Offer Help - Westin Lagunamar

[Ken555]

Not considering it is like saying that regardless of the price to pay it is the same thing. 5k, 10k, 15k whatever right?

You're smarter than that. Is that really the question you want to ask? No need to denigrate others just because you don't agree with them.


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[DannyTS]

You're smarter than that. Is that really the question you want to ask? No need to denigrate others just because you don't agree with them.


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I do not see why that would be considered a personal attack, we just seem to have a different point of view. But I am sorry Ken555 if what I said seemed that way.

 

[Ken555]

I do not see why that would be considered a personal attack, we just seem to have a different point of view. But I am sorry Ken555 if what I said seemed that way.

No worries. But it's strange to suggest that after all my posts you think I would equate 5k and 20k, and how else should I take it?

You're relatively new to TUG. We have had many discussions about opportunity cost. I don't believe the consensus opinion has changed over the years in that it's quite rare for a timeshare owner to think thru and adhere to investing the money otherwise spent on a timeshare as a means of justifying one purchase over another. That's why I wrote what I did earlier. Does that make sense? The fact you can obviously handle and desire to consider opportunity cost with your purchases indicates that you will likely have a lower overall cost than most people, and while thats great it does not account for the indication that most people cannot. Fwiw, I've done exactly that in the past and continue to do so with other purchases but vacation ownership is not the same and I've learned to treat it differently. My opinion.


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[DannyTS]

i am glad we are ok. Again, i can be over analytical sometimes but we have bought TSs and are on TUG primarily to have fun !

 

[Maui_ed]

Consistent, average, inconsistent...it almost doesn't matter from my perspective. I used to think like you but over the years have realized that a timeshare purchase should not be done with necessary money...that's the primary reason I don't consider the opportunity cost any longer for this type of purchase. If you want to be more exact, then you would of course naturally consider opportunity cost but it's also one more variable which can change the total cost if the economy doesn't go the way you expect etc etc. I just make it easy for myself and don't bother to add that in, and for the vast majority of timeshare owners I would suggest thats the way they also look at it.


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Well put.

 

[dioxide45]

Can you rent SVV-Bella Plat for more than 2x the MFs?
You can with WKV Plat.


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WHile it may rent for 2X the MFs, that doesn't help the OP. They plan to use the SOs. Once you rent them, you now have no where to stay. Of course you could perhaps go out and rent something else on your own. WKF is a good renter, and it has the resale value because of that, but if you are comparing SVV to WKV from a usage perspective, rentability doesn't really matter.

 

[dioxide45]

No worries. But it's strange to suggest that after all my posts you think I would equate 5k and 20k, and how else should I take it?

You're relatively new to TUG. We have had many discussions about opportunity cost. I don't believe the consensus opinion has changed over the years in that it's quite rare for a timeshare owner to think thru and adhere to investing the money otherwise spent on a timeshare as a means of justifying one purchase over another. That's why I wrote what I did earlier. Does that make sense? The fact you can obviously handle and desire to consider opportunity cost with your purchases indicates that you will likely have a lower overall cost than most people, and while thats great it does not account for the indication that most people cannot. Fwiw, I've done exactly that in the past and continue to do so with other purchases but vacation ownership is not the same and I've learned to treat it differently. My opinion.


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I think the difference with opportunity cost here is if you are comparing SVV to WKV. If the difference in price you are paying is $6,000 then you really should take in to consideration the opportunity cost of that $6,000. You could either leave the $6,000 in investments and earn the income or pull it out where it is very unlikely to increase in value "invested" in WKV. The utility of the 81,000 SOs at SVV is the same as the 81,000 SOs at WKV.

 

[TravelTime]

Thank you everyone for your feed back, We did do the "Explorer package" which included locking in the price, 70k hotel points, gold status, and another week stay next year for about $2k. Seemed like an okay deal just because the week stay ~$1.2k and the 70k points can pay for a few short trips we had planned.

