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Re: BUYING DEVELOPER vs RESALE (typical scenario)

I just wanted to mention something about the Marriott point program. We too bought from the developer and into the Marriott system of points. At this point we can't say we regret that. The prices were about 1/2 to 2/3 less than what they are charging now. We have gotten some nice airfare rewards from the points. However, recently the reward levels have gone SKY high. It takes so many points to get air or any other reward it has become a long term reward program. We used to be able to get a decent reward in about 1 to 2 years for 3 of us. In other words even if you work the Marriott points program to the max, credit cards, hotel stays, turning in a week and so on, it will take several years to earn enough points to get a trip for the whole family. (depending on the size of the family if it is more than two). That is the other fallacy of the points program, all the rewards are based on two people traveling. Don't get me wrong, the Marriott reward point system is good but I wouldn't say great. One big advantage Marriott has is that the points never expire, unlike Starwoods (they expire in 6 years). Is it worth? I don't know at this time. When we bought ours the points bought us 3 round trip 1st class tickets from NY to Hawaii and a 2 week car rental. Those were probably worth the difference in price between resale and developer. But I don't think we would get that now with the value of the points. We love our Marriott properties but are, like many others I have read about on here, getting frustrated with the exchange availability at different locations. We sometimes do the tours still and get a point injection. But for us they are going to have to jump up how many points are offered for us to give up vacation time any more. At this time with the points so devalued, the weeks from the developers so high, the fact that the developer did not increase point value to match price, we wouldn't ever buy from a developer again. One other thing, we were told that the point system would follow the property if it was inherited by our children. Recently we check because we were thinking about putting them on the deed to make it easier later and we were told "no" that is not true. The points were only to go to the original owners. We are going to check into that a LOT more. Seems that is something very fishy there. Well that is enough from me. PS: where is divorce negotiations on Starter Wife?