Polling current Marriott's Kauai Beach Club owners

We own two weeks 1 BR/2 Bath Ocean Front weeks at this resort. I feel blessed that we made the decision 13 years ago to purchase these. We have traded them for many locations, have traded them for Rewards points, have created lifelong memories with our kids when they were much younger. We are using points now to give our son a very nice honeymoon in two weeks.

We joined the Vacation Club Points (VCP) system a year ago thinking that we were sort of between a rock and a hard place and had to join to protect our options for trading. We received 3,375 points for our weeks which from the beginning I stated to the salesperson was not reflective of our trading value. This number of points is slightly 50 points more than the approximately 32 lower demand weeks. In other words, in theory, we did not receive enough points to purchase a week 20 weeks out of the year in our own resort.

Marriott's comebacks to this are: 1. We can still go because we own weeks at that resort. (duh) 2. We can buy more points to be able to trade more easily. (duh and don't want to) 3. Believe it or not, I have heard this three times, "Well, you have owned for 13 years and I am sure you have already gotten a lot of use out of it." Sort of implying that we already got our return on the "investment". This is insulting because we didn't buy for 13 years. We bought two units so that each of our kids would have one after we are gone. We are 50 now so hopefully that will be a while.

All that explanation to ask my question...Would any of you other Kauai Beach Club owners mind confirming to me how many points you have now through the VCP system, for the Kauai Beach Club property only? Implied with that is letting me know what sort of unit you have.

I guess I should add that I am very open to any clarification you may give me. It is entirely possible that I am misunderstanding something or missing perspective.

Thanks Ted

I do not own at this property but do own 2 bd units at two other Marriott vacation club resorts (Myrtle Beach - OF, gold and Manor Club - platinum). I've been a member since 1999 and also enrolled in the Destination Points (DP) program last year. My undstanding is that your weeks, based on view and season that you own is worth x many number of points based on a chart. So any owner at Kauai who owns the same size unit, view and season will have the same value as you. Obviously, the better the view, the larger the size, the higher season will be worth more points. But it is a known fact and restated by Marriott reps that the number of points you get for your week is (much) less than if you were to use points to rent that same week thru the points system. As week owners, we give up a lot more if we choose to exchange our week to points. I'm trying to exchange one of my weeks into a Marriott property in Hawaii and the rep suggested that I do an exchange through Interval (particularly because I'm also a DP member and the transaction is included in my II membership). I think the only advantage of exchanging to points is if you don't need to stay a full week and if you want to change the unit size and view of what you would normally get (I.e., upgrading view and downsizing unit size, different season, etc). I'm also finding that since I have young kids, the best way to get my money's worth is to vacation at my home resorts (which luckily is driving distance away). However, next year, we want to go big and travel to Hawaii but unfortunately, the DP system doesn't work for me because our two weeks worth of DP points isn't even enough for one week in Hawaii for comparable unit size and view. Overall, as a multi-week owner, I plan to continue to use my weeks as I did before the DP program rolled out. The DP option will be there for me but I doubt I will use it in the near future.

Thanks for the response. You seem to have a pretty good attitude about the points issue and I need to improve mine. One of the key disappointments in our situation is a result of the fact that there were not seasonal ownership weeks at our resort. When I calculate the additional sales capacity created by MVCI when they assign the value they have to our units they have created approximately an additional $48 million in sales capacity, which I would argue belongs to the owners. They have essentially stolen our appreciation for themselves and in the process have devalued the resale value.

Thanks again for the response.

I own a 1/2 oceanfront here too, since 1999, in fact 3 weeks every other year. My family and I enjoy it to the max, and we also have some weeks at Marriott on Maui. I refused to join the "new program" because I figured we already paid a premium to buy our Hawaii timeshares to begin with, and why have to stand in line now to get to them? Marriott is also not big on giving you credit for your equity -- when they added the new 2-bedroom unit buildings on Maui we thought of trading our 1-bedroom for one of those - but they only wanted to give us credit for our ORIGINAL unit price. We said forget it, we'll keep our PAID OFF 1-bedroom!

Join Ownertrades.com. This is a group of Marriott owners that trade between themselves. Membership is nominal and it works! No need to go through II or Marriott. Once you decide on the resort of choice, find an owner wanting to trade into your resort. Then set up the times you want to travel and have the other owner reserve this time for you & vice versa. This way you even preserve your view! You need to get a letter from the resort naming you as the guest that will be staying (avoids scams) at the resort.

Thinking of buying a two bedroom every other year. Do you recommend buying in Kauai?

We purchased, resale, an odd year, fixed week, 2 bedroom, OV, Platinum, used it for the first time 2015, split the units for $100 fee and used each half for 1 week (Christmas/New Year weeks). We are returning 2017 for the holiday weeks. We don't get all of the so called "perks" of trade/benefits, but as we have no interest in using this to trade and being in a wonderful location over the holidays has been ideal for us. Snagging the reservation can be hard on the nerves, to assure to get the date you want (due to floating weeks), but we've been successful both times, so I have no complaints yet.

kimo61 wrote:

Thinking of buying a two bedroom every other year. Do you recommend buying in Kauai?