Should We Buy Points?

[travelingjess]

My husband and I just sat through a Marriott presentation about Abound Points (in exchange for a discounted stay at the Kaanapali Villas). We said no, of course, but have been considering buying points on the resale market. We’ve been running the numbers and trying to determine if buying into the point system could actually save us on hotel/resort costs in the long run. For context we are in our late 20s, no kids and no plans to have any, both work remote with flexible enough schedules that we could work from just about anywhere in the world. In the future, we’d like to take our friends & godson and/or our siblings/nieces/nephews on trips together so the multi bedroom villas are enticing.

**We are not interested in Hilton or Wyndham, we are partial to the Marriott brand if we are going to do this at all**

1) Is there a vacation destination you wish to visit most of the time or on a regular basis? if so where?

Not necessarily, we like to travel all over the world and our bucket list is long. We do love Hawaii and have been back a few times. We love city/history/exploration trips but also love beach/resort/don’t leave the property type trips as well.

2) Do you want to visit your home resort at least half the time, or do you want to trade more than half the time?
Not sure… I think we’d prefer to trade more/try new places more often than repeating a place.


3) What are your 5 top trade destinations?
Hmm… not sure. Our top five bucket list places are: Japan, New Zealand, Australia, Greece, and Spain

4) How many people do you usually travel with - total, including yourself?
2, but as I said in the future we might be a group of 6 (us plus one couple and their kids)

5) Can you travel any time, or are you locked into the school schedule?
My husband and I can travel any time. If we account for family/the future trips I mentioned we get more tied to the school schedule.

6) Can you make firm plans 12 or more mos. in advance?
Yes

7) Can you vacation for a full week at a time?
Yes, we prefer to travel for long stays. We have a general ~1 day per hour of flight rule (so a 9 hour flight one way would mean a 9 day trip in that location)

8) What level of accommodations do you prefer on a scale of 1 to 5 stars?
4 to 5

9) How much can you afford to spend upfront, without financing?
~$50k+

10) How much can you afford to spend every year for a maintenance fee that will come due right after Christmas, and increase each year?
“Afford” is an interesting word. I’d say we’re comfortable with $3-$5k IF the math made sense (the annual fee is less than if we had just paid for the same vacations in cash)

11) Are you a detail oriented planner?
Yes

12) Do you understand that once you buy a timeshare, it may be very difficult to sell or give away, and you are responsible for all fees, until you do?
Yes, the lifetime commitment is the biggest detractor and is why we’re considering renting points instead of buying points.

 

[travelhacker]

I got into the timeshare game when I was just a shade older than you. We had kids, so the math was a bit different.

Out of your 5 trade destinations, Marriott only has options in Spain and Australia. Availability for Spain seems pretty spotty at best from the points system.

I don't think the points system makes much sense. I'm not a big fan from an upfront cost perspective as well as a maintenance fee perspective. To get 5000 points (which should get you a 2 bedroom in most locations for a week) would run around $25,000 ($2.00 per point + $3.00 per point to Marriott). You'd then need to pay at least $4000 a year in maintenance fees. The $3.00 per point fee to Marriott would be a total loss when it came time to sell and I don't think you'd save enough vs rental rates to make up for the loss in flexibility that you'd experience.

That being said, there are several different sweet spots depending on your scenario. It is kind of nice that you only need a studio unit as the value can be pretty good when compared to hotel rooms.

I personally, would never consider purchasing points resale except in a very limited set of circumstances.

Enrolled weeks and in particular certain Westin weeks can provide an excellent value (maintenance fees of 45 cents a point), but it's complicated and the rules of the game could change at any time (i.e. ability to enroll weeks could go away).

I can go into a bit more detail on that if you're interested, just send me a private message.

