Westin Flex EOY Purchase

[jabberwocky]

I often book a 2nd week and leave early if I really don't want the extra days or if there is a substantial savings on air when leaving before the weekend. I live in Canada too, so I sympathize that our airfare can be extreme at times, but I have rarely seen that type of (huge) savings be consistent year-after-year based on travelling on a weekday vs. weekend.

I would personally rather have a 2nd owned EOY week in Hawaii, even with those MF's. If I don't use it one year, I'd go ahead and rent it out. You could even rent out the extra few days (if I you leave your unit mid week). Either that, or I'd do a request-ahead in II with your SDO for an additional days (requesting weeks on either side of your Hawaii reservation). Yes, I realize you'll likely not get OV, but if it is just adding on those extra days, that is a cheap way to do it. And as @oneohana suggested, renting from an owner is a good option. And then you have no obligations year after year.

I agree this year seems to be really out of wack for when I'm wanting to book our trip. Max 8 might be driving a large part of this with Westjet and AC. If it gets too pricey I'll just book using Aeroplan - but I usually like to do a revenue ticket to get the free upgrade on the HI flights.

I like the idea of getting a second EOY week. Fees would be pretty high but initial cost would be about the same for an WKORV-N OF unit.

I did talk to the rep again. They didn't seem like they wanted to add Bonvoy points since the price was already "discounted".

 

[WahooWah]

What are your chances of booking less than 7 nights in Maui with Westin Flex points? Westin Flex is only getting you access to a small fraction of units at these resorts when booking more than 8 months before the check in day. And it is likely that you are competing for those rooms with a lopsided ratio of owners to available units.

This is the same problem with Marriott Destinations reservations at the Marriott Maui Ocean Club.

 

[controller1]

What are your chances of booking less than 7 nights in Maui with Westin Flex points? Westin Flex is only getting you access to a small fraction of units at these resorts when booking more than 8 months before the check in day. And it is likely that you are competing for those rooms with a lopsided ratio of owners to available units.

This is the same problem with Marriott Destinations reservations at the Marriott Maui Ocean Club.

It is not difficult to book less than 7 days at WKORV, WKORVN or Nanea with Westin Flex. I've got three days prior to our WKORVN OF week and 5 days after to get us 15 nights next month. Lots of availability as long as you don't want OF since those units are not in the Westin Flex program.

 

[WahooWah]

It is not difficult to book less than 7 days at WKORV, WKORVN or Nanea with Westin Flex. I've got three days prior to our WKORVN OF week and 5 days after to get us 15 nights next month. Lots of availability as long as you don't want OF since those units are not in the Westin Flex program.

What time of year are you booking?

 

[controller1]

What time of year are you booking?

I booked 12 months prior to the reservation. I booked for April 2019 and September 2019 and May 2020.

 

[jabberwocky]

OP here. Apologies in advance for the long post. As promised here are the details for the deal now that we've closed.

Everything is showing up in my online account as expected - they moved very quick even on the requal of our SDO which I wasn't expecting to be in VSN until October. While not perfect we're happy with the deal and looking forward to using our timeshare portfolio.

Background: We had been finding that our annual SVR week wasn't enough for us and had been renting weeks or hotels for several years. We typically go to Florida once every couple of years at a minimum. We go to the Southwestern US every second year after Christmas with my wife's side of the family (this is what drove our SDO EOY purchase). We had done a SO exchange from our SVR week (2 years worth) and landed a WKORV-N exchange. Needless to say we fell in love with the place and I picked up a resale OF unit there for a pretty good deal which we are intending to use during summer vacation when the kids are out of school.

My goal with this flex purchase was twofold - one, get a few extra points to increase our stay in Hawaii (or in Phoenix/Southern CA) and second to requalify our SDO unit. Previous Owner's Updates had all been focused on a minimum $20k purchase to requal. These deals always seemed to end up with proposing that we buy 90k Flex (Sheraton or Westin) and at the same time trade in our SVR Week 51 with new cash coming in at around $13k. Needless to say we didn't bite as it seemed pointless to spend 13k to get only 9k more SO's and lose our SVR week. Having the minimum be dropped to $10k (officially for Flex it is $15k min but they are proving to be flexible on this) made this seem like an opportunity to get what we want.

