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Another Purchase Advice Question

gdlipp

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We just signed a purchase agreement with Starwood at Kierland in Scottsdale. We purchased four weeks (two two-bedroom lockout units). The Starwood list price was $20K per unit. Each unit is worth 81,000 Star options or 48,000 Star points. Combined, this purchase represents 162,000 Star options or 96,000 Star points for trading purposes. We thought we had gotten a good deal with this purchase.

We've been owners at the Sheraton Desert Oasis for some years. I currently own two weeks at the Desert Oasis and we love it. We picked up the Desert Oasis properties on the resale market for about $600 total. Our combined maintenance fees at the Desert Oasis is about $1350 annually. During our most recent stay (Oct. 20-27) we took in the owners update meeting ($100 AMEX gift card) for two hours of our time. During the presentation, Starwood clued us into an owners upgrade program that lets us trade in our two weeks ownership at the Desert Oasis Under the program, we received full credit for the original purchase price for each of the one bedroom units that we acquired on the resale market. On paper, that worked out to approximately $18,000 in equity trade-in value that Starwood was giving us. (Not a bad return for an initial $600 cash outlay).
Applying the $18,000 trade-in equity towards the $40,000 list price for the Kieran units left us with a balance of $22,000 to pay off.

So what does this $22,000 investment buy us? Gold Elite status for life with SPG? Four weeks at a property we really like? Access to Star points for hotel/airfare? We own two properties at HGVC. We've exercised our trading options through HGVC over the years for air travel and cruises. We see SPG giving us similar travel and vacation flexibility. But is having that flexibility worth the cost? These are some the questions we have.

We love the Scottsdale area and plan to add an additional two weeks to our portfolio. Is the Starwood offer a reasonable course of action or should we rescind and pursue other avenues on the resale market? I'm in day one of seven on our right to rescind. The perspective from the forurm users is appreciated. Thanks.
 

alexadeparis

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The standard advice is to rescind, but then you will get the old units back.
 

Quadmaniac

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It all depends what your end goal is. From the sounds of it, you would like to have 4 weeks in the Scottsdale area. If that it the case you might be better off buying a 2br SDO annual and either stay at SDO or trade into the area which generally is not that difficult except for spring training.

Unless it is a difficult to trade for location or very specific stay requirements that you can only get with SO, you are better off with a cheap SDO and saving the money. It's not a great deal, I would recommend rescind.

I guess the biggest question is what is your ultimate goal of trading into or travel parameters ? Can it be only met with SO or can you trade weeks that would serve your needs ?

Might want to read

http://tugbbs.com/forums/showthread.php?t=200868
 
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SMHarman

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We just signed a purchase agreement with Starwood at Kierland in Scottsdale. We purchased four weeks (two two-bedroom lockout units). The Starwood list price was $20K per unit. Each unit is worth 81,000 Star options or 48,000 Star points. Combined, this purchase represents 162,000 Star options or 96,000 Star points for trading purposes. We thought we had gotten a good deal with this purchase.

We've been owners at the Sheraton Desert Oasis for some years. I currently own two weeks at the Desert Oasis and we love it. We picked up the Desert Oasis properties on the resale market for about $600 total. Our combined maintenance fees at the Desert Oasis is about $1350 annually. During our most recent stay (Oct. 20-27) we took in the owners update meeting ($100 AMEX gift card) for two hours of our time. During the presentation, Starwood clued us into an owners upgrade program that lets us trade in our two weeks ownership at the Desert Oasis Under the program, we received full credit for the original purchase price for each of the one bedroom units that we acquired on the resale market. On paper, that worked out to approximately $18,000 in equity trade-in value that Starwood was giving us. (Not a bad return for an initial $600 cash outlay).
Applying the $18,000 trade-in equity towards the $40,000 list price for the Kieran units left us with a balance of $22,000 to pay off.
Congratulations on your purchase and congratulations on using the trade in option. This makes your deal slightly better than most would get but likely stil not great...

You indicate you have a balance of $22k to pay off. Assuming that you have that money on hand and invested in equities you will now be losing a 6% return. That is $1320 (or your previous SDO Maintainance fee) per year.