 

[kozykritter]

My advice is to not focus completely on the dollars and cents because buying a timeshare is not often a financial investment/moneymaker but rather a vacation investment. Think of all the ways you might want to use it and the places you might want to go and then see if that investment will get you there either directly or through exchanges or perhaps renting a week that you book and using cash from that to go somewhere that's not on the timeshare grid for Marriott or Vistana. Whether or not buying resale points makes financial sense for you really depends upon how you do the math and what factors you consider when you make that determination. I personally don't focus on what I invested because that's a sunk cost...it gave me access and options and usage, all of which sets me up to plan travel. I usually go by what maintenance fee I paid for the points I'm using and by that math I can think of many many trips were that cost was 20-30% of booking it with cash via marriott.com.

You can't rent points as far as controlling them unless you already have an account that is point eligible with Abound because otherwise you would have nowhere to put them. You can however have someone make a reservation for you using their points which is another form of renting points. The benefit of purchased points resale or not is that they can be used in their use year, borrowed backwards one year to make a reservation or banked forward one plus years depending upon your elite level. Rental points that are transferred to you can only be used in their use year and cannot be transferred again or banked.

 

[Hindsite]

you could start off by getting a low cost independent 1-bed that exchanges in II. You might get that for free and have annual maint fees of $700 or less. You'll need to ensure it is a peak week for it to be worth doing. Some of those resorts also allow you to buy additional weeks in a year that you can also deposit to II.
Once you've got access to II then you can explore the availability of low cost paid weeks in II via their getaways and accom certs. That way you can explore the various resorts, brands and locations ans see what might suit you longer term. You can also rent via Redweek to get some deals which are as good, if not better than owning.
Timesharing isn't goting to meet all of your vacation lodging needs, so working out what small part of your needs it does meet is worth taking the time to do.

 

[jp10558]

My husband and I just sat through a Marriott presentation about Abound Points (in exchange for a discounted stay at the Kaanapali Villas). We said no, of course, but have been considering buying points on the resale market. We’ve been running the numbers and trying to determine if buying into the point system could actually save us on hotel/resort costs in the long run. For context we are in our late 20s, no kids and no plans to have any, both work remote with flexible enough schedules that we could work from just about anywhere in the world. In the future, we’d like to take our friends & godson and/or our siblings/nieces/nephews on trips together so the multi bedroom villas are enticing.

**We are not interested in Hilton or Wyndham, we are partial to the Marriott brand if we are going to do this at all**

1) Is there a vacation destination you wish to visit most of the time or on a regular basis? if so where?

Not necessarily, we like to travel all over the world and our bucket list is long. We do love Hawaii and have been back a few times. We love city/history/exploration trips but also love beach/resort/don’t leave the property type trips as well.

2) Do you want to visit your home resort at least half the time, or do you want to trade more than half the time?
Not sure… I think we’d prefer to trade more/try new places more often than repeating a place.


3) What are your 5 top trade destinations?
Hmm… not sure. Our top five bucket list places are: Japan, New Zealand, Australia, Greece, and Spain

4) How many people do you usually travel with - total, including yourself?
2, but as I said in the future we might be a group of 6 (us plus one couple and their kids)

5) Can you travel any time, or are you locked into the school schedule?
My husband and I can travel any time. If we account for family/the future trips I mentioned we get more tied to the school schedule.

6) Can you make firm plans 12 or more mos. in advance?
Yes

7) Can you vacation for a full week at a time?
Yes, we prefer to travel for long stays. We have a general ~1 day per hour of flight rule (so a 9 hour flight one way would mean a 9 day trip in that location)

8) What level of accommodations do you prefer on a scale of 1 to 5 stars?
4 to 5

9) How much can you afford to spend upfront, without financing?
~$50k+

10) How much can you afford to spend every year for a maintenance fee that will come due right after Christmas, and increase each year?
“Afford” is an interesting word. I’d say we’re comfortable with $3-$5k IF the math made sense (the annual fee is less than if we had just paid for the same vacations in cash)

11) Are you a detail oriented planner?
Yes

12) Do you understand that once you buy a timeshare, it may be very difficult to sell or give away, and you are responsible for all fees, until you do?
Yes, the lifetime commitment is the biggest detractor and is why we’re considering renting points instead of buying points.

