EDIT: I have no idea what we will do when one is in HS and one in college as they will definitely be on different weeks.
While every family will be different, we experienced this transition with two kids spaced four years apart, just like yours are. I apologize in advance for the length of this post, but it may be helpful to see how MVC points have allowed us to adapt as our lives have evolved.
We bought our first timeshare - a non-Marriott property on Maui - in 1999 when our son was four and our daughter was an infant. We used that to go to Hawaii every other year or so, and in the years that we didn't go to Hawaii, we traded through RCI into the Orlando Hilton Grand Vacations properties (an easy trade). While trading Hawaii for Orlando was a poor value, it met our needs and was offset by the significant value we received in the years we did go to Hawaii. Our kids grew up sort of thinking going to Hawaii every couple of years was what everyone did. Without our timeshare, that would have never happened.
Our last family Hawaii trip using that first timeshare was in the summer of 2011. Once our son graduated from high school in 2013 and moved on to out-of-state college at Georgia Tech, family vacations began changing. His spring break changed from Easter to early-mid March, making a whole family spring trip impossible, since our daughter still had an Easter break. Every summer of his college years, he either did a paid internship or summer classes, which eliminated summer vacations for him. Our daughter was in high school by then, and she began wanting summer jobs for the extra spending money. She also reached the age where traveling with Mom and Dad was "boring" and wanted her friends to go along. Drive-to beach trips where her friends could come along were now the best option. We had grown frustrated trying to navigate RCI trading to beach locations, and we were generally unimpressed with the quality of most RCI resorts.
So, we decided to sell our Maui timeshare and buy something closer to our Charlotte home in a quality timeshare system. We knew Marriott owned the timesharing market on Hilton Head Island, with eight properties, so we did one of their $299 promo packages in the fall of 2013. We declined to buy then but returned to HHI on an Encore package at Barony Beach Club with our daughter and one of her friends in Spring 2014. By that time, I had devoured the info available here on the TUG Marriott board, and knew we wanted a Hybrid package of an enrolled week in HHI, plus Trust points for maximum flexibility. That's when we became Marriott owners. We then listed our old Maui property with Timeshare Resales Hawaii and sold it within a couple months.
Having the option to use Points has transformed the way we use timeshares and travel. Our first use year was 2015, so we initially booked a trip to Hawaii in the summer, but wound up canceling it and banking the points to 2016 because our daughter couldn't take a friend along. So, in our first couple years of ownership, here is how we used our new Marriott points:
- My wife and a friend of hers spent four nights at Grand Chateau in Las Vegas for a "girls’ trip" in 2016
- Also in 2016, our daughter did a three-week summer program for high school students in Washington, DC and she and my wife spent three nights at MVC Pulse at the Mayflower right before her program started to visit a couple of DC area colleges she was considering applying to.
- A three-night Labor Day weekend trip with all four of us to Barony Beach Club in Hilton Head in fall 2016
- Seven nights at Barony for spring break 2017 with our then high school senior daughter and two of her friends
Once our daughter headed off to University of Florida in fall 2017, empty nest fall/winter/spring vacations for my wife and I became an option for us once again.
- A three-night trip to Las Vegas with my wife to see Elton John's Million Dollar Piano show at Caesars in October 2017.
- A spring 2018 week at HHI Grande Ocean, where our son and daughter joined us at the end for a long weekend.
- A fall week for my wife and I in 2018 at MVC Desert Springs in Palm Desert.
We missed going to Hawaii, so in 2018, we purchased a resale Every-Other-Year Odd 2BR Ocean View week at Marriott’s Maui Ocean Club. We bought that to use 100% of the time in odd years in Maui. We also bought a resale Orlando week in the Hilton Grand Vacations Club system, which converts to 7000 HGVC points and could be used to book the Big Island.
- In 2019, we used our new Maui week, used MVC Points to book a second week at Waiohai Beach Club on Kauai, and used our HGVC points for a week on the Big Island. We scheduled the Maui week to coincide with our daughter’s spring break from college, and our son was by then working as a software engineer in Atlanta, so both were able to fly out and spend a week with us on Maui.
- In fall of 2019, my wife and I returned to Desert Springs in Palm Desert.
- In February 2020, my wife and I used HGVC points and MVC Points to book a week on the Big Island and a week on Maui (it was an even year, so we had to use points since our weeks are only odd years). Less than a month after we returned, well, the world went crazy...
- In November 2020, my wife and I spent a week using our MVC Points at Marco Island, Florida.
Since our initial 2014 Hybrid package purchase with Marriott resulted in us only having 3375 points every year (total of our Trust points and the point value of the week), we had to use point rentals from
www.vacationpointexchange.com to supplement what we owned to make some of these trips happen.
When the COVID pandemic forced us to cancel our planned odd-year Hawaii trip in January/February 2021, because our Maui and Kauai weeks were purchased resale and not enrolled in the point system, we couldn’t roll them over to 2022, so rebooking Maui and Kauai for October 2021 was our only option other than depositing in II, which we try to avoid. That highlighted for us again, the inflexibility of unenrolled weeks when plans have to change. As a result, while at Marco Island in November, we elected to buy 3000 more points from MVC so as to enroll our Maui and Kauai EOY weeks. That also elevated us to Presidential level in MVC. Now we have another usage option for the two Hawaii weeks – convert them to MVC Points – should that be needed in the future.
- We recently used our new Presidential 30% points discount inside 60 days to book an early March week at MVC Ocean Pointe in Palm Beach Shores in a great Ocean Front Studio unit for less than 1,900 total points. We added an eighth night at MVC Pulse South Beach in Miami to eat at a favorite seafood restaurant I hadn’t been to in 30 years or so (Joe’s Stone Crab). That trip seemed like a tremendous value to us.
- Our daughter will be graduating from University of Florida in about three weeks and asked to go to Epcot on the Saturday after graduation to celebrate with her family and a couple friends. So, a few days ago, I was able to book two units at MVC Grande Vista (a studio and a two bedroom to accommodate our party of six) for one night for less than 500 total points, thanks to the last minute 30% discount.
Ironically, while Hilton Head Island was the initial attraction of the Marriott Vacation Club system for us, we became such a fan of Hilton Head that we bought a whole condo on the island about 18 months ago, so no longer need our Marriott ownership for HHI. We now use our HHI condo many weeks every year and use our Marriott ownership for Hawaii and elsewhere in the MVC system.
Again, sorry for the length of this, but I thought some specific examples of how we’ve been able to adapt and use our ownership over the years as our family situation has evolved would be helpful for you in your current situation.