• The TUGBBS forums are completely free and open to the public and exist as the absolute best place for owners to get help and advice about their timeshares for more than 30 years!

    Join Tens of Thousands of other Owners just like you here to get any and all Timeshare questions answered 24 hours a day!
  • TUG started 30 years ago in October 1993 as a group of regular Timeshare owners just like you!

    Read about our 30th anniversary: Happy 30th Birthday TUG!
  • TUG has a YouTube Channel to produce weekly short informative videos on popular Timeshare topics!

    Free memberships for every 50 subscribers!

    Visit TUG on Youtube!
  • TUG has now saved timeshare owners more than $21,000,000 dollars just by finding us in time to rescind a new Timeshare purchase! A truly incredible milestone!

    Read more here: TUG saves owners more than $21 Million dollars
  • Sign up to get the TUG Newsletter for free!

    60,000+ subscribing owners! A weekly recap of the best Timeshare resort reviews and the most popular topics discussed by owners!
  • Our official "end my sales presentation early" T-shirts are available again! Also come with the option for a free membership extension with purchase to offset the cost!

    All T-shirt options here!
  • A few of the most common links here on the forums for newbies and guests!

Have I made a huge mistake?

parthiban

newbie
Joined
Aug 21, 2008
Messages
6
Reaction score
0
Points
1
Location
London, UK
I've recently bought into the Marriott Vacation Club by buying timeshare at Marriott's Club Son Antem in Mallorca and for the first time done everything the wrong way round. Instead of researching first, I've only started reading up after getting back and I'm really worried I've made a big mistake :confused:

When I was out there last weekend, they gave a great spiel about how the whole system works and from the way I understand it, it does still make sense financially, but I'm starting to wonder whether everything was as clear cut as it was explained by the sales guy.

We paid £41,000 for 3 gold weeks (supposedly the best ones for trading as it's a golf resort), and as part of the deal they threw in platinum Marriott membership (which I think is just a free upgrade at their hotels and breafast) as well as 735,000 reward points.

The way it seemed was that given that we spend a lot each year on hotel bills, as long as the system is as flexible as they said, we should save a lot of money in the long run.

My questions are as follows:

1. How early do you need to book things in order to actually get what you want? This is both for exchanges to other resorts, or to trade in for points and then booking using them.

2. Can you actually do as much with it as they made out? Each week is worth 100,000 points giving us 300,000. Can you actually buy something substantial with it? The 735,000 points they gave us was said to be a week in Egypt for 6 with business class flights. In the UK, a holiday like that would probably cost you around £10,000 - is that representative of other holiday packages?


I'd really appreciate any help at this stage, I'm still within the 14 day cool off period so want to make absolutely sure before I go ahead with this.
 

thinze3

Tug Review Crew
TUG Member
Joined
Jun 5, 2007
Messages
6,364
Reaction score
37
Points
483
Location
Houston, TX
Congratulations!!

You can and should book your resort at 13 months prior to your desired check-in date. You will have to call Marriott Vacation Club to do this. You can book all three weeks at that time (there are qualifications to book at 13 months). If booking only one week, you must wait and call at 12 months prior.

For best trading ability, deposit your weeks and place a request imediately with II for your desired locations. You will most likely have excellent trading power with your new timeshares.

You can purchase Marriott travel packages which include both air miles and hotel stay certificates with your points. The ultimate package costs 270K points and gets you a week stay at Marriott's top notch hotels and 120K FF miles. Most likely you CAN book that trip to Egypt as the salesman stated. Getting Business class seats nowadays, however, is not all that easy to do. It will take a bit of learning here on Tug first, and there are a few experts here that can help you.

Again, congrats on your fine purchase.


Terry
 
Last edited:

Karen G

Moderator
Joined
Aug 17, 2004
Messages
9,470
Reaction score
1,983
Points
749
Location
Henderson, NV
Resorts Owned
Once owned these: FirstFairway@Walden X 2; Lawai Beach; ManhattanClub; PuebloBonitoRose; 4 South Africa--now timeshare-free
I'm still within the 14 day cool off period so want to make absolutely sure before I go ahead with this.

The fact that you are having doubts about this purchase and don't really understand all the details of what you have bought, rescind while you still have the chance. Take some time to thoroughly research the program.

Then, after you have all the knowledge needed to make an informed purchase, if you think it's still the great deal the salesman made it out to be, buy it.

