As many of you head to your timeshares for the winter, you will be enticed to attend a sales presentation to learn about the Destination Club program. Marriott will position it as a way to learn about the new program, but don't be fooled, this is a sales presentation to convince you to buy more points. For some of you, this may make sense, but for many of you, more points may not be what you need. The main use for Club points is to book Marriott resorts, other than your home property, for 7 nights or less. The process to reserve a week at your home property stays the same as it always has in the past. 

Think of buying points as purchasing another timeshare. 1,500 Club points (the minimum owners can purchase) is essentially the equivalent of an every-other-year ownership week purchase. 1,500 Club points (costing over $14,000) do not equate to many travel days in prime season so you would need to bank your points over a 2 year period, or merge with Club points from your deeded weeks, before you would have enough points for a one week vacation at many resorts. You will pay about $600 in maintenance fees each year for 1,500 points.

One of the sales pitches you will hear is that you need to buy more points to get yourself to the next "tier". There are 3 tiers of Club point holders: enrolled users, Premier and Premier Plus. Marriott touts the main advantage of being a Premier is that you can book a timeshare stay for 7 nights at a time 13 months in advance. To date, Marriott has had little or no inventory available 13 months in advance and my clients have been told to call back at 12 months--so much for the 13 month booking advantage. As well, Marriott does not allow you to wait list until 12 months out so I am not convinced there is really any advantage to the Premier tier or the Premier Plus tier.

I will say that it has been much easier to reserve timeshare stays for my clients using Club points. I have had clients on wait lists at Interval for months with no trade success whereas you can call Marriott and immediately book the same weeks through Club points. As inventory shrinks at Interval you will have a much better chance of securing vacations you want using Club points.

The weeks you own may convert to a sufficient number of points to satisfy your vacation needs. If you want more vacation time or don't have sufficient points to go where you want, when you want, then purchasing points may be a good option for you. Just make sure you are purchasing points for the RIGHT reasons and not because a sales executive is using scare tactics to convince you.