The reason we liked the deal was it included some sort of unlimited "internal" vacation uses. How they explained it was theres this website that has vacations for extremely cheap, like going to the Bahamas for $49 a night at. And they said you can sell those or rent your Lagunamar vacation out and use these cheap vacations for yourself. I'm not sure exactly what it was called but it seemed pretty cool. Does anyone know what I'm talking about and has used these?

Oh no, I hope it is not part of ICE Rewards. ICE goes by many different names depending on the timeshare including it. It is terrible. I was stupid to upgrade to a lifetime membership on ICE for about $3000 before discovering how useless it is. I think we ended up at least breaking even because we took two trips to expensive resorts. But there is little to anything of value on ICE.

 

[Ken555]

I think the difference with opportunity cost here is if you are comparing SVV to WKV. If the difference in price you are paying is $6,000 then you really should take in to consideration the opportunity cost of that $6,000. You could either leave the $6,000 in investments and earn the income or pull it out where it is very unlikely to increase in value "invested" in WKV. The utility of the 81,000 SOs at SVV is the same as the 81,000 SOs at WKV.

I believe I answered this earlier, at least twice. Did you read it?


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[TravelTime]

If you like Lagunamar and think you will travel there regularly in prime season (platinum plus) you can buy resale. You can PM me if you need more info, we are new resale owners so we just went through the process. You can also exchange in Interval International when you want to travel somewhere else.

If you like more flexibility and a reasonable cost you can also buy a 2 bedroom platinum season Sheraton Vistana Villages Bella or Key West phases. The phases are very important because you need a mandatory resort in order to be able to use the Staroptions, about 81k for the above. The advantage with Staroptions is that if you do not have to travel during the prime season, it will be very economical. A one bedroom at Lagunamar is 81k SOs platinum season, while the same condo in gold season is 44k SOs.

There is a third option that is popular for SOs, Westin Kierland. A one bedroom platinum comes with 81k SOs, the maintenance fees are lower than at Sheraton Vistana Villages. The purchase price is much higher though, IMO not worth it if you do not intend to rent your week. When you take into consideration that you can invest the difference between the price of Westin Kierland and the Sheraton Vistana Villages , the opportunity cost makes SVV a better choice but it depends of course on the expected rate of return.

What I do not understand is why buy less desirable Vistana resorts when they cost almost the same when you add up all the SOs and MFs. We bought WKOVR-N EOY 2 bedroom OF LO Platinum for $12,000 or so. It comes with 176K points EOY. I would rather buy this than pay $8K for for 81K options every year at Westin Kierkland. In the end, the MFs are about the same and we get a few more StarOptions per year plus much more trading power and rental potential than most other Vistana mandatory resorts for the price.

 

[Ken555]

What I do not understand is why buy less desirable Vistana resorts when they cost almost the same when you add up all the SOs and MFs. We bought WKOVR-N EOY 2 bedroom OF LO Platinum for $12,000 or so. It comes with 176K points EOY. I would rather buy this than pay $8K for for 81K options every year at Westin Kierkland. In the end, the MFs are about the same and we get a few more StarOptions per year plus much more trading power and rental potential than most other Vistana mandatory resorts for the price.

The MF are most definitely NOT the same.


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[TravelTime]

Not considering it is like saying that regardless of the price to pay it is the same thing since you do not buy with necessary money. 5k, 10k, 15k whatever right? Not considering all costs is not my style (i agree that i can be over analytic sometimes). I do not buy the lifestyle argument (used by the way by the developer sales people) , you can have that and a lower cost, nothing wrong with it.

For those of us with a surplus of vacation funds, timeshares are a great deal over hotel rooms and offer better quality than AirBnB. So I am just grateful for what I have and take a big picture view of the benefits. I believe there are cost savings but I do not focus on that as my reason for purchasing. We still do hotel rentals as needed as well as own vacation homes that sit empty and we do not rent because we do not like people in our homes.

