More than you ever wanted to know....

To find the Marriott Rewards point value for trading in a year's use, go to Danny's linked site for Marriott's Vacation Club. Click on Resorts (near the top of the page). Select a resort and click Go. Select About the Resort. Select Seasons (in the white portion of the page, near the top). Most resorts list the point value for trading a week in or just below the Seasons table (e.g., Grande Ocean, Custom House, Ocean Pointe, Streamside and Waiohai), although some do not (e.g., Maui and Newport Coast).

If your acquaintance happened to have (for example) five Platinum Plus weeks at Summit Watch, he could exchange this year’s usage of those five weeks for 200,000 points each or a total of 1,000,000 Marriott Rewards points!

But he would have paid a hefty price for those weeks. To purchase ownership of those five weeks from Marriott today would cost a total of about $280,000 to $300,000! Buying a timeshare is generally not a good economic investment. It's certainly not a worthwhile investment just to trade a year's use for Marriott Rewards points.

Example: I can buy a Platinum (summer) resale week at Hilton Head's Grande Ocean today from Marriott for $28,500. I’ll get some one-time incentives with the purchase that might be worth as much as $1,500-$2,000. It will also cost me about $750 for annual maintenance fees and an additional $104 if I want to exchange this year’s week usage for points. I get 125,000 points for exchanging this year's use. (Note: The timeshare must be purchased from Marriott if you want to trade usage for points.)

At about one cent per point (the most typical valuation I have seen), that's a value of $1,250 for the 125,000 points. The maximum valuation I have seen - two cents each - would place the value at $2,500.

For that $2,500 or $1,250 or less value in points this year, I will have paid Marriott $854 ($750 + $104). I will also have paid an extra $6,000 to $7,000 over what I could have purchased the week for, if I purchased it on the free market rather than from Marriott. And I have $28,500 sitting in a timeshare purchase that could be earning something for me once the stock market turns around. Worse, I might be paying non-deductible interest on a timeshare loan from Marriott or another source to finance the purchase.

You can see approximately what a week in any season at any Marriott timeshare resort would cost by going here and clicking on the desired location and then the specific resort. There is a separate link for each resort that shows what the reseller that maintains the site is currently offering the same weeks for – usually 20% to 30% less than the Marriott price.

Make your own calculations. Purchasing a timeshare is not an investment decision. At least it shouldn’t be because the economics aren’t good. Most timeshares sell on the resale market for less than what you pay for them. Substantially less. If you bought from Marriott today and wanted to sell it tomorrow, the best you would net would be about 75% of your purchase price. Marriott takes a 25% commission if you sell through them. And the outside (non-Marriott) resale market won’t pay more than about 70% of Marriott’s asking prices because you can’t offer the points option and other incentives that Marriott can.

Purchasing a timeshare is a vacation lifestyle decision.