We have hit a very strange stage in our timeshare lives and TUG

[dougp26364]

At one point in time we owned weeks with Marriott, Hilton, DRI, Spinnaker, Breckenridge Grand Vacations and one independent resort. These last 10 we’ve been backing down, divesting the resorts we valued less and expanding the resorts we valued more. This year finds us owning only Marriott and Breckenridge Grand Vacation. BGV is within driving distance and a resort we’ll use so long as we can tolerate the altitude. Marriott provides us with enough choices and locations to keep us happy and simplify the management portion of ownership. We have exit plans for both, either before we pass or, in the case we pass before getting out completely a way for our estate to dissolve our ownership without to much effort.

I use to find myself reading multiple threads on TUG to keep up. I’m pretty much down to just the Marriott thread. Not spending hours each week keeping up on the changes in multiple systems as well as changes in II and/or RCI feels weird. I look at the Marriott thread, see if anything new is in the Central or Western threads, check this thread and I’m done. Takes typically 16 minutes tops.

After years of managing multiple ownerships this just feels weird. Refreshing but weird.

 

[rickandcindy23]

We still own Wyndham at the Founder's Level. We thought of getting rid of it, but the benefits are pretty amazing. We are staying at Wyndham Branson Meadows in a 2 bedroom unit currently, and the cost to us was $280 for the week. 60% off of our stays and free unit upgrades brought our total points required to 40,000 X $7 per 1,000 points. $280.

Compared to Marriott, it's Motel 6. But it's cheap/inexpensive, the beds are comfortable, the shower works, and it has a washer/dryer, full kitchen and a nice pool. This is a normal Wyndham stay, whether it's Nashville, Governor's Green, Kingsgate, etc. The units are all the same floorplan, and some resorts are more updated than this one. But most of our stays, the grout needs cleaned or replaced. Carpets need cleaning, cabinets are not great, and decor isn't Marriott quality.

Got rid of generic traders over the last two years. Rid ourselves of Shell because Wyndham has Shell resorts I can get, if I want them, but seriously not many I really want to stay anymore.

Still own our Colorado weeks we use for PIC in our Wyndham account (254,000 points each) that count toward our Founder's Status. We also own at another Colorado resort that is sunsetting in a few years.

WorldMark is a wonderful system we still own and love. So many resorts you just don't get in other systems. If Marriott decides to build in Anaheim, West Yellowstone, Estes Park, and some of the areas of Oregon and Washington State we hope to visit in the future, we would rather stay at Marriott, but Marriott doesn't build in those areas.

 

[dioxide45]

You sold your Hilton Grand Vacations Club ownerships?

 

[moonstone]

We are in the process of doing a title transfer back to Hilton (which bought out our Diamond RCI points week) so we will be down to just our St. Augustine Beach floating week soon. We really dont need the FL one since we now have a condo just up the road that we spend 4+ months a winter in. In addition to our FL months we also spend 2 winter months in Belize in a rented apartment so we really dont need any more timeshare time. We have been using the points to take a late summer or early fall vacation for the last few years but I think if we wanted to continue that I could get an RCI Last Call, Extra Vacation or rent a week from an owner. Our FL week just gets us 26 TPUs to exchange so we could maybe stretch that into 2 weeks but then there is 2 exchange fees. One of the things we enjoyed with our points was the ability to book a 7-13 night stay for the same exchange fee as a 7 night stay.

I dont see us getting out of timesharing altogether, we have been spoiled with the spacious accommodations compared to a hotel room.


~Diane

 

[pedro47]

doug26364, I can really understand your post, before we turn 75 years plus in age. We enjoyed driving to Myrtle Beach, Hilton Head Island and Florida from Virginia.
Now we do not enjoy driving more than five hours one way.

We are down to Hilton and Marriott timeshare resorts.

However, doug26364, I still enjoy your timeshare YouTube videos.

 

[dougp26364]

You sold your Hilton Grand Vacations Club ownerships?

Yes. We hadn’t really used it the last two years. I booked a couple of stays concurrent with Marriott stays to A. See what the units where like B. Offer them to friends/family for free, but no one took the offers and C. To video review them. It seemed like a waste of $$ to keep it as we didn’t see much future use other than the occasional trip to Vegas, and we can always stay at Marriott Grand Chateau when we do go to Vegas.
We used to go to Vegas frequently, but it’s become so expensive that we’d rather go to the mountains or the beach these days

 

[DebBrown]

We only own one week with low maintenance fees. It's not as good a trader as it has been in past. It is strange to be in this new place where timesharing isn't everything. We travel more to visit family and/or rent larger accommodations (4 bedroom homes). In its heyday, the fun part was trading my low end weeks for better quality vacations. We've had some good ones!

