How often is your timeshare unused?

bastroum · Aug 10, 2015

Twice in 16 years. Once on an II exchange because the property was not up to my wife's liking and the second this Labor Day weekend coming up.

A.Win · Aug 10, 2015

Labor Day is nearly a month away. You still have time to exchange, trade, rent, or give away to someone I would think.

Seems like people here mostly use their weeks. Then how do you explain the vacancies at so many of these resorts in the off-season. For example, most resorts are less than half full in early December.

DeniseM · Aug 10, 2015

A.Win said:
Labor Day is nearly a month away. You still have time to exchange, trade, rent, or give away to someone I would think.

Seems like people here mostly use their weeks. Then how do you explain the vacancies at so many of these resorts in the off-season. For example, most resorts are less than half full in early December.

Early December is the least popular vacation season of the year:
-kids are in school and it's the end of the semester/finals
-people are busy with holiday activities
-people are spending their money on the holidays

Ty1on · Aug 10, 2015

A.Win said:
Labor Day is nearly a month away. You still have time to exchange, trade, rent, or give away to someone I would think.

Seems like people here mostly use their weeks. Then how do you explain the vacancies at so many of these resorts in the off-season. For example, most resorts are less than half full in early December.

People who are here are here because they actively use their vacation times.

Resorts are half full for the same reason hotels are half full in early December. It is the slowest vacation time of the entire year. As I see it, you have 80% of the timeshare population vying for probably 40% of the calendar. Some will get left out and not know what to do with their intervals, some will deposit in an exchange, where it doesn't get picked up by other exchangers--that's where the deeply discounted bonus weeks, certificates, and sales come from, they are always off-season. Also, if 10% of a resort is in delinquency, those unreservable weeks are going to concentrate themselves in the slowest seasons. Developers and HOAs can rent those weeks out, but if no one wants to go there the first week of December, no one is going to rent it.

If I'm oversimplifying it, I hope someone will jump in....

rapmarks · Aug 10, 2015

owned since 1991, never, except this may we arrived three days late for the first time ever.

bobpark56 · Aug 10, 2015

Owners at AI resorts are different

Our ownership at an AI resort (Sandos Caracol) lets us stay up to 4 weeks each year, either there or at another Sandos resort. We have stayed with Sandos every year, but we have yet to use all of our allotted weeks in any year
.

bastroum · Aug 10, 2015

A.Win said:
Labor Day is nearly a month away. You still have time to exchange, trade, rent, or give away to someone I would think.

Seems like people here mostly use their weeks. Then how do you explain the vacancies at so many of these resorts in the off-season. For example, most resorts are less than half full in early December.

T/S is in Honolulu. Tried to give it away with no takers. It's a VRI Exchange. Already cancelled it once and re-booked. I have spent $650 in exchange and upgrade fees. VRI charges $50 to cancel the reservation so I'm cutting my loses. We already are booked up through July of next year. It just turned out to be 1 too many weeks.

glypnirsgirl · Aug 10, 2015

In the first few years of owning my DVC timeshare, I always used it. I bought in early enough that the use came with tickets for everyone staying in the unit. After the free tickets expired, even in the years I was really broke, we managed to get there for vacation --- which was the reason that I bought it. I knew that if I paid for it, I would take a vacation.

Ironically, as I got less broke and my son wanted to go other places is when my points went unused. That happened for about 4 or 5 years.

Since then, I have learned, first through Mouseowners and later through this site, how better to use my time.

VacationForever · Aug 10, 2015

I mostly trade my weeks for hotel points or put into an exchange companies. I usually have too many deposited weeks and book exchanges as giveaways to my employees for their use. Only twice my employees told me they could not go at the last minute. One of them I posted on TUG for anyone who wanted to use for free in which a TUGger took it for a friend. Strangely I did not receive a Thank you or an acknowledgement after I worked my butts off to get a last minute guest certificate and emailed off to this friend of a TUGger. I decided to stop wasting my time in giving away unused weeks. Just ranting...

Ty1on · Aug 10, 2015

sptung said:
I mostly trade my weeks for hotel points or put into an exchange companies. I usually have too many deposited weeks and book exchanges as giveaways to my employees for their use. Only twice my employees told me they could not go at the last minute. One of them I posted on TUG for anyone who wanted to use for free in which a TUGger took it for a friend. Strangely I did not receive a Thank you or an acknowledgement after I worked my butts off to get a last minute guest certificate and emailed off to this friend of a TUGger. I decided to stop wasting my time in giving away unused weeks. Just ranting...

