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Star points vs star options

DeniseM said:
Maui now has 3 resorts: Original/South, North, and Nanea.

If you buy resale at the North or South resorts, you get Staroptions which you can use at any resort.

If you buy resale at Nanea, you do not get Staroptions, and you can only make reservations at Nanea.

Only these 5 resorts are mandatory, which means that resales DO have Staroptions:

* Harborside at Atlantis
* Vistana Villages (Bella and Key West phases only)
* Westin St. John (Virgin Grand - Hillside only)
* Westin Ka'anapali & Westin Ka'anapali-North
* Westin Kierland Villas
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Sounds like you are saying the pool villa units at WSJ are not mandatory. Are you sure that's what you mean to say?
 
bobpark56 said:
Sounds like you are saying the pool villa units at WSJ are not mandatory. Are you sure that's what you mean to say?
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Pool villas are part of the Hillside, (i.e. VGV).
 
momofthreeplusone said:
What is VSN? I clearly have more research to do!
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It's just the abbreviation for Vistana Signature Experiences/Vistina Signature Network - Vistana bought Starwood out and Vistana is the management company now.
 
Dawnwrey said:
WKORV and WKORVN are both mandatory resorts , and therefore do come with star options. Good for you for buying resale at SVV and making the most of your ownership! However, you are in violation of policy if you are booking vacations at properties where you do not own and renting them out. You may risk having your renters turned away, and certainly the disapproval of owners at those resorts who play by the rules. Sorry if this sounds harsh, but as an owner at WKORVN and WSJ, and paying those high MFs, I don't feel happy about others making rent money off of these properties where they do not own.
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Am I the only person who doesn't really care who rents out what/when? Owners have exclusive rights to their own resorts at the 12-8 month mark and after that it is open season to anyone within the network. As someone who has 'invested' over $100K in purchase and maintenance fees over the past 12 years and has 192,000+ SO/year I'd like to be able to do what I want with my 'investment'. Under the 'rules' I can't even give it away to family/friends/charity unless it's my home resort reservation? For example, I currently have 44,000 banked Lagunamar SOs that would buy me 5 days in a studio at Princeville in April 2018 (open to anyone in the network to reserve as of today) that I might want to 'gift' to someone - shouldn't that be OK? What if I want to rent it out at say $100/night or even $500/night - shouldn't that be OK? Or if I can't use them is it better to just let my surplus SO expire and let the developer line their pockets. This is America isn't it :)
 
DeniseM said:
Only these 5 resorts are mandatory, which means that resales DO have Staroptions:

* Harborside at Atlantis
* Vistana Villages (Bella and Key West phases only)
* Westin St. John (Virgin Grand - Hillside only)
* Westin Ka'anapali & Westin Ka'anapali-North
* Westin Kierland Villas
Click to expand...

We are considering a resale purchase at WKORVN. Are mandatory staroptions for resale baked into the deed? or can Vistana change the rules so that when someone purchases my unit in the future resale staroptions don't work anymore?
 
Staroptions are not deeded - they are part of your club membership in the VSN. I certainly don't expect it to happen, but it is "possible" for them to go away. This would be resort wide - not owner by owner.

Example: The Villas of Cave Creek has an independent board of directors, and when Starwood put pressure on them to do a big renovations project and raise maintenance fees to pay for it, the BOD voted Starwood out as the management company. That meant that everyone who had Staroptions at the resort, lost them, and just owned a deed week that they could reserve at VCC. There were people who bought multiple deeds there and requalified them to acquire elite status, so it was a real blow for them.

However, the BOD's at the Hawaii resorts are hand selected by the management company, and happily rubber-stamp anything they ask for, so it's very unlikely to happen in Hawaii.
 
EnglishmanAbroad said:
Am I the only person who doesn't really care who rents out what/when? Owners have exclusive rights to their own resorts at the 12-8 month mark and after that it is open season to anyone within the network. As someone who has 'invested' over $100K in purchase and maintenance fees over the past 12 years and has 192,000+ SO/year I'd like to be able to do what I want with my 'investment'. Under the 'rules' I can't even give it away to family/friends/charity unless it's my home resort reservation? For example, I currently have 44,000 banked Lagunamar SOs that would buy me 5 days in a studio at Princeville in April 2018 (open to anyone in the network to reserve as of today) that I might want to 'gift' to someone - shouldn't that be OK? What if I want to rent it out at say $100/night or even $500/night - shouldn't that be OK? Or if I can't use them is it better to just let my surplus SO expire and let the developer line their pockets. This is America isn't it :)
Click to expand...

