Tricks of the New Points System

MRMarriott said:

2. Midweek flights - I don't know about you, but one of the biggest expenses I've found is flights to Hawaii or Aruba, or anywhere else. Just playing around online, I noticed a savings of $200-$300 dollars on Tuesday-Thursday flights.

So, if I use my club the traditional way, but call Marriott and add 1,000 points at $9,200 (2-3 nights in most clubs midweek), I could make my vacations a couple of nights longer AND save $1000-$1500 a year on flights for a family of 5. Seems like 1,000 pts will pay for itself in 9-10 years of ownership, and be gravy after that.

Any others you've thought of?

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MRMarriott said:

From what I know about splits, 3 nights must be Fri-Sun and 4 nights must be Mon-Thurs. This would be in most clubs with Fri, Sat, Sun check-in only.

The only difference, then, is possibly Mon-Mon, and Monday flights are as bad as the weekend in most cases.

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MRMarriott said:

I have actively been devouring all the information on TUG lately. I am relatively new to the boards, but have been very happy with Marriott in the past and had concerns when I heard about the new points program coming out.

Since it's release, I can say that the points skimming initially caused me concern, but knowing I can book my home club the way I always have while others essentially have to pay more actually makes me feel protected, not upset.

I was wondering if anyone has played around and thought of some ways to work the system favorably?

Here are a couple I came up with:

1. Rentals - Renting was quite a pain in the past. You would book the week in your season, post it on TUG or other sites, and hope someone wanted it for the price.

Now, can't we simply post how many points we want to give? Marriott allows trading points between owners, so I could post, say, 1000 points for $500 dollars. If there is an owner out there who needs some more points to make their vacation work, they'll buy them and we can trade. A much easier transaction than selling one specific week at one specific club!

2. Midweek flights - I don't know about you, but one of the biggest expenses I've found is flights to Hawaii or Aruba, or anywhere else. Just playing around online, I noticed a savings of $200-$300 dollars on Tuesday-Thursday flights.

So, if I use my club the traditional way, but call Marriott and add 1,000 points at $9,200 (2-3 nights in most clubs midweek), I could make my vacations a couple of nights longer AND save $1000-$1500 a year on flights for a family of 5. Seems like 1,000 pts will pay for itself in 9-10 years of ownership, and be gravy after that.

Any others you've thought of?

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MRMarriott said:

I have actively been devouring all the information on TUG lately. I am relatively new to the boards, but have been very happy with Marriott in the past and had concerns when I heard about the new points program coming out.

Since it's release, I can say that the points skimming initially caused me concern, but knowing I can book my home club the way I always have while others essentially have to pay more actually makes me feel protected, not upset.

I was wondering if anyone has played around and thought of some ways to work the system favorably?

Here are a couple I came up with:

1. Rentals - Renting was quite a pain in the past. You would book the week in your season, post it on TUG or other sites, and hope someone wanted it for the price.

Now, can't we simply post how many points we want to give? Marriott allows trading points between owners, so I could post, say, 1000 points for $500 dollars. If there is an owner out there who needs some more points to make their vacation work, they'll buy them and we can trade. A much easier transaction than selling one specific week at one specific club!

2. Midweek flights - I don't know about you, but one of the biggest expenses I've found is flights to Hawaii or Aruba, or anywhere else. Just playing around online, I noticed a savings of $200-$300 dollars on Tuesday-Thursday flights.

So, if I use my club the traditional way, but call Marriott and add 1,000 points at $9,200 (2-3 nights in most clubs midweek), I could make my vacations a couple of nights longer AND save $1000-$1500 a year on flights for a family of 5. Seems like 1,000 pts will pay for itself in 9-10 years of ownership, and be gravy after that.

Any others you've thought of?

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davidvel said:

Wonder if the OP's IP address comes back to a big company?:ignore:

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pfrank4127 said:

I like that I can now stay for almost two weeks if I pay cash for a Friday and Saturday stay.

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pfrank4127 said:

I like that I can now stay for almost two weeks if I pay cash for a Friday and Saturday stay.

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MRMarriott said:

So, if I use my club the traditional way, but call Marriott and add 1,000 points at $9,200 (2-3 nights in most clubs midweek), I could make my vacations a couple of nights longer AND save $1000-$1500 a year on flights for a family of 5. Seems like 1,000 pts will pay for itself in 9-10 years of ownership, and be gravy after that.

Any others you've thought of?

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RedDogSD said:

Considering what they charge in cash for Friday and Saturday night, that is not that good of a deal. The trick will be to leave the Resort and go visit another area with a Hotel for the weekend. For example, someone on here mentioned doing Newport Su-Th, go to San Diego or LA for weekend, and back for another Su-Th.

However, us lockoff owners always could do a full 2 weeks anyways. The only difference is that we had to down in size on our units.

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RedDogSD said:

Considering what they charge in cash for Friday and Saturday night, that is not that good of a deal. The trick will be to leave the Resort and go visit another area with a Hotel for the weekend. For example, someone on here mentioned doing Newport Su-Th, go to San Diego or LA for weekend, and back for another Su-Th.

However, us lockoff owners always could do a full 2 weeks anyways. The only difference is that we had to down in size on our units.