I only know about Marriott via II exchanges or getaways and from this forum. I think given your requirements it likely doesn't make sense. Well, I'd argue that buying points in Marriott never makes sense from a financial perspective, but I don't think you'll ever pay back the up front cost to buy the points the way you want to travel and places you want to go. What I mean is - your options for 4* timeshares are limited, and Marriott/II are also limited in locations and availability. So make sure you look where you can go, and ask where you can realistically exchange or buy a Getaway for. I'd also pay attention to the limited cities TS are in, and the limited size units, along with high point costs or trade power needed. You also need to consider if you're OK working in chunks of weeks from roughly Sat-Sat. (there are some Fri-Fri and Sun-Sun too). If not, then you pretty much MUST use points and that's probably going to be hard to make the math work in Marriott IMHO.

My advice is to not focus completely on the dollars and cents because buying a timeshare is not often a financial investment/moneymaker but rather a vacation investment

I'm going to disagree slightly here - I can't think of many reasons to get a timeshare if it won't save you money somehow. Personally, for the long term commitment I wouldn't do so unless it was saving me a significant discount to other options - probably 30% or more. Luckily, for ME I am easily getting a lot of value for my MFs by also adding on a lot of Extra Vacations, Last Calls and occasional Getaways, also with some trade ups in II. But as I've said elsewhere on TUG, you need to do more than 1 week a year to really get value IMHO - and those second etc weeks hopefully are either "free" via using a lock-off or half price points via 2 off season weeks OR are cash deals from RCI/II that are a savings. It's just you usually get the really good deals at 3-3.5* properties so if you cut them off entirely, you don't get as much value for money.

If the OP is seriously considering spending $50k up front, I'm going to suggest putting that in a actual investment that pulls hopefully ~4% after tax and then take the $2k that generates plus the lower end $3k MF they were willing to spend and spend $5k on a resort cash stay each year wherever they want to go. Then dump the other $2k into the investment to try and cover inflation over time by increasing the investment output that way.

 

[4TimeAway]

I'm going to disagree slightly here - I can't think of many reasons to get a timeshare if it won't save you money somehow.

I agree in theory, but some people need to be forced to take more and better vacations. The prepayment of MFs helps lock us in. Add in some Credit Card airfare games and it can almost be a hobby.

It’s always compared to what options you have. If you have a couple of months, a multi-month vacation rental is probably a better value.

If you have a couple weeks, timeshares can work. For us cooking is the main savings and lifestyle preference, so timeshares really fill the gap.

 

[jp10558]

I agree in theory, but some people need to be forced to take more and better vacations. The prepayment of MFs helps lock us in.

That's one of the two reasons I could think of, but for the OP it didn't sound like their issue was not going on vacations. I just think that forcing yourself to go on vacation is worth something, but I certainly wouldn't say it's worth paying IDK 30%+ more than other options just for that benefit.

The other reason, that's a lot less common now and not relevant to the OP by their post would be to want to join a "vacation community" where you go to the same place the same week with many of the same other people via an old school fixed week fixed unit contract. However, these are both rarer and because of that there's going to be less other people at any resort who are also there because of the fixed week/fixed unit so it's going to be a bit harder to create this "community" IMHO.

 

[dioxide45]

We bought two Marriott resale weeks in our early 30s. We've found it is a great way to save on vacation accommodation. So much depends on where and when you want to travel. Without kids, it means you may be able to travel more last minute and in shoulder or off season. Kids make for more limited travel schedules. Also, what we bought can't be replaced on the cheap. I suppose luck of when we bought worked in our favor. The resale you buy today (other than Abound Club Points) have heavy restrictions on use

Here are the options you need to research further;

