Our first timeshare purchase was a Shell Vacations Club week. Then they added points and at the time, my husband had trouble getting away for a whole week, so for a "mere" $10,000 we could switch to points. Have regretted it ever since, but we were too busy and too new to timesharing at the time to know better, and didn't want to waste any more weeks.
The only good thing that came out of that purchase (the week) was exchanging to Kauai Beach Club where we were invited to visit the new, unfinished Waiohai property, where my husband immediately felt he'd found his home away from home. Still unTUGged we bought from Marriott, there and at Mountainside after an exchange there, but the Shell points languished after the switch to RCI.
However, now that Shell has switched to II, we have some Marriott opportunities we never had using the points with RCI. Have only done a little browsing with points since it started, but it looks as if our best opportunities will be during Flexchange, as the Marriott preference will probably eliminate getting the top picks we see with our Marriott weeks.
Our Shell maintenance fee is almost equal to our Waiohai annual fee, so we are happy we'll have more chances to use those points for Marriotts. For shell there does not seem to be a changing point scale between the properties yet. That is, a two bedroom is 4500 points during exchange, 1 bedroom = 3500, etc. However, during flexchange, some Marriott properties were as little as
1500 points. I will soon have time to explore the Shell/II points system in a bit more depth, so this is just a first impression.
Our vacation planning has been on hold for the last couple of month as relatives seem to be dropping from broken hips, surgeries, and strokes, and I have been from one coast to the other helping out. (they are all doing well now) Which does point out one good aspect of the DC (which we have not joined due partly to Shell points regret) and that is the ability to cancel without penalty. Luckily, we only lost out on part of our second week in December, but it could have been a big loss, as we had let our Marriott
insurance lapse until our next big out of the country trip.
We do hope II does not switch to a general points system, as a week is always a week, but the point values can change.