Starwood Points

Hello, I am interested in purchasing at a Starwood resort so that I can exchange into starwood points and then into airmiles (BA or Virgin). Does anyone where the best place to buy would be to get 80,000 starwood points every year?

I know that if you trade 20,000 points to airmiles, they give you 5,000 free so this seems very good.

Thanks

martinr10 wrote:

Hello, I am interested in purchasing at a Starwood resort so that I can exchange into starwood points and then into airmiles (BA or Virgin). Does anyone where the best place to buy would be to get 80,000 starwood points every year?

I know that if you trade 20,000 points to airmiles, they give you 5,000 free so this seems very good.

Thanks

I own a 2 bedroom LO at Westin Kierland. I have 148,100 Star Option points to trade within the Starwood Vacation Network. I have exchanged my Star Options for Star Points. I receive 72,000 points ($99 fee to exchange). You can also earn additional Star Points on a Starwood Preferred Guest American Express Credit Card. I have used my Star Points to stay in Starwood hotels in Europe. I have not used them for airline tickets though.

Check out this website to see Star Options for resort / villa type. Drill down to Resort Collection / Overview / Villas / Download Resort Fact Sheet. Last page of fact sheet has Star Options value. I'm not sure if the ratio of Star Options to Star Points is the same for all resorts / villas, but it gives you a starting point. http://www.starwoodvacationownership.com/index.jsp

carol444,

what has your experience with starwood been like? do you find it easy to book villas (either your home villa or network villas) using your options or book hotel rooms using your points. i'm thinking about buying an every other year villa through starwood in kauai, but am new to the whole time share thing...my parents had interval and they hate how they can never exchange their timeshare for other destinations

Depend on where your parents' timeshare is, I have timeshare from starwood in the paradise island, bahamas, so far it is ok for me to book every year even book it out of my season, I haven't try to book the network villas yet, because my kids still want to go to Harborside, atlantis in the bahamas. I guess if you have a good timeshare, popular location like atlantis, it's not hard to exchange.

josaiahp wrote:

carol444,

what has your experience with starwood been like? do you find it easy to book villas (either your home villa or network villas) using your options or book hotel rooms using your points. i'm thinking about buying an every other year villa through starwood in kauai, but am new to the whole time share thing...my parents had interval and they hate how they can never exchange their timeshare for other destinations

I have had good luck, but I am flexible in my travel dates. Here are my stays so far:

Westin St. John 2BR March 2005 for 1 week - made reservation 8 months prior. Sheraton Vistana Orlando 1BR Oct 2005 for 3 nights - made res. 3 months prior. Westin Kaanapali 1BR May 2007for 5 nights - made res. 1 month prior. Westin Kaanapali 1BR Nov 2007 for 1 week - made res. 5 months prior.

Next I will try for 2BR at Harborside for a stay in March 2009. I heard this is the hardest resort to get. I will be calling 8 months out for the reservation. I heard St. John's is second hardest and I had luck in 2005.

I trade for Starpoints every other year for travel to Europe. I have not had problems finding rooms and I have even booked some a day or two before I needed them (summer and fall travel).

Does anyone know if this company offers starwood points? http://www.oceaniaresorts.com they are located in Myrtle Beach and I know they signed with a major supplier just don't know which one.

Thanks

I have had great success with starpoints for hotels (even last minute) and staroptions except at really peak times like Spring Break unless it is booked really early. The use of starpoints for travel is not a good investment when you look at the dollar value. It is great to have the feature for topping off your airline account or for less than last minute trips since they take a couple weeks to transfer.

One thing we did find out when we tried to sell our timeshare is the secondary buyer loses the starpoint option. You can only get that buying directly from Starwood. They always offer so many Starpoints that it is a real bargain to do so.

We have had pretty good success with II and terrible with RCI.

randyz7 wrote:

Does anyone know if this company offers starwood points? http://www.oceaniaresorts.com they are located in Myrtle Beach and I know they signed with a major supplier just don't know which one.

Thanks

The Sheraton Plantation Resort is in Myrtle Beach and is expanding but Starpoints and StarOptions are available through Starwood Vacation Ownership (SVO) purchases. Only Options are passed along in the after market sales of these ownerships.

randyz7 wrote:

Does anyone know if this company offers starwood points? http://www.oceaniaresorts.com they are located in Myrtle Beach and I know they signed with a major supplier just don't know which one.

Thanks

They absolutely do not offer starwood points they are a not a reliable name brand company and only starwood offers starpoints themselves.

