Getting The Most From Your Timeshare

Last week I talked about who should own a timeshare. If you are among those I was describing, then the following tips will be helpful to squeeze the most value out of your purchase.

If you want even more tips and tricks for using your timeshare, pick up a copy of my best selling book, A Guide to Loving Your Timeshare: How to get the Most for your Money in Family Fun and Experiences.

Many people gripe about the cost of owning timeshares. They only seem to be online though, since I don’t run into any gripers when I’m vacationing at a timeshare. I guess all the gripers stayed home to write a post about why they can’t afford to use their timeshare, but that was the subject of last week’s article.

Now I want to show you how to get the most value out of your purchase, and when you know that, the cost is very reasonable.  My cost per week for using my timeshare over the last 25 years is $663. When I bought the unit, I didn’t know any better and paid full retail price.  Had I not made that mistake, my timeshare vacationing cost would average $400 a week ($57/night) for the 61 weeks of vacation I have used so far. That is a real bargain for staying at an upscale resort.

You cannot find a hotel for $57 a night, and timeshares are way nicer than hotel rooms. For the 1 bedroom unit I trade, I usually get 1-3 bedrooms, a full kitchen, living room, dining room, 1-2 baths, WIFI, swimming pool, group activities, movies, games, library, pool or ping pong tables, gym, lounge, computer terminal and sometimes even a weekly poker tournament. You won’t get all that at a hotel, let alone for $57 a night.

We recently went to an event in Hollywood.  We booked a nearby timeshare for the week prior to the event and then went to the event and stayed in a hotel for two days. The hotel was a small room and a bathroom. It cost $250 a night plus $50 a night to park the car. There really was no comparison to those two options that week.

I use RCI for all my trades and own one specific week in New Orleans, not a number of points. So I will reference all my tips based on trading weeks. If you own or are looking to own a points system, it will be slightly different, but the concepts will be the same.

Always buy your timeshare on the secondary market

Many people who were not good candidates to own a timeshare got talked into it by a slick salesman. They later realize their mistake and sell their units on the secondary market. Just like a new car loses its value when you drive it off the lot, so does a timeshare. They are not real estate investments that go up in value. They are really a membership in a group that provides great vacation housing. You should pay between $0 and $5,000 for your unit and never more.

Buy a lockout unit with a high trading value

A lockout unit is really two units in one.  You buy a two bedroom unit, but get to trade it as two, one bedroom units. Doing this automatically cuts your cost per week in half, since you buy one but trade for two. The location of the unit doesn’t matter, but make sure the trading value of the unit is high.  My unit is a lockout that has 41 points if traded as a two bedroom unit. If I take advantage of the lockout and trade it as two one bedroom units, they are valued at 38 and 35 points.  Now my total trade value is 73 points instead of 41 points. Anything above 30 points is preferred.

Buy a place with low maintenance fees

The maintenance fees are what people tend to complain about the most. When I originally purchased my timeshare, the maintenance fee was $350 a year. Now, 25 years later, it has risen to $628 a year. But remember, that is for what is effectively two units in my case. Some places in Hawaii have maintenance fees of more the $2,000 a year. High maintenance fees do not make the unit better, or the vacation nicer, or make it easier to trade. High fees just take more money out of your wallet. Don’t buy a unit with high maintenance fees.

My annual costs are as follows: $628 maintenance fee + $80 RCI membership = $708. I pay an additional $239 for each trade transaction. (I already own my unit so there are no purchase costs in my annual figure) Last year I traded my one week for 8 weeks of vacation. ($239 * 8) + $708 = $2,620. That fee spread out over 8 weeks is $327.50 a week or $46.79 per day. That is a super bargain to stay at a top notch resort.

Always trade it for maximum value

Never stay in your own unit. This is why you don’t care where your unit is located. If you plan to use your purchased unit each year, you will not only grow tired of that location, but it is not an efficient use of your timeshare unit. If I were to stay in my lockout unit, I would get only one week of vacation each year. But if I trade it, and search for bargain trades, I can easily get 4-8 weeks of vacation from my one unit. Those extra 7 weeks did not come with an extra maintenance fee, or add to the purchase price. So the more weeks I get out of my unit, the lower the average cost per week becomes.

