Bought from developer Westin Princeville...

Hello everybody,

We just came from Kauai where we bought The Westin Princeville Ocean Resort Villas Every Other Year from a developer. Price right now is $39,600 for lock off two bedroom unit.

After I returned I found your forum with the vast of information. Now I am thinking about to rescind. Your main suggestions are to buy resale, where you do not have StarPoints and often StarOptions as well. So the main exchange is trough exchange companies to other resorts.

I wonder if these points make a good value if I want to spend every third year in Hawaii and then go to other different places that are not resorts but good hotels in the cities (i.e. Paris, Rome, Barcelona…). Will I save if instead of renting hotels I will buy this WPORV with all SO’s and SP’s? I still have time to rescind.

Thank you for the help.
Art

the mantra you are going to receive on this board is to rescind, to pay that much money for an annual use timeshare is a hard pill to swallow.......but should never, never happen eoy. If you want to go to princeville eoy, you can pick up an annual 2br ocean view at WKORV in maui for $28,000 on the tug classifieds right now....that is the asking price...you can likely get it for less. You can probably trade with staroptions into princeville with this often if you are flexible, or you can buy at Kierland for $20,000 annual and use the staroption to get to princeville. This will also have a much lower maintenance fee. If you absolutely have to go to princeville at peak holiday times....then the thing to do is to rescind, and buy a cheap resale at westin mission hills for like 8,000 for a 2br platinum, and then buy the princevill under hte condition that they will requalify the wmh staroptions, this would at least make it a little better deal.
To put it in perspective once again for the price you are paying you could have 2 annual kierland weeks, which would get you to princeville four times as much as what you are buying.

RESCIND!!


Your purchase from Starwood may be a good deal for you and it may not be a good deal. But unless you rescind now, you will not be able to rescind.

After rescinding, do all you can to find out if a developer purchase makes sense for you. If it does, you'll have no problem buying Princeville from Starwood again. If it doesn't make sense, you'll have rescinded and not own a TS that after researching doesn't make sense for you.

Good Luck

Since you bought an EOY, that means that you will have the use of your resort every other year or the use of your Starpoints EOY. So if you use your unit 1 out of 4 year, you will have 80K Starpoints to use the other 3 years. Not 80K per year - 80K total for 3 years. That might get you 3 long weekends if you are lucky.

Go to SPG.com and see the Starpoint requirements for the hotels you'd like to visit. 80K won't get you far. The owners who get the most out of their Starpoints own multiple weeks and have Starpoints to burn.

My advice - buy resale and get a Starwood AMEX to earn FREE Starpoints.

Good luck!

You have to figure out what's most important to you and then do some math.

1) How important is it to stay in Kauai and what season do you wish to travel in?

If you simply must stay in Kauai in July, then you should probably buy there because we don't have data as to how easy it would be to trade into that resort. Summer and late December - March are high season. If they have fewer than 200 villas, then you might find it impossible to trade into a la Westin St. John because the demand may outweigh the supply.

On the other hand, if Maui would work, then you'll have a fairly easy trade from any resort, unless you want/need to travel during the summer, where it might be more difficult. There are over 700 villas in Maui currently with more on the horizon, so trading into Hawaii should get more and more easy as time passes.

2) How important is the ability to convert to StarPoints?

You won't be able to convert to StarPoints if you buy resale. However, consider carefully how important this is to you. Your 2 bdrm lock-off converts to 88k StarPoints. MFs will probably run around $1700, if they are similar to Maui. I don't have time to adjust the below chart for 88k StarOptions, but here is what 80k StarPoints would net TODAY:

33-50 nights in Cat. 1 (3k per night weekend; 2k per night weekday; no 5th night free)
25-33 nights in Cat. 2 (4k per weekend; 3k per weekday; no 5th night free)
17 nights in Cat. 3 (7k per night; 28k for 5 nights)
12 nights in Cat. 4 (40k for 5 nights; 10k per night)
7-10 nights in Cat. 5, depending on season (48-65k for 5 nights + 12-16k per night)
4-6 nights in Cat. 6 (80-100k for 5 nights + 20-25k per night)
2-3 nights in Cat. 7 (30-35k per night; insufficent points for 5 nights (120-140k)

So check around to see what the category is of some hotels that interest you and compare the StarPoints to the nightly rate.

(Note that as time passes, your MFs will increase while the number of nights you'll get for them will decrease because Starwood occasionally revamps its program, which in turn devalues StarPoints.)

3) Consider how often you'll stay at your home resort.

This is very important because this is where you'll pay your MFs. If I only wanted to travel to Hawaii every 3rd year, I wouldn't buy in Hawaii unless I really wanted to travel during high season. Rather, I'd buy a mandatory 2 bdrm lock-out at a location with more reasonably priced MFs and that has enough StarOptions to get where I wanted to trade into. And I'd buy on the resale market, which will save 40-60% off developer prices.

