Staroptions internal exchange availability

[Rdub79]

Hello all. I am researching the Vistana program and I really love the resort options. The program would complement my other timeshare club with more exotic locations and higher end resorts perfectly. My main concern is internal exchange availability since this is what I would be using it for. I am probably looking at getting a cheap SVV 81,000 deed to use for about 1 week in a 2 bed room per year. I would want to get into:

-Lagunamar in gold season (but not hurricane season, looks like they have some good spring weeks in their gold season)
-Colorado properties in summer season
-Potentially Colorado properties in Ski season for maybe a 4 night mid week stay
-Maybe Maui/Kauia if I borrow the future years points to get to 148,000
-Cabo and St. John in low season (again not hurricane season maybe early summer weeks)

Do these exchanges sound reasonable if Im vigilant at the 8 month mark. Also should there be any concern with this whole merger thing and the buying of deeds for the flex options stuff? Does anyone think this will start to make the staroption internal exchanges harder in the future? Thank you for any feedback given!

 

[DannyTS]

I own SVV and i think it is a great entry point for Staroptions. The availability is decent and your list is long enough to always find something at 8 months. With that being said, from the owners update I attended a couple of months ago, as well as from multiple other reports, I expect changes in the whole Vistana system and some sort of integration with the Marriott Vacation club. This integration can take many forms from a complete fusion where Staroptions become Marriott Destination points or they can allow owners to convert Staroptions to DP to use in the MVC (and vice versa) or an enhanced exchange in Interval between all the MVC owned properties. It is also possible that nothing at all will happen.

In the case of an integration it is hard to know how they would treat the mandatory owners, especially those that buy now after the acquisition. I expect MVC to fully respect the mandatory status but who knows. At the same time, SVV Bella 81,000 Staroptions is not expensive and your downside is probably limited to a couple of grands so even if there is a change, by the time it is implemented in full, you would have gotten enough vacations to at least break even. So as long as you are prepared to accept that the party may not last forever, you will be fine.

Of course there is also the very positive scenario where a mandatory resorts stay mandatory and get access to all MVC properties in addition to Vistana. In that case you can expect the resale price for SVV Bella to go up.

 

[Rdub79]

Yes that was partly my thinking. If I have to give it away in 5 years for free it wouldn't be a huge loss. Do you know if the voluntary resorts include an II membership in there maintenance fees or is that something extra the owner has to pay for out of pocket. My other thought was to buy Lagunamar which I know I will always want to vacation at so I would be good no matter what happens with the merger and then trade in II for exchanges.

 

[DannyTS]

the VSN fee ($145 per year) includes the Interval membership. The VSN allows you to trade with SO and the fee is in addition to the MF of $1181 for a 2 bedroom platinum 81,000 SO at SVV Bella.

 

[Rdub79]

I know that is the case for the mandatory resorts but what about the voluntary resorts? I know usually when looking at resale the maintenance fee includes the VSN fee for the mandatory resorts, but do the owners of voluntary resorts pay a VSN fee also?

 

[vacationtime1]

I know that is the case for the mandatory resorts but what about the voluntary resorts? I know usually when looking at resale the maintenance fee includes the VSN fee for the mandatory resorts, but do the owners of voluntary resorts pay a VSN fee also?

No. But if you want to trade, you must pay for a separate Interval membership.

 

[DannyTS]

I know that is the case for the mandatory resorts but what about the voluntary resorts? I know usually when looking at resale the maintenance fee includes the VSN fee for the mandatory resorts, but do the owners of voluntary resorts pay a VSN fee also?

the voluntary resorts do not pay a VSN fee. The listings are sometimes wrong, at least from a buyer's prospective. In many cases the MF includes the VSN fee that the current owner pays but that fee will not be paid by the new resale owner of a voluntary resort.

