Originally Posted by DCF

I can add a little more about the Explorer package on Maui.

If you stay in the Westin or Sheraton hotel and ask a "concierge" for advice they will give it to you, and then try to sell you a "90 minute" timeshare inspection for which you receive 7000 Starpoints.

The actual inspection lasts 2 hours: first they sell you the concept, and how you can convert your annual two bedroom apartment into 80,000 Starpoints and will show you pictures of overwater bungalows in French Polynesia as an example of how you could use those points.

You are then taken to see an oceanfront 2 bedroom unit, and then back to the hotel to be told what is for sale at what price, and how it can be financed, and how if you don't buy now there won't be any left.

If you still don't buy, you are then introduced "on your way out" to a young woman who advises you that she has to check she has the right account for your 7000 Starpoints and has to do a quick survey of your satisfaction. She will then proceed to try to get you to sign up for an Explorer package, at either $1999 or $2999, which you can pay upfront or over 12 months. It provides you with a 5 night return visit (in the cheapest room in the Westin Maui hotel, not the Westin Kaanapali timeshares) and requires you to attend a repeat presentation, and the $1999 or $2999 is removed from the purchase price if you buy. It also locks in the prices you were just offered for a three month period.

I actually did intend to buy, but I knew about the Explorer package and so declined to buy, and then bought the package. I then purchased the timeshare within 3 months (which came with 125,000 Starpoints) and then since I had no use for the 5 night stay I exchanged it for another 100,000 Starpoints.

In other words, if you intend to buy pretend you don't, and then buy an Explorer package and for the same cost you end up with an extra 100,000 Starpoints, although it the becomes much less convenient having to get all the documents sent to your home town and notarised.

Be warned - no Starpoints or Stay / Night credit for Explorer stays, and no elite benefits such as upgrades or late check-out.