Just to recap:

Prior to our Flex purchase we owned:

- SVR EY - 81,000 (Developer purchase fixed/float week 51 - our first timeshare - purchased 2013)
- SDO EOYE (True-plat resale purchased in 2016)
- WKORV-N EOYO (Oceanfront 176,700 resale purchase May 2019)

Proposed deal:

- Total package price remained $13k for 67k EOYO Flex + $850 closing.
- Our SDO EOYE would be requalified and result in an extra 148,100 EOYE SO's.
- I was pretty firm in getting the 67,000 Flex package as EOY rather than annual. This was the smallest amount they were willing to sell to us and it also minimizes the ongoing MF's which I find to be the biggest drawback of Flex.
- Explorer package purchase for 7 nights SVV stay (we were planning on going anyways) + 100k Bonvoy points. Cost was $1500. They also let us apply $1300 towards the purchase price of the Flex package.
- They could not give us straight Bonvoy points as we had a 15% discount; however, they did give us 6 certificates to purchase 330k Bonvoy points for $2275 each.
- I've run the purchase through my Bonvoy Brilliant Amex card which gives me 6X Bonvoy points per dollar spent so that adds an extra 80k or so Bonvoy points. The card will be paid in full immediately with cash we have on hand.
- While it wasn't a large consideration, we do qualify for 3* Elite now - only benefits for me are the extended banking window and reduced banking fee
- All of our units will now be in a single II account so I would not have to pay an annual II fee for my lonely EOY SDO which may or may not get traded.

Critical Decision Factor:

Warning - this won't work for everyone and in general developer purchases are poor relative to resale. For us the clincher was the Bonus Bonvoy certificates when I ran the math on the Bonvoy Points and how they could be converted to Aeroplan flight rewards (Note the math will only work for SE100k Air Canada members who can book any available economy seat at regular reward level without surcharges). This idea did not come from the salesman. As part of the negotiation I told him the certificates were worthless but if they were the best he could do I'd take 6 rather than the two that were offered.

330k Bonvoy points would convert to 110k Aeroplan miles using their standard 3:1 ratio. When I cash in my Aeroplan rewards I'm usually able to get 3.8 cents/Aeroplan mile worth of flights from Air Canada (amounts converted to USD). I think this is a conservative value - our most recent booking for 6 tickets to during spring break to Orlando came in at 4.1 cents/Aeroplan mile. This give a value of $4180 to each certificate at a minimum or $1905 above the $2275 cost. Multiplying this by six gives a value of $11,430 which is most of the purchase price.

However, there are two additional factors with the Aeroplan conversion to consider. One is the "Marriott Bonus" that one can get when converting in units of 60,000 Bonvoy Points to Aeroplan. This gives an extra 5000 Aeroplan miles so 60,000 Bonvoy becomes 25,000 Aeroplan. Periodically Aeroplan will also have short bonus conversion events (one is on right now) where you can get between 30-35% bonus points on a conversion (and the bonus stacks with the Marriott Bonus). I just converted 240,000 Bonvoy points last night (not from one of these certificates) to Aeroplan and received a 30% bonus in addition to the Marriot Bonus. As a result I receive 130,000 Aeroplan miles for 240,000 Bonvoy Points rather than 80,000 at the standard conversion rate. If I apply this conversion rate and using the above value per mile I get $6793 of use per certificate which is around $4500 over cost. Multiplying by six gives me a total value of around $27,000 USD for the six certificates.

While this wouldn't work for anyone and you can argue with the value I place on Aeroplan miles, it does give me a nice margin of safety relative to the purchase price for travel that we will be purchasing anyways. Even if I can only get half that value I'm a happy camper.

I think our timeshare portfolio is now where we want it for now and I'm not planning any further imminent additions. That said - I am eyeing a potential HGVC Las Vegas purchase for some of those "adult" weekends without the kids, but for now I'll stick to paying for cash stays at the Wynn or JW Marriott. If another annual SDO true plat comes on the market I might pick it up if it is a reasonable price (I'm addicted to deserts!).

 

[CarpeDiem65]

Very interesting approach regarding the Bonvoy certificates being purchased for conversion to Aeroplan miles. Like you, I recently converted 240,000 Bonvoy points using all the bonuses being offered to get 135,000 Aeroplan miles. I have 6 certificates for 330,000 BP's each which I can exercise up till the end of 2021. I had considered them to be useless until I saw your post. I'll definitely look into this and see if it makes sense for me. Thx

 

[YYJMSP]

hmm, you might want to factor in a bit of Aeroplan redemption value uncertainty when AC finishes absorbing it next year...

