Sheraton Flex Developer Purchase at SVV

[shleepie]

While on vacation at SVV we bought Sheraton Flex. 44,000 HomeOptions annually with an initial bonus of 88,000 options and 1 developer week of 8 days/7 nights. We paid $16,683, had closing costs waived, and MF will be $963 + club dues of $240. No mortgage/loan.

We are non-revenue travelers with airline perks. We have platinum status with Marriott Bonvoy and for the past decade have booked hotel stays mostly on points from churning credit card rewards. This would be our first VOI, so we don't have access to II, RCI, VSN, etc. and couldn't verify the getaways/exchange availability for ourselves.

At least for now, we're happy with a 1 bedroom. We're accustomed to stuffing the 4 of us into hotel rooms, so even a 1 bedroom is spacious in comparison. We're thinking we'll start small with just enough points for our needs now, and if we become too used to the good life and need a 2 bedroom in the future we can supplement with a resale. Based on the point chart, 44k is enough for a 1 bedroom all year or a 1 bedroom premium for part of the year at SVV.

Our kids are 4 & 2. This purchase is primarily to use for Orlando for the next 10 or so years. We want to be able to trade into DVC. We would actually love to own DVC but it's too expensive even as resale and seems restrictive once the kids no longer enjoy WDW.

We want Flex because we won't always travel during the same weeks, depending on what flights are open. I think I also read that Disney doesn't allow exchanges from other Orlando resorts regardless of brand, so a mandatory SVV week probably wouldn't work for us either.

However, with the new Lightning Lane changes, it seems much more important to be staying in Disney properties. Is this VOI even a strong trader for DVC?

Alternatively if we can't trade for DVC, we can book one night at the Dolphin at the beginning of our trip to unlock the ability to book Lightning Lanes 7 days in advance for the entire trip and then move over to SVV or SVR for the rest of the trip.

We are attracted to having StarOptions for other VSN resorts if we don't use the HomeOptions if/when we don't want to go to WDW, which I believe is only possible through resale if we buy a mandatory week (SVV Bella or Key West phase).

Again, we're mostly planning to use this for WDW. We go 1-3 times a year. For other destinations, we're thinking we'll just pay for getaways in II.

Is Sheraton Flex a good choice for us, or would it be better to just bite the bullet for DVC? We also sat through a presentation at Parc Soleil and actually prefer that property over SVV, with the added benefit of less perks lost as a resale owner, but it was significantly more expensive. Would it maybe make more sense to buy a Parc Soleil resale?

We have 2 days left to rescind, but for our needs I feel like this developer purchase makes more sense than buying resale. The major downside is the cost, which we are fortunate to be able to absorb, but of course if we can get similar travel opportunities for better value with a different VOI we'd explore that avenue.

 

[rickandcindy23]

You should rescind and buy something resale. You can buy a great resort that will trade into Disney for 10% of that cost. That isn't many flexoptions, and you can get those pretty much free via resale (look at ebay).

If you have that much money to spend, buy Westin Kierland Villas resale, 148,000 MANDATORY Staroptions, and have something worthy of the money spent. You can always sell it later for what you paid for it.

What you bought is worth $0 resale.

 

[dioxide45]

You didn't say how much you paid, but I suspect it was over $10K? You can certainly get a good mandatory resale deed at a resort like Westin Kierland Villas for about the same price or a little more. That would give you 148,100 StarOptions. Since you paid cash, it isn't like the need to do inhouse financing was an issue.

You lose some flexibility with a deeded week like WKV, but you gain some also. A lot to read, research and learn. You can certainly cancel/rescind and do the research. If you later decide to purchase direct, the option will be there. They are always happy to take your money. You only have a short time to rescind, but forever to buy again.

 

[rickandcindy23]

You didn't say how much you paid, but I suspect it was over $10K? You can certainly get a good mandatory resale deed at a resort like Westin Kierland Villas for about the same price or a little more. That would give you 148,100 StarOptions. Since you paid cash, it isn't like the need to do inhouse financing was an issue.

You lose some flexibility with a deeded week like WKV, but you gain some also. A lot to read, research and learn. You can certainly cancel/rescind and do the research. If you later decide to purchase direct, the option will be there. They are always happy to take your money. You only have a short time to rescind, but forever to buy again.