 

[bizaro86]

The problem with buying a two bedroom and expecting to trade for a 2 bedroom via II in other Vistana properties is that for some time now Vistana has been mostly/entirely depositing their two bedrooms as "splits." They break it into two pieces and deposit both halves of the lock-off. There are some resorts where this doesn't work because they don't have lock-offs, but that is mostly been what happens. So buying a voluntary with the plan of trading into vistana 2 bedrooms is somewhat risky, imo. If you buy somewhere you'd always be happy going that mitigates much of that risk. And Lagunamar is a great resort.

On the other hand, buying a vistana villages mandatory also has risk. If they merge the programs somehow and either orphan VSN or somehow devalue the SVV weeks, I think giving it away for zero is likely your best case scenario. The non-mandatory phases are already worth zero, and if Marriott screws the mandatory owners there will be a huge increase of supply as people are trying to get out all at once. The market for Orlando-only timeshares is already weak, so I think it is likely the value there would be materially negative (pay someone to take it).

Anyway, just a few thoughts to consider. I'd probably go with the Lagunamar week if I wanted to go there often, and rent it when I wanted to go somewhere else, but ymmv.

 

[DannyTS]

The problem with buying a two bedroom and expecting to trade for a 2 bedroom via II in other Vistana properties is that for some time now Vistana has been mostly/entirely depositing their two bedrooms as "splits." They break it into two pieces and deposit both halves of the lock-off. There are some resorts where this doesn't work because they don't have lock-offs, but that is mostly been what happens. So buying a voluntary with the plan of trading into vistana 2 bedrooms is somewhat risky, imo. If you buy somewhere you'd always be happy going that mitigates much of that risk. And Lagunamar is a great resort.

On the other hand, buying a vistana villages mandatory also has risk. If they merge the programs somehow and either orphan VSN or somehow devalue the SVV weeks, I think giving it away for zero is likely your best case scenario. The non-mandatory phases are already worth zero, and if Marriott screws the mandatory owners there will be a huge increase of supply as people are trying to get out all at once. The market for Orlando-only timeshares is already weak, so I think it is likely the value there would be materially negative (pay someone to take it).

Anyway, just a few thoughts to consider. I'd probably go with the Lagunamar week if I wanted to go there often, and rent it when I wanted to go somewhere else, but ymmv.

If i may add to bizaro86's thoughts, because i own both, Lagunamar also has more trading power in Interval. At least the platinum season, i do not have gold for either so i do not know about that.

I

 

[maddog497]

We just returned last week from SVV at which we attended the update. Not high pressure but once they figured out we owned resale the presentation switched to how the merger would make all resale units worth zero! Ha ha ha.

She tried to explain our limitations on only owning weeks and that was a huge negative. I explained we have SO points because we bought mandatory units. She tried many times to explain I didn't get "all" the perks because of buying resale. I explained we don't spend enough on hotels to justify the added expense.

After that it went to, "In fact" (I believed that is what she said), we would be lucky to have any inventory to choose from once the merger rolls out. To fix this they would take our 95,700 SO (annual} and 67,100 SO (EOY) contracts back at full price in exchange for 110,000 SO annual and we would only need to pay $12,900 for this one time offer.

Time will tell what happens.

Sent from my CLT-L04 using Tapatalk

 

[DannyTS]

we would be lucky to have any inventory to choose from once the merger rolls out.

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we should document these discussions in case we do end up in that place. I do not think so but you never know. We can prove then that MVC made a conscious effort to reduce the usage value of our ownership in order to buy more from them.

I had a similar discussion at Lagunamar a couple of months ago. We were told that, post merger, we would still be able to use our weeks at Lagunamar but we will not be able to add days on star options because the availability will vanish. Because we like to stay more than 7 days but less than 2 weeks we add 2-4 days with SOs.

 

[Rdub79]

That’s interesting about Vistana breaking up the 2 bedrooms in II. Something to consider. How does the booking work if you own a voluntary week at Lagunamar. I know all the deeds seem to have a float option but are also tied to a specific week. How far out can you choose a different week other then your deeded week in the float period.

 

[Mauimama]

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