Help please regarding Westin lagunamar

[Creative]

Hello expert tuggers, i bought a one and studio apartment 10 years ago resale ( very cheap) thanks Tug. I have a yearly allocation but they are split into two units ( one 1 bed and one studio). This has worked brilliantly for me in the past because I tend to come every other year with family so have two large and one small units for two week. Over the years I don’t visit Cancun I deposit in II and have never found a problem matching up the weeks for the years I do want to visit . However, since Marriott bought both Westin and II the system doesn’t seem to work for me? Why is this do you think? When we got here ( i am here now). We attended a sales pitch ( not to buy but get info) . They want us to “grandfather’ our weeks if we by another unit $16750 K ! And say points will work out better for us. Now I know this is not true. We only really want to come to Cancun every other year so are not interested in investing more money in units) and I wouldn’t buy from developers ( thanks Tugs). Any advice at all so I can continue every other year vacations at the Lagunamar?
Thanks in advance all of you
Lisa

 

[dioxide45]

The last couple years exchanging through II has been more difficult. This is because more onwers have been going to their home resorts and not depositing their weeks into II. Also, there is a lot more competition as people have started to travel again after the pandemic. People also had banked up deposits to use. So a combination of those things has made exchanging more challenging.

The sales pitch might be to have them requalify your current weeks by purchasing more timeshare, namely Westin Aventuras. I don't really know how many VOIs you own; is it one, two or three? Requalification would require you to spend $10K for one VOI and an additional $5K for each additional one. This usually isn't a good idea, but it is really the only way you could qualify your weeks into VSN and Abound.

 

[Creative]

Thank you for your reply , I appreciate it Lisa

 

[HudsHut]

You have a 2br. You lock it off and deposit both sides to II.
Have you set up an ongoing search ?
What problem are you having ? What weeks are you attempting to reserve?

 

[Creative]

Hi Hudshut, i deposited my one bedroom and studio separately from my 2022 allocation which is platinum plus and tried to get 18th march - 1st april march 2023 . i started the exchange 10 months before and got no Lagunamar offers at all ? i have always been able to do this before . started thinking conspiracy theories about Marriot owning it all and disliking resale units !

 

[HudsHut]

You set up two ongoing search requests for WLR , for those dates , for what unit sizes?

 

[Creative]

Hi,
I bedroom unit only. but no matches at all only at other resorts.

 

[HudsHut]

That is surprising. Especially with the Vistana preference.
I agree that inventory was much tighter this year, since many II members had one to two years worth of weeks/points that they had to use.
If your ongoing search is still active, edit the dates to 2024 and let it keep searching.

 

[Creative]

Hi,
I bedroom unit only. but no matches at all only at other resorts.

That is surprising. Especially with the Vistana preference.
I agree that inventory was much tighter this year, since many II members had one to two years worth of weeks/points that they had to use.
If your ongoing search is still active, edit the dates to 2024 and let it keep searching.

Thanks good advice

 

[chanakya]

Requalification would require you to spend $10K for one VOI and an additional $5K for each additional one. This usually isn't a good idea, but it is really the only way you could qualify your weeks into VSN and Abound.

Could you please elaborate on why this may not be a good idea?

I guess the merit of requalifying a 2br WLR is you get into Abound and get 4950 pts for about 1800$ MF (0.36$ per pt).

Not a good idea because these Abounds pts may not provide a significant value over either directly using/renting the WLR week, or exchanging through interval?