Marriott Vacation Club “tiger trader”?

[toddvb20]

Does Marriott have a resort that trades particularly well in II? Picked up a SDO a couple of years ago and having a blast with the trades we’ve scored. Don’t really care where the resort would be located.

If I’m approaching this wrong I’d be open to suggestions. Don’t know much about MVC except that they seem to have a nice collection of resorts.

Thanks!

 

[dioxide45]

By "tiger trader", I suspect you mean a week that trades well and is cheap to buy resale. There are a lot of weeks that trade great, but some can be very expensive.

I haven't here that term, "tiger trader" on here in a lot of years.

 

[marmite]

By "tiger trader", I suspect you mean a week that trades well and is cheap to buy resale. There are a lot of weeks that trade great, but some can be very expensive.

I haven't here that term, "tiger trader" on here in a lot of years.

In November 2019 @VacationForever said it in a post (in reference to SDO) and think it's definitely due to make a comeback... I guess that term could refer to your definition OR to a Tugger who continually gets great trades i.e. " @dioxide45 is a tiger trader."

 

[bazzap]

We own weeks at 5 MVC resorts and have traded through Interval getting on for 100 times now over the years.
St Kitts Beach Club has always been the first to secure a trade for us, Grand Chateau normally the second.

 

[Dean]

Does Marriott have a resort that trades particularly well in II? Picked up a SDO a couple of years ago and having a blast with the trades we’ve scored. Don’t really care where the resort would be located.

If I’m approaching this wrong I’d be open to suggestions. Don’t know much about MVC except that they seem to have a nice collection of resorts.

Thanks!

To me a top trader would be cheap up front, cheap yearly, have a lockout and trade like a top Maui unit. There is no such thing in MVC so the question for those of us who are interested in trading is what is the best compromise. IMO the traditional top trading resorts are Grande Vista, Willow Ridge, Grande Chateau, Harbour Lake and Manor Club Sequel all Platinum. One might possibly add Gold Desert weeks to that list but the fees will be higher. Of recent years one has sometimes been able to get a higher week cheaply enough to justify higher fees like Ocean Pointe or Desert Platinum. Of those WR will have the cheapest fees followed by GC. If one wants to rank them in terms of trade power for the 5 I listed as "traders" and assuming a top week in season, it's likely GV, HL, WR & GC then MC. In reality is likely won't matter much if at all between them assuming M to M. Realize that those who own what would be the top resorts and weeks are statistically unlikely to deposit. If you assume you're not going to get top resort and top weeks routinely then this can be a great and relatively inexpensive plan, esp if they can make do with smaller units. It's not a great plan if one is very restrictive in their wants/needs, like top resorts for top weeks. Using HHI as an example, if one is looking for Grande Ocean for week 25-27, nothing will consistently get you there; but if one can open up to other resorts or a broader number of weeks the chances of success using the above options is very high if one deposits and requests at least a year to 13 months out.

 

[rickandcindy23]

I don't have much experience with Marriott trading, except our Willow Ridge Platinum and Gold weeks. Gold is definitely not as good as platinum, but I have gotten some great trades last-minute that were Marriott preference, and that is how I have used the Gold weeks. The Platinum are good traders. I pay the fee to lock them into a 1 bedroom and studio, then deposit both sides into II. It's been easy to get those reserved for prime summer dates. The lockoff fee is $80 or $90, cannot remember what it was last time.

Fees go up a lot for Marriott, but the value is still there for me. I saw WR Platinum weeks on sellingtimeshares.net and considered buying more of them. But I am also considering other resorts because I eventually want to enroll a bunch of resale weeks into DC. Maybe a crazy idea, I don't know, but it's been on my mind over the last six months. Taking my time.

I also own SDO and SBP and have gotten great trades with them. Awesome traders.

 

[Dean]

I don't have much experience with Marriott trading, except our Willow Ridge Platinum and Gold weeks. Gold is definitely not as good as platinum, but I have gotten some great trades last-minute that were Marriott preference, and that is how I have used the Gold weeks. The Platinum are good traders. I pay the fee to lock them into a 1 bedroom and studio, then deposit both sides into II. It's been easy to get those reserved for prime summer dates. The lockoff fee is $80 or $90, cannot remember what it was last time.

Fees go up a lot for Marriott, but the value is still there for me. I saw WR Platinum weeks on sellingtimeshares.net and considered buying more of them. But I am also considering other resorts because I eventually want to enroll a bunch of resale weeks into DC. Maybe a crazy idea, I don't know, but it's been on my mind over the last six months. Taking my time.

I also own SDO and SBP and have gotten great trades with them. Awesome traders.

Of the traditional traders I think GC is the best for possible enrollment with GV second. And while I tend to favor the 2 BR over a 3 BR for both locations, to enroll a 3 BR can have some additional benefit esp if one is wanting a signifiant volume of points.

 

[AlmostRetired]

In 2015, I asked for suggestions on a good trader on TUG. A number of resorts were discussed but I went with the Grand Chateau. A combination of inexpensive price and a large platinum season (51 weeks). A few people suggested a 3 bedroom, but this was an experiment to test it out so I went with an EOY 2 bedroom that I picked up on ebay for 1800 that included all closing costs. From 2015 until 2021 I had 4 uses or 8 trades (as lock offs). 6 of the 8 trades I traded for were 2 bedrooms and 2 of the trades were for 1 bedrooms. My wife is tied to a school schedule so most of our trades were heavily traveled times. My last two trades (from 2021) were to a 2 bedroom in St. Thomas the end of April 2022 and a 2 bedroom at Oceana Plams mid May 2022.