Deposit your unit early

You have the ability to trade your unit for a different timeshare that is available from one year before to two years after the week of the unit you own. That gives you a three year window in which to travel. You can deposit your week up to two years in advance. If you wait to deposit your week until the month before the week you own, you will not only lose a year of options, but the point value of your trade will decrease the closer you get to your week. Deposit your week 23 months ahead of its date. If you own the 3rd week in March 2020, for example, deposit it in April of 2018.  You can then make a trade for a unit between March, 2019 and March, 2022.

Make your plans a year in advance

Timeshare owners are constantly depositing their weeks and picking vacation weeks out of the pool. The farther ahead you plan your vacation, the more choices you will have available. As your vacation date gets closer, the options become fewer, because other timeshare owners have selected and booked their vacations from the pool. Last minute trades are available, but the selection is limited. The number of points needed to trade for these last minute units decrease the closer it gets to their start date. As a doctor, make the trade a year in advance. Then you can tell your coworkers, well in advance, when you will be on vacation, so they can make the necessary accommodations. Last minute is harder to arrange with your colleagues, unless of course you are retired. Planning well in advance also allows you to get airline deals and use frequent flyer miles to their fullest.

Find points bargains

Many units go on sale for various reasons. They might be building a new timeshare nearby and want to entice more people to see it and add another timeshare to their portfolio at full retail price. To get you there, these units might be available to trade for as low as 3 points per week. If I trade my 35 point unit for this 3 point unit, I still have 32 points left to trade. I could make 11 trades with my one unit if I only trade into 3 point units. I just did a search for units trading for 3 points or lower and found 137 resorts in 11 countries, with 5 in the United States. Become a bargain hunter and you will have more weeks than you can use. My single unit, locked off for 71 points, can trade for 23 weeks of vacation if I only make 3 point trades. I’m not quite that fugal, but I currently average 10 points per trade. That means I get about 7 weeks of timeshare vacations a year out of my single week of ownership. This ability to trade your week for points and get the leftovers back to trade again is a fairly recent change for RCI.

Be flexible regarding your destination and date

Don’t get super specific as to the date and place you want to go. Pick an experience and a time frame. For example, if I search for a beach in a tropical area in January or February, I will find many options. (I found 544 resorts available today) If I search for Waikiki beach on January 15th, there might not be anything available. (In fact there were none today) You can’t control what inventory is in the trading pool, but there is always several good locations to explore. Here’s a chance to go to Cancun, Jamaica, the Bahamas or the Grand Cayman Islands which were all available today in addition to many others. It’s a beach I’m after, and I can get a good one if I’m not particular.

Combine points

After you make trades, you will end up with leftover points that can be too small to get high value trades if you want one, like Hawaii. So you can combine all the little leftover points into one big number again. Combining your points will also add an additional year to your available travel time. So when I am down to 3, 8, and 6 points remaining to trade, combining them gives me 17 points. Or, better yet, I can combine them with my 35 point unit and have 52 points available to trade. I still pick up coins in the street when I see them and I don’t let these scraps go to waste either.

Visit new places

Just because you have never heard of it, doesn’t mean it won’t make a great vacation spot. If there are several timeshares in an area, there is obviously something that is drawing people to that location. We have found some gems by booking vacations at timeshare locations with which we were unfamiliar. We had never heard of Big Bear Lake in southern California. It was available when we wanted to be in that area for an event. We discovered that’s where all the people in LA go to get away from it all. It was a great place to spend a week. We would have never found it if we only looked for places that were familiar to us.

