Marriott Vacation Club point system

You use the system very well

As I am not a very frequent user of the Marriott rewards program I do not combine my timeshare stays. That is usually Aruba and two weeks together. We must remember the cost of airfares to weekly stays in another country. I am a Hilton Honors Diamond member and use those points well from the best rooms to exchanging points for gift cards.

I expect with $2,500 destinations points maint fees we will now have, reaching executive level and having near terms stays (discounted at this level, and sometimes off season depending on where) within the US as we generally do (very flexible), we'll get 5 weeks out of those points. Total yearly fees and maint costs should be around 4k (just under) for points + ownership. Add another $100 for property tax. For the 4k, we should get 5 weeks as noted above + 1 week at Desert Springs for the 1 BR, + 1 week for exchange. So, 7 weeks (except for special years where we decide for an expensive trip as we did this year). 7 weeks for 4k is not bad, <$600/wk. Yes, sometimes you can get getaways for good prices too, and where possible, we will do that too since I retire at year end. Would never use any points or trade where getaway is a better deal of course.

Airfares, I generally plan such that I will have free tickets when overseas. So, the plan for Europe next year, I signed up for the MileagePlus explorer card, I will get the 55,000 free miles, plus we are going solar charing that makes 75,000 points total, plus charge stuff over the next 10 months or so, whatever is left, we will stuff by trading Marriott rewards points for the needed United miles since United miles have the cheapest cost. Probably will need 50,000 miles so we get 2 free roundtrip tickets, and therefore, 112,000 Marriott rewards points. Of course, they will offer us a presentation, so, probably get 25k back immediately making the net cost 87,000 Marriott rewards points for 2 roundtrip tickets worth possibly over $1,000 each. But by the time we go to Europe next year, we'll also have another free 25K in rewards points for the Desert Springs presentation, making our net rewards points cost 62,000! Since we don't plan on expensive flights every year, can probably keep up the gaming to always have free flights for foreign, longer trips. We've never got more than 2 presentations per year, with 7 trips, will be interesting to see how many they might offer us. I always say "we had just had one x months ago), but they still want me to go, fine, I'll take the points.

So, I still think given the right set of circumstances, it can be worth it. I can definitely see how it can be not worth it too!

So did you pay cash for your points or are you financing them? 4K is your maintenance fees, not the cost of your points...add another 30K - 40K for that.

Cash only, and, they are not even remotely close to 30-40k. A fraction of that. Just like the ownership we have, which we've owned I think for 18 years, the cost per year will be very low. A few hundred per year for our ownership when considering the length of time we have owned it. Definitely not a quick payout.

Some of us are good with the exchanges. Even after 12 years use of the Aruba Ocean Club on one unit then another unit bought in 2011 I still average over $3,000 cost per year and don't forget the airfares to Aruba. for me the best math is renting a two bedroom apartment in Marco Island that can be had on the Gulf for as little as $2,500 in October and then as little as $6,000 in January or February. Those rentals are not one week but one month!. Free parking or maximum a one time charge of $25.00. For vacationing in Vegas or even Hilton Head Island who needs a kitchen as now retired and no children to cook for, I was going to use a week in Hilton Head and then the hurricane came.i lost the 1,900 points.With renting a hotel room all I need to do is cancel on the internet and not wait to talk to someone after the storm. Ech!

Yeah, everyones usage and needs are different. Retired with no kids for us, we definitely *need* a kitchen. We usually do cook most meals in the room wherever we go as we enjoy it, meaning there's really no additional expense for food while we are out of town since obviously we'd eat at home anyway. Sounds like Aruba was an expensive deal. Foreign ownership probably is more trouble or expense. We were just in Branson a few months back, cheap to get in there and a short drive from our place. Those types of trips basically have no additional cost over staying home, just the cost of the fees we pay each year for the various ownerships. We like to go down to S. Padre Island generally in January too, another drive trip.

Being legacy only works when you don't convert to points, Once you convert to points you are at your destination point level that would be if you converted all your weeks to points so if you can only convert say 5000 points on enrolled weeks you would be at the select level benefits once converted to points.. However, if you kept your week as a week you would have all the benefits of the week owner.. At the resort with weeks owners the weeks owners that book as weeks still get the best room placement according to the hierarchy.