There is nothing preventing you from renting your WKORVN unit, renting your WLR unit, or gifting your units to family/friends/charity.

You bought your units subject to the 'rules' of those units (technically, the rules of SVN/VSE) prohibiting rentals of StarOption exchanges. Why wouldn't those rules apply here?

Personally, I like those rules. It increases my chances of making a StarOption exchange to someplace I want to visit. I work hard enough to maximize the value of my units; I don't want to compete with a commercial enterprise created to arbitrage StarOption/MF ratios in order to maximize rental profits. I would not buy into a system if those were its 'rules'.
 
DeniseM said:
Clarification- you cannot convert Staroptions to Starpoints - it's (full) weeks to Starpoints. Staroptions are not involved.

Sent from my SM-T560NU using Tapatalk
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Good point. There is another great use of SPG points for air. You can trade 90k SPG points to Marriott, making 270k Marriott points. That will buy you a category 5 fly and stay package, which for us was 7 nights in a category 5 Marriott hotel and 120k Southwest points. A round trip ticket from Portland Oregon to Cancun is about 25k Southwest points.

So, for a little more than a Platinum plus lock off week, you can get 7 nights in a Marriott and almost $2500 worth of flights.

Marriott offers other categories and airlines as well.

Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk
 
Tucsonadventurer said:
All of our timeshares are resale but we have point collections with all the major hotel chains. My husband is an avid student of all the point blogs.
Million Mile Secrets is the best one to start with to learn basics. We have not needed hotel points from our timeshares. We also rarely pay to fly.
I would rarely if ever use my timeshare for points even if I had them.
Click to expand...

We have only converted our time into Starpoints once, but may do so more in the future. (see my fly and stay comment above) I'm not sure I would have bought what I have from VSE, if I had known then what I know now. However since we own in Lagunamar and the points work out to less than $0.02 each, it isn't always such a bad deal and can be pretty awesome in some cases.

The way I see it, using the flexibility provided us by purchasing from VSE does pay back some of what we overspent in buying from them. For instance, we stay over three weeks in Lagunamar in a one bedroom in January for the StarOptions from one Platinum Plus lockoff week. If we had purchased on the secondary market, we would get a one bedroom for a week and a studio for the second week. To me this represents extra value that gets deducted from what I paid VSE, or in effect payment on the principle from our purchase.
 
CalGalTraveler said:
We are considering a resale purchase at WKORVN. Are mandatory staroptions for resale baked into the deed? or can Vistana change the rules so that when someone purchases my unit in the future resale staroptions don't work anymore?
Click to expand...
The mandatory language is written in to the recorded condo documents for each of those resorts. So in a way, it is a deeded right as long as Vistana is the management company. If they make changes or do away with it, it would impact direct purchasers as much as it would resale owners at mandatory resorts.
 
remowidget said:
Good point. There is another great use of SPG points for air. You can trade 90k SPG points to Marriott, making 270k Marriott points. That will buy you a category 5 fly and stay package, which for us was 7 nights in a category 5 Marriott hotel and 120k Southwest points. A round trip ticket from Portland Oregon to Cancun is about 25k Southwest points.

So, for a little more than a Platinum plus lock off week, you can get 7 nights in a Marriott and almost $2500 worth of flights.

Marriott offers other categories and airlines as well.

Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

It's a great package however most people will likely use more points to upgrade to a cat 7 - 9 package because most of the 1 - 5 hotels are low-end business hotels near suburban business parks. Not much fun to to spend a week in one of those - especially if you already travel a lot for work.

With the SPG merger, can Vistana owners now take advantage of the 5 day flight and air packages available to Marriott Vacation Club owners?
 
Yes - you can convert Starpoints to Marriott points.
 
DeniseM said:
Yes - you can convert Starpoints to Marriott points.
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However, at least per the rules Starpoints obtained by converting a timeshare week can't be converted to Marriott Reward points.
 
