fees.

The flexibility of points is a nice feature vs. a week since you can have another arrival/departure day other than Fri-Sun and sometimes pick up cheaper airfare as a result. The ability to book 12 months out can also be a benefit vs. SO.

 

[margolism]

I think they managed to confuse you (no disrespect intended, that is what they do best). Are you going to travel in the gold or the platinum season? From what I understand you only travel during the platinum season when you own. Calculate everything based on that and you will see what I mean.

My understanding is that the new 1BR Aventuras gives me 44,000 points EOY. That means I can book 1BR for the Gold Season OR a few extra nights (not a week's worth during the Platinum season. I can also book individual nights 12 months out. Similarly, 8 months out, I can do the same with the 148,100 points from my original 2BR Platinum Plus unit as it will be part of the system.

 

[margolism]

Also, if I book week 52 / 53 and week 1, I am actually booking one platinum week AND one gold week (and that gold week tends to be pretty expensive.)

 

[echino]

You do not need a 12 months advantage to book week 1 at Lagunamar, it's pretty open, so StarOptions will work for that. Rescind and buy a small 1br at WKV for $6-8k. Annual maintenance fee is $635 + $155 VSN fee. You will get 67,100 StarOptions. And this unit will still have some resale value, while your Aventuras contract will not just be worthless, it will be nearly impossible to give it away.

 

[pchung6]

If $8000 is not going to break your bank, just keep it. You will have access to SO points for your WLR Platinum, if you don't plan to sell, it should worth something. WLR has one of the lowest MF, retro to obtain SO points is not a bad idea.

 

[margolism]

You do not need a 12 months advantage to book week 1 at Lagunamar, it's pretty open, so StarOptions will work for that. Rescind and buy a small 1br at WKV for $6-8k. Annual maintenance fee is $635 + $155 VSN fee. You will get 67,100 StarOptions. And this unit will still have some resale value, while your Aventuras contract will not just be worthless, it will be nearly impossible to give it away.

I guess my feeling is that If I am going to pay $6K to $8K either way, I would rather pay less $300 per year for the second unit, be able to book where I go 12 months out, and have access to 170,000 StarOptions a year versus 67,100 options per year. I see the amount I am paying for the Aventuras points as a way of extracting even more value and flexibility out of my 2BR Platinum Plus at WLR. If we were talking about $20K, that's one thing, but we are talking the same amount of money.

 

[cubigbird]

I’ve seen Aventuras contracts on EBay listed for $1 go unsold / no bids. If Aventuras is truly what you want, get it for free on the secondary market. If you are patient you’ll see them come up occasionally. Have we also seen that Lagunamar inventory in Aventuras is more limited and Aventuras contains more of the other Cancun Westin and Cabo??

 

[CaliSunshine]

Do you know for sure if this is a deeded week or aventuras points? When we were offered 67.1K Aventuras points recently I thought the MF was over 1000 EY and 600 EOY. We've thrown away our paperwork though. On a purely MF / staroption level, WKV 1BR is cheaper than Aventuras by a decent amount.

Pros: retro-ing the largest possible contract with the second smallest possible contract (22K SO/year) is not a terrible move, if you intend to hold onto your Lagunamar and never resell in the future. To buy the equivalent 148K at WKR would cost 15K, so you've just saved yourself some money by only spending 8K (and you'll get some of that back in points). Of course, if you do intend to sell, that's another story because WKR will hold its value whereas your Lagunamar will not.
Cons: The new contract is worth less than zero in resale, and you'll pay more than you strictly need to in MFs every year by a hundred or two.
Wild card: Nobody knows exactly what's going to happen with the new "combined" system that Marriott is going to put into place. It could increase the value of StarOptions and enrolled weeks, or it could decrease the value of StarOptions and enrolled weeks, or it could do different things to different resorts by rejiggering the point numbers for resorts. I'm personally on the bearish side, although I know some people who think that the new system is going to increase the value of enrolled weeks/mandatory resorts.

My personal take: I don't really believe that the concept of retro-ing is going to go away completely. I think the salespeople would rather have something to offer resale owners than nothing. So if I were you I'd rescind now, see what the new system looks like, and if you like it, retro in at a later date. If you do decide to not rescind, one thing I would think about is selling the 44K contract immediately. Even though I said it's worth less than zero, that's at "steady state" several years down the line where a lot of Aventuras owners want to get out. The program is new enough that there just aren't that many sellers out there, so who knows you might be able to get a few hundred or even a thousand from someone who came out of the presentation really liking the program but would rather buy resale.