Weeks, shmeeks, points, joints. My point is with two weeks or about 4,300 points it still costs $220. Per day maintenance before I even get to my villa. I know that Marriott sells the timeshares stating the average hotel bill per night is over $400. Per night. Well that may be true in Aruba, Newport and Marco Island. Even those locations have discount rates at certain times even including food compensation. For us I want to vacation more than two weeks per year. So much time is spent jumping on the reservation as soon as the vacation window opens up and then waiting for the best airfare. Pick the wrong starting date for your timeshare vacation can greatly increase your airfare. We like to travel to other locations such as Maine,Canada, Las Vegas where we can even receive several days compensation. Maintenance has increased double the inflation rates. We have the Interval International subscription where at times we can rent a week at the Marriott Aruba Ocean Club or Surf club for about $1,200 per week which is les than we pay for maintenance.look p the Wyndham Vacations web site and you can use any of the RCI timeshares for vacations. Yes you can cancel those a few days in advance with no cancellation fees or need to rebook. We love the Aruba Marriott vacations but are aware that our costs per day will always be rising. We were at the Marriott Ocen Club Aruba and a couple came up to us and offered their one week Ocean Front villa for $5,500. They could not afford the $1,900 annual maintenance fee. I declined and eventually they sold it back to Marriott at about $5,500.

Curious as to why you don't get out of your timeshare then. $1,900/year is definitely steep.

The $1,900 per week was for a two bedroom Ocean Club Ocean Front owned by a couple we met at the Tuesday boast and complain Owners meeting. So far our math is we paid $25,000 for our two Aruba one bedroom Ocean View and we have used one for 12 weeks and one for seven weeks. With the $3,000 maintenance total for both the average for total use 19 weeks or 133 days is down to $404.00 per day. Just think of those owners who paid $20,000 each. When do they come down to that $400.00 per day number Marriott uses for their selling pitch. Yes I can rent at times the Marritt Ocean Club villa for less than $400. per day. I should add into the equation all the $100 to $200 restaurant compensation we received for the "90" minute sales. There are better ways to see the world than timeshares. I appreciate my timeshares in Aruba and I know that if I live another 20 years my average per day stay will be around $310. But, add inflation back for dues which were $555.31 in 2001 and I bet maintenance can easily be $2,500 per villa or $357. Per day before averaging in the cost of the villa.

It is likely your deal is not so good, agreed. But that does not mean everyone else's is the same, if I could go back in time, I'd do what I did again. Definitely ahead. But, it would appear I may be the minority. For me, there is no better way to see the world than what we have done. YMMV. I hope you are able to get out if that is what you wish to do.

We have owned timeshares for a number of years and we own points. We are at the Chairman's club level. So, I think we are sufficiently experienced with timeshares.

I liken Marriott timeshare ownership to being like entering into a perpetual contract to buy and own a new BMW for your lifetime and beyond. They are great cars and fun to drive but would you want a contract and the related expense pertaining to a specific product for forever???

Further, you are buying a product, points or timeshare, that suffers an immediate and dramatic drop in value at purchase. You pay whether you drive it or not forever. You could also find that you need less but cannot adjust to your needs.

I can afford the luxury at 70 but I tell my married children to buy only in the aftermarket and to stay clear of "permanent" and expensive obligations that encumber their younger lives. They can rent anything they want from people like me who made the mistake of ownership.

Timeshares are really rentals of a luxury hotel room or suite with a kitchen. For that you pay an up front before you enter the door at least a $214.00 per day charge and if amortizing a $20,000 payment or up front fee at least another $200.00 per day .Now if you cancel the hotel up to the last minute there are no penalties. In most. cases if you leave your hotel stay early there are no penalties. If you want to stay less than a week there are no waiting periods to get that. If there is a storm or damage to the hotel you can rebook or cancel even the next year you can rebook and not lose your "points". At age 74 I want the privileges of a hotel so when my "pre-existing" condition being arthritis of the knees acts up I can cancel and not lose my timeshare use. By the way at least 130,000,000 Americans have a pre-existing condition so what are most travel insurance policies worth?

Do you own a timeshare and are you essentially concluding that even with points it isn't worth the price because if the assumed risk of loss? If so, what about resales through red week?

We own two Marriott Aruba Ocean Club timeshares where I can us as weeks or convert to points and get about 6 days for each. Perhaps September and October I can squeeze 8 days out for each. Aruba is the only place that we would use them. We liked the conversion of two weekly use of weekends at Marco Island but now with four buildings and less chance to see the Gulf I rent apartments in Marco, If I didn't have the timeshares We would be staying at the best room at the Hilton Aruba using our Diamond honors privileges and with honors rewards or certainly not paying $400.00 per day. I pick the room and. view we want and even get towels and room cleaning every day without additional charges! I don't consider that we own timeshares as Aruba is on a 40 or 60 year deed. Our owned timeshares can be sold and resold to different corporations and management just like a rental apartment. So we feel we rent the Aruba apartment subject to the rules of the rental and annual rental increases with no cap.