 

[jabberwocky]

hmm, you might want to factor in a bit of Aeroplan redemption value uncertainty when AC finishes absorbing it next year...

That's always a concern but I think I have a healthy enough margin into my forecasts and I've been relatively conservative in the value. The biggest hit would be to get rid of IKK completely for SE's. I don't think they will do that immediately even though they are wanting to go to more of a market based system. So far several changes have been positive for SE's (like free changes to reward tickets). When round-trip to Florida eats 150-200k of Aeroplan points it doesn't take long to go through them even when they are piling up from work travel (I don't have any Aeroplan CC's).

I'm essentially looking at these certificates as free options (I have until Dec. 31, 2021 to cash them in). I'll probably do what I've usually been doing and keep 400,000-600,000 Bonvoy Points available for opportunistic hotel booking/transfers and enough AE for two family round-trips in NA. Worst case is I don't cash these certificates in and we end up enjoying our time in Hawaii on our Flex booking.

 

[DannyTS]

OP here. Apologies in advance for the long post. As promised here are the details for the deal now that we've closed.

Everything is showing up in my online account as expected - they moved very quick even on the requal of our SDO which I wasn't expecting to be in VSN until October. While not perfect we're happy with the deal and looking forward to using our timeshare portfolio.

Background: We had been finding that our annual SVR week wasn't enough for us and had been renting weeks or hotels for several years. We typically go to Florida once every couple of years at a minimum. We go to the Southwestern US every second year after Christmas with my wife's side of the family (this is what drove our SDO EOY purchase). We had done a SO exchange from our SVR week (2 years worth) and landed a WKORV-N exchange. Needless to say we fell in love with the place and I picked up a resale OF unit there for a pretty good deal which we are intending to use during summer vacation when the kids are out of school.

My goal with this flex purchase was twofold - one, get a few extra points to increase our stay in Hawaii (or in Phoenix/Southern CA) and second to requalify our SDO unit. Previous Owner's Updates had all been focused on a minimum $20k purchase to requal. These deals always seemed to end up with proposing that we buy 90k Flex (Sheraton or Westin) and at the same time trade in our SVR Week 51 with new cash coming in at around $13k. Needless to say we didn't bite as it seemed pointless to spend 13k to get only 9k more SO's and lose our SVR week. Having the minimum be dropped to $10k (officially for Flex it is $15k min but they are proving to be flexible on this) made this seem like an opportunity to get what we want.

Just to recap:

Prior to our Flex purchase we owned:

- SVR EY - 81,000 (Developer purchase fixed/float week 51 - our first timeshare - purchased 2013)
- SDO EOYE (True-plat resale purchased in 2016)
- WKORV-N EOYO (Oceanfront 176,700 resale purchase May 2019)

Proposed deal:

- Total package price remained $13k for 67k EOYO Flex + $850 closing.
- Our SDO EOYE would be requalified and result in an extra 148,100 EOYE SO's.
- I was pretty firm in getting the 67,000 Flex package as EOY rather than annual. This was the smallest amount they were willing to sell to us and it also minimizes the ongoing MF's which I find to be the biggest drawback of Flex.
- Explorer package purchase for 7 nights SVV stay (we were planning on going anyways) + 100k Bonvoy points. Cost was $1500. They also let us apply $1300 towards the purchase price of the Flex package.
- They could not give us straight Bonvoy points as we had a 15% discount; however, they did give us 6 certificates to purchase 330k Bonvoy points for $2275 each.
- I've run the purchase through my Bonvoy Brilliant Amex card which gives me 6X Bonvoy points per dollar spent so that adds an extra 80k or so Bonvoy points. The card will be paid in full immediately with cash we have on hand.
- While it wasn't a large consideration, we do qualify for 3* Elite now - only benefits for me are the extended banking window and reduced banking fee
- All of our units will now be in a single II account so I would not have to pay an annual II fee for my lonely EOY SDO which may or may not get traded.