If you are financing this apply your own APR and add that $ value to the current vacation costs.


Now onto the upfront cost.
So just looking at the classifieds here $4500 will get you the same unit. That's their offer, I'm sure your bid will be lower, lets say you hit at $4k, you are paying $22k for units you could pick up for $8k, so paying $14k for Gold for Life and the ability to exchange into StarPoints.

What can you do with that $14k, well over time you could earn $840 a year at 6%. You could spend it on StarPoints, even at 3.5c each that would buy you 400k StarPoints.

MORE FUN THINGS TO DO THAN GIVE $14K OF YOUR HARD EARNED TO PAY STARWOOD COMMISSIONS.

So what does this $22,000 investment buy us? Gold Elite status for life with SPG? Four weeks at a property we really like? Access to Star points for hotel/airfare? We own two properties at HGVC. We've exercised our trading options through HGVC over the years for air travel and cruises. We see SPG giving us similar travel and vacation flexibility. But is having that flexibility worth the cost? These are some the questions we have.

I answered similar questions in this thread yesterday
http://tugbbs.com/forums/showthread.php?t=200868

Elite status for life with SPG?
First it is GFL of ownership. Sell the unit, lose GFL.
Second you can get Gold with a spend on the Starwood Amex. If you are travelling to all those other timeshares then I am sure you can put $25k of spend onto your Starwood Amex and get Gold each year.

http://www304.americanexpress.com/getthecard/learn-about/Starwood-Preferred

You also get 25k StarPoints for signing up.

Gold for life is a benefit you can get with daily spend on the Starwood Ax Card - What is your end goal of GFL - Unless you are regularly staying in Starwood Hotels (not timeshares) it is just another gold piece of plastic in your wallet.

Four weeks at a property we really like?
Yes you do, however you likely had similar access by trading your SDO weeks in II for WKV weeks. Many own at SDO and use II to trade for WKV with great success. You still don't have 12mo in advance access to WKV platinum weeks as you own gold weeks.

You have also doubled your MF to 1300 per unit per year so $2600 of MF (on top of the lost return on the $22k you no longer have invested earning $1300 a year)

Access to Star points for hotel/airfare?
Ongoing there is (1300MF + 129SVO) /2 a year gets 81k SO or 48k SP (plus the $99 conversion fee).
So ongoing... 1528 gets you 48k StarPoints. That is 3.18c a point.
The second unit at 1300+39+99= 2.99c a point.

You can buy 20,000 points a year for $700 right now (3.5c/point)
https://buy.points.com/PointsPartne...l?language=EN&product=BUY&CAMPAIGNCODE=PDCBuy
Once a year they have a sale so you can get them for 20% off (2.8c/point)
http://boardingarea.com/loyaltytrav...ng-starpoints-at-20-off/#sthash.xjnW4yK4.dpbs

YOU ARE BETTER PAYING CASH FOR THE AMOUNT OF STAR OPTIONS YOU CAN AQUIRE FOR YOUR MAINTAINANCE FEE. BAD DEAL

So buying to exchange for StarPoints is not a good reason to keep this deal.

The same math for a Platinum Plus unit (if you owned such a thing) at WKV would be
1300+129+99 costs gets 72,000 StarOptions at 2.1c each. This could be good value to use for a European Vacation, using those points for nights in Paris, Rome, Venice, London etc, but still you need a good reason to do the exchange.

We love the Scottsdale area and plan to add an additional two weeks to our portfolio. Is the Starwood offer a reasonable course of action or should we rescind and pursue other avenues on the resale market? I'm in day one of seven on our right to rescind. The perspective from the forurm users is appreciated. Thanks.
So overall, as usual buying from a developer is a bad deal, the StarOption conversion in this deal is also bad.

Recommendations.
  • Get a Starwood Amex, spend enough money with it to get Gold Status (if you are going to use the status)
  • Trade your SDO units on Interval International (II) to exchange for weeks at WKV.
  • Join TUG, you will get access to the Sightings / Distressed forum and can see when WKV is dropped into II
  • If you really want WKV consider buying a Platinum Plus unit resale. Target price should be around $17k (or lower). That will get you 148,100 StarOptions for 1300+129 a year MF. Those will get you 4 weeks in Gold Season at WKV (in the Deluxe (smaller) 1Br). You will also still have your two SDO weeks. That gets you 6 weeks in the Scottsdale each year and trading the SDO into WKV gets you six weeks at WKV if that is your plan.

