We have a week starting August 7 at Newport coast but are currently living in France for the next few years. We have always either used our Newport Coast week or rented it out and have never used II. We are considering either trying to rent Newport Coast as usual or joining II and depositing it. If we join II the most beneficial use would be in Europe (for example next summer).
So here are the specific questions
1. Are there good trades/locations in Europe in II?
2. What would your recommend (pros and cons).
TIA!
We were on a similar situation this year with our Ko Olina unit, which we planned to use next month. It hasn’t been enrolled and we didn’t have it in an II account. We decided to open a new II account for this unit and they happen to have a special deal of a 2 year membership for $109 (usually $99 for one year). This is a good idea if you may not make an exchange during a one year membership. They also had a special for one year of Gold level membership if you joined, so we got that too. On top of that they were offering an accommodation certificate (AC) for depositing a unit at MKO. We just used the AC to get a 2BR at Marriott’s Desert Springs Villas I for this October at a cost of $399.
I just looked at Redweek.com to get a sense of Newport Coast units being offered. As one can imagine there are a lot of units available, even more than normal. Some are marked as rented, but still only a fraction of the total. I saw many of the rented units were listed at $1,500-1,800, which is not much higher than MF’s and property taxes.
Given the current circumstances I would be tempted to join II and exchange into a resort in Europe. As others have mentioned Marriott has several nice resorts there. We stayed at Marbella, Spain a few years ago and enjoyed the resort and the sites in southern Spain. If you opt for this make sure to allow enough time to set up your account in II and for them to confirm your ownership with Marriott. They told me up to 10 days to complete the process, but it actually only took 3-4 days. I kept checking my II account rather than waiting for notification. Plan for the longer time frame to be safe. Also complete your deposit more than 60 days before check in, so you can make an exchange more than 60 days before checkin. Given your time frame hopefully II can move quickly for you if you choose this route. (Edit- one thing to note about timing. We had an old II account that I was able to reactivate, which may have hastened the entire process as compared to opening a new account.)
Good luck and please let us know what you decide to do.
Best regards.
Mike
