Starwood/Westin timeshares

[Carolyn Member Find all posts View Profile Close Carolyn]

If I buy a resale at one of the Starwood properties (Westin, Shearaton, etc.), will I have the same internal trading advantages as someone who bought from the developer? What are the fees associated with doing an internal Starwood trade? Thanks.

Carolyn

[ArtsieAng Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close ArtsieAng]

If I buy a resale at one of the Starwood properties (Westin, Shearaton, etc.), will I have the same internal trading advantages as someone who bought from the developer? What are the fees associated with doing an internal Starwood trade? Thanks.

Carolyn

Carolyn,

If you buy resale, you must purchase a mandatory 'StarOption' resort in order to qualify for that particular program. This program allows you to trade your week to points, and then use those points toward stays at any SVO resort.

The mandatory resorts are:

Harborside Resort
Vistana Villages
Westin St. John
Westin Ka'anapali
Westin Kierland Villas

All SVO resorts have the option to trade through RCI, or II.....some use both to exchange.

SVO pays for your membership to II, and you are given a SVO priority. However, one draw back to the system is that you have no say over what week is deposited into II. If you own a premium week, you are NOTguaranteed a premium deposit into II. SVO does however deposit early, you are normally given a week that already has been deposited. Hence, you gain by an earlier request then you actually made.

I hope that helped a little....


Edited to add:

I am a new owner myself....Perhaps someone with more experince can chime in, and add to, or correct any misinformation......

[chemteach Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close chemteach]

will I have the same internal trading advantages as someone who bought from the developer? What are the fees associated with doing an internal Starwood trade? Thanks.

Carolyn

If you are talking about an internal exchange in II, II doesn't know if you bought from a developer or resale and makes no differentiation for their exchanges (you have approximately a three day advantage for doing Starwood to Starwood exchanges.)

If you are talking about using staroptions to exchange within Starwood properties, you have to buy at a mandatory property as described in the previous post and Starwood makes no differentiation between purchases from the developer or resale (unless you are considering buying several Starwood properties in hopes of getting elite status - I believe that Starwood does not include resales for qualifying for elite status - there are some exceptions to that also. You should read the post on qualifying a non-mandatory purchase of you purchase another unit from the developer if you are interested in this. It's a sticky under the Hotel Timeshare category.)

Edye

[Bill4728 Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close Bill4728]

Here is a link to the thread about requalifing a starwood resale. link It says that if you buy a resale (even a non mandatory) then purchase a second week from starwood, you can make starwood requalify your earlier resale unit, giving you StarOptions and Star Points and qualify toward elite.

It is cheaper to just buy 2 mandatory resale units. But, this requalifing option may make sense for you if you wish to own at a non-mandatory location.

Good Luck