You have only this one chance to rescind, but you'll have numerous opportunities to buy later.
 

cp73

TUG Review Crew: Veteran
TUG Member
Joined
Aug 14, 2005
Messages
1,782
Reaction score
317
Points
444
Location
OC, California
Resorts Owned
DSV 1
I agree with Karen G. Rescind and take your time. This isn't a once in a lifetime opportunity. You can always go back and buy from them. Also check out the resale market. On Redweek I see weeks from $12,000-$20,000. Your price equates to about $77,000 US. On resale market you should be able to buy at 60% or less of that.
 

Bill4728

Moderator
Joined
Jun 6, 2005
Messages
11,038
Reaction score
598
Points
899
Location
Lake Tapps, WA
TUG's top 10 questions/answers said:
Q. I just bought a TS from {blank} did I get a good deal?

A:
You likely paid two to five times more than you should have if you had bought the exact same TS resale from a current owner. Check your paperwork and see if you can still rescind ( cancel ) your purchase. (Normally if it is within 5-10 days of the date you purchased, you can rescind.) If your within that time period. RESCIND!! Then find out if you did the right thing or if you could have done better buying resale from a current owner. If you find out that for you buying from the developer was the right thing, you should have no problem getting the same deal (or better). But if you don't rescind now, and find out that you should have bought resale from a current owner, it may be too late to rescind. So Rescind now, get educated about buying from the developer and buying resale, then make an educated choice about what is best for you and your family.

PS if you can rescind, follow the directions in your paperwork exactly. If it says send by US mail don't send it overnight with FedEx, send it by US mail ( with a receipt which show when you mailed it).

If you can rescind , do so. If you can't rescind, you have bought one of the nicest TS there are ( even if you paid too much) but there have been several discussions which say that buying Marriott from the developer can sometimes make sense. So don't beat yourself up over it.

Good Luck

PS

IMHO, buying from the developer isn't the biggest mistake that people make in timesharing. The biggest mistake is paying good money for a TS and paying the yearly maintenance fees then not using the TS. It truely shocks me, how many posts there are on this board from people who paid big bucks (and the yearly Mfs) for a TS then say they want to sell because they never use their TS.

My best advise is to: find out how best to use the TS you just bought and get your money's worth out of this purchase.
 
Last edited:

AwayWeGo

TUG Review Crew: Expert
TUG Member
Joined
Jun 6, 2005
Messages
15,686
Reaction score
1,630
Points
699
Location
McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.
Resorts Owned
Grandview At Las Vegas

[triennial - points]
You Can Say That Again.

IIt truely shocks me, how many posts there are on this board from people who paid big bucks (and the yearly Mfs) for a TS then say they want to sell because they never use their TS.
Or, as some few of us prefer to express it, Big Bux.

And in the case of parthiban, Big Pounds.

Or, as Our British Cousins possibly refer to it, a Round Mound Of Pounds.

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.​

 
Last edited:

parthiban

newbie
Joined
Aug 21, 2008
Messages
6
Reaction score
0
Points
1
Location
London, UK
Thanks!

Thanks for those replies, I really appreciate the honest advice.

This might sound a little crazy, but I'm not worried about the developer vs. resale argument as the transfer to points system is one of the aspects that really interested me - I plan to travel to lots of different location where hotels are most likely going to be our best option so it's important this stays in.

My concern is mainly around getting my money's worth. For those that actually own them, is it hard to exchange weeks with other resorts, or book using points if you don't book things 12 months in advance?

Say I wanted to take a trip that was 2 months away, could I do it?
 

LAX Mom

TUG Review Crew: Veteran
TUG Member
Joined
Jun 7, 2005
Messages
3,577
Reaction score
106
Points
448
Points can be very tricky to use, especially to hotels in Europe. At 2 months out you'll find many not available for points.

The best use of points is the travel packages- airline miles & a 7 night stay in a Marriott hotel. You can use any airline, but the hotel can only be a 7 night stay in the same Marriott. You can't break it up into 3 nights Paris/ 4 nights Rome. The hotel must have "standard award" availablity. If it's only available on "stay anytime" the package certificate won't work.

In my opinion, it's not worth buying from Marriott just for the points.
 

Smooth Air

TUG Member
Joined
Dec 9, 2005
Messages
1,335
Reaction score
2
Points
36
You have to ask yourself: Is it really worth it to pay all that money for the points? Or, to look @ it another way: What you save on the resale market, you can use to stay @ any Marriott or fly w/ any airline...anywhere.

