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New to timesharing and looking for advice

michjoh13

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Hello,
My family recently visited the new Hyatt Ka'anapali beach Residence Club property on one of their special 5 night promotions. It was beautiful and my wife was ready to buy during our timeshare presentation. Fortunately I stalled long enough to get out of the sales room and visit your site to read more about it. We ended up not purchasing.
With that being said, being a family of 2 adults and 3 children, we do like the condo style resort so I wanted to look into making a more educated decision on if and when to purchase a timeshare. We have stayed at other timeshare resorts with my in-laws who used Getaways or Exchanges so I am familiar with some of the terms. But as I started reading through some of the introduction documents here it got overwhelming quickly. I figured I would post our scenario to look for more guidance on what to focus my research on. Some of my issues/concerns are

1. What brand to focus on? (SPG, Marriott, Hyatt, etc.)[/B]
2. We want to get something we could exchange about half of the time. The more I read and hear about "trading power" the more confusing it seems.
2b. It also seems as though some programs make it easier to exchange than others and there is a lot of fine print to consider.
2c. Is it even realistic to think we could exchange effectively being mostly tied to a school schedule? What factors will make that more likely to be possible?

Thank you for the assistance and if anyone has questions on the offer from the Hyatt in Ka'anapali I would be happy to share that. Our offer looked very similar to what others had posted.


1) Where do you want your home resort to be? Not picky but somewhere warm most likely. Florida, Arizona, So. California, etc.

2) Do you want to visit your home resort at least half the time, or do you want to trade more than half the time? Probably trade half of the time or more.

3) What are your 5 top trade destinations? Caribbean, Florida, Arizona, California, Colorado

4) How many people do you usually travel with? 5. 2 adults and 3 children who are in or just starting school

5) Can you travel any time, or are you locked into the school schedule? school schedule

6) Can you make firm plans 12 or more mos. in advance? yes

7) Can you vacation for a full week at a time? yes

8) What level of accommodations do you prefer on a scale of 1 to 5 stars? 3-4

9) How much can you afford to spend upfront, without financing? $25K+ if it is a good value

10) How much can you afford to spend every year for a maintenance fee that will come due right after Christmas, and increase each year? $2500+. Can afford is not really an issue. Getting value for that money is my concern.

11) Are you a detail oriented planner? YES

12) Do you understand that once you buy a timeshare, it may be very difficult to sell or give away, and you are responsible for all fees, until you do? Yes

Thank you!
 
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TUGBrian

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moved this to its own thread and bolded your answers...welcome to TUG!
 
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