Buying Marriott Destinations points

First of all, I love Lewers Street....stay at the Embassy Suites across the street often before I head out to Marriott Kolina. The conversion fee for II seems high. For those of you apparently not aware, II has actually had a point system for several years. I can trade my deeded weeks, trade my points within Marriott system, or trade my points at II for timeshares with point value, or trade my points for Marriott Explorer collection, cruises or events. I do not believe I would pay to convert for II points. From what I see, it takes more points for a trade than what my fixed deeded weeks can exchange into when evaluating value. Furthermore, the availability of exchanges has gone way down at II since companies like Marriott have converted....people are using their points and inventory at II appears to be way down. I think I can say this with some expertise because I actually log onto II every single day, and have done so for 3-4 years. Yes, I am retired.......

We were just at Marriott sales presentation and the Sales told us that Marriott would buy back the destination club point for 50 percent of the cost. Current offer price is $12.00 a point . But I see Marriott resale is asking from $ 4.20 and up. Marriott said they have the right of refusal and constantly buy back points that are too low and eventually private sales with good deal is not going happen. What's catch ? We want to add additional 1500 points so we can go every year. Does anyone know what is the estimate cost with all fees and the process like registering deed, ect. Thanks.

I just went to a presentation yesterday and was told there is a 60 day window. How did you confirm there isn't? Thank you

amyh206 wrote:

Thanks for the info!!

I have confirmed that the 60 day booking restriction is not an issue. It was a restriction when the program first rolled out but it has been lifted!

The 60 day window is if you own less than 1500 points or 1000 points plus an enrolled legacy week. Or if you refuse to pay the enrollment fee which is now $500 per Beneficial Interest (250 points) with a minimum fee of $3000 and you would be limited to trust properties only and nothing deposited by legacy owners. There is a question of whether they would even transfer the points into your name without the $3000 plus fee in addition to several other fees ($300 Owner Education Fee;$95 ROFR Fee; and $25/BI Transfer Fee but that is the wording of the trust document).

The presenter was just trying to scare you into buying retail. In other words he was lying. You would be looking at a minimum of about $3500 in addition to the cost of the resale points if buying 1500 points (which won't go very far unless you have legacy enrolled points to go along with them but you would have the same rights and privileges as if you bought direct.

Just a thought - Points purchasers need to consider the difference between what is being sold and what they will get. For example, we are sold points, a currency, with the understanding that we can acquire days at virtually any resort in any season or we can spend the points on packaged vacations (like you might acquire on the street). Further, the purchaser needs to realize that the use of points, the currency, is restricted to the purchase of a good but limited inventory of vacation days and that points do expire (forced use). The question then is can Vacation Club deliver what you want, when you want it, and do you want to limit your purchases to "what Vacation Club can deliver."

Second thought - Vacation Club needs week inventory deposits from legacy week owners because Trust week ownership is small in relation to total owned weeks. Remember, the Trust started out with unsold inventory, good or less good, from the old week sales program. Examples from a California disclosure document: the trust owned 16% of Hawaiian properties, but almost half of these weeks were at Ko Olina Beach Club. The trust owned over 30% of Willow Ridge in Branson but less than 5% of Myrtle Beach & Hilton Head.

My wife and I sat through one at Ko Olina a couple years ago that lasted a few minutes less than 90 minutes. I'll never forget it because the sales guy tried using the "silent close" technique on me. At one point he just stopped talking and put the pen down in front of me. It took me a couple seconds to realize what was happening but then I just starred at him. We sat starring at each other for almost 5 minutes without talking, eyes-locked. My wife kept looking back and forth at each of us not saying anything either. The sales guy finally spoke by asked me if I owned my own business, to which I replied that I did. "I thought so" is all he said as he got up and left the room.

lynn411 wrote:

Is it possible to buy points on the resale market?

dianeg284, If you are interested in selling you can't use the forums to let people contact you. This is a paid advertising site, so you would need to become a member and pay for an ad.

You mentioned something about renting points between owners. How is this accomplished? Thank you

I was told if I have 4000 points I get Marriott Gold status for life. Is this true only if I buy directly from Marriott?

You can only become a Marriott Gold Member buying points through Marriott. You can however become a Marriott Gold Member by having a Platinum American AmEX.

Thank you for your help.

I suggest you look carefully at the benefits of the various levels. You may find as I have that the levels are of little value. The one exception is in being able to make reservations earlier than other owners.

Just went to a Sales presentation at HHI Grande Ocean - I have rented for the past 5 yrs at an avg. of $2400 After the warm up sales guy quoted me 4,000 points at 54,000 the closer offered me 4,000 points for life + 4000 bonus points for $42,260. The pitch was since I rent during Memorial Day it will cost us 4,500 points for that week so with the extra 4,000 points we could use 500 points for 8 yrs and be fine. Here is the catch and the part I don't understand. They quoted me a HOA fee + club dues at the 4,000 point level of $2,293 annually. When I asked why I would pay $42,000 to save $200 between HOA dues and renting they said the difference was I would own the points and could sell them later. But even from what they said I would get at best 50% on the dollar. I told them the math still didn't work at which point they told me there was no way I was renting for such a low cost. I can assure you I am. What am I missing that doesn't make this a horrible deal?

The math doesn't work. I bought my weeks 20 years ago and am glad I did, we've used them and traded for Maui several times as well as other islands and Vail and Breckenridge. I feel like we've gotten our money's worth, but I'd never recommend buying now. I just think they work in a few select situations, but not for most people. The rental market at Grande Ocean seems pretty good, with not a lot of price increase, despite what they tell you.

tomc208 wrote:

Just went to a Sales presentation at HHI Grande Ocean -... I told them the math still didn't work at which point they told me there was no way I was renting for such a low cost. I can assure you I am. What am I missing that doesn't make this a horrible deal?

I don't think you are missing anything. These sales people like to tell you a load of baloney making you think that you are missing out on something by not buying their overpriced products. You did the right thing refusing to buy what he was selling.

kim646 wrote:

You mentioned something about renting points between owners. How is this accomplished? Thank you

There are two sites that facilitate the ability of Marriott owners to "rent" destination points from each other. They are ownertrades.com and vacationpointexchange.com

Basically the process is to contact each other via listings for rent on the site, agree on a transaction price, then get on the phone with Marriott and transfer the agreed-upon points from one account to the other.

"You may find as I have that the levels are of little value."

We do think we will find the within 30 days discount valuable for executive level (25% discount), but, it all depends on how much time off one has! Being semi retired, we have a lot and often travel on a moments notice which admittedly many cannot do. The extra month reservation window is definitely an advantage. The rest, doubt we'll ever use those benefits.

I own a lock-off 3 bedroom at the Las Vegas Grand Chateau (purchased on Redweek coincidentally). I previously exchanged the two bedroom portion of the lock-off through Interval International and obtained a 3 bedroom unit at the Marriott resort on Maui. I than traded the one bedroom unit for a two bedroom unit at the Marriott Timber Lodge in Lake Tahoe. Although not in their highest demand season. Still, great trade values.

Several years ago, probably in 2011 we were able to convert our Marriott Grand Chateau 3 bedroom, (every other year) week that we purchased as a resale from a private owner on Redweek into the destination point program. We usually convert this week into 4,620 destination points every other year. Has Marriott since discontinued allowing people to buy into their destination points program on their weeks purchased on the resale market?