For instance, you can get a Platinum EY 2 bdrm at Westin Kierland (Scottsdale, Az) for $20-23k, I believe. (Sorry, I don't know the MFs, but I think they're around $1100.) that will give you 148.1k StarOptions every year, which will get you into any 2 bdrm villa in the network, including Kauai. If you don't want to travel every year, you can deposit your odd years into II to travel to other places, such as Europe.

********

Good luck with your decision.

DeniseM said:

Go to SPG.com and see the Starpoint requirements for the hotels you'd like to visit. 80K won't get you far.

Click to expand...

I think WPORV is worth 88k StarPoints...not that it makes a huge difference.

djp said:

the mantra you are going to receive on this board is to rescind, to pay that much money for an annual use timeshare is a hard pill to swallow.......but should never, never happen eoy. If you want to go to princeville eoy, you can pick up an annual 2br ocean view at WKORV in maui for $28,000 on the tug classifieds right now....that is the asking price...you can likely get it for less. You can probably trade with staroptions into princeville with this often if you are flexible, or you can buy at Kierland for $20,000 annual and use the staroption to get to princeville. This will also have a much lower maintenance fee. If you absolutely have to go to princeville at peak holiday times....then the thing to do is to rescind, and buy a cheap resale at westin mission hills for like 8,000 for a 2br platinum, and then buy the princevill under hte condition that they will requalify the wmh staroptions, this would at least make it a little better deal.
To put it in perspective once again for the price you are paying you could have 2 annual kierland weeks, which would get you to princeville four times as much as what you are buying.

Click to expand...

I would have written this post word for word myself! Katherine

Did you really mean to say that a WPORV EOY is $39.6K? {or is that a typo?}
If so, that makes the decision to rescind a no-brainer.
The MFs at WPORV are over $2K.

btw, I own there - and bought from SVO.
http://www.tugbbs.com/forums/showthread.php?t=43598

I will add something, too, even though I am no Starwood expert.

If you really love Kauai and want ocean view, there are many resorts that provide full ocean views, and the resale price of an annual unit can be about $2,000 to a max of about $15,000 (Shearwater in Princeville). We own at Shearwater and feel our unit was a bargain at $12K, when we bought. I have seen people get them cheaper, for an every year week. Our maintenance fees are around $1,200 (don't remember what we paid this year).

Shearwater has wonderful ocean views, but it isn't Starwood, it is Wyndham. Starwood is more upscale, although Wyndham is determined to bring Shearwater up to a higher standard to match the quality of the Bali Hai interiors. You might find it appealing, but only if you love ocean views and love the idea of Princeville.

Good luck to you, but RESCIND WHILE YOU CAN. I had to shout that.

There is an every-other-year WPORV on Redweek 2Bdrm for 20,000. Is that extra money good value if all you get is some extra trading power?

Michael

Thank you all.

What a board! Clear and fast answers. I really appreciate your input.

I think I will rescind and from that point will try to see what makes sense for my family. We really love Hawaii. We go there about once every three years. That usually happens when our daughter has a spring break ~April. I was thinking to use StarOptions and StarPoints for the other two years to stay in nice resorts and hotels for about a week anywhere in the world. But looks like this can be possible without exorbitant $36,900 price for EOY lock off unit. The maintenance fees there are $2,200 so for EOY that would be $1,100.

Also I did not know (and sales guys did not explain) that I can exchange to StarPoints only every second year what makes every 4th year for EOY timeshare.

Anyway, thank you very much for your input.
Art

Good for you, Art. You have a lot of options out there, and if you rescind, you can take your time and find exactly the right deal for you, with no pressure.

Be sure you follow the instructions in your sales packet for rescinding EXACTLY and get a return receipt.

Then come back and talk timeshare with us!

LisaRex said:

For instance, you can get a Platinum EY 2 bdrm at Westin Kierland (Scottsdale, Az) for $20-23k, I believe. (Sorry, I don't know the MFs, but I think they're around $1100.) that will give you 148.1k StarOptions every year, which will get you into any 2 bdrm villa in the network, including Kauai.

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Kierland Platinum EY maintenance is $1,044.58 + $53.60 taxes + SVN fee

(And for the record I and others have already made reservations at Princeville using our [resale purchased] Kierland StarOptions!)

As others have previously said very well... you can have many, many more wonderful vacations with a $39k investment than what the developer will ever offer you. And converting to StarPoints should be the last option for you... I'd think depositing in II and trading through them would be preferable in any case.

Thank you,

I got zilllion of papers (legal documents) from Starwood. I wonder under which title I can find the option and instructions to rescind?

Art

Art009 said:

Thank you,

I got zilllion of papers (legal documents) from Starwood. I wonder under which title I can find the option and instructions to rescind?

Art

Click to expand...

There should be a form clearly marked - mine was in the back of the Purcahse Agreement package.