 

[TravelTime]

The MF are most definitely NOT the same.


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For an EOY WKOVR, we pay about $2600, I think, about $1300 per year for 176K SOs. But for the same number of annual MFs with the approx same number of SOs, you would be paying about $1300 a year. So doesn't it end up working out to about the same?

 

[Ken555]

For an EOY WKOVR, we pay about $2600, I think, about $1300 per year for 176K SOs. But for the same number of annual MFs with the approx same number of SOs, you would be paying about $1300 a year. So doesn't it end up working out to about the same?

Each use year is ~$2600 for you and ~$1600 (after svn fee) for WKV. I can get exact costs later if you like. That's about $1000 difference... Yours is 176k and mine is 148k, but the wkorv 148k weeks are about, or exactly, the same as yours. So if you plan on using SOs, which would you prefer? FWIW, I would never want to use SOs from WKORV because of the expense (and I use most of my WKV SOs at WKORV!).


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[TravelTime]

Each use year is ~$2600 for you and ~$1600 (after svn fee) for WKV. I can get exact costs later if you like. That's about $1000 difference... Yours is 176k and mine is 148k, but the wkorv 148k weeks are about, or exactly, the same as yours. So if you plan on using SOs, which would you prefer? FWIW, I would never want to use SOs from WKORV because of the expense (and I use most of my WKV SOs at WKORV!).


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Okay, I was comparing to 81K SOs at Kierkland since that it was they were discussing. You must own platinum season at Kierland. I evaluated but vetoed Kierkland or other locations because we wanted Maui. We are not super price sensitive. We preferred paying a little more to get what we want and be able to book 12 months in advance. I do not think there is a major price difference between what we bought to get what we want vs buying somewhere we did not want to stay and stressing about trying to book at 8 months.

This is the lowest price annual Kierkland unit I found on Redweek with 148K SOs. https://www.redweek.com/posting/R788641

The maintenance fees are $1600 per year for 148K SOs (if you buy a Platinum week, otherwise it is a waste of money). I pay $1300 for 88K SOs. But Maui is more valuable and available to me 50 weeks of the year with the 12 month booking window and it is where we want to go. I do not mind the increased cost for SO. The upfront fees were a couple thousand less too.

Unless you buy Platinum at Kierkland, buying Maui EOY Platinum seems to make more sense.

 

[jordathyspg]

I’ll wade into the SVV vs WKV debate.

We recently closed on a 2 BR LO Platinum at WKV. We had seriously considered a mandatory SVV unit as the acquisiton cost is materially cheaper, and the concept of opportunity cost is not lost on me (I’m a CPA).

Interestingly my conservative accountant nature is what made us choose WKV. In an albeit unlikely doomsday scenario where Mariott decides to blowup the whole staroptions system, I’d rather be left with a deed to WKV. It rents better and it’s a first class property. At that point it may not be worth 15-16k, but it will be worth something. Someone who is handier than me with a financial calculator could do a PV calculation on the value of those expected future net cash flows. On the flip side SVV would potentially be one of the many FL timeshares you’d have to pay to give away. Now I do not think this is a likely outcome, but after reading all sorts of commentary the past few years on the topic I fall under the buy where you want to go camp. We also like Hawaii. If and when we buy another TS, it will likely be WKORV/N for that same reason.

As an aside, these types of spirited discussions (as long as they remain respectful) are what I love about TUG. I lurked here for several years before being in a position to acquire our unit, and I’ve learned more than I could ever have imagined about the ins and outs and pros and cons of time shares and specifically Starwood/Vistana timeshares.

 

[Ken555]

Okay, I was comparing to 81K SOs at Kierkland since that it was they were discussing. You must own platinum season at Kierland. I evaluated but vetoed Kierkland or other locations because we wanted Maui. We are not super price sensitive. We preferred paying a little more to get what we want and be able to book 12 months in advance. I do not think there is a major price difference between what we bought to get what we want vs buying somewhere we did not want to stay and stressing about trying to book at 8 months.

