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Re: Buying timeshares (even resale) (by TJ):

I need some help sorting out the good with the bad....I appreciate in advance the discussion...please find attached what I was told from the Westin developer. If someone with more experience can tell if this is accurate or scare tactics...

An email:

When buying resale please be very careful because there aren’t any repercussions to incorrect information that may be provided and Starwood is not held liable for anything that a resale company may tell you. The differences between purchasing resale as opposed to purchasing from Starwood are numerous. Most importantly, the assurance that if you are ever unhappy for any reason, Starwood stands behind its product and will do everything in their power to rectify the situation. This does not apply for resale owners. With the Maui location you would have us of the StarOptions to use Starwood’s current ownership locations. It is considered an “as-is” purchase. Any new things that Starwood may add to their program, (since it is still in its infancy stages), and as the program morphs over the years, are not included to resale owners. They do not get access to any gold level membership benefits through Starwood, or have access to convert into StarPoints which is a large benefit to many of our owners who know they are not going to be able to vacation in a given year. I do not know who told you that we would be eliminating this program in the future, but this was totally a false statement since this is one of the major reasons why people purchase our program to begin with. Any Starwood Owner benefits are unavailable, since resale owners are not in the system as Starwood Owners, and reflected as total resale only. These benefits would include (but are not limited to) the ability to borrow StarOptions from the following year if needed to complete a stay, Starwood Owner priority into other locations, Elite Owner benefits (if applicable), wait lists for other locations, and if more then one interval is owned they cannot co-mingle their currencies (have to be used separately and are not linked). From my experience in dealing with a lot of the resale owners since I work for the Corporate Office, approximately 75% of them eventually decide that they would like to be included in all of the additional benefits. The other 25% strictly go to that particular location and never foresee themselves wanting to do anything different. I do understand that there is a monetary savings, and I can definitely appreciate this as well. My advice to you is, that if you are getting at least a 40% savings, then by all means take advantage of it. However, if you aren’t saving at least this much, then it isn’t worth it in the long run. The purchase incentive that is offered for this location is usually worth around 10K alone. Then, factoring in the fact that you only get a third of the program benefits easily makes up for the additional difference. With that said, if you can save at least 40%, it would be monetarily worth it and I would definitely understand since I would have to think about that myself! I hope everything works out for you and just please do your homework and make sure that what they are telling you out there in the resale world is accurate information.

With Kind Regards,

Starwood Vacation Ownership Direct