The experiment was a successful so a few months ago I sold the EOY (got 1200) and purchased an annual 3 bedroom (4000 with all closing costs). The reason I moved to a 3 bedroom was to make the trades easier to get with the trading power of a 2 br and 1 br for getting into summer HHI. I own at the Grande Ocean and try and trade into this resort or the Monarch. The Grande Ocean is a difficult HHI summer trade. My first two trades of the 3 bedroom were for the a Grand Ocean in July the week before my owners week and one in mid August for my son. There are a number of good trader resorts at great prices. The biggest advantage to me for of the Grand Chateau (GC) is the 51 weeks of Platinum. I can book summer allowing me to reserve 13 months out to get a favorable Grande Ocean week that I own. I am looking to buy a second Grande Ocean (GO) (we enjoy HHI) so with the 2 GC weeks and the 2 GO weeks, in 2023 I can book the GO weeks almost 14 months out. (I think).

Good luck with whatever you decide. .

 

[toddvb20]

Thanks for all the replies! I got the term “tiger trader” from the Vistana forum. Someone used the term to describe SDO and SBP. I had to ask what it meant. Yeah, something that trades well and has low MFs.

This gives me some food for thought. I’m probably going to wait in the wings until I can see how the program looks after MVC and VSE get integrated.

Thanks again

 

[frank808]

I have a slightly different ranking of units for trading purposes. I rank them as Grand Chateau, Willowridge, Grand Vista and Harbour Lake.

For the mini MKO deposit a couple days ago I had time to see the differences. The same check in dates (July 1 2022), same size (studio) and same date of deposit showed me that all were about equal except for the Harbour Lake unit would see less than the other 3.

Another tidbit I found out a couple days ago. For 2022, I chose a higher TDI week listed on II chart for Grand Chateau. I reserved week 24 (June 17 2022) which has a 170 TDI and it saw less units than same Grand Chateau for 2021 Week 12 which had a 140 TDI. When reserving unit, I actually was thinking, why the heck would a summer week in vegas, be more valuable than a spring break week? I went with what II published and I was right. The June week has definitely less trade power than the March week even though TDI chart says otherwise. I am not going to be putting to much trust in the TDI chart by II anymore.

 

[jmhpsu93]

I have a slightly different ranking of units for trading purposes. I rank them as Grand Chateau, Willowridge, Grand Vista and Harbour Lake.

For the mini MKO deposit a couple days ago I had time to see the differences. The same check in dates (July 1 2022), same size (studio) and same date of deposit showed me that all were about equal except for the Harbour Lake unit would see less than the other 3.

Another tidbit I found out a couple days ago. For 2022, I chose a higher TDI week listed on II chart for Grand Chateau. I reserved week 24 (June 17 2022) which has a 170 TDI and it saw less units than same Grand Chateau for 2021 Week 12 which had a 140 TDI. When reserving unit, I actually was thinking, why the heck would a summer week in vegas, be more valuable than a spring break week? I went with what II published and I was right. The June week has definitely less trade power than the March week even though TDI chart says otherwise. I am not going to be putting to much trust in the TDI chart by II anymore.

Curious when you deposited those two respective units? That can make a difference too.

 

[frank808]

Curious when you deposited those two respective units? That can make a difference too.

I deposited 2021 week 12 months out and 2022 week 13 months out from checkin.

Sent from my SM-T290 using Tapatalk

 

[melissy123]

Frank,I’ve noticed my 2022 weeks have less trading power than the 2021 weeks. Same platinum WR week. Deposited 12 months out.

 

[jwalk03]

I also noticed the same. My 2021 Harbour Lake Platinum booked for July 4th week could see things that my 2022 one booked for the same July 4th week could not.

 

[gln60]

My gold week Harbour Lake studio has been able to pull a 2 BR2BA August week at Surf Watch in Hilton Head,a 2BR2BA unit at Frenchman’s Cove and a 2BR2BA unit at the Aruba Surf Club..it been a great trader for years.

 

[Dean]

A few additional thoughts. Historically II has used internal resort rating systems that impacted what one could see and trade for. I'm unsure if this is still the case, esp with their move to monetize size upgrades. It also appears to me that II penalizes studios for Orlando compared to Branson, which makes sense since at least one of the independent's has refused to take studios from Orlando in the past. Of course what we can see online isn't a great judge of trade power at least on the upper end but it's the best we have as users. Sometimes a lower rated resort will actually see more volume than a higher rated one. I own both HL & WR Platinum weeks. Playing with them, using 4th of July for both, it appears that HL trades slightly better for a 1 or 2 BR than WR but the studio for WR does better than the studio for HL. I've also played with RCI's TPU for the ares in question quite a bit to compare. Ultimately I think the cheapest price and lowest fees one can get is the best choice for trading within the resorts being discussed. GC has the 3 BR that lock's off into a 2 & 1 BR, broader Platinum season and higher points if enrolled and for some this makes it the best choice.

 

[frank808]

I have not tried the 1br HL vs 1br WR yet. I was trying to use up the studios first to book units. I just used the HL to book the weeks it could get and then use WR for the ones not available with HL.