Originally Posted by
pinniped
I haven't paid attention to this closely enough to care that much, nor do I pay attention to TUG, but how does the points system work in the secondary market? If someone wants out of their timeshare, do they sell their points? Or did this kill off the secondary market?
I briefly thought about buying a timeshare during the U.S. recession in 2009 when people were dumping them and banks weren't financing them. But then I realized that the maintenance fees made it not-really-worth-it to me, even if the underlying timeshare was close to free.
However, the points system could be more interesting...if it meant I wasn't really tied to one single property.
The points system significantly hurt the secondary market. Points resale is there, however it is much more costly due to having to go through some Marriott 'program' which involves a fee to be able to actually use the points in the system.
I get much more value out of the weeks program, and I am not tied to one property. The week lets me get in to my home resort over the points owners if I want to stay there, and I can still exchange through interval (and generally do quite well with trades). The points system tends to be much more expensive especially if you want to stay over a weekend, since the cost is heavily weighted so that weekends are significantly more expensive. If you are only planning to make shorter stays during the week it can provide some better value.