Apparently we can come off 'aggressive' around these parts when someone asks for advice about buying a retail unit. It's because the above reasons mean you are better off buying resale, not because we don't want you to stick around an learn more.

My question for you, what were the units you traded in. I'm assuming they were 1Br otherwise you would have a higher annual MF.

:hi:
 
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Ken555

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I would suggest that the only good reason to buy from the developer is when someone has a specific plan on how to utilize the units. You mention several options but it sounds as though you aren't sure, and that uncertainty makes me recommend rescinding. You will likely find converting the units to StarPoints to be of less value than you expect, as the previous post details. You did great buying resale for SDO...I suggest the same for WKV, even without the benefit of conversion (this assumes that you would use the StarOptions to stay at other SVN timeshares - that's how I use my WKV unit, and it works great for this purpose).


Sent from my iPad
 

PamMo

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...What can you do with that $14k, well over time you could earn $840 a year at 6%...

Tangentially to the discussion of buying WKV, SMHarman, you've brought up the 6% ROI often - where are you getting a guaranteed 6% return?
 

DeniseM

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You should rescind, do your homework, and solidify your goals, before spending this kind of money...
 

SMHarman

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Tangentially to the discussion of buying WKV, SMHarman, you've brought up the 6% ROI often - where are you getting a guaranteed 6% return?
I'm to an extent picking an arbitrary number, however it is based on conservative S&P500 returns. I've added some links below to back up throwing out there a 6% which according to the links below is the inflation adjusted (real) return. I'm assuming you invest in a low cost S&P500 tracker so there will be fees. Investing in the S&P500 you should even get a 3% dividend return (which is reinvested as part of the 8.7%'s quoted below.
Guaranteed, year to year, no, but over a 10 year time frame with money dripped in and a target cash out date and targeted migration to more secure assets, I think it is a safe number to use in the current economy. 15 years ago I would be laughed at for proposing a 6% target return as too low!

http://pages.stern.nyu.edu/~ adamodar/New_Home_Page/datafile/histretSP.html
Shows the return of the S&P500 a diversified basket of stocks, from 2002-2012 is 8.71% as an arithmetic average.

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/mone...fect-of-inflation-on-stock-returns/54817352/1
It's possible, though, to adjust the market's long-term returns for inflation. When that's done, you can see that stocks have delivered an average annual return of 6.2%, IFA.com says.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/financi...stment-returns-could-be-lower-than-you-think/
However, the compounded annualized return (what you actually earned once volatility was factored in) was about 7.8%.

As you mentioned risk free, I thought I would look for the risk free rate.
http://pages.stern.nyu.edu/~ADAMODAR/New_Home_Page/datafile/histret.html
2002-2011 T Bonds is 6.85%

Although it is not a long run, the last 12 months my 401k has given a 20.62% rate of return. I've attached the screenshot below, clearly a chunk of that is recovering losses from the Jan 2009 crash. An investor from July 2002 to Jan 2009 would have seen zero capital growth, however they would have seen (yield) dividend income.

On that basis, if I had taken 22k out of my investments in October 2012 to buy a timeshare, then that $22,000 would have grown to $26,536. That is $4,536 that could be spent on vacation instead.

There is a great spreadsheet
http://www.tug2.net/advice/Timeshare_Ownership_Cost_Comparison.xls
Which does a fantastic job pulling out the fact that if you pull a lot of captal out of investment to put into timeshare, a non appreciating asset, then the saving on the room rate better be worth it as that saving aligns to the loss of return on you capital investment.
I use 6% in this spreadsheet as my rate of return on investment.

An alternative to spending $17,500 on a WKV Plat Plus week is to put that money into my 401k. In doing so, I reduce my taxes by my marginal rate * 17.5k and start earning a tax free return on that full 17,500k. Now I should be doing the 401k thing anyway before I start thinking of buying timeshares (I am), but I am not sure everyone does. It is a powerful argument for SDO and trading over WKV and StarOptions. The SDO gives you a free $17k to utilize elsewhere.
 