Smooth Air:cool:
 

englishowner

TUG Member
Joined
Jan 19, 2006
Messages
136
Reaction score
0
Points
16
Location
UK
Parthiban

hi, welcome to Tug and to Marriott ownership. As you can see I also own at Son Antem, but my week is only a Silver Week. I've owned since 2002 and bought direct from Marriott, then in 2004 I bought a 2nd week, again direct from Marriott, this time at Playa Andaluza. Just after buying my 2nd week, I found Tug, have learned so much and got so much out of my ownership, mainly due to what I've picked up on here.


The sales rep is right, you will be able to get hotel stays with those points but you will have to be well organised and plan in advance. I have never yet tried to use a travel package but plenty of people on here have successfully, once again though, advanced planning is necessary.

Club Son Antem is a real gem of a resort, it is not so well known as the other Spanish resorts, but it is on a Golf course, and has a full service hotel on site, the townhouses are some of the best timeshare rooms we have stayed in, it is also very popular as a trade especially for Europeans. Just as an example, my silver week has got me trades into the Four Seasons in Scottsdale, and to the Manor Club, Williamsburg Platinum Season, the Surf Club, Aruba Gold Season. I have also received a bonus week (AC) for depositing with Interval, so you have bought an excellent product.

I guess what you have to do is decide how much those points are valuable to you, you could perhaps buy those 3 weeks for half the price, but you will never be able to trade for points, and sometime in the future you may not need a two bedroom timeshare. Also you need to take into account the lack of Marriott timeshares in Europe. Once you get used to the standard you get in a Marriott, many of the other ones in Europe just are not of the same standard, and you may be disappointed, however you may be able to trade for points then stay in a Marriott hotel in Nice, or Italy for example.

I think if you are undecided then pehaps you should rescind, after all that's a lot of money, or perhaps just buy one week for now, see how it works out, then add to your portfolio later.

PM me if I can help any more, sorry if this is a bit of a long answer!

Lynne
 

cwtkm3

TUG Member
Joined
Aug 21, 2005
Messages
318
Reaction score
24
Points
378
Location
Buckinghamshire UK
I've just returned from a 2 week stay at Club son Antem too!

Before you rescind you really need to spend the next few days reading and researching your purchase.

First of all you got a great deal. We went on a preview and were told the price of one gold week is £17,100. We could have bought two gold weeks for a special offer price of £29,070 which is a 15% discount and would have brought the cost of each week down to £14,535. Multiply that by the three weeks you bought and you get £43,605 so you got even more discount.

Plus you got a ton of points and platinum Marriott membership which will allow you access to the executive lounges in the hotels and save you a lot of money long term on food and drink if used effectively.

Son Antem is a fabulous resort. We've stayed there 3 times now. First time was summer as a preview. Then Easter (platinum season) as an exchange. This year we got 2 August highest demand weeks 31 and 32 as an exchange.

However, whilst there, I was really surprised to discover that everyone I spoke to was an owner using their season. Lots of Brits I spoke to never exchange their weeks and don't understand how to work the system. But the good news was that a few of the people are now tiring of the resort year on year and thinking about exchanging which'll free up weeks in the future (talking those hard to get platinum weeks.)


Gold weeks are high demand but not so high as platinum or gold holiday but you will have success with exchanging provided you give Interval strong weeks and place your request a year in advance. However I can honestly say my platinum week in Hilton Head trades better than my Spanish gold hol and gold weeks and yields more Marriott points. Plus the maintenance fees are a lot cheaper at the moment.

100,000 marriott points aren't good value as you'll be paying over £620 in maintenance fees plus an additional charge of ? £60 (can't remember the exact figure but we pay more than the Americans.) to change the weeks for points and giving up you right to use your week for that year. You can buy 50,000 points direct from Marriott annually for $625 and your spouse can do the same. For interest my sales lady told me they were going to stop allowing people to do this!!

Remember, there are only 4 European resorts and they're not so easy to find on the re-sale market. Have a look at the travel and leisure group (they sell them on e-bay.) or redweek.com, myresortnetwork.com, aberfoyle holidays. Decide how important reward points are to you and if you will utilise travel packages for business class travel to quality hotels.

You could rescind - Marriott will still be selling these gold weeks for a long time yet and once sold will be starting on the resales.

Just remember Marriott may exercise its right of first refusal so you end up with nothing. But you may be interested to hear I met a chap on holiday who'd bought his platinum week direct and then seen a gold holiday week advertised in his local paper last year. He bought it for £8,000 and was delighted that Marriott didn't exercise its ROFR. Remember - with gold hol you can book gold hol or gold weeks.

I really hope that helps - there's so much to absorb and it's really confusing at first but yoiu're lucky to have found this site. But remember - don't mention it to your sales person. Those that know about TUG don't seem to like it much!