This is the lowest price annual Kierkland unit I found on Redweek with 148K SOs. https://www.redweek.com/posting/R788641

The maintenance fees are $1600 per year for 148K SOs (if you buy a Platinum week, otherwise it is a waste of money). I pay $1300 for 88K SOs. But Maui is more valuable and available to me 50 weeks of the year with the 12 month booking window and it is where we want to go. I do not mind the increased cost for SO. The upfront fees were a couple thousand less too.

Unless you buy Platinum at Kierkland, buying Maui EOY Platinum seems to make more sense.

For most people, the only units worth considering at WKR are the Platinum weeks. That's why the only references in this thread to that resort are about the 1-bed 81k Plat or 2-bed 148k Plat weeks.

There are many reasons to buy WKORV, but SO usage is not one of them.


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[TravelTime]

For most people, the only units worth considering at WKR are the Platinum weeks. That's why the only references in this thread to that resort are about the 1-bed 81k Plat or 2-bed 148k Plat weeks.

There are many reasons to buy WKORV, but SO usage is not one of them.


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It seemed like people were talking about 81K units at WKR. Maybe I was confused then.

 

[Ken555]

It seemed like people were talking about 81K units at WKR. Maybe I was confused then.

The WKV 1-bed platinum week is 81k, and is a great unit to own on a MF basis. There are also much more commonly available 2-bed Gold 81k weeks, which cost the same MF as the 148k Plat week so is obviously much less valuable. They are not the same.


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[TravelTime]

The WKV 1-bed platinum week is 81k, and is a great unit to own on a MF basis. There are also much more commonly available 2-bed Gold 81k weeks, which cost the same MF as the 148k Plat week so is obviously much less valuable. They are not the same.


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Yes, I agree that a 148K WKR Platinum unit is a cost effective purchase, assuming you want to use it or you can easily trade for other places you want to visit at the 8 month mark.

 

[DannyTS]

I’ll wade into the SVV vs WKV debate.

We recently closed on a 2 BR LO Platinum at WKV. We had seriously considered a mandatory SVV unit as the acquisiton cost is materially cheaper, and the concept of opportunity cost is not lost on me (I’m a CPA).

Interestingly my conservative accountant nature is what made us choose WKV. In an albeit unlikely doomsday scenario where Mariott decides to blowup the whole staroptions system, I’d rather be left with a deed to WKV. It rents better and it’s a first class property. At that point it may not be worth 15-16k, but it will be worth something. Someone who is handier than me with a financial calculator could do a PV calculation on the value of those expected future net cash flows. On the flip side SVV would potentially be one of the many FL timeshares you’d have to pay to give away. Now I do not think this is a likely outcome, but after reading all sorts of commentary the past few years on the topic I fall under the buy where you want to go camp. We also like Hawaii. If and when we buy another TS, it will likely be WKORV/N for that same reason.

As an aside, these types of spirited discussions (as long as they remain respectful) are what I love about TUG. I lurked here for several years before being in a position to acquire our unit, and I’ve learned more than I could ever have imagined about the ins and outs and pros and cons of time shares and specifically Starwood/Vistana timeshares.

I hear the renting argument but the odds of not being able to rent every year are high enough, not to mention that there are work and taxes involved. In a doomsday scenario more owners would try to rent their WKV weeks (since the resale owners could not use the SOs), the increased availability would make the rental and purchase prices plummet.

Redweek:
Westin Princeville 2 bedrooms EY: $3,899 (Maint. Fee: $3,049.00) (voluntary)

Westin Ka’anapali 2 bedrooms EY: $9,500 (Maint. Fee: $3,341.97) (mandatory)

You can also compare WKV with SDO (a giveaway)

It seems that being a mandatory resort increases the value by quite a bit. In the doomsday scenario, SVV would probably lose $1500-1800 while WKV would shed 2 or 3 times that.

