Questions about purchasing a Hyatt timeshare

[adrost328]

I am interested in purchasing a Hyatt timeshare on the resale market. The purchase would be used for its points so that my family could stay at various Hyatt locations for two to four day getaways. My questions are:

* Is EBAY a good place to make this purchase?

* Should I be focused on the cost of each point based on the maintenance fee (ie: Haciendo Del Mar $1.00/point vs Sedona 0.67/point)?

* Does the MF cost/point reduce if your purchase contains more points?

* Does Hyatt invoke the ROFR?

* Are there issues I should be concerned about in the closing process?

 

[heathpack]

With Hyatt, you should focus primarily on buying an underlying week that you can use, IMO. Hyatt points are an overlay over a deeded week and at any time Hyatt can change points requirements or eliminate the points system entirely. This is very different than say Disney Vacation Club which is a true point system with strict rules governing any possible points changes.

I would not therefore recommend going for the cheapest points out there. Go for the best deal you can find on a week you can use.

You also want to pay attention to the various Hyatt windows for "aging" of your points. For example, we own a week 22 which is great for requesting winter weeks but not great for requesting summer weeks- with Hyatt there is a little spike in availability of club reservations 6 months out, you want to have fresh Hyatt points for requesting those reservations.

Be aware as well that Hyatt charges you a split week fee for housecleaning in most properties plus a reservation fee for each reservation made. Therefore if you intended to split your weeks and stay say 4 visits as partial weeks in smaller accommodations, your fees for doing so would be $300/yr over your MF.

No matter what week you have MF are the same. If you buy in the future you will be buying a 2nd week and therefore having a 2nd MF. The best bang for the buck in the Hyatt system us therefore the highest season week you can afford, as you get more points for the same MF.

Have you been to Kal's HVC site? He explains much of the nitty gritty there.

Hyatt is a great system, a little expensive, but please don't think for 1 minute that you are actually buying points. You are buying a fixed TS week. The points are just icing on the cake.

H

PS you should pay attention to the actual unit you buy as well and make sure the location within the resort works for you