Question for owners of many weeks

I had a question for those of you that own many (more than 2) timeshare weeks a year. Do you all use that many weeks for yourself, and if not, what do you do with them?
We are 14-15 years away from being able to go for 4-6 weeks each year to get away from the cold. I see a lot of tempting bargains out there, but we already own the weeks that we can use. If I have too many weeks to use, and can't rent them all, then what?
Just wondered if there were others having the same dilemma as me, and what you do.
Thanks

akbmusic said:

I had a question for those of you that own many (more than 2) timeshare weeks a year. Do you all use that many weeks for yourself, and if not, what do you do with them?
We are 14-15 years away from being able to go for 4-6 weeks each year to get away from the cold. I see a lot of tempting bargains out there, but we already own the weeks that we can use. If I have too many weeks to use, and can't rent them all, then what?
Just wondered if there were others having the same dilemma as me, and what you do.
Thanks

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With the way RCI is setup now and with Combining Deposits extending the use year...You could basicly, just keep depositing your weeks in RCI and extending for the the next 15yrs....Basicly, if you have 3 weeks your depositing like this...all worth 10TPU(VERY VERY LOW) for 15 years...you'll end up with 450TPU's you can use when you retire

Ridewithme38 said:

With the way RCI is setup now and with Combining Deposits extending the use year...You could basicly, just keep depositing your weeks in RCI and extending for the the next 15yrs....Basicly, if you have 3 weeks your depositing like this...all worth 10TPU(VERY VERY LOW) for 15 years...you'll end up with 450TPU's you can use when you retire

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Except that I wouldn't be that confident that RCI won't change the rules at any time.

My suggestion is to wait and see what happens and buy when you're ready to use. I have 10 weeks of timeshare and only 5 weeks of vacation. I got into that situation when a 4 week interval at a much loved resort came available and I bought it, on top of the six weeks I already owned. Now is not the time to sell and I'm not willing to give away yet. Renting is more trouble than I have time and patience for. So I fall farther and farther behind on using my weeks. I give some to family members, but most of my family can't afford to travel even with free rooms.

Sheila

Really doesn't count here as I'm retired and DW is self-employed and can schedule getaways as needed- to a point. We have 3, one of which is in RCI Points that we usually get 2-3 weeks use out of. So far we have been staying ahead of 'em and using what we have. I have 4 TS weeks scheduled over the next 11 months, plus enough RCI Points left over for another 'regular' week, or up to 3 last call (30 day b4 move-in) weeks. Not counting that we will accumulate another bucket of weeks and points over the next year, making scheduling some more vacations necessary. We also take 2-3 cruises a year and a month to 6 weeks of RV travel.

So many available weeks, so little time.

Jim Ricks

akbmusic said:

I had a question for those of you that own many (more than 2) timeshare weeks a year. Do you all use that many weeks for yourself, and if not, what do you do with them?
We are 14-15 years away from being able to go for 4-6 weeks each year to get away from the cold. I see a lot of tempting bargains out there, but we already own the weeks that we can use. If I have too many weeks to use, and can't rent them all, then what?
Just wondered if there were others having the same dilemma as me, and what you do.
Thanks

Click to expand...

Not long ago it would've been a no brained to say the advantage of the incredible values at great resort locations you see now. However the landscape has evolved and the true cost of owning isn't purchase cost anymore but annual fees. Renting or trading for even the cost of annual fees isn't easy (forget making money) and costs can quickly wipe out use/rental value.

Now it's buy to USE - anything else & you'll likely regret it. Plus when you are ready to buy your dream resort/location the cost will likely be far lower then today nd you've saved all the years before purchase. It's not a time to buy for future needs despite low prices.

I'm about 5 years away from being able to use another week and 10 years from
being able to use 1 to 3 more. I may jump in and grab that one extra week if
the right unit comes along. I've rented a few weeks that were given to me
when I purchased my units but I can see they won't always be easy to rent.

I got great deals on mine, they basically paid me to take them and I may still
gamble with the headaches of renting some weeks and take one more unit but
no way would I take on more than that right now. I hope the deals are still there
in 5 to 10 more years. If they aren't, I'm real happy with what I've got.

I own about twice what I use. I bought the extra anticipating using them within a year or two. In the meantime, I rent or give away what I dont use.

