JTG

I received and "End of Phases 1-6 Special Limited Time Pricing" direct mail piece this week. Presumably because I own at Desert Springs. Compelling deals if you're interested in an MVCI property, and this one is a highly-exchanged one too, If I'm not mistaken. I believe Silver weeks trade for Red with Interval International

Looks to try to appeal to the point-hounds too. Three deals:

2 Gold weeks for $30K and up to 480,000 points
2 EOY (1 Gold/ 1 Platinum) $21K and up to 425,000 points
2 Silver weeks for $20K and up to 410,000 points

PM me if you'd like to be referred.

PS- Searched but didn't find a post on this.

Dave M

Doesn't sound at all like a good deal to me. Resale weeks - the identical product - at Shadow Ridge are routinely available for much less than those prices.

As an example, there are currently two Gold weeks listed at Redweek.com for $8,995 and $9,500, respectively. Those are asking prices and most resale listed prices are subject to significant negotiation. Thus, with some patience in finding and negotiating the right deal, it's reasonable to expect one could buy two Gold weeks for about $16,000 - a far cry from Marriott's $30,000 price.

A portion of the megapoints offered (likely less than half) are incentive purchase points. The difference is most likely the bonus for financing through Marriott at Marriott's 13+% interest rate. Even if one has to finance a timeshare purchase, the value of those points doesn't begin to make up the difference between Marriott's rate and a 7% (or less) home equity loan rate.

The only disadvantage of buying a resale week versus from Marriott is that annual or EOY use of the timeshare can't be exchanged for Marriott Rewards points. However, the annual maintenance fees must still be paid, making that exchange-for-points benefit a dubious one at best, even without considering the significant difference in purchase price!

Thus, does it make financial sense to pay Marriott almost double the price that one can buy those same timeshares for elsewhere? I don't think so. There are some situations where purchasing a timeshare directly from Marriott might make sense. This doesn't appear to be one of them.

frisbeeace

The exchange-for-points option is what makes Marriott ownership worth and accounts for most of its purchasing value. If you resign to this alternative by buying a week much cheaper at Ebay or Redweek it turns into a typical timeshare and you have to get into the hassle of interchanging, occupying or renting the week each year. For $800 annual expenses I get 110,000 points every year which I easily convert into +$2,000 with the travel packages.


The purchasing bonus has a significant value (FTers agree that 400,000 are worth $6,000) and you don't need to use the financing program. You pick that option when you purchase and only after 3 monts you can cancel the loan.

hhoope01

If we take your numbers and look at the whole picture this is what I see:

1. To get the option to turn in your week for points, one pays a premium price. In this case, it looks like it would cost around $14,000. And I doubt the OP would be able to get any of that back when/if they decide to sell. So this is a one-time payment for this option.

2. It would take more than 2 years worth of trades to get a 120k miles travel package considering the cheapest one is 235K. So you are actually paying two sets of $800 maintenance fees(MFs), not one.

3. I don't know what the MFs for the MVCI property in question here is, but I have heard that a number of them are now at or above $1000 per year. Basically as the years go by, the value of points goes down and cost of the MFs go up.

So basically, I see this as a pay 14K one time, plus every time I want to a travel package I have to fork over another $1600+ to get the needed points.

At least to me, I'm not seeing enough benefits to get me to jump.

frisbeeace

Two Gold weeks are $18,000 so the cost of having the trade-for-points option is $12,000 less the value of 480,000 which most people would estimate at $7,200 ($0.15 each point) but you certainly can obtain more than that. So, the "premium" is just $4,800 which you can recover in 2-4 years with the trade-for-points option if you can use it every year.

Yes, but still you convert those $800 into $2,000-$4,000 depending on how you use them. Let´s say you wait 2 years (or trade-in 2 weeks) at a $1,600 MFs cost for 220,000 points which you redeem for a travel package consisting of 7 cat. 6 nights + 100,000 miles (230,000 MRP). You spend a week in February at Vail Marriott Resort ($3,528) and fly business class ($5,500) from my country for 90,000 miles (using exactly the 220,000 points). So my $1,600 turned into $9,000... Good deal, isn't it??!!

The key is to buy a resale property from Marriott, that allows the trade-for-points option every year and has low MFs. Orlando is a good choice for that.

You´re right here and this is a concern to owners. If points devaluation goes on and owners receive the same fixed amount of points forever, then, with time, the trade-for-points option will weaken and there will less arguments to buy from Marriott instead of the secondary market. But I guess that Marriott knows that and will have to do something in that regard.

Boraxo

Why would you assume that? Over the past few years, SPG has consistently devalued every year and has done nothing to adjust the fixed point option for SVO owners.

If you buy a timeshare for the point exchange option, you are making a poor financial decision.

And FYI if you do a search you will find most people here value MR points @ .007 per point, due to difficultly in securing rooms from limited inventory. At least with SPG there are no capacity controls.

For those who care, here is the math:

$30k invested at 8% (very conservative, some would use 10%) = $2400.
$800 annual maintenance + exchange fees per unit = $1600
Total cost: $4000 per year every year (higher if you finance your purchase).

For $4k/yr I can buy some nice rooms anywhere in the world without worrying about exchange, rules, advance bookings, checkin date restrictions, etc. For example, we get an annual offer from SPG for Westin or Sheraton Maui that works out to about $120/nt+ tax. The offers for Palm Desert (where the Marriott is located) are even sweeter, close to $75/nt for peak season.

Of course, YMMV.