Critical Decision Factor:

Warning - this won't work for everyone and in general developer purchases are poor relative to resale. For us the clincher was the Bonus Bonvoy certificates when I ran the math on the Bonvoy Points and how they could be converted to Aeroplan flight rewards (Note the math will only work for SE100k Air Canada members who can book any available economy seat at regular reward level without surcharges). This idea did not come from the salesman. As part of the negotiation I told him the certificates were worthless but if they were the best he could do I'd take 6 rather than the two that were offered.

330k Bonvoy points would convert to 110k Aeroplan miles using their standard 3:1 ratio. When I cash in my Aeroplan rewards I'm usually able to get 3.8 cents/Aeroplan mile worth of flights from Air Canada (amounts converted to USD). I think this is a conservative value - our most recent booking for 6 tickets to during spring break to Orlando came in at 4.1 cents/Aeroplan mile. This give a value of $4180 to each certificate at a minimum or $1905 above the $2275 cost. Multiplying this by six gives a value of $11,430 which is most of the purchase price.

However, there are two additional factors with the Aeroplan conversion to consider. One is the "Marriott Bonus" that one can get when converting in units of 60,000 Bonvoy Points to Aeroplan. This gives an extra 5000 Aeroplan miles so 60,000 Bonvoy becomes 25,000 Aeroplan. Periodically Aeroplan will also have short bonus conversion events (one is on right now) where you can get between 30-35% bonus points on a conversion (and the bonus stacks with the Marriott Bonus). I just converted 240,000 Bonvoy points last night (not from one of these certificates) to Aeroplan and received a 30% bonus in addition to the Marriot Bonus. As a result I receive 130,000 Aeroplan miles for 240,000 Bonvoy Points rather than 80,000 at the standard conversion rate. If I apply this conversion rate and using the above value per mile I get $6793 of use per certificate which is around $4500 over cost. Multiplying by six gives me a total value of around $27,000 USD for the six certificates.

While this wouldn't work for anyone and you can argue with the value I place on Aeroplan miles, it does give me a nice margin of safety relative to the purchase price for travel that we will be purchasing anyways. Even if I can only get half that value I'm a happy camper.

I think our timeshare portfolio is now where we want it for now and I'm not planning any further imminent additions. That said - I am eyeing a potential HGVC Las Vegas purchase for some of those "adult" weekends without the kids, but for now I'll stick to paying for cash stays at the Wynn or JW Marriott. If another annual SDO true plat comes on the market I might pick it up if it is a reasonable price (I'm addicted to deserts!).

Congrats on the closing! As you mentioned, the value you get from the Aeroplan miles varies greatly. Canada to US trips are the best value because the lower number of miles required, low airport fees, and because there are many direct flights so you do not end up getting a 10 h flight instead of 4.
Hawaii probably works well from the West coast, it is harder from the East coast to find decent flights on miles but it is still doable. One can also get terrible value from Aeroplan. We go often to Cancun and we pay 400-450 CAD pp for direct flights (we actually paid as little as 325 CAD pp). If we used Aeroplan miles we would pay 218 CAD in taxes and 40,000 miles. Of course we just pay cash for the flights.

At the same time, I am not following the math very well. You can buy directly from Aeroplan 110,000 miles for about 2800 USD (0.03 CAD plus tax per point). This is a poor deal, I agree, but only 525 USD above your cost of 2275 USD. From Aeroplan you just buy what you need, when you need. I understand that occasionally you can get a 33% bump on the number of points when converting from Bonvoy but even so I do not see how you can gain 13500 USD for the 3 certificates. Also, the 33% bonus may not be available when you need the extra miles.

 

[jabberwocky]

Congrats on the closing! As you mentioned, the value you get from the Aeroplan miles varies greatly. Canada to US trips are the best value because the lower number of miles required, low airport fees, and because there are many direct flights so you do not end up getting a 10 h flight instead of 4.
Hawaii probably works well from the West coast, it is harder from the East coast to find decent flights on miles but it is still doable. One can also get terrible value from Aeroplan. We go often to Cancun and we pay 400-450 CAD pp for direct flights (we actually paid as little as 325 CAD pp). If we used Aeroplan miles we would pay 218 CAD in taxes and 40,000 miles. Of course we just pay cash for the flights.

