Buying Your First Marriott Timeshare?

When buying your first Marriott timeshare, you may have some initial questions regarding your purchase. These can range from choosing between Destination Club and legacy weeks, to deciding where you’d like to travel each year. It is always good to research these questions further, so within this article we will cover some of the basics of buying a Marriott timeshare so that you can feel more comfortable during the purchasing process.

What Are Destination Club Points?

Destination Club points are the currency used when buying direct, and are used for booking your property each year. Purchasing Destination Club Trust Points provides partial ownership in a trust. Each Trust Member has equal opportunity to book within the Marriott Club collection and maintenance costs are averaged between all owners within the trust.

It is also important to note that once you buy into a Marriott property, you are able to take advantage of banking your points into the following use year, or even borrowing points from your next use year to put towards your current year’s sum.

Buying Into Destinations Club

When purchasing a Marriott property direct, your purchase counts towards an annual allotment of points in which you are able to book your home resort, as well as any other resorts within the Marriott network. It is important when purchasing direct that you are sure of the amount of points you will need for your vacation. Purchasing the correct amount of points that are conducive to your travel habits will keep costs affordable as you will not need to purchase additional points along the way.

If you’re purchasing your account on the resale market, it is possible to purchase Destinations Club points, but due to the relative newness of this points program you will might have a hard time finding certain ownerships on the resale market, which will lead to a higher purchase price. Even with a higher demand, Destination Club points sell for about 40% lower than buying directly from a Marriott presentation while maintaining the same benefits.

Once you have purchased your timeshare property, you are able to contact Marriott either over the phone or online in order to take advantage of any reservation options. You can learn more about how to book a Marriott reservation with this article.

Selecting Your Resort

If you are not getting Destinations Club points when buying your first Marriott timeshare, you can purchase a legacy deeded week from over 50 different Marriott resorts. This means upon purchasing this type of Marriott timeshare, you will be deeded to a specific location, and you maintenance fees will be determined by the size of the unit and location of the resort.

Choosing the location of your deed will be an important consideration, because in order to travel to another location you will be required to utilize Interval International, or San Francisco Exchange Company (SFX) to exchange your week for another.

Buying Into Your Season

When purchasing your week through Marriott resale, keep in mind that you will have the benefit of priority booking with your property, where you will be able to book up to 12 months prior to your check-in date. When purchasing a Marriott property you will be allotted either a fixed week or a floating week. A floating week, which tends to be more common in Marriott timeshares, refers to a span or groups of week numbers throughout the year. Booking your week is on a first-come, first-served basis, so it is good practice to book as far ahead as possible. This will increase your chances of landing your ideal week at your ideal property.

Trading Your Marriott Vacation Club

Marriott has a multitude of resorts that you are able to trade your Destinations Points or week for. By depositing your points / week through either Interval International or SFX, you are able to open your options to a variety of other timeshare locations. Interval International alone has over 2,900 individual resorts that you are able to choose from, which allows you to book almost any possible location you could imagine.

Marriott legacy weeks have the ability to trade internally with other resorts in Marriott’s resort collection, in this scenario Marriott owners receive a priority booking window of up to 24 days from Interval International for other Marriott properties and weeks.

Your ability to book other seasons is determined by the season you are deeded to originally. When trading for non-Marriott resorts your trading power is more of a consideration because each resort will carry a specified ranking based on the desirability of the resort.

Buying Direct vs Resale

Purchasing direct or resale with Marriott actually has some very distinct differences, so it is important to illustrate those before you choose one or the other. Deciding which type of ownership works best for you is one of the most crucial parts of finalizing your Marriott purchase. Whether purchasing direct or resale, you can choose between Marriott Destination Club points or legacy weeks.

Enrolling Legacy Weeks Into Destinations Club

It’s worth mentioning that you can enroll legacy weeks account into the Destination’s Club for a one-time charge of $2,399 (subject to change) per eligible week. Eligible weeks are as follows:

• All US and Caribbean resorts Weeks sold prior to 6/20/10

• All Caribbean resort Weeks purchased direct from Marriott between 6/21/10 and 12/26/12

• All European resort Weeks sold prior to 6/18/12

• Weeks purchased direct from Marriott Resales Operations along with certain Trust Points purchases.

Enrollment does not equate to a permanent exchange of your week(s) to Destination Club points. Upon electing to convert your week to points, an annual club dues is charged, which is based on the number of eligible points you would receive.

You can learn more about whether or not you should enroll in Destination Club by reading an article at TUGbbs.com, “Should My Week(s) Be Enrolled?”.

You are able to reference points charts for each property to see how much of your point allocation you would need to book the property. This is similar to most other timeshare ownerships, as a large amount of popular timeshare ownerships such as Hilton Grand Vacation Club and Disney Vacation Club operate on a points-based booking system.

Closing Process for Resale Transfers

Whenever you purchase a property through resale, whether it be Marriott or otherwise, it is always good practice to research a third-party closing company to assist with the sale. The resale market does not always have the same reassurances of purchasing direct, so when taking advantage of the huge markdowns you can find on a resale property, a closing company can be that extra form of security that allows your transaction to run smoothly.

Closing companies will assist by placing your funds in escrow during the transaction, ensuring that the title of ownership is unencumbered and that the title is valid, and once all documents are signed and the closing company has confirmed that the valid, clean ownership has passed to you, they will release the funds to the seller and the transaction will be complete. This will avoid any situations where you are sold a bad title or a title holding unpaid liens or fees, and ensures the legitimacy of the transaction and the seller throughout.

Conclusion

With this additional information about buying your first Marriott timeshare, we hope that you can be better equipped when looking to make your first purchase. Understanding major differences between resale and direct, and understanding the features available to you are a good first step into your timeshare ownership. If you have any additional questions regarding Marriott timeshares, feel free to contact us.