$16,883!!!!

 

[dioxide45]

$16,883!!!!

Thanks. I somehow skimmed over that. Then that settles it. A plat Plus Westin Kierland Villas will be a better option. The maintenance fees will be higher, so many more StarOptions.

 

[dioxide45]

Alternatively if we can't trade for DVC, we can book one night at the Dolphin at the beginning of our trip to unlock the ability to book Lightning Lanes 7 days in advance for the entire trip and then move over to SVV or SVR for the rest of the trip.

I am not exactly sure what you meant here, but if I understood what you were saying then I am not sure it will work this way. I believe it is for your entire trip while you are onsite. So it would only be for the two days, checkin and checkout days while at Dolphin.

Sheraton Flex will work for trading in to DVC. There is a chart that determines, based on unit size and TDI, how many points it will take. DVC generally isn't a hard exchange but the number of resorts available in Interval International is limited to about five.

Also realize that if you own elsewhere, you can easily book Getaways into 2BR SVV or SVR through Interval International for less than your maintenance fees.

 

[shleepie]

Thanks for your responses! 148k StarOptions is a lot more points than we need, and it looks the maintenance fees would be double. Would it be easy to manage all the extra points, especially at the end of the year if it turns out we didn't use them all? Or would it be easy to use them last minute in II for exchanges instead of paying for getaways? Since we fly for free, we take a lot of weekend trips on short notice which doesn't seem to mesh well with the need to plan and book well in advance.

 

[shleepie]

I am not exactly sure what you meant here, but if I understood what you were saying then I am not sure it will work this way. I believe it is for your entire trip while you are onsite. So it would only be for the two days, checkin and checkout days while at Dolphin.

Sheraton Flex will work for trading in to DVC. There is a chart that determines, based on unit size and TDI, how many points it will take. DVC generally isn't a hard exchange but the number of resorts available in Interval International is limited to about five.

Also realize that if you own elsewhere, you can easily book Getaways into 2BR SVV or SVR through Interval International for less than your maintenance fees.

Darn! I suppose that would be too easy of a hack to get earlier access to Lightning Lanes without paying Disney their resort prices for the entire trip.

Good to know that Sheraton Flex works for trading in to DVC, thanks!

If we're exploring resale instead, would buying Parc Soleil make more sense than WKV? I see listings for 11200 points for around $3k, which would be more than enough points for our needs and the maintenance fees are less. Looks like it would be RCI instead of II, though.

 

[rickandcindy23]

Thanks for your responses! 148k StarOptions is a lot more points than we need, and it looks the maintenance fees would be double. Would it be easy to manage all the extra points, especially at the end of the year if it turns out we didn't use them all? Or would it be easy to use them last minute in II for exchanges instead of paying for getaways? Since we fly for free, we take a lot of weekend trips on short notice which doesn't seem to mesh well with the need to plan and book well in advance.

Are you actually going to keep what you bought? That is crazy high for so few options. And your resale value would be $0. Rescind right away, and re-think this. Check for resale prices.

My best trades have not been using my Staroptions, they are using floating weeks in platinum season.

If you only plan to travel long weekends, last-minute, you need to step back because many people who become disenchanted with timeshare think they can get whatever they want last-minute. It doesn't work that way. Planning is important.

Bottomline, you are not going to be happy with what you bought. Buy Kierland one bedroom mandatory SO's and have the right number for less cost, and never have to worry about resale of $0. Check Redweek.com

 

[vacationtime1]

Thanks for your responses! 148k StarOptions is a lot more points than we need, and it looks the maintenance fees would be double. Would it be easy to manage all the extra points, especially at the end of the year if it turns out we didn't use them all? Or would it be easy to use them last minute in II for exchanges instead of paying for getaways? Since we fly for free, we take a lot of weekend trips on short notice which doesn't seem to mesh well with the need to plan and book well in advance.

Then buy a 1bd Plat+ Kierland unit. They come in two sizes (81K StarOptions and 67.1K StarOptions), which together make up the 2bd unit with 148100 StarOptions.

