Wow, you turn your head for a day, and things blow up.
I'm not really concerned about resale value, to be honest.
I am