Report Abuse

We fell for the sales pitch that buying into the points program would provide much more flexibility. (We were told we needed to own points to be eligible to exchange our weeks for points. Is that not true?) We have owned two 1 bedroom even year weeks at Maui Ocean Club for 20 years and have never exchanged or upgraded. We’ve never had any problem reserving our weeks, usually in slower seasons. For 2024 we wanted to upgrade to a 2 BR unit in one of the towers with full kitchens. Wanted to book for my birthday in Feb so started calling at 9 EST on the 13 month release date. Terribly long hold times and no rooms available in several attempts. Finally while on a lengthy hold I was on line and found a March week. Once the rep came on the line I wanted to add a day or two on the front or back of that week using points. (Another flexibility pitch for points.) No availability. Apparently the Hawaii resorts have been running close to 100% occupancy. It didn’t look like booking our weeks normally would have been any easier but I can’t say for sure. One BIG deal not disclosed is that if you convert to points without definite plans and then you decide to stick with your original week(s), the points you got aren’t enough to buy your week back. I’ve gotten a few BS explanations for that but I feel cheated. We still have enough points remaining for a week of 1 BR mountain/garden view in the old complex so we can invite more family, but so far no availability. We used to enjoy two weeks every other year to escape work and Oregon winter gloom, but now retired to a beautiful area we feel nothing to escape from and wouldn’t mind divesting of our ownership, but resale value is so low we will probably go to using one week and renting the other to cover our maintenance fees in the future. Long answer. Best advice if you’re being pitched points is to ask lots of questions because they won’t volunteer information that could be perceived as negative.