Why I Love our Timeshare
People love to hate on timeshares. I would say especially in the personal finance community, but I honestly do not think it happens more there than in the world at large. There are 10 minute long commercials on how to get rid of your timeshare on YouTube. But I am here to tell you that if you have a timeshare and you LOVE it, or even just like it, that is okay. Remember that all those companies that are helping people get rid of their timeshares are selling them to someone else.
I love our timeshare. Is it a good investment? No. Was it a smart thing to buy? Certainly not at the time we bought it. We bought it the summer we got married, the same summer we bought our first house, and credit card offers were falling from the sky. We made a LOT of dumb financial decisions that year. Most of them have been completely forgotten. I only remember the credit card debt we ran up and nothing more. But we still have the timeshare. And we still use the timeshare.
We own with WorldMark. This is the timeshare owned by the Wyndham brand of hotels. And we “own” points instead of a specific week at a specific location. We can use our points at any WorldMark (or Wyndham) resort in the world. The funny thing is, WorldMark has changed their ownership model since we bought in 17 years ago, and even they think that maybe we are not getting our money’s worth any longer and should sell our credits back to them. (But they have not come out and told us what they would offer, so it is not a discussion we have truly engaged in.)
At the time we bought our WorldMark membership, a full week at the most “expensive” resort, in Hawaii, was 12,000 points. Their goal at the time was to get people to buy 12,000 points. 12,000 points was more than we could afford. We bought 6,000 points. This would guarantee us a full week at any resort every other year, and could get us two weeks at any resort every four years, as you could bank points for up to two years and borrow from one year in the future. And we got a week at any timeshare exchange resort just for signing up.
We used that week, at a non-Worldmark property, to go to Disney World for a belated honeymoon. And that is what hooked us. My husband is a homebody. He is not a huge fan of traveling, but suddenly, this was not so bad, as we were not in a hotel room. We were in an apartment. We had a full kitchen. We had a bedroom and a living room, so we had separate space if needed. (And this was crucial when we went to England, and my husband had a major migraine, requiring him to lie in a dark room for 6 hours.) Traveling became much more enjoyable when our home base was like a home.
We have gone to England. We have gone to Disneyland and Disney World (twice). I have hosted weekend getaways for my writing group up and down the Washington coast. We have taken friends to Victoria, BC, for a birthday weekend. And our Vancouver, BC, location has served as home base for concerts and hockey games. I have hosted multiple weekend writing retreats for my writing group.
In the last couple of years, when we have been traveling less, I gifted my best friend and her wife their first family vacation on the Washington coast with their new baby. I booked a couple of nights at Disneyland for another friend who was taking her kids on their first Disney trip ever, saving her over $500 on hotels, allowing her to spend more money on the actual park experience.
WorldMark has changed their ownership model. Most of the new resorts require more than 12,000 points for a full week, and now the goal seems to be for everyone to own 20,000 points or more and exchange those points for things like cruises instead of just resort stays. We own so few points that they fear our annual dues mean we are losing money over staying at a hotel. And maybe we are. Maybe we would be better off selling our membership and booking through VRBOs when we travel, in order to keep the full home feel.
On the secondary market, our 6,000 points are only worth about $1,500. WorldMark might sell them for $12,000 or more, but I doubt they would buy them back from us for much more than the $1,500 we could get from the secondary market. But what this also means is that when we get to a point where we plan on traveling again, we could spend $1,500 on the secondary market to double our points.
And the truth is, we like the WorldMark resorts. We have never had a bad experience at one. They all have great central locations. When we took our daughter to DisneyWorld, the resort we stayed at had multiple pools (one literally right off the back door of our unit) and a water park. The resort on Orcas Island, which we stayed at right after WorldMark bought them and before they were upgraded, did not have full kitchens, but every unit had its own hot tub.
We rarely go for a full week at a time. We are much more “long weekend” people, two, three, or maybe four nights at a time, and that’s a schedule that can be hard to book VRBOs for.
Our timeshare ownership works for the way we travel. We travel more than we would without the membership. We save money when we do travel, not necessarily on lodging (if you think of the quarterly dues we pay as our lodging costs), but on food costs, as we can hit a grocery store and have breakfast in the unit every morning, or make dinner in the evening. When we take a day to not go “do something” we have a comfortable space to lounge around and not get in each other’s way. And we have all the amenities of a major resort.
Was the timeshare a smart buy at the time we bought it? Not really. Is it something I would consider a good investment for investment purposes? No. Would I recommend everyone buy into a timeshare? No. Certainly not if you are thinking of it as an investment. But if you have a timeshare and like it, or are thinking about buying into a timeshare because it seems like it would fit the way you want to travel/vacation, I want you to know you are not stupid. You are not making a terrible decision.
Timeshare are not perfect solutions to all traveling, and there have been years where we have paid more in dues than we saved on hotel costs. But, in the end, it is a purchase I have no regrets about. It is a purchase that continues to not only have utility and also bring us joy.