The goal is to use timeshares as a proxy for a second home, and spend 3 to 6 months away every year....I think I may use RCI "last call " for most of this so I wont have to actually own as much as it might seem

Im a whole lot closer to retirement than you are...If I was 14 or 15 years away, Id only buy what you are able to use (and afford) today.

akbmusic said:

I had a question for those of you that own many (more than 2) timeshare weeks a year. Do you all use that many weeks for yourself, and if not, what do you do with them?
We are 14-15 years away from being able to go for 4-6 weeks each year to get away from the cold. I see a lot of tempting bargains out there, but we already own the weeks that we can use. If I have too many weeks to use, and can't rent them all, then what?
Just wondered if there were others having the same dilemma as me, and what you do.
Thanks

Click to expand...

I am still 2-5 years from "full" retirement and so can't really fully utilize all the 7 weeks I own.

But I made the decision to buy mostly RCI Points weeks - just for the versatility. I can convert some of the points into car rentals and some into one or two night hotel stays and some into flights.

I have also given a few weeks usage to friends and family.

So far I am in no real danger of having a week or points expire without use.

My total MF load is about $2300 per year, which I can easily afford. Some of my friends have other vacation "habits" that cost a lot more.

One buddy just got back from Sturgis and now is paying $8000 for a new motor to be put into his motorhome - only so it can depreciate more.

Choices, choices ...

timeos2 said:

Now it's buy to USE - anything else & you'll likely regret it. Plus when you are ready to buy your dream resort/location the cost will likely be far lower then today nd you've saved all the years before purchase. It's not a time to buy for future needs despite low prices.

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Unless, of course, you buy to trade. Buying to use is the most expensive way to go right now. For most, exhanging and renting are probably the most cost efficient right now.

Out of my 2 lockoffs, I have 5 vacations booked for next year. My only regret is that I didn't squeeze out 6 weeks, but then I didn't skimp on the TPU cost of each trade. Most were close to 30 TPU trades, so I could have probably doubled the number of exchanges if I was careful.

With a total cost of around $460 per exchange week, buying to use would be almost twice as expensive. Now that would be the regretful thing to do.

And for all the critics out there... Yes I own where I like to travel the most.

vckempson said:

Unless, of course, you buy to trade. Buying to use is the most expensive way to go right now. For most, exhanging and renting are probably the most cost efficient right now.

Out of my 2 lockoffs, I have 5 vacations booked for next year. My only regret is that I didn't squeeze out 6 weeks, but then I didn't skimp on the TPU cost of each trade. Most were close to 30 TPU trades, so I could have probably doubled the number of exchanges if I was careful.

With a total cost of around $460 per exchange week, buying to use would be almost twice as expensive. Now that would be the regretful thing to do.

And for all the critics out there... Yes I own where I like to travel the most.

Click to expand...

We have 3 weeks. We go away for 4 weeks. We live on the Southern N C coast. Do not use or trade our weeks in summer. Reason, everybody wants to vacation where we live. Try to go away every 3 months...

I work in a hospital so have very flexible scheduling so I can actually get a full 7 days off with only using one day of vacation time so I squeeze a vacation or two a month out of my ownerships.

I own the equivalent of 7 TS's but with doing 6 day stays or booking last minute stuff for cheap points, I am able to points stretch and go away at least once a month somewhere. Luckily I live in Florida so it's easy to find a TS that is within driving distance. There is always something in Orlando available so I have an annual Disney pass.

It's cheaper than owning a second home and I don't have the hassles of ownership and the best part is that I don't have to clean up when I check out.

I Buy to Use

akbmusic said:

I had a question for those of you that own many (more than 2) timeshare weeks a year. Do you all use that many weeks for yourself, and if not, what do you do with them?
We are 14-15 years away from being able to go for 4-6 weeks each year to get away from the cold. I see a lot of tempting bargains out there, but we already own the weeks that we can use. If I have too many weeks to use, and can't rent them all, then what?
Just wondered if there were others having the same dilemma as me, and what you do.
Thanks

Click to expand...