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DanCali said:

What I am also thinking is that buying 1000 points for roughly $10K is about $1900 a year over 10 years:

(i) it's about $500 a year just based on the fact I could invest that money elsewhere (e.g. tax free munis) and earn actual income

(ii) it's another $1000 a year if you consider that Marriott has a history of devaluing retail purchases so we need to assume the points will be worthless on the resale market right after you buy them, let alone in 10 years.

(iii) it's $400 in MFs each year, assuming MFs are constant

Or (using BocaBum calculation) assuming you finance the purchase with a 10 year loan at 8% and pay it back in 10 annual installments the cost is $1490 + $400 in MFs a year, very close to my guesstimate....

Spending $1900 a year over 10 years, most of it upfront and the rest in annual MFs, for the possibility of saving on airfare and the promise of "gravy" thereafter is a bit too much for me.

I'd rather use the $1900 to (i) rent another summer vacation (ii) rent 3-4 getaways, (iii) save for my kids' college education...

For an actual retail buyer thinking of buying 5000 points from Marriott, you can see that the value proposition is going to be a tough sell.

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MRMarriott said:

So, if I use my club the traditional way, but call Marriott and add 1,000 points at $9,200 (2-3 nights in most clubs midweek), I could make my vacations a couple of nights longer AND save $1000-$1500 a year on flights for a family of 5. Seems like 1,000 pts will pay for itself in 9-10 years of ownership, and be gravy after that.

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BocaBum99 said:

The trick is to get Marriott points cheap enough (MF wise) so it doesn't matter what the point value is and go anytime, anywhere you want. That's the key to exploiting this system.

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hipslo said:

Boca - I tend to agree with you here, but I dont see why you are focusing solely on mf per point. For example, my mf per point at mountainside, platinum, are very low - 0.18 per point. However, the upfront cost to purchase the week was very high - roughly 30k, even resale.

It seems to me that both upfront cost per point, amortized on some basis, and mf per point, need to be factored into some sort of a blended, effective annual cost per point in order to determine what it truly costs per night to stay at the various resorts.

Or are you just taking the view that the upfront costs are already sunk costs and should just be ignored? If so, I am not sure I agree with that.

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BocaBum99 said:

You have to evaluate the choice in front of you. The choice of making a decision to convert or not.

The cost will be either the developer purchased rate or non-developer purchase rate. Worst case is $2000. Plus the annual fee.

Then, you need to evaluate what that $2000 can get you.

1) Access to all program details and future program features they decide to add later. There is some options value here. Probably at least worth $500 of the $2000 (if resale enrollment). More if Marriott adds a bonus time/ open season option as a standard feature for points owners.

2) A new virtually guaranteed rental market. I predict a robust rental market for points. Any time you need to forgo a week or partial week of owners, you will be able to get some money back most likely at a discount.

3) Huge direct exchange value. You now how a currency of relatively cheap Marriott Vacations that you can offer as trades to go anywhere else you want . If you put up a direct exchange ad on TUG offering anything in Marriott that is available, you can request just about anything you want.

4) Save fees on internal exchanges to reduce annual fees from Marriott.

For me, the options value would be huge. You have so many more options in the program than outside of it. At $.18/point, you will be one of the low cost owners which is the best place to be in any system. You get the highest rental profit and the biggest trade ups.

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hipslo said:

I agree with all that, and will likely convert. Whether or not I ever actually give up my weeks for points, which seems like a pretty bad deal to me, given my usage patterns, is another matter entirely.

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BocaBum99 said:

The mistake most owners on this board are making is getting too pre-occupied with skim. Skim is just the buy-sell spread. It's like currency conversion spread you pay when you go to a foreign country. What matters is your total cost.

If the rental market for Marriott points is strong, you can get a 100% margin on your maintenance fees. You can make your entire conversion cost up in a year or two of renting. When the payback is so short, it's a no brainer decision.

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hipslo said:

I currently own 4 platinum ms ski weeks. Each year I use one and rent three. (Someday when I have more free time I would like to use all 4, consecutvely). I make 4 consecutive reservations and this way am able to lock in the week I really need, the fourth week, 14 months in advance.

If I were to convert all those weeks to points and use 6900 points to reserve the one week I intend to use, I'd have 14,500 points left over. In order to generate the same amount of gross rental income that I do currently renting weeks (call it 8500, give or take), I'd need to rent all of my points for 0.58 per point. That seems unlikely to me. So, why would I ever trade in my weeks for points, given that usage pattern?

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BocaBum99 said:

I wouldn't. Take that scenario off the table. What I would do instead, it join so that you can play the other side of that trade.

In other words, convert to get into the game. Rent out ALL of your units and rent points from other owners. Even if it costs you $.40/point to rent, you are renting the units you own for $.58/point.

That reduces your cost by $.18/point and you will probably pay for your conversion fee if you are successful just once.

That is the options value I talked about earlier. To capitalize on the Marriott point system, you have to learn where the arbitrage opportunities are. You have just identified one. And, it's a good one at that.

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MRMarriott said:

I was wondering if anyone has played around and thought of some ways to work the system favorably?

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hipslo said:

Very interesting, thanks for the insight, I hadnt looked at it that way. Though I suppose the issue there would be availability of the desired week in points by the time I reserve and rent out the units - I guess I'd need to lay out the funds in advance, make the reservation in points at 13 months (if possible), and "pay myself back" out of the rental income.

You guys are great!

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