At the same time, I am not following the math very well. You can buy directly from Aeroplan 110,000 miles for about 2800 USD (0.03 CAD plus tax per point). This is a poor deal, I agree, but only 525 USD above your cost of 2275 USD. From Aeroplan you just buy what you need, when you need. I understand that occasionally you can get a 33% bump on the number of points when converting from Bonvoy but even so I do not see how you can gain 13500 USD for the 3 certificates. Also, the 33% bonus may not be available when you need the extra miles.

View attachment 14106

For Hawaii I actually prefer to pay cash with WestJet - they have a seasonal direct flight that I can usually book for around $600/person with better arrival times. I've found the best value for my Aeroplan redemption has been for our Orlando trips for the reasons you've cited (why it is often cheaper to fly to Hawaii than Montreal for us is a mystery I'll never resolve). It can get crazy expensive from where we are located - especially around holidays and it's usually a minimum of 8-8.5 hours total travel time (WestJet does have a direct flight occasionally but it was $1135 ONE WAY for the dates we looked at).

For example, here is what a trip to Orlando would cost us over Christmas - assuming a Sunday check-in on Dec. 22 and a return flight on January 5 (kids school starts January 6). All tickets are based on the lowest "Standard" fare for reasonably timed flights (i.e., less than 12 hours in transit). While we aren't doing this trip this year we did book a similar flights in 2017/18 (it was slightly cheaper then - *only* around $12k total - we of course used Aeroplan instead). Flying out a day earlier/later on Dec. 21/23 is more expensive and flying back January 6 is only $100/person cheaper unless I want to spend 18 hours in transit with two stops and an overnight stay in Winnipeg - in which case we could save $180/person - no thanks!

These exact same flights are available on Aeroplan for 150,000 miles + $924 CAD in taxes for all six passengers. If I back the taxes paid with the Aeroplan booking I get $13720-924 = $12,796. This leaves a value of just over 8.5 cents per mile or around 6.4 cpm USD using current exchange rates. If I use the current conversion bonus as an example, the 330,000 Bonvoy points with the certificate would convert to 178,750 Aeroplan (more than enough to cover these flights). This would value the certificate at $11,465 USD ($0.064 * 178,750). This is a good value no matter how you slice it. To top it off I can get free preferred seat selection for all 6 of us - another >$900 benefit.

While this is probably an extreme (but realistic for us) example of how I think my value estimate of 3.8 cents per mile is fairly reasonable. This of course hinges on the availability of the bonus but there tends to be two times per year to take advantage of this. Yes, if I had an emergency need to get additional Aeroplan miles I could just purchase them (limited to 50% of the reward amount) or convert my Amex rewards and it would still be a good deal - the certificates are just a bit better and I prefer to have multiple options.

 

[jabberwocky]

At the same time, I am not following the math very well. You can buy directly from Aeroplan 110,000 miles for about 2800 USD (0.03 CAD plus tax per point). This is a poor deal, I agree, but only 525 USD above your cost of 2275 USD. From Aeroplan you just buy what you need, when you need. I understand that occasionally you can get a 33% bump on the number of points when converting from Bonvoy but even so I do not see how you can gain 13500 USD for the 3 certificates. Also, the 33% bonus may not be available when you need the extra miles.

You are right - I should have considered the opportunity to purchase the Aeroplan points directly as my base case as well (even though I would be limited 50% of the rewards points needed). I think the math still works out - just not as favourably. With the bonus the price per mile using the certificate gives a purchase price of about $0.016 (CDN). For the Aeroplan direct purchase it is $0.03 + GST/HST depending on province. Multiplying it out I still get a total value from all of the certificates of over $15k (CDN) assuming all certificates are used with the basic 30% bonus.

 

[celica7101]

You are right - I should have considered the opportunity to purchase the Aeroplan points directly as my base case as well (even though I would be limited 50% of the rewards points needed). I think the math still works out - just not as favourably. With the bonus the price per mile using the certificate gives a purchase price of about $0.016 (CDN). For the Aeroplan direct purchase it is $0.03 + GST/HST depending on province. Multiplying it out I still get a total value from all of the certificates of over $15k (CDN) assuming all certificates are used with the basic 30% bonus.

There's usually a per-year maximum on the number of miles you can purchase directly from the airline. Is that the case for Aeroplan as well? In other words, even though you might find that the purchase of the miles is almost what you're getting with the Bonvoy purchase, you are kneecapped and preventing from purchasing 330k miles.