 

[silentg]

We own just one timeshare week and at most we owned 10 weeks but not all the same time or place. We don’t travel as much as we used to but still enjoy cruises, and timeshare rentals and exchanges. We didn’t have trouble acquiring weeks or giving back or giving away. I enjoy reading the tug posts and I always do reviews.

 

[easyrider]

We are still acquiring memberships but have it dialed in to what we like. The Worldmark we acquired last year kind of threw me with all of the banked credits but I'm burning through them, lol.

Bill

 

[Bucky]

Getting old is really not fun. About 10 years ago my heart problems finally caught up with me. At that time we were still traveling a lot but that stopped almost immediately. By that time we were just down to our 2 MOW units. Been renting them for the last 7 years because initially it was just too much equipment to haul to the beach for the week. Then we decided we had originally bought MOW because we loved Myrtle Beach. So, during Covid we bought a second home there. Turned out to be a great investment. Every morning I come to TUG and check the Marriott forum and the Lounge. Thinking of selling the MOW units before next years MF are do just to clean up the portfolio while I still can.

 

[jp10558]

I'm still thinking about if I want to keep HGVC. About the only "Must Use" location would be McAplin, but I almost never see a 2BR in club time and don't have enough points for 2 1BR nor do I know from their UI if there would be 2 1BR at any given potential booking. Or maybe if I could book Hawaii if I ever was actually going to go there, but not super useful for me really. The other systems do have use, though having to cross reference so many and keep up with when to book etc is a pain. So dropping one would probably be a good idea, but it's so hard to "let go" - I guess I'm a hoarder with everything lol.

 

[WinniWoman]

We owned 3 deeded weeks- 2 at one resort with one fixed week in the middle of summer and the other week was a floater. This we bought outright. We belonged to RCI and would exchange the floaters while our son was young and in school, but always used the fix week at the resort. After our son got older we used the floater at the resort as well. We liked it there that much anyway and if we wanted to go somewhere else in addition we just rented a timeshare. We got rid of RCI and would sometimes use the lesser known free membership exchange companies.

Fast forward to retirement and a move to a vacation area we gave our 2 week timeshare back to the resort before they ended that program. But we kept the other one- which we obtained for free-and is also in the middle of summer- as it is only less than an hour from our home and also allows day use of the facilities.

Both our timeshares were drive to's. 5 1/2 hours away from home and 2 hours away from each other with the fixed weeks one after the other (so we had two consecutive weeks together each summer). I didn't believe in acquiring a timeshare where we had to fly. And I wasn't into the whole points thing either. It was bad enough having to play the exchange game with weeks and for me traveling anywhere - especially with an exchange where we were going to fly- only made sense if we were going at least for a week.

And because one week a year (2nd week of June) is a hell hole here with a big motorcycle event- we live in the heart of it unfortunately- we have actually spent that week in the same area as our two week timeshare was. In fact- this year we spent it at that exact same resort we owned at and I've already booked it again for next year. It is only 2 1/2 hours away from our home- lovely, scenic ride- and is peaceful, relaxing and very familiar to us- like a second home. We also know another couple who is there that week so we meetup.

Being I refuse to fly anymore, these are our vacations now. But with the motorcycle week at least we are renting and can choose to go wherever we want or not go anywhere at all.

Being our other week is in a high demand area and time period I think we could get rid of it when we are ready. In fact, there's been a woman on our resort owners Facebook page that has been looking for our exact week and unit type for a couple of years now. And the resort could certainly rent it out if we weren't going to use it some years.

 

[GrayFal]

We owned 3 deeded weeks- 2 at one resort with one fixed week in the middle of summer and the other week was a floater. This we bought outright. We belonged to RCI and would exchange the floaters while our son was young and in school, but always used the fix week at the resort. After our son got older we used the floater at the resort as well. We liked it there that much anyway and if we wanted to go somewhere else in addition we just rented a timeshare. We got rid of RCI and would sometimes use the lesser known free membership exchange companies.

Fast forward to retirement and a move to a vacation area we gave our 2 week timeshare back to the resort before they ended that program. But we kept the other one- which we obtained for free-and is also in the middle of summer- as it is only less than an hour from our home and also allows day use of the facilities.

Both our timeshares were drive to's. 5 1/2 hours away from home and 2 hours away from each other with the fixed weeks one after the other (so we had two consecutive weeks together each summer). I didn't believe in acquiring a timeshare where we had to fly. And I wasn't into the whole points thing either. It was bad enough having to play the exchange game with weeks and for me traveling anywhere - especially with an exchange where we were going to fly- only made sense if we were going at least for a week.