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lizap

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Excellent analysis, except for the 6% ror assumption. Many people would not invest this $ in the stock market, but would park it in a money market or interest bearing account, where the ror is next to nothing..


Congratulations on your purchase and congratulations on using the trade in option. This makes your deal slightly better than most would get but likely stil not great...

You indicate you have a balance of $22k to pay off. Assuming that you have that money on hand and invested in equities you will now be losing a 6% return. That is $1320 (or your previous SDO Maintainance fee) per year.

If you are financing this apply your own APR and add that $ value to the current vacation costs.


Now onto the upfront cost.
So just looking at the classifieds here $4500 will get you the same unit. That's their offer, I'm sure your bid will be lower, lets say you hit at $4k, you are paying $22k for units you could pick up for $8k, so paying $14k for Gold for Life and the ability to exchange into StarPoints.

What can you do with that $14k, well over time you could earn $840 a year at 6%. You could spend it on StarPoints, even at 3.5c each that would buy you 400k StarPoints.

MORE FUN THINGS TO DO THAN GIVE $14K OF YOUR HARD EARNED TO PAY STARWOOD COMMISSIONS.



I answered similar questions in this thread yesterday
http://tugbbs.com/forums/showthread.php?t=200868

Elite status for life with SPG?
First it is GFL of ownership. Sell the unit, lose GFL.
Second you can get Gold with a spend on the Starwood Amex. If you are travelling to all those other timeshares then I am sure you can put $25k of spend onto your Starwood Amex and get Gold each year.

http://www304.americanexpress.com/getthecard/learn-about/Starwood-Preferred

You also get 25k StarPoints for signing up.

Gold for life is a benefit you can get with daily spend on the Starwood Ax Card - What is your end goal of GFL - Unless you are regularly staying in Starwood Hotels (not timeshares) it is just another gold piece of plastic in your wallet.

Four weeks at a property we really like?
Yes you do, however you likely had similar access by trading your SDO weeks in II for WKV weeks. Many own at SDO and use II to trade for WKV with great success. You still don't have 12mo in advance access to WKV platinum weeks as you own gold weeks.

You have also doubled your MF to 1300 per unit per year so $2600 of MF (on top of the lost return on the $22k you no longer have invested earning $1300 a year)

Access to Star points for hotel/airfare?
Ongoing there is (1300MF + 129SVO) /2 a year gets 81k SO or 48k SP (plus the $99 conversion fee).
So ongoing... 1528 gets you 48k StarPoints. That is 3.18c a point.
The second unit at 1300+39+99= 2.99c a point.

You can buy 20,000 points a year for $700 right now (3.5c/point)
https://buy.points.com/PointsPartne...l?language=EN&product=BUY&CAMPAIGNCODE=PDCBuy
Once a year they have a sale so you can get them for 20% off (2.8c/point)
http://boardingarea.com/loyaltytrav...ng-starpoints-at-20-off/#sthash.xjnW4yK4.dpbs

YOU ARE BETTER PAYING CASH FOR THE AMOUNT OF STAR OPTIONS YOU CAN AQUIRE FOR YOUR MAINTAINANCE FEE. BAD DEAL

So buying to exchange for StarPoints is not a good reason to keep this deal.

The same math for a Platinum Plus unit (if you owned such a thing) at WKV would be
1300+129+99 costs gets 72,000 StarOptions at 2.1c each. This could be good value to use for a European Vacation, using those points for nights in Paris, Rome, Venice, London etc, but still you need a good reason to do the exchange.


So overall, as usual buying from a developer is a bad deal, the StarOption conversion in this deal is also bad.

Recommendations.
  • Get a Starwood Amex, spend enough money with it to get Gold Status (if you are going to use the status)
  • Trade your SDO units on Interval International (II) to exchange for weeks at WKV.
  • Join TUG, you will get access to the Sightings / Distressed forum and can see when WKV is dropped into II
  • If you really want WKV consider buying a Platinum Plus unit resale. Target price should be around $17k (or lower). That will get you 148,100 StarOptions for 1300+129 a year MF. Those will get you 4 weeks in Gold Season at WKV (in the Deluxe (smaller) 1Br). You will also still have your two SDO weeks. That gets you 6 weeks in the Scottsdale each year and trading the SDO into WKV gets you six weeks at WKV if that is your plan.