Good luck with your decision.
 

thinze3

Tug Review Crew
TUG Member
Joined
Jun 5, 2007
Messages
6,364
Reaction score
37
Points
483
Location
Houston, TX
Very well stated Lynne. :)

To the OP - Only you can decide.
You will be happy either way if you stay with Tug.

Terry
 

Latravel

TUG Member
Joined
Jan 3, 2008
Messages
882
Reaction score
1
Points
16
Location
Los Angeles
I'm not worried about the developer vs. resale argument as the transfer to points system is one of the aspects that really interested me - I plan to travel to lots of different location where hotels are most likely going to be our best option so it's important this stays in.

Congratulations on your purchase! You clearly have researched the direct vs. resale issue and came up with the decision to purchase direct. The 735,000 points you received from the purchase can buy you some amazing vacations and more than make up for the price difference. Some of the best hotels in Egypt are Marriotts.

My husband and I very effectively use our points and we almost always fly first/business class because of the number of points we have. If you learn the point system inside and out, it's very rewarding. We very rarely plan long term so we've been getting first class airfare even 2 months out. We would never pay for first class tickets so the points allow us to travel in style!
 
Last edited:
S

Steamboat Bill

To answer your question - no you have not made a HUGE mistake.

Sure, you could have bought resale for less, but you would not have had as smooth as a process as buying direct. Also, your MRPs are large and there is about $7k or more value with them depending on how you use them.
 

taffy19

newbie
Joined
Jun 6, 2005
Messages
5,723
Reaction score
593
Points
398
If you can rescind , do so. If you can't rescind, you have bought one of the nicest TS there are ( even if you paid too much) but there have been several discussions which say that buying Marriott from the developer can sometimes make sense. So don't beat yourself up over it.

Good Luck

PS

IMHO, buying from the developer isn't the biggest mistake that people make in timesharing. The biggest mistake is paying good money for a TS and paying the yearly maintenance fees then not using the TS. It truely shocks me, how many posts there are on this board from people who paid big bucks (and the yearly Mfs) for a TS then say they want to sell because they never use their TS.

My best advise is to: find out how best to use the TS you just bought and get your money's worth out of this purchase.
Bill is so right to make the best of your purchase it if is too late to rescind and enjoy your timeshare. :)

Next time, buy a re-sale if you want to have more weeks and your average cost will go down. I hope you still can rescind as buying is easy but selling is not and is getting harder but that may change again. You'll find a lot of information here how to use the system to your highest advantage and best use.
 

Steve A

TUG Review Crew: Veteran
TUG Member
Joined
Jul 28, 2005
Messages
1,118
Reaction score
287
Points
443
Location
Four minutes from the beach, PRP, HHI
When your timeshare ownership shows up on Interval International I think that you can reassure your self by seeing what your weeks will get you. I bet you'll be very happy.
 

JOHNNY99

Guest
Joined
Apr 2, 2008
Messages
6
Reaction score
0
Points
311
Location
Newcastle, England
Parthiban,

Congratulations on finding "TUG".

I am a very happy Marriott owner (five years) who has bought both direct and resale. I live in Newcastle-upon-tyne.

I do not own at Son antem but exchange in every year. Have stayed in April / May / August and October- always fabulous.

In my humble opinion-

By your gold weeks resale for £6000 each. I have personally used two British based resale agents that have recognised status with Marriott. They were both recommended to me by the sales team at Son antem when I wanted to sell my first Marriott purchase, (at Cypress Harbour, Orlando.)

Alternatively, purchase, as I have done at Marriott Phuket beach club,resale gold week purchased for £3200 and used exclusively for exchanging to Son antem.Phuket also has a lower maintenance fee at £350 per year.

I am also a fan of points (exchange for travel packages and use for BA miles-love those club world seats to USA and Far east).My purchase from Marriott was a platinum phuket beach club for £10700 April 2005.

Appreciate you have received 700k+ points but are they worth £25k? -your call.
CHEERS
 

KathyPet

TUG Member
Joined
Jun 8, 2005
Messages
1,684
Reaction score
6
Points
38
Location
No Va
We have made wonderful use of our points over the years. However I will say that I do tend to plan well in advance and try to leave nothing to chance. You cannot book Marriott hotels more than 50 weeks in advance and even then not all the hotels will have their reward rooms listed at that time so often you must continue to check on the Marriott web site almost daily to nab the rewards room at the hotel you want. FOr example I heard all these horror stories about how hard it was to use points at the Marriott in Rome. At exactly 50 weeks in advance of our travel date I logged onto Marriott.com and was able to book a room using rewards points with no problem. However the closer you get to your travel dates the more the possibility arises that you might have to use a "anytime reward" rather than a regular reward to get your room. The anytime rewards cost you more points but can be used if there are no regular reward rooms available.
 

parthiban

newbie
Joined
Aug 21, 2008
Messages
6
Reaction score
0
Points
1
Location
London, UK
Thanks again for all the replies, there's some fantastic information in there, unfortunately it's so balanced!

