Westin Mandatory vs Voluntary

[Iowa Rod]

I have been posting a ton and want to first thank you all for your help. The Maui westons are Mandatory resorts. I recieved an e mail onthe Cancun and Princeville resorts from Starwood. I can purchase a cancun 2 bed platinum ocean view for 37,950. He starwood rep told me they rolled back the prices. I looked back at old tug posts and see this is the same price this was selling for when it first started back in june 2005. This is a voluntary resort as is the new princeville. I have read all the posts and still dont unserstand the difference. Could someone tell me the befefits of a mandatory resort and if there are any drawbacks?
Thanks, Rod

 

[Ken555]

So far, it seems the common theme between mandatory and volunteer is not your usage differences, but rather the resale price of the unit. Mandatory resorts seem to keep their resale value better than voluntary, since resale purchasers are already in the SVN program and can use the StarOptions. Voluntary resale purchasers may not (typically; there is a way to requalify if you purchase a new developer purchase unit).

As for Cancun, I passed on that early in the pitch for two main reasons, FWIW:

1) Too few StarOptions. If I didn't want to go to Cancun one year I wouldn't be able to get a comparable size unit in SVN at Maui or other 148,100 required property, since Cancun offered less. This, of course, told me I should instead buy elsewhere (when/if I want another unit) and I'd just trade into Cancun.

2) It's in Mexico. I'm leary of investing outside the US, even though Starwood has created a nice solution to the problem by actually selling shares in a company which owns the right to use in Mexico (and I don't pretend to fully understand how that's done yet). Even so, I'd like to visit Mexico, but I don't think I want to own there.

 

[glenn1000]

The difference comes into play if the unit is resold.

As an owner who purchases from Starwood, you are part of the Starwood Vacation network (SVN) and can use Staroptions to trade with other Starwood resorts at 8 (or less) months from the travel date if there is available space. You can also convert your use to Starpoints that can used at hotels, for air travel, etc.

When you sell a mandatory resort the new owner must (mandatory) be part of SVN and can use the internal Starwood (SVN) system. They cannot convert their use to Starpoints. If the resort being re-sold is voluntary, the new owner does not join SVN and can only trade through Interval International.

The only way for the new owner of a voluntary resort to get into the Starwood system is to have the voluntary resort "requalified" by purchasing a unit directly from Starwood and making that requalification part of the written purchase contract. If this happens, it will be as though the unit was purchased from Starwood so Staroptions and Starpoints are possible.

The effect is that resale pricing on mandatory resorts might be better than voluntary resorts since the new owner has a Starwood perk built in.

 

[sml2181]

I was told by a Starwood sales person that all new developments and future developments as well, will be only sold as voluntary.

As stated in another thread, as of yesterday I believe, they changed the amount of Staroptions / Starpoints for Cancun.

 

[Iowa Rod]

The cancun unit comes with a 140,000 purchase incentive, 148,100 star options and 72,000 star points. Is this less than Maui?
Rod

 

[BradC]

The cancun unit comes with a 140,000 purchase incentive, 148,100 star options and 72,000 star points. Is this less than Maui?
Rod

I don't know about the current incentives (they seem to change regularly), but WKORV and WKORV-N are both 148,100 StarOptions for a 2br. I recall WKORV StarPoints is 80,000 for the 2br (I believe WKORV-N is the same, but not positive).