Take your friends and relatives

We have been on several vacations where we invited others to join us. Since we already have a timeshare booked that will accommodate additional people, we can invite others to join us with no additional cost to them. If your budget is tight, you could split the cost of the week with them, but then again if your budget is that tight, you probably shouldn’t have a timeshare. You can get a place with 2 bedrooms and the couple that is joining you can have great accommodations as well as their own bathroom. Vacationing is fun with friends.

Link trades

Make trades that are back to back, increasing the length of your vacation. With all those extra weeks you have from finding resorts on sale, you can really have fun with this. We recently booked three weeks back to back. One in San Diego, followed by Palm Springs, and then on to Las Vegas. Each was a very different type of vacation and they were only a few hour’s drive apart. We have also linked them to cruises. You can stay for a week in Southern Florida and explore the Everglades and then hop on a cruise ship that will take you through the Panama Canal and drop you off in LA. You can then do another timeshare in Southern California before heading home. That makes for a great month of travel.

Skip the sales pitch when you get there

Most of all, when you get to your destination, don’t waste any of your vacation time going to the timeshare sales pitch. You will not be buying anything from them and you don’t need the free gift. When they send you over to the guy who will give you a parking pass, he is also going to try to book you for a free gift in exchange for listening to a timeshare pitch. Just say no and go change into your swimsuit and hit the pool.

If you use these tips, and are among those who qualify to be a timeshare owner as I discussed last week, then you will have a great time with your timeshare travels, as well as saving you a fortune on all of your really nice vacation accommodations. After 25 years of using our timeshare, we are still enjoying it and consider it to be a bargain.

Get more great tips from my best selling book, A Guide to Loving Your Timeshare: How to get the Most for Your Money in Family Fun and Experiences.

Do you have any other good tips I’ve missed?

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20 thoughts on “Getting The Most From Your Timeshare”

  1. Anyone have experience with Interval International? We recently purchased a lockout at a great resort that uses Interval. I have been looking at getaways not exchanging and the options are pathetic. The places to stay are mostly run down, and the few nice places are really expensive.

    Reply
    • I started with interval international 30 years ago and changed to RCI within a couple of years. Don’t know how they are today. Getaways are not the same as exchanges, they are extra purchases. They will vary greatly in asking price.

      Reply
  2. Thanks for the Article. I always hear disadvantage of Timeshare only like its a trap or something . This article is my first positive experience about Timeshare. Thanks for the tips how we should buy Timeshare and what things should be kept in mind at a time of buying it.

    Reply
  3. We have a timeshare with lock-off for any week we want. We’ve never actually stayed there, but it is nice (Scottsdale, Az).When we go to the area, we stay with family. We have stayed in great resorts in Florida and a few other locations with our entire family. Our problem is that either we don’t take a vacation at all, or go to the UK. There aren’t many timeshares there and the ones we have found are far from the city and driving around there is not an option! We’ve let friends and family use weeks, but still don’t use enough. The yearly maintenance fees are over $1000 a year. So, wondering if anyone has experience of selling their timeshare? I often hear commercials but have no idea what I would be getting myself into. Thanks for the help!

    Reply
    • Stephanie, You fall into the group of people who will not have enough time to use the time share and are best not having one. You must be able to use it or the bargain is gone. It is true that there are pockets with no time shares around. One of those for me was Hollywood, CA. I needed a hotel in that area. There are many groups that sell timeshares and they buy them to have some to sell. You will get almost nothing in the sale. Since they sell them for $2,000 – $5,000 they must buy them for less than that in order to make a profit to stay in business. You might be best to decide between three options. 1: Take more vacations and enjoy that timeshare and some extra down time. 2: Be content giving/selling weeks to others. 3: Sell the unit for next to nothing. I’m sorry you ended up with a timeshare that you can’t adequately get good use out of. Thanks for the comment and I hope others will read this and give you some additional advice.

      Reply
  4. Thanks for a great article. There are so few people out there that “get” timeshares. The negative reputation scares a lot of people away but they are a great way to travel well and affordably.

    If you or your readers are interested, I have a dedicated blog to discussing timeshares. I am interested to hear your thoughts!

