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Re: Marriott Vacation Club point system (by Steve F.):

"We own weeks and points acquired through Marriott; and, we own weeks acquired privately. There is no doubt in my mind that the best deal is to acquire great weeks at great locations "privately." These weeks can be used, rented out, or traded through Interval."

Absolutely, I've always said that. And my point, without repeating it in detail with examples as I have already done this, is it's often cheaper *used properly and with forethought* to do that than rent, the exact opposite of Michaels point. As stated earlier, I am way ahead over renting, as in tens of thousands ahead. But I am not your typical owner either. Everyones needs are different, ages, travel styles, desires, whatever. So, one can not make blanket statements. I would never say everyone should buy a timeshare, far from it! I get where Michael is at, I really do, and for him, I am sure he's right. But, his comments about "always cheaper to rent", etc. are simply not true. For him with his usage, maybe so. I just want to clarify that it does not necessarily apply to you or anyone else, but it may. We all use differently.

Points are clearly the worst value, though, they also have some innovative purposes and can be bought pretty cheaply on the market used (and even got around Marriotts ROFR), which we did recently as we will be using a number of new techniques given the combination of ownership and points to game the system, legally of course. And our travel needs shall be vastly increasing. So, with our one expensive (relatively) ownership almost 2 decades ago, we are way ahead even at Marriotts price. But this was a bad decision anyway, not meaning to say it was good. And we added a lot of points recently which are admittedly not the best value, but, we have some uses for them. And the point cost for far more weeks than our ownership was less, even from 2 decades ago.