@Johnny99: Yes you're right, it was basically mentioned as a week in Egypt for 6 on business class, on which I'd stick a value of £10k. It's a fair argument, at £18k for the same 3 weeks, it does make me wonder whether I've done the right thing. I notice that you mention using points as well though, have you found it works well? If it does, then I'd rather stick with this than resale as obviously then I drop this option but I'm worried that when converted to points, it doesn't actually go as far as I might think...............

As I've been stressing a bit over this, I just went on to the Marriott site, picked Aruba at random and checked how much it would cost to book for 3 weeks in Feb. Came to $800 per night, which roughly works out to £8.5k. Taking management fees into account of £2k, I would have saved £6.5k :)

Is that realistic or have I made some stupid assumption when doing this and I'd never be able to get this in a million years?
 

parthiban

newbie
Joined
Aug 21, 2008
Messages
6
Reaction score
0
Points
1
Location
London, UK
Sorry if this sounds like a stupid thing to ask, but does anyone have any examples of trips they've done with points?

I'd love to hear about what is actually achievable to help make a decision :)
 

Icarus

TUG Member
Joined
Jun 6, 2005
Messages
4,095
Reaction score
0
Points
271
The way it seemed was that given that we spend a lot each year on hotel bills, as long as the system is as flexible as they said, we should save a lot of money in the long run.

Here's the thing. Timeshares don't sell themselves.

The salespeople are really good when they throw out all these facts and figures at you during the sales pitch, but if you think about it, they are not usually comparing identical things, nor are they comparing the prices that most of us will actually pay for hotel rooms, condo or timeshare rentals when we really go on vacation. Then there's the Maint. Fees on top of that, and if you finance the purchase, interest charges on top of that.

When buying from the developer, they almost never make sense financially. If they did make sense financially, why are they discounting it so heavily and throwing in all those MR points?

Also, many people think that the trade for points option doesn't make sense financially either.

So re-run all those calculations on your own, using real figures, etc, and think about it.

-David
 

m61376

Tug Review Crew
TUG Member
Joined
Aug 2, 2006
Messages
7,200
Reaction score
269
Points
518
Location
NY
Resorts Owned
Marriott Aruba Surf Club 2 & 3BRs
What bothers me most when reading your post is not the resale vs. buying direct discussion (which it seems you have at least thought about, although I am not sure if you fully understand the cost versus benefits) but the statement that the salesman convinced you to buy "gold weeks (supposedly the best ones for trading as it's a golf resort)." IF you envision visiting mostly during Gold season than that's the right purchase- BUT Gold season weeks, in general, do not trade as well as Platinum weeks (there may be a few weeks in the season that trade as well or better than Platinum weeks depending on the resort).

Many times people are swayed by a sales pitch that makes buying a Gold or Silver season better- but it is only better if that's when you want to go. Don't buy Gold because you've been told that it is the best for trading value.
 

thinze3

Tug Review Crew
TUG Member
Joined
Jun 5, 2007
Messages
6,364
Reaction score
37
Points
483
Location
Houston, TX
.....As I've been stressing a bit over this, I just went on to the Marriott site, picked Aruba at random and checked how much it would cost to book for 3 weeks in Feb. Came to $800 per night, which roughly works out to £8.5k. Taking management fees into account of £2k, I would have saved £6.5k :)

Is that realistic or have I made some stupid assumption when doing this and I'd never be able to get this in a million years?



Please note that you most often will NOT find any availability in a Marriott timeshare using points. Other than Orlando, everything else is very difficult to find.

Also, the bonus points received at purchase may be used for a Marriott timeshare IF you find one, but points obtained by "trading your weeks for points" cannot be used for a Marriott timeshare.

You can test this by trying your Aruba bookings again - with and without Marriott rewards points.


Terry
 

parthiban

newbie
Joined
Aug 21, 2008
Messages
6
Reaction score
0
Points
1
Location
London, UK
Thanks for that, it did need some clarification, but to book the Marriott resort in Aruba I thought I wouldn't need to use points, and would rather trade my weeks?

Damn, I seem to be going backwards in terms of understanding how this works..........:confused:
 
Top