1. Buy resale Abound Club Points - This is probably the most expensive option both upfront to purchase and ongoing maintenance fees. Though the points will work just like points if you bought them direct from Marriott.
2. Buy a resale deeded Marriott lock off week in a place you want to travel or an exchanger to exchange through Interval International. This is actually very flexible and is perhaps the cheapest option upfront to buy and in ongoing maintenance fees. There are additional fees when using it for exchange. You can only use the deeded week or exchnage it through II. You do get the benefit of exchange priority into other MVC and Vistana resorts.
3. Buy a mandatory resale VOI in the Vistana (Westin & SheratonVacation Club) program. This allows you to use the StarOptions from the VOI to reserve other Vistana resorts. You can't use them to book Marriott Vacation Club resorts.
4. Buy a voluntary Vistana deeded week or Flex (Westin Flex, Sheraton Flex, Westin Aventuras). If you buy Flex, you can use the points to reserve within the collection of properties in that Flex program. You can't reserve any of the other Vistana or Marriott Vacation Club properties except to exchange through Interval International. The maintenance fees can be slightly higher than a specific deeded week bought for exchanging, but cheaper than Abound Club Points.

The last three options there can be fully enrolled in Abound if you buy direct from Marriott or Vistana later. I talked to someone who was buying three Westin Lagunamar weeks to enroll in Abound. They can do this by going to Vistana and buying at least $20,000 worth of new Flex (Westin Aventuras in this case) from Vistana. This then gives you full Abound and VSN usage. Westin Lagunamar is considered voluntary ownership, so you don't get any points when you buy it resale.

I have a playlist on my YouTube channel where I talk about Marriott Vacation Club and also Vistana and explain many of the nuances and compare resale to buying direct.

 

[vacationtime1]

I will be blunt compared to my friends above: Don't buy Marriott points, either from the developer or resale. Period; full stop. Points are just too expensive, both the upfront cost (which has zero value if you need to sell) and the annual maintenance fee, which is frequently more than the rental value of the properties you would likely reserve (I assume you are looking for high end resorts).

Your proposed destinations are not well covered by timeshares (Marriott is strongest for east coast beaches, southwest deserts, and Hawaii). Very few timeshares are actually 4* quality (and only a couple can claim 5*), and many recent posts here suggest that many 4* timeshares, specifically including Marriotts, are cutting back on amenities and service. You don't want to return to the same places year after year, so trading will become a burden (many of us here think of it as a hobby).

You might do well buying a legacy week at a Hawaii resort if you would use it most years. Otherwise, I think you should stay away and use actual money (or airline or hotel points) to pay for travel.

 

[curtheavyc]

Would it be easy to book through Star Options if we buy a EOYE week with 81k points? Assuming the 81k is also EOYE only.

I have no experience with this as we always go to Western desert Willow ( home resort) EOYO currently and don't trade/ no points and bought on the resale market.
Any advice is appreciated

 

[Rdub79]

If you like to plan and strategize, much like credit card points hacking, then timesharing can be a very great hobby for you as others have said. I would suggest buying a 2 bedroom or 3 bedroom lock off Marriott for the sole purpose of trading in II. You can save some serious money by splitting the week into to smaller units and depositing into II and getting 2 weeks of vacay out of it in higher end places. Not all the places on your list are available for timeshares but there are quite a lot to make it worth your while and maybe some new ones you haven't even thought about. The US is pretty well covered, you have the Caribbean, Spain, France, Thailand, Australia, Bali, Costa Rica. You will spend a couple thousand up front to purchase the week but if it's not for you in the end you can sell it and get most of your original purchase price back. A pretty low risk experiment.

 

[byeloe]

Would it be easy to book through Star Options if we buy a EOYE week with 81k points? Assuming the 81k is also EOYE only.

I have no experience with this as we always go to Western desert Willow ( home resort) EOYO currently and don't trade/ no points and bought on the resale market.
Any advice is appreciated

You would need to buy a mandatory resort. Usually easy to book with staroptions at 8 months, depends on the resort you are traveling to. Some places like Lagunamar are difficult to get in January or Westin Kierland in March