The purchase price will be either ~$8K or ~$6K and MF's would be either $1267 or $897.

 

[shleepie]

We can't commit to more than 1 pre-planned, week-long vacation per year at this point which is mostly going to be Disney for the foreseeable future. With a Kierland unit, how does it work for trading to DVC? Would we need to put the week into II to try for a DVC trade at 12 months prior to travel?

If we can't trade the whole week to DVC, I'm assuming we'd be using the StarOptions to book SVV for 44k points at 8 months prior to travel. Then with the leftover 23k points, would we be able to book weekends on short notice?

 

[rickandcindy23]

When knowledgeable TUGgers are telling you that what you bought is worth $0 resale, but Kierland has immense value resale, but you can get smaller numbers of Staroptions for less than you paid for the crappy Flexoptions, you still want to keep those $0 resale value Flex?

 

[dioxide45]

I think you may want to step back and take a deep look into the different systems. If Orlando is your primary destination for travel then almost any timeshare with Interval International affiliation will work as you can use it to book week long getaways. Sometimes for just a few hundred dollars.

You need to be careful with short notice reservations. Timeshare doesn't necessarily work well for last minute stuff and weekends tend to book up quicker because everyone else likes to travel on weekends too.

With a deeded week you would preferably want one that locks off. This allows you to use one side of the lock off to trade through II for DVC and then the other side to use as StarOptions. WKV gives you that. If you only own a single week in a unit, then you can't use some for DVC and some for weekends. Sheraton Flex would work for that, but you can get Sheraton Flex for free on the resale market.

 

[claraj]

SVV for 44k points at 8 months prior to travel.

I think there are a lot of Getaways available for SVV for a few hundred a week.

 

[shleepie]

When knowledgeable TUGgers are telling you that what you bought is worth $0 resale, but Kierland has immense value resale, but you can get smaller numbers of Staroptions for less than you paid for the crappy Flexoptions, you still want to keep those $0 resale value Flex?

I'm just asking how we would use your recommendations. I don't know why you seem to find it offensive that I'm asking questions to understand how we would use a Kierland week. The only time the resale value would matter is when we want to get rid of it, which should only happen if we can't use it the way we want to -- so doesn't it make sense that I would want to know how the crappy $0 resale value or the immense resale value is usable for our specific needs?

 

[shleepie]

I think you may want to step back and take a deep look into the different systems. If Orlando is your primary destination for travel then almost any timeshare with Interval International affiliation will work as you can use it to book week long getaways. Sometimes for just a few hundred dollars.

You need to be careful with short notice reservations. Timeshare doesn't necessarily work well for last minute stuff and weekends tend to book up quicker because everyone else likes to travel on weekends too.

With a deeded week you would preferably want one that locks off. This allows you to use one side of the lock off to trade through II for DVC and then the other side to use as StarOptions. WKV gives you that. If you only own a single week in a unit, then you can't use some for DVC and some for weekends. Sheraton Flex would work for that, but you can get Sheraton Flex for free on the resale market.

Thank you, I think for the weekend trips we should probably just continue to stick with churning points and booking hotels rather than trying to leverage leftover timeshare points.

Since we don't plan to use the options at other VSN resorts, it does sound like we don't really need a Vistana timeshare just for Orlando, or we can pick up a voluntary resale for SVV.

 

[shleepie]

I think there are a lot of Getaways available for SVV for a few hundred a week.

Perhaps that's the best way to go, just pick up any other timeshare with II affiliation to see if we can shoot for DVC or settle for a getaway at SVV.

 

[Hindsite]

Since we don't plan to use the options at other VSN resorts, it does sound like we don't really need a Vistana timeshare just for Orlando, or we can pick up a voluntary resale for SVV.

If you get SVV you won't be able to use that to exchange into DVC Orlando.
Flex points work for DVC Orlando, as the points don't have single location as their home resort.
You will be using II to exchange your Vistana ownership for DVC and that will be for 1 week, you won't get DVC for a few days at a time using your timeshare ownership.

 

[DeniseM]

1. RESCIND! Following the directions in your purchase paperwork EXACTLY.
2. Hang out with us and ask questions
3. Take your time - do your research
4. Buy resale and pay a fraction of the cost.