To me it is use the SOs or sell. From a strictly financial POV, in a doomsday scenario I would rather sell and lose $1500 than $5000 or more. So once the opportunity cost is considered, I still believe that SVV mandatory is both cheaper to operate and less risky than WKV.

 

[K.Miguel]

WOAH! It seems like there is a lot more to know before going in on it. It also sounds like I needed to give more background about us.

We only plan to use/get 5-7 nights per year. The reason is we only have 10-15 PTO days per year and don't want to use them all on one vacation. Our thoughts on getting the time share was to mainly use and we like the flexibility to go to other resorts not just Lagunamar. So I guess if we were to do the resale it would have to be one of the mandatory resorts right? I don't want to say we are tight on budget but we are just in our 20s and trying to get a good stance on life so we want to get the cheapest/ most bang for your buck. It doesn't have to be 22 nights during platinum plus season. If we were to buy one it would be only 5-10nights and we wouldn't plan to resell. We would think to be using/ having it for the rest of our lives and potentially upgrading once we have more time and money.

Our normal yearly vacations is about 7nts / yr and about $175 a night in hotels = $1225 (almost double the MFs at Lagunamar) That's our underlying thought.

 

[DannyTS]

WOAH! It seems like there is a lot more to know before going in on it. It also sounds like I needed to give more background about us.

We only plan to use/get 5-7 nights per year. The reason is we only have 10-15 PTO days per year and don't want to use them all on one vacation. Our thoughts on getting the time share was to mainly use and we like the flexibility to go to other resorts not just Lagunamar. So I guess if we were to do the resale it would have to be one of the mandatory resorts right? I don't want to say we are tight on budget but we are just in our 20s and trying to get a good stance on life so we want to get the cheapest/ most bang for your buck. It doesn't have to be 22 nights during platinum plus season. If we were to buy one it would be only 5-10nights and we wouldn't plan to resell. We would think to be using/ having it for the rest of our lives and potentially upgrading once we have more time and money.

Our normal yearly vacations is about 7nts / yr and about $175 a night in hotels = $1225 (almost double the MFs at Lagunamar) That's our underlying thought.

If you are going to travel in gold seasons you may look at one bedroom Sheraton Vistana Villages Bella or Key West, you would get 51700 SOs a year. I would not buy any gold week there though, they are hard to sell if you ever want to plus the maintenance fees are the same as platinum.

I do not know how hard to find are the one bedroom deeds. You should not pay more than 600-1000 (my guess) plus closing costs, the maintenance fees should be around 600.
When I calculate my cost per week I add 10% of the initial cost (price plus closing) to the maintenance fees. So in this example you would have $600 plus $120 (assuming your initial cost is $1200), $720.
Now if you compare that with what you would pay for a hotel room/suite, you will probably save money and stay in a nice resort.
Use LT transfers for a low cost.
Good luck and do not rush

 

[Ken555]

Redweek:
Westin Princeville 2 bedrooms EY: $3,899 (Maint. Fee: $3,049.00) (voluntary)

Westin Ka’anapali 2 bedrooms EY: $9,500 (Maint. Fee: $3,341.97) (mandatory)

Didn't you post earlier than the WKORV MFs are just $2600? I think both for these MFs are incorrect. WKORV does have the deluxe units with higher MFs, and perhaps the sample unit you found is one of those but the more common unit is less expensive.


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[DannyTS]

Didn't you post earlier than the WKORV MFs are just $2600? I think both for these MFs are incorrect. WKORV does have the deluxe units with higher MFs, and perhaps the sample unit you found is one of those but the more common unit is less expensive.


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I copied/pasted from Redweek. My point was that the mandatory status does have value and that Kierland would have a lot to lose if it became voluntary. I have to point out again, i give this scenario a low to zero probability.