Apparently we can come off 'aggressive' around these parts when someone asks for advice about buying a retail unit. It's because the above reasons mean you are better off buying resale, not because we don't want you to stick around an learn more.

My question for you, what were the units you traded in. I'm assuming they were 1Br otherwise you would have a higher annual MF.

:hi:
 

SMHarman

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Excellent analysis, except for the 6% ror assumption. Many people would not invest this $ in the stock market, but would park it in a money market or interest bearing account, where the ror is next to nothing..
Thank you.

It is tough to do any financial analysis where money is free and I have detailed how I came to the 6% rate.

While everyone should have a level of cash with short term availability, the pick your duration 3 - 6 - 9 - 12m - 2y of living expenses less unemployment benefit sitting in cash, beyond that you should be invested. Money sitting in cash at the moment is shrinking. Inflation is tracking at 1.5%* , your best CD is paying 1.05%** less tax so say, 0.75% so every year you keep that money in cash each $1,000 loses $75 of purchasing power.
http://www.coffeehouseinvestor.com/...3/04/The-Awesome-Portfolio-Checklist-8x11.pdf
is a great one page, third item on the left "make sure you invest idle cash"

That money used to buy a timeshare 'should' be invested and spare money, not the short term pot, and that money should be invested to protect against inflation.

I think that was another point. If I had invested that $1k in my 401k's asset allocation in October last year it would now be $1200.

Even in retirement your asset allocation should include equity to inflation protect your retirement, less than as a 30 year old, but still include equity.

* http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/historical-inflation-rates/
** http://www.bankrate.com/funnel/cd-i...ide_40_CDs_15_1_Yr_CD_cd-rates.aspx_new-york_
 
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Bob808

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We just signed a purchase agreement with Starwood at Kierland in Scottsdale. We purchased four weeks (two two-bedroom lockout units). The Starwood list price was $20K per unit. Each unit is worth 81,000 Star options or 48,000 Star points. Combined, this purchase represents 162,000 Star options or 96,000 Star points for trading purposes. We thought we had gotten a good deal with this purchase.

We've been owners at the Sheraton Desert Oasis for some years. I currently own two weeks at the Desert Oasis and we love it. We picked up the Desert Oasis properties on the resale market for about $600 total. Our combined maintenance fees at the Desert Oasis is about $1350 annually. During our most recent stay (Oct. 20-27) we took in the owners update meeting ($100 AMEX gift card) for two hours of our time. During the presentation, Starwood clued us into an owners upgrade program that lets us trade in our two weeks ownership at the Desert Oasis Under the program, we received full credit for the original purchase price for each of the one bedroom units that we acquired on the resale market. On paper, that worked out to approximately $18,000 in equity trade-in value that Starwood was giving us. (Not a bad return for an initial $600 cash outlay).
Applying the $18,000 trade-in equity towards the $40,000 list price for the Kieran units left us with a balance of $22,000 to pay off.

So what does this $22,000 investment buy us? Gold Elite status for life with SPG? Four weeks at a property we really like? Access to Star points for hotel/airfare? We own two properties at HGVC. We've exercised our trading options through HGVC over the years for air travel and cruises. We see SPG giving us similar travel and vacation flexibility. But is having that flexibility worth the cost? These are some the questions we have.

We love the Scottsdale area and plan to add an additional two weeks to our portfolio. Is the Starwood offer a reasonable course of action or should we rescind and pursue other avenues on the resale market? I'm in day one of seven on our right to rescind. The perspective from the forurm users is appreciated. Thanks.

Contrary to the above I know you will be happy with your purchase of a property you will enjoy for years to come, the ability to convert Staroptions into Starpoints which opens a whole new pathway to experience the Starwood brand worldwide and which cannot be done with resale, and the amenities of your new SPG status. Congratulations!
 

DavidnRobin

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LOL - contrary to the opinion of saving money...
{and not a minor amount}
But, someone must keep the boat afloat - buy buy buy!
 