During our recent stays in Australia, I went online on Expedia and booking.com and looked at renting the places we were at. At Marriott Surfers Paradise, for the MVCI suites, the cheapest one could rent (and you couldn't get a week anytime that or the next month, so had to use a single day and multiply) was $1,000 more than my annual maintenance fee I pay for the points used, and that was just one use. So, while the math cannot possibly work out everywhere (as it clearly does not), it worked out there. At the next place we went, rentals were running $300 per night for the 2 bedroom we traded into. That's $2,100 for the week there, and, annual maint+fees+taxes for the lockoff (I'll call it 40% of the total including II) is ~$700, so, $1,400 ahead there. At the next place we went and traded into, it was $1,400 for a week online, and, again a lockoff, so, another $700 ahead. So, for those 3 weeks, $3,100 ahead, considering maint fees, taxes, and II only. i.e. everything but the purchase. The math definitely worked.

That of course still does not mean the purchase price paid was indeed worth it. The advice given above to buy resale is of course 100% true. We did not do that on our original purchase at Desert Springs, however, the deal back then was vastly better than any deal today (but still not ideal of course). And on the resale market, points can be inexpensive. We are adding to our points on the resale market, am in closing right now. That is not a trivial process as there are some tricks there. For the number of points used at Surfers Paradise, the one time cost for that number of points (including all purchase price paid and fees and closing and Marriott transfer fee) is just under 5K. So, given that it was $1,000 more than my maint fee, that comes off the purchase price, meaning, in one trip, I paid for 20% of the one time cost. If that held true the next 4 years, it's paid off.

The math can work out. There are still many reasons to not want to timeshare, no doubt about it. And the math can be very bad as well, but this was my example. If the math had been bad, we would not have used it there (and probably not have gone either).

I have a history of our trips in a spreadsheet where I track things including prices. In that history since before the year 2000, the trip that stands out that was not the best value, and in fact a casual review shows it's the worst value, was indeed Aruba Ocean Club. I would not do that one again by trade at least. Given our travel history that we have tracked over the year, it is a fact that we are way ahead over what we have paid. And that's not considering all the tricks of travel such a the hundreds of thousands of rewards points Marriott has given us that we would have never received had we had not owned. I like to subtract those from the cost of ownership, but for these examples here, did not do so.

I do understand the lifetime commitment, how travel via hotels can be better for some, cancellations, etc. But everyones needs and desires are different. What is a terrible deal for one can be a great deal for another. At age 57, we have (hopefully) many years of travel still ahead of us esp since I retire at year end. And given all of the countries and places we have visited over those years, it is almost certain that would have never happened otherwise.

Selling a timeshare is never a good deal for the seller, unless, their desire is to just end it. You (obviously) never get much if anything from the sale. You get out of the yearly fees. Anything you get above $0 is a win.

Very simply so you received the Marriott timeshares as a gift or paid nothing for them? You use them very well but I like to place back the initial cost of the time share week say divided by 20 unless you expect to live and use the timeshare till age 100. Yes, I can give the timeshare to my children and they have used them before. All I ask is for the annual maintenance fees and they will not pay even that so I keep the use.

I will try and simplify as I might have provided too much info. Take one of the stays for my recent Australia trip, Surfers Paradise. Take maint fee for points used + club dues. That's it, those are the annual expenses. Add to that what you suggest, the initial cost, the total of the points purchased on the resale market divided by FIVE, not 20. And in doing so, I break even. And that does not consider all the other things Marriott gives me which we shall not consider here, mainly the rewards points which are worth real money.

So, considering the cost of buying those points, I break even if I have 5 of the same trip in 5 years. Yes, the math is totally different when you buy at $14 per point or some huge number like that, it takes quite some time to break even, if ever depending on how you use it.

I hope you are able to get back your fees in your rental at least.

For my ownership weeks, that initial cost was recouped by trips long ago, but that's because it was a long time ago and I actually got a cheap deal back then which is impossible now. Yes, I know, I paid too much, etc. Undoubtedly, but, by cheap I mean cheap for Marriott. Still, despite that, I recouped those costs though it took longer than 5 years but less than 10. But when you add in the hundreds of thousands of rewards points they keep giving me, it gets much better.

You must rate high among users of the Marriott timeshare system. I would not use Expedia as a good reference for hotel or timeshare rentals. We did go to Australia 14 years ago and our stays were at the Marriott hotels in Sydney and Melbourne and had huge corner rooms. Is there a real need for kitchens in most timeshare locations like Las Vegas, and all International locations? Who wants to cook when you are away? Yes, families do.but not retirees.

I am sure this has already been answered somewhere before, but I have not figured out how to search the forum for the answer to my specific question. I am a Marriott Vacation Club points owner and I am looking into adding some points thru aftermarket sales vice retail from Marriott. I am trying to understand why there are different maintenance fees for the same number or points? A quick look at the site reselling 1000 Marriott Rewards points the maintenance fees range from $520 to $750. If I buy their point do I assume their maintenance fee or something that is recalculated after the closing?