 

[echino]

Yes, how I missed that option? Rescind and buy a small resale Aventura contract for free. You will save $8,000 plus $155 + $50 on VSN fees every year, and you will get your Lagunamar week 1 advantage.

 

[DannyTS]

Yes, how I missed that option? Rescind and buy a small resale Aventura contract for free. You will save $8,000 plus $155 + $50 on VSN fees every year, and you will get your Lagunamar week 1 advantage.

I have not seen an Aventuras contract on the market for a long time.

 

[Markus]

I think it is a good deal for you as well. Getting the WLR requalified will give you the flexibility to use those SOs in the future should your travel patterns change, at a reasonable price.

markus

 

[jabberwocky]

I have not seen an Aventuras contract on the market for a long time.

Ebay had one 44k contract listed a little over one month ago. They definitely aren’t as prolific as the SFlex contracts - most likely because developer sales have not been going on as long.

 

[DannyTS]

Ebay had one 44k contract listed a little over one month ago. They definitely aren’t as prolific as the SFlex contracts - most likely because developer sales have not been going on as long.

the problem with Sheraton Flex is not only that there are always new contracts on the market, they also do not seem to move and they just pile up. On the offer side you may be right about Aventuras, not so many because it is a newer program. But what was on the market disappeared quickly. The one you were referring to was sold

I think Aventuras has usage and rental value in the low season especially when you buy resale (no VSN fee) and this is why you do not see them more often for sale. If you want to rent out a 1 bdr gold season at Lagunamar, your MF would be $690 (vs $930 if you own a week) so you are probably going to squeeze a decent profit especially in January. I would not buy gold season at Lagunamar because it does not suit our calendar but if I were in the market for one I would certainly prefer Aventuras to Lagunamar gold season.

 

[margolism]

I thought it was interesting that a gold 1BR (traditional week) worth 44,000 StarOptions has a higher maintenance fee than a 44,000 StarOptions Aventuras package. Since Aventuras maintenance is tied to the number of StarOptions, while traditional weeks are tied to the unit size (and don't take into account seasonality), versus a traditional week, Aventuras maintenance can be lower in some cases (like this one, versus a Gold week 1BR, but higher in other cases, i.e., versus a Platinum Plus 1BR.)

 

[margolism]

I am also curious if Sheraton Flex is worth less than the Westin Flex programs since the properties are not quite at the same level for the most part.

 

[CaliSunshine]

I thought it was interesting that a gold 1BR (traditional week) worth 44,000 StarOptions has a higher maintenance fee than a 44,000 StarOptions Aventuras package. Since Aventuras maintenance is tied to the number of StarOptions, while traditional weeks are tied to the unit size (and don't take into account seasonality), versus a traditional week, Aventuras maintenance can be lower in some cases (like this one, versus a Gold week 1BR, but higher in other cases, i.e., versus a Platinum Plus 1BR.)

The way I understand it is that the trust owns a bunch of different underlying week and then charges its owners an average + administration (plus/minus however they adjust it for different point values). So the reason why the MF of the trust is lower than the MF of Lagunamar is because there are other weeks in the trust with lower MF.

The flip side of it though is that the trust only has a certain percentage of Lagunamar weeks and all of the owners who choose to (or are forced to) book at lower MF properties are essentially subsidizing the vacations of the owners who book at Lagunamar.

The whole timeshare system is built on a system of cross-subsidies. Mud week owners subsidizing prime week owners. High MF owners subsidizing low MF owners. Developer-week buyers subsidizing resale buyers. Timeshare purchasers subsidizing the people who go to the presentations and never buy. The ones who make money consistently are the companies. The ones who pay money consistently are the owners as a whole. And then there are pockets of value where you can line it up so that all the other owners are subsidizing your vacation.

 

[DannyTS]

to add to @CaliSunshine for example if they put 2 Lagunamar weeks in the Aventuras trust one gold and one platinum, the MF will add to approx $1960. They contribute to the trust 44,000 + 81,000 points = 125,000 points. The trust will have an average of $0.01568 which is lower than the gold season but significantly higher (per point) than platinum. This is why they compare with gold, to make it look more attractive but in fact it is a blend of the 2 seasons.