    The Timeshare Guru

    Reply
  5. I am another very satisfied timeshare owner and appreciate your articles promoting the positive aspects and real value of this type vacationing. I currently own a points based unit in Myrtle Beach that I have never stayed in but trade it for 4-5 weeks vacation every year and a fixed week in Key West that I use every year. I’m also in the process of closing on a California unit that will trade for 47 trading points.
    The only thing I’d add to your articles is there is a place for a fixed week in a place you love and want to return to every year and there are some very nice three star properties that don’t have the amenities of the nicer properties but the sometimes the location is even better. By that I mean you are steps from the sand and can open your patio door to the sounds and smell of the waves much closer than t you ca in the nicer mega resorts.
    I’d encourage anyone considering ths lifestyle to visit http://WWW.TUG2.NET, it is a timeshare users group run by volunteers with a wealth of information available. It is free to join the forums and most of the website, memberships are inexpensive if anyone wants full access.

    Reply
  6. Exchanging is one way to get good value from a timeshare, but there’s also value to be had for those of us who actually enjoy simply using what we bought for it’s intended purpose. Like you, I own inn New Orleans and I use my week regularly. I don’t exchange it. I got my week for free on TUG from a member who was done with it and I simply pay my annual maintenance fees to use it. For me, it’s a great value and I love my Mardi Gras week in New Orleans!

    Reply
  7. Great information last week on who should buy! SO tired of reading complaints on-line from the “woe is me” bunch because they didn’t think things through first! Have to agree when we are vacationing at various resorts we hear very little complaining!
    Your info this week is good but not really helpful for folks, like us, who are Wyndham owners and deal in points. We get our set number of points each year which we can use wherever we want. So we don’t have to deposit weeks or make trades. We also have access to RCI resorts as well. Yes, we have to pay the $239.00 trade transaction but we are also apart of Wyndham rewards so can use our WR points for the trade transaction.
    I totally agree with the “just say no” to the owner update, survey, or whatever it’s called to which you will be invited! Depending on ‘the gift” we do sometimes choose to attend but when the 60 minutes are up we thank the rep, collect our gift and away we go!
    Thanks again!

    Reply
  8. Two of the best articles on the topic I have ever read, step by step to make your life much more enjoyable. We do the same thing, but use Interval International instead of RCI. And in addition to exchange, there are 13 weeks of getaways available to buy at a pretty decent rate. We do both many times a year.

    Reply
  9. We have also had very positive timeshare experiences. We bought 2 resale (HGVC) weeks in SW Florida 9 years ago and have traveled to Scotland, Montana, NYC, San Francisco, San Diego, the Mt. Hood area of Oregon, Miami and Orlando. We also have visited our home timeshare each year. We have also booked 2 weeks back to back at our home resort-I telecommuted the first week (husband is retired). The telecommuting option may not work for many physicians, but it can help expand time away for those in other fields. I am curious about whether you use RCI Last Calls, Extra Vacations, Heroes Vacation Club or other options to stretch your time at a lower cost.

    Reply
    • Bethc,
      Thanks for your input. It’s good to see those with good experiences speaking up. I have not used those other options at this time. I already have so many weeks I’m having trouble keeping up with just trading for bargain point values. Since I like to cruise and I also have a motor home, I just haven’t needed to use those extra vacation options. They do contribute to lowering the costs even more, as you said.

      Reply
  10. Wow. You are so savvy! If we think about this, I will come back to this bookmarked page! Thank you for sharing this and so many other things! We all greatly appreciate you!

    Reply
  11. Another impressive post on something I truly did not consider. Sounds like you have a perfect system in place.

    Will definitely refer to this in future if a great opportunity comes up

    Reply
  12. I had a mostly positive experience with Disney and Marriott timeshares, especially when the kids were younger. We did one or two vacations per year, usually with family or friends. I even gave points to my younger partners to use at Disney.

    Then, we seemingly outgrew them and quickly and easily sold them off. No regrets at all.

    Reply

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