We own 2 - 2/bd and 2 - 1 bd. one of the 2/bd is a lock-off, so can use 4 or 5 weeks a year. We bought to use at locations we will not mind going to again and again. However, we have also had some fantastic trades with our Marriott. A couple of locations, we go to every other year and trade every other year, this allows us to really explore different areas. Luckily, my husband and I are both now retired and can get away a lot. The 2/bd come in handy when we invite guests or take family members. We love our timeshares!

chriskre said:

I work in a hospital so have very flexible scheduling so I can actually get a full 7 days off with only using one day of vacation time so I squeeze a vacation or two a month out of my ownerships.

I own the equivalent of 7 TS's but with doing 6 day stays or booking last minute stuff for cheap points, I am able to points stretch and go away at least once a month somewhere. Luckily I live in Florida so it's easy to find a TS that is within driving distance. There is always something in Orlando available so I have an annual Disney pass.

It's cheaper than owning a second home and I don't have the hassles of ownership and the best part is that I don't have to clean up when I check out.

Click to expand...

Same here- I took 7 weeks of vacation last year and took 3 vacation days. I can actually take up to 16 weeks a year, but cannot find enough people to go away with me!

I own a lot of weeks. I rent most of them. It is not easy but I make sure I am competitive and offer the best service I can. That way very few weeks go unused (unrented).

We own 4-1/2 weeks, the half an every other year usage on Maui. The combination provides us with quite a bit of flexibility.

Three of these are in Las Vegas, two of which generate 8400 HGVC points.
The remaining Las Vegas week is in RCI points.
One week is a SoCal Beach unit, a hour or so from our home.
One week is every other year usage on Maui.

The SoCal week often gets rented out.
Approx 60% of the HGVC points get used for housing at a trade show I attend every year, my employer reimbursing the MF for one HGVC week.

The RCI points we use to exchange into various places. Same with the remaining HGVC points. Sometimes we borrow from the year ahead with these system to extend into a resort we otherwise wouldn't have the points to stay in. This then means the system those points came from can take the next year to catch up, or we continue to borrow from the next year ahead.

Right now we're attempting to get an RCI exchange into Maui for fall 2012 to pair up with our EOY usage with our Maui week. Earlier I stayed at our SoCal beach week & in a month we're doing a nearly two weeks, first one at Mabrisa & a second at San Pebbles in San Diego region.

Additionally I use RCI Extra Vacations for corporate housing when I'm traveling to a location for a week when I can. We're also starting to get family members beginning to use some weeks that they are interested in & we promised our newlywed son & DIL a week anywhere they want within HGVC. (Ironically they divorced before they could pick a location).

It helps that I get four weeks vacation a year, having been with the same employer for over 30 years.

I have more weeks than I can use. I have 2 more 2BR weeks in Myrtle Beach than what I have on my profile. About 6 weeks. There is no way that I can currently use all of the weeks so I use some of the weeks for incentives for employees, some for vacations for family - including the occasional huge family blowout vacation. And my husband and I use one or two weeks by ourselves.

Frankly, I have too many weeks. More than I can use. I don't want to get into the rental business - it would just make my life more complicated than I would enjoy. So, for now, giving time away works for me.

elaine

Yes...

The answer to your question is YES. A caveat here is we are retired and own where we like to go to get away from Maine's cold winters. If we do not use them, we rent and if we can't rent we exchange them. All in all we keep extending our winter sojourns south.

frenchieinme

We only own one Hyatt week, plus the approximate equivalent of 3/4 of a studio week in DVC. We generate many weeks of vacation off of the Hyatt week, so we effectively have 5 or 6 weeks. We also own a cruising sailboat and we take trips on that as well.

I get 3 weeks of vacation, by rearranging my work schedule I can usually wind up with 4 weeks however. I also work 4 days a week on an alternating schedule of a M-Th week followed by a Tu-Fr week; thus every other week, I am off Fri-Mon.

So we generally take two week-long trips per year, a two-week trip per year and maybe 4-6 four day trips. It's hard to use it all, this year we are giving a Royal Islander week as a wedding gift. We sometimes take take full TS weeks but then only use the Fr-Mon time.

On Friday, we leave on a sailing trip in our boat, we will be gone for 9 days, LA to Catalina Island to San Diego to Newport Beach and then home. Yay, can't wait.