The 5 day packages are fewer points and only available to Marriott timeshare owners (no need to use timeshare points). The public can only buy 7 day packages.

My question is: Do Vistana owners now qualify for this 5 day timeshare owners package with the merger?
 
The 5 day packages are fewer points and only available to Marriott timeshare owners (no need to use timeshare points)
Click to expand...

I'm not sure what you mean by no need to use timeshare points - what kind of points do you use? Marriott credit card points?

Post #37 above discusses the 5 day packages.
 
MR points
DeniseM said:
I'm not sure what you mean by no need to use timeshare points - what kind of points do you use? Marriott credit card points?

Post #37 above discusses the 5 day packages.
Click to expand...

Yes. Here is a link that discusses the 5 day travel package only available for MVC timeshare owners. Timeshare points not required to book; just SPG or Marriott Hotel points from any source:

http://frequentmiler.boardingarea.c...ight-travel-packages-exist-but-theyre-secret/

(it would be nice if Vistana owners could use this too.)
 
We can - see post #37 above. SPG points (hotel points) can be converted to Marriott (hotel) points.
 
CalGalTraveler said:
MR points


Yes. Here is a link that discusses the 5 day travel package only available for MVC timeshare owners. Timeshare points not required to book; just SPG or Marriott Hotel points from any source:

http://frequentmiler.boardingarea.c...ight-travel-packages-exist-but-theyre-secret/

(it would be nice if Vistana owners could use this too.)
Click to expand...
Marriott Rewards reps confirm your Marriott timeshare ownership prior to allowing you to elect a five night package. A MR account would not show anything regarding Vistana ownership, so I suspect that Vistana owners can't use the five night MR travel packages.
 
I have never done it myself - I was depending on the reports of others - like the quote in post #37. I know this has been discussed before, but it's probably not something I would do, so I haven't really followed it.
 
CalGalTraveler said:
The 5 day packages are fewer points and only available to Marriott timeshare owners (no need to use timeshare points). The public can only buy 7 day packages.

My question is: Do Vistana owners now qualify for this 5 day timeshare owners package with the merger?
Click to expand...
Since Vistana (timeshare) is not part of the SPG-Marriott merger, Vistana owners won't be able to purchase the 5 night travel package.
 
dioxide45 said:
However, at least per the rules Starpoints obtained by converting a timeshare week can't be converted to Marriott Reward points.
Click to expand...
Wow, I didnt know that. I wonder what will happen when they merge the SPG program into Marriott.

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remowidget said:
Wow, I didnt know that. I wonder what will happen when they merge the SPG program into Marriott.

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Unless you must reserve an SPG week when you convert staroptions to starpoints, I cannot see how they can possibly track this. Even if true, if you cancel the SPG reservation I believe it refunds starpoints to your account which can then be converted 3:1 to Marriott. YMMV as I am not a Vistana owner but this is based on my experience using starpoints.
 
vacationtime1 said:
There is nothing preventing you from renting your WKORVN unit, renting your WLR unit, or gifting your units to family/friends/charity.

You bought your units subject to the 'rules' of those units (technically, the rules of SVN/VSE) prohibiting rentals of StarOption exchanges. Why wouldn't those rules apply here?

Personally, I like those rules. It increases my chances of making a StarOption exchange to someplace I want to visit. I work hard enough to maximize the value of my units; I don't want to compete with a commercial enterprise created to arbitrage StarOption/MF ratios in order to maximize rental profits. I would not buy into a system if those were its 'rules'.
Click to expand...

So is it just the 'for profit' scenario that you find objectionable? Can I rent it out for a loss? Pretty easy to do when compared to Maui MFs. Other than that what does it matter to you who occupies a unit using SO? It could be me, it could be a member of my family, a neighbor, a friend.....if it's reserved it's reserved. I doubt there are many individuals doing it 'for profit' when compared to the inventory VSN/Starwood utilize 'for profit'.

As for renting out my ownership, never had much success in doing that so any tips appreciated. Have had Presidents Week 2018 at WKORVN on Redweek for 6 months at the lowest price listed and not a single inquiry so that looks like another 148,100 SOs I'll be looking to utilize. At this rate I'll have 500,000 in the bank and need to take a 6 month sabbatical in Florida :)
 
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