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LOL - contrary to the opinion of saving money...
{and not a minor amount}
But, someone must keep the boat afloat - buy buy buy!

Versus buying what you want rather than settling for less. :)
 
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DeniseM

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Bob - did you buy all your weeks from the developer?
 

Bob808

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Hi Denise, yes I did buy all my weeks from the developer. I found TUGG some time after my purchases. Since joining I have found TUGG is a great website to learn how to purchase these properties for less and I hope to buy resale in the future for much less. There are a lot of smart posters here with good information.

The money is spent and cannot be recovered. That said, I do enjoy how well SPG and SVN treat me with some perks and conveniences not available to resale purchasers.
 

DavidnRobin

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Versus buying what you want rather than settling for less. :)

I do not recall settling for less (did I say settle for less?) - as we own 2 weeks at WSJ, and OFD at WKORV (resale). As well as two hard-to-find 81K 1Bd WKV Plat/Prem (also resale) - that I rent to help cover the huge MFs of my other VOIs.

I did buy WPORV from SVO (there is a long thread about this) - in hindsight would have still brought WPORV because villa location is important to us (we are 3 for 3 in getting the HH section of B7), but should have bought resale at 90% less than SVO charges. I might have made up for about $10K (in incentives, etc) of the $20K that I over spent back in 2008.

Buying these resales from SVO instead may have gotten us to 5*/PFL - but for us - is not worth the huge investment involved (>$50K?), and a reason we brought resale we we intend to go. Plus, I only have 3 weeks vacation per year.

I even think for some (probably like yourself) that being 5*/PFL can be worth it (as long as it is kept in perspective) - but not the norm - but it is certainly possible to get to 5*/PFL without buying all VOIs from SVO - thus savings lots of $$$. But, the math rarely works (without fuzzy vision) out when just focusing on the only real thing lost and that is the ability to convert SOs to SPs) - especially with the continuing devaluation of SPs. Besides we have about 300K SPs from the AMEX SPG card alone.

All kidding aside - it is probably good for the overall SVO population that very few know about TUG and pay full-freight - because the SVO business model - without new resorts being built - is on shaky ground. (IMO)
 

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Hi Denise, yes I did buy all my weeks from the developer. I found TUGG some time after my purchases. Since joining I have found TUGG is a great website to learn how to purchase these properties for less and I hope to buy resale in the future for much less. There are a lot of smart posters here with good information.

The money is spent and cannot be recovered. That said, I do enjoy how well SPG and SVN treat me with some perks and conveniences not available to resale purchasers.
From your ownership data <<<
It looks like you are 5*E with 5 Platinum Plus 2Br LO at 148,100 points a week.
The economics of exchanging those weeks, especially the WLR weeks for StarPoints is far different than exchanging an non Plat Plus week like the one the OP purchased.
Enjoy the perks, I hope to have the spare disposable to get there one day :) [With trade ins and requals]
All kidding aside - it is probably good for the overall SVO population that very few know about TUG and pay full-freight - because the SVO business model - without new resorts being built - is on shaky ground. (IMO)
Quite possible, though this 'booming' economy may get them back into construction mode.
 
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Ken555

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Quite possible, though this 'booming' economy may get them back into construction mode.

While not a new resort, they are continuing to build out a few existing locations. I'm at WDW this week (perfect weather) and am in building 18, which just opened up three weeks ago (next to building 4, adjacent to the new pool).


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J&JFamily

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While not a new resort, they are continuing to build out a few existing locations. I'm at WDW this week (perfect weather) and am in building 18, which just opened up three weeks ago (next to building 4, adjacent to the new pool).


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Hi Ken, since you're at WDW, do you think you could get an updated resort map so the map in the stickies can be updated?

(Sorry, not trying to hijack this thread.)
 

Ken555

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Sheraton Desert Oasis
Hi Ken, since you're at WDW, do you think you could get an updated resort map so the map in the stickies can be updated?

(Sorry, not trying to hijack this thread.)

They had a new map at registration, but the one they gave me was the old version without the new building. I suppose they won't have a new map until they run out of the old maps, since it would be quite hard to get lost in the new area...


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