And because one week a year (2nd week of June) is a hell hole here with a big motorcycle event- we live in the heart of it unfortunately- we have actually spent that week in the same area as our two week timeshare was. In fact- this year we spent it at that exact same resort we owned at and I've already booked it again for next year. It is only 2 1/2 hours away from our home- lovely, scenic ride- and is peaceful, relaxing and very familiar to us- like a second home. We also know another couple who is there that week so we meetup.

Being I refuse to fly anymore, these are our vacations now. But with the motorcycle week at least we are renting and can choose to go wherever we want or not go anywhere at all.

Being our other week is in a high demand area and time period I think we could get rid of it when we are ready. In fact, there's been a woman on our resort owners Facebook page that has been looking for our exact week and unit type for a couple of years now. And the resort could certainly rent it out if we weren't going to use it some years.

I am so glad you got to Italy!
Life is what it is .

 

[dougp26364]

I'm still thinking about if I want to keep HGVC. About the only "Must Use" location would be McAplin, but I almost never see a 2BR in club time and don't have enough points for 2 1BR nor do I know from their UI if there would be 2 1BR at any given potential booking. Or maybe if I could book Hawaii if I ever was actually going to go there, but not super useful for me really. The other systems do have use, though having to cross reference so many and keep up with when to book etc is a pain. So dropping one would probably be a good idea, but it's so hard to "let go" - I guess I'm a hoarder with everything lol.

We kept our HGVC 2 years longer than we should have. We kept it because we enjoyed Elara. However, we no longer enjoy LV enough to go there yearly…..or even every 3 or 4 years.

I had hope for Hilton when they bought DRI, but they decided to make it cost prohibitive and put ridiculous limits on when you could reserve, making it worthless to us.

 

[VacationForever]

We have expanded, contracted, expanded and contracted again through the years. We got rid of our 35K Worldmark contract last year because we just do not like the quality of the resorts. We are contemplating how much longer to keep our Vistana and Marriott ownership, because we have difficulty in using all of them. We paid for Getaway weeks next summer, when in the past, we had used Worldmark to book in coastal California, and Marriott is unable to fill the gap, because we are unwilling to pay ridiculous amount of points to book at Newport Coast, and we are not going to buy more weeks, i.e. Newport Coast. We still use II to exchange into Palm Desert CA in the winter, but we have more ownership than we can use.

 

[rapmarks]

I still have my Udi at Christmas mountain and I said I was going to deed it back
I have the unique ownership where you get four reservations at a time, one red , two white, one within 45 days. As soon as one reservation begins, you get to make another reservation to replace it. I actually cancelled 8 reservations between January and May that I was unable to rent, but using the 45 day reservation I got two extra summer weeks, and I rented the thre3 weeks through Airbnb. And I rented my September week too. When my July 4 reservation starts, I will try to book the week after Christmas.
My daughter doesn’t want me to give it up because she gets a lot of bonus time at the resort for her friends and in laws
So I am debating on whether to get rid of this ownership which i previously used to space bank a lot of weeks.

 

[WinniWoman]

I am so glad you got to Italy!
Life is what it is .

Yeah. That was our last fly to trip. Helps that I feel I don’t need to see the whole world. I’ve seen cobblestone streets. I’ve seen churches. I’ve seen ancient ruins. I’ve seen mountains and lakes and waterfalls and forests and wildlife and oceans. I’ve been to museums. I’m not a foodie or an art aficionado. I’m not into immersing myself into other cultures. You get the picture…

If I could force myself to fly anywhere it would probably be Glacier National Park and the Canadian Rockies being I like scenery. But with like 20+ medical appointments scheduled from now until the end of the year between me and my husband couldn’t do it anyway. We are not very old at all (72&70) and I don’t get how those much older than us travel so much. I barely could stand to pack to go to Vermont last week and that was a short road trip away.

Not to mention many of the activities. Had to cross them all off my list. A back like mine puts a damper on a lot of things. Thankful I can still walk and go in the water, though swimming is limited somewhat.

 

[jp10558]

We are not very old at all (72&70) and I don’t get how those much older than us travel so much. I barely could stand to pack to go to Vermont last week and that was a short road trip away.

I think it's just luck that some people age well and others don't. I had a relative at 80 after a double hip replacement who climbed up a steep hill better than the 30 year olds in our party. And they weren't necessarily in bad shape themselves, just not regular hikers. Then you have people who end up basically disabled from illness at 25. And then there's the rest of us. I don't expect to be necessarily running around at 70, but will keep pushing as long as finances and body allow because I spent enough of my younger life glued to the TV or reading. I don't feel a need to return to that if I can avoid it - I still enjoy reading etc, but I have more hobbies now.