In advance, I would like to tel you that I appreciate all your hard work and effort! :wave:

DonnaD · Aug 10, 2015

Timesharing gives us our retirement dream

Having purchased our first timeshare as a way to insure that we would make time to vacation, we have used all our points allowance or rented some when we had more points than time for travel. Now, we are accelerating our use which allows us to spend 9 weeks of winter in sunny Mexico instead of frigid Ohio. We also have enough points for a couple weeks in Fall of year on beach of Mexico. I look at it like a second home that I don't have to support when we aren't there.
It is a lifestyle choice that we really enjoy!!!
DonnaD

jehb2 · Aug 11, 2015

Never in 16 years. We own 4 Hilton timeshares which translates into 6 weeks for us. There was a times when I would forward some of my unused points to the next year but in recent years I've borrowed points from the upcoming year--long vacations with families & friends.

jehb2 · Aug 11, 2015

Ty1on said:
Some will get left out and not know what to do with their intervals, some will deposit in an exchange, where it doesn't get picked up by other exchangers--that's where the deeply discounted bonus weeks, certificates, and sales come from, they are always off-season.

I would also add that a lot of people can't get use to booking their vacations 9-12 months out. Lately I've had to book RCI vacations at 14 months out. I know a lot of people who don't start thinking about their vacation reservation until 3 months out.

dominidude · Aug 11, 2015

I wonder, why ask this question?

lprstn · Aug 11, 2015

Now - I use all but 1 my timeshares because they are mostly points based. My Presidential Wilderness Resort goes unused quite a bit. So, I am going to sell it back to the resort next year.

Ty1on · Aug 11, 2015

dominidude said:
I wonder, why ask this question?

I rather like the question. How much timeshare goes to waste, whether MFs are paid up or not?

VegasBella · Aug 11, 2015

So far, never. The ones I own get used. Also, I only own prime season. I don't own any off season weeks.

There was one week that I rented from someone else that I gave to my mom because I was far too sick to travel.

lschaaf · Aug 13, 2015

Ty1on said:
I rather like the question. How much timeshare goes to waste, whether MFs are paid up or not?

I do too, as someone who's looking to purchase her first timeshare!

dms1709 · Aug 14, 2015

So far, I have not lost a any time or points. You do have to plan.

Donna

Southerngirl528 · Aug 14, 2015

I've owned DVC for 22 years. Never once has my TS gone unused. Not one time.

I bought into the new Marriott towers on Maui for an EOY 2 weeks just 6 years ago. We adore Maui and plan on going back every year. Until they are dragging me off the plane in a wheelbarrow.

I think the key here is to never be pressured into an on-the-spot purchase. Sleep on it. Crunch numbers. Be realistic about how you will REALLY use that TS, even as the years pass. And only buy where you LOVE, love to stay! (I know there are some folks here that buy low and trade high, but I am not one of those people. I admire those master traders, but I would drive myself nuts. I am a planner deluxe!)

Polly Metallic · Aug 14, 2015

We've owned three weeks since 1996 and we've never let a week go unused. I can't imagine paying maintenance fees and not using the week. That's like taking several hundred dollars out of your wallet and lighting them on fire!

A few years we rented our Maui unit since we can get substantially more than maintenance fees, and then we took a cheaper vacation week via an AC or an Extra Vacation. The other weeks we have used personally or we have exchanged them through one of four different exchange companies.

BevL · Aug 14, 2015

It would be interesting to pose the same question in forum over at Interval. Certainly TUG members are not a good sample of most timeshare owners, I'd guess.

So many of the posts from people in the buying, selling forum who want to dump their timeshares begin with, "I got sucked into buying it 10 years ago and have never used it." And these are usually timeshares bought at retail prices from the developer.

I liked the question.

chapjim · Aug 14, 2015

I own Wyndham points and sixteen fixed or floating weeks, a few of which have been converted to points or PIC-ed.

Since Wyndham consolidated my three different use-years, I expect to lose some points at the end of the year because there were no reservations to be had in late December. These are points recovered from cancelling and rebooking so it's not like they were "unused." It still pains me!

I rarely have a fixed or floating unit go totally unused. The more likely scenario is that it will be used suboptimally -- dumped on eBay or Craig's List just to get a few hundred bucks or turned over the the resort's rental program.

mash84121 · Aug 14, 2015

Another key factor for the low occupancy rate during low seasons is that many if not most resorts are not sold out during the low seasons. If a resort has only sold 75% of the weeks in the off season, than it is unlikely that the resort will have a higher occupancy rate during that season.

Also, many people that own off season weeks will try to trade up to weeks during better seasons and their deposited weeks won't be traded in to so they stay unoccupied.

jpc763 · Aug 14, 2015

I have never had to miss one of my two weeks. I have traded a full week for 5 nights once, but that was because my week didn't get enough Marriott DC points to book a full week at the other resort.

I do feel fortunate that I have not had to do a last minute cancellation.

How often is your timeshare unused?

bastroum

A.Win

DeniseM

Ty1on

rapmarks

TUG Review Crew: Elite

bobpark56

TUG Review Crew: Expert

bastroum

glypnirsgirl

Tug Review Crew: Rookie

VacationForever

TUG Review Crew

Ty1on

DonnaD

TUG Review Crew: Veteran

jehb2

jehb2

dominidude

lprstn

TUG Review Crew: Veteran

Ty1on

VegasBella

lschaaf

dms1709

Southerngirl528

Polly Metallic

Official TUG Pool Recruiter

BevL

chapjim

TUG Review Crew: Veteran

mash84121

TUG Review Crew: Expert

jpc763