H

I have a lot of weeks, but I used most all of them. Since I have points with I also use extra points for weekend getaways. We always take Spring Break Week, Fourth of July Week, Thanksgiving Week and Christmas week as vacation. Then we book all major holidays for weekend getaways. I may make about 2 RCI trades a year if I want to go somewhere outside of Wyndham

We are like Frenchie...we use them all one way or another. I don't rent but I have traded with other owners. We are retired and use our weeks directly or exchange them as an alternative to a second home in the winter. Most are just straight weeks but we also have DRI points. We sometimes book 3-two bedroom units at a location for a family vacation and also gift our non-timeshare children a week every year for their own get-away while we babysit the grandkids. We own too many (equivalent of 7 weeks per year) but we never let them go to waste.

With one exception (which I gave away this year) we bought timeshares we actually like to go to and have stayed in at one time or another so when exchanging isn't an option or becomes too expensive, we are perfectly happy. We no longer use RCI or II but exchange with SFX and TPI exclusively.

Points Versatility

Everything we own is in a points system (VI, Wordmark, HGVC, RCI Points, SVC). We don't own any fixed weeks (at least that aren't also RCI Points).

With the points systems we have tons of flexibility. We can do weekends. We can do less time in a penthouse. For example, we own 400 VI points. That would give us 11 highest season days in the penthouse at Tahoe (which we love) but could be 40 lowest season weekdays in a two bedroom at the same resort. If we went studio in Palm Springs weekdays we could get 89 days during lowest season.

What I'm getting at is this. With points, we stay in bigger fancier units now while we have less time. Once retired we will use the same amount of points in smaller units and get a lot more time.

We own 145,000 RCI points. This year we are using almost all of that to stay in a 4 bedroom 4 bath unit near Keystone for skiing in February and taking a ton of friends. In retirement years that will buy a lot of smaller units.

We have some extra HGVC New York points. They would buy us a week in a studio. We are going to splurge and do 3 weekdays in a one bedroom penthouse unit next year. 25th or 26th Floor, shared terrace on floor 25 (shared by 4 penthouse units) and a bathrub you can sit in and view the skyline.

Lots of food for thought

I appreciate all of the input!
After reading your posts I am not sure we could rent weeks and cover the maintenance fees if I buy more, and I'm not sure I have the patience to hassle with renters anyway.
I have looked at points, and that always seems like a viable alternative until at look at points over time. It seems that most major timeshare companies that are points-based devalue their older resorts in an effort to get owners to purchase more points, leading to an increase in maintenance fees.....
The "buying to trade" is an intriguing prospect, but will take some more research on my part. We have always bought in places that we would travel to, at least every couple of years. (Although we are trying to get rid of our Orlando week as our kids have "outgrown" the area).
If only I had unlimited vacation time and an unlimited bank account to go with it! I am jealous of all of you who can get away for 4+ week a year!

akbmusic said:

If only I had unlimited vacation time and an unlimited bank account to go with it!

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It's called RETIREMENT! Everyday day is a vacation day.

frenchieinme

frenchieinme said:

It's called RETIREMENT! Everyday day is a vacation day.

frenchieinme

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You are right about the time, but, at least in my case, not the money

Wise conclusion...

akbmusic said:

After reading your posts I am not sure we could rent weeks and cover the maintenance fees if I buy more, and I'm not sure I have the patience to hassle with renters anyway.

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Personally, I think that you are both wise and prudent to think exactly this way. All the time you'd waste spend playing "landlord" to (...only maybe) cover your forever-increasing maintenance fees is time that you'll never get back. There is also financial risk --- in addition to unnecessarily squandering all that precious time. Life is just too short (unless of course you actually enjoy playing the time-consuming "landlord" game).

I would also encourage you to not base any decisions (including anything involving points) on the shaky and completely unfounded assumption that the rules, practices, procedures, or overall economy that exist 15 years from now will in any way even remotely resemble what exists today. A retrospective look back at the timeshare industry history (and that of RCI in particular) clearly demonstrates with undeniable certainty that the goalposts will always get unexpectedly moved around ---and not necessarily to your advantage.

Just my $0.02 worth. Personally, I subscribe strongly to the ideology of "buy only where you know you would / will use (...and where you know or believe that you can and will likely always afford to travel to).

All that said, I fully understand and readily acknowledge that every individual is different. YMMV.