 

[shleepie]

If you get SVV you won't be able to use that to exchange into DVC Orlando.
Flex points work for DVC Orlando, as the points don't have single location as their home resort.
You will be using II to exchange your Vistana ownership for DVC and that will be for 1 week, you won't get DVC for a few days at a time using your timeshare ownership.

Back to the drawing board! I guess we don't need a Vistana timeshare specifically, any non-Orlando timeshare that is affiliated with II should do.

I'm probably just not getting it, but it still sounds like we can either 1) try to trade a non-Orlando, non-Vistana week for a week at DVC, then if that fails try to trade for a week at an Orlando resort, or 2) try to trade SVV flex for DVC, then if that fails just book SVV and have no leftover points to manage.

Honestly, with everything else going on in our lives neither of us have the mental bandwidth for squeezing maximum value out of a timeshare. That's why it was attractive to think that we could just try to trade to DVC or book SVV and be done with it. With our goal being DVC, maybe we should just suck it up and buy DVC now, and deal with selling it later.

 

[shleepie]

1. RESCIND! Following the directions in your purchase paperwork EXACTLY.
2. Hang out with us and ask questions
3. Take your time - do your research
4. Buy resale and pay a fraction of the cost.

Will discuss what you've all advised with my husband. He deals with booking all our vacation stuff so he's the one who would have to learn how to use whatever we end up with!

 

[Hindsite]

Back to the drawing board! I guess we don't need a Vistana timeshare specifically, any non-Orlando timeshare that is affiliated with II should do.

It is well worth you rescinding as you don't understand what you have bought or how to use it to get what you want, or even if it will get you what you want. Assume that whatever the salesperson said to you was at best an overstatement of the possible, and possibly a complete lie.
You need to have a timeshare that will have enough II trading power to get the unit size and dates that you wat at DVC. Anything won't do that for you. Flex bought resale if you buy enough points will do that, but you need to do a lot more research into the enduring costs of that and the work you would need to put in to get the reservation you want, assuming its available.

1) try to trade a non-Orlando, non-Vistana week for a week at DVC, then if that fails try to trade for a week at an Orlando resort

1) You'd need to own the non-Orlando, non-Vistana week to trade it in II.

2) try to trade SVV flex for DVC, then if that fails just book SVV and have no leftover points to manage.

2) You own Sheraton Flex points, not SVV. SVV is one of the pool of properties that is part of Sheraton flex.

Honestly, with everything else going on in our lives neither of us have the mental bandwidth for squeezing maximum value out of a timeshare. That's why it was attractive to think that we could just try to trade to DVC or book SVV and be done with it. With our goal being DVC, maybe we should just suck it up and buy DVC now, and deal with selling it later.

Timeshares require work to get the value from, if you don't have time it can end up very expensive. You can rent DVC points to book at DVC, that might be easier than buying DVC and getting stuck with that.

 

[dioxide45]

That's why it was attractive to think that we could just try to trade to DVC or book SVV and be done with it. With our goal being DVC, maybe we should just suck it up and buy DVC now, and deal with selling it later.

You can do this with resale Sheraton Flex. You just don't get the StarOptions, but you don't need them since you can use the Flex HomeOptions to book directly into SVV. The only drawback is trading in to DVC and having to pay your own annual Interval International membership fee. If you were to buy direct it is included. That said, you would also save on the Club Dues buying resale so that more than makes up for paying the extra $99 for II membership every year. You can get Sheraton Flex pretty much for free off Ebay.

 

[claraj]

This is just my opinion but I think getting a timeshare to stay in Orlando is not very good value. I'm not familiar with DVC but shouldn't you own DVC if that's where you want to stay?

 

[rickandcindy23]

I'm just asking how we would use your recommendations. I don't know why you seem to find it offensive that I'm asking questions to understand how we would use a Kierland week. The only time the resale value would matter is when we want to get rid of it, which should only happen if we can't use it the way we want to -- so doesn't it make sense that I would want to know how the crappy $0 resale value or the immense resale value is usable for our specific needs?

But you should RESCIND while you can. Don't have regrets that you don't need to have.