Do you still have some Starwood points? Would you be interested in exschanging some for products or services available thru my barter membership, things like brand new dell and mac computers, airline tix, electronics, Marriott hotels, Ritz Carlton hotels, dental services, car rentals, etc....? john

carol444 wrote:

martinr10 wrote:

Hello, I am interested in purchasing at a Starwood resort so that I can exchange into starwood points and then into airmiles (BA or Virgin). Does anyone where the best place to buy would be to get 80,000 starwood points every year?

I know that if you trade 20,000 points to airmiles, they give you 5,000 free so this seems very good.

Thanks

I own a 2 bedroom LO at Westin Kierland. I have 148,100 Star Option points to trade within the Starwood Vacation Network. I have exchanged my Star Options for Star Points. I receive 72,000 points ($99 fee to exchange). You can also earn additional Star Points on a Starwood Preferred Guest American Express Credit Card. I have used my Star Points to stay in Starwood hotels in Europe. I have not used them for airline tickets though.

Check out this website to see Star Options for resort / villa type. Drill down to Resort Collection / Overview / Villas / Download Resort Fact Sheet. Last page of fact sheet has Star Options value. I'm not sure if the ratio of Star Options to Star Points is the same for all resorts / villas, but it gives you a starting point. http://www.starwoodvacationownership.com/index.jsp

I couldn't access the link. Could you please double check the link or help me find this information on resorts vs star points/options? It would be greatly appreciated.

dk96 wrote:

I couldn't access the link. Could you please double check the link or help me find this information on resorts vs star points/options? It would be greatly appreciated.

You can also access www.tugbbs.com where they have an entire Starwood forum.

If i was selling starwoods points, how much do they go for? Someone wants to buy them from me and we both dont know how much they go for. all suggestions are greatly appreciated!!

bonf wrote:

If i was selling starwoods points, how much do they go for? Someone wants to buy them from me and we both dont know how much they go for. all suggestions are greatly appreciated!!

See jayjay's previous post. You should be able to get a good answer from the Starwood thread.

Are you just selling some points on a one-time basis OR are you selling the TS itself?

I judge the value by looking at the SPG site as if I was booking a hotel room and find the room and look at the point value and the room cost. Seems as if the 7000 point rooms are about $129-199 per night in most markets and of course you don't pay any taxes. I don't know about outright selling the points but booking the room for a guest and getting reimbursed. They would have to have access to your account to use them otherwise or you might be able to transfer them to their account. Don't know if that is an option though.

I would value 13000 points at less than $400.

Anne

There are two different currencies in the Starwood System....

1) StarOptions - The currency for timeshare stays 2) StarPoints - The currency for hotel stays.

If you bought your timeshare from the developer, you can generally trade your StarOptions for StarPoints, although it is generally bad economics to do so.

There is no scenario where you can trade StarPoints for StarOptions.

You will only get the Star Options if you buy resale which will allow internal trading to other starwood timeshares, but not into the hotel 'starpoints". You need to purchase from the developer for that......and that is not a good investment. If you are mostly wanting to get the extra 5K airline miles just go for the American Express credit card that will also get you this reward. If you want to purchase a resale timeshare only 5 of them are "Mandatory" which means you get the star options upon resale: these are: St. John's, westin ka'anapali, kierkland villas, harborside and vistana villages. If you purchase another starwood resale it will not trade internally for star options, you will have to go thur II for a fee.

Can someone explain the difference between Starwood Preferred Guest Points, and Starwood Vacation Network Options? A resale unit I am looking at (Florida) has 76,000 SVN "options", and 42,000 SPG "points". Is one more valuable than the other? I am only interested in buying this timeshare to trade into other resorts .. I have no interest in going to Florida on vacation. And it seems I would only get the 76,000 "options". Is this enough to get me into a decent Hawaii resort for a week in high season?

It takes 67,100 star options for a studio in Hawaii, 81K options for a 1 bedroom and 148,100 for a two bedroom. But like the first poster said..........There are only 5 resorts you get the internal star option with (these are called Manditory resorts) and Florida is not one of them. You will not get a good trade to Hawaii owning florida. If you always want Hawaii look at buying that..........they are cheap right now compared to other manditory starwoods. Also consider a Marriott red week. You can trade into Hawaii with one of those and I have been to both the Westin and Marriott in Maui and they are equal quality except at Marriott you need one of the two new towers, the origional tower is just OK inside the new ones are REALLY nice. But with Westin you do get the heavenly beds..............so you know you will have a good nights sleep.......Ahhhhh. :) Good luck deciding what to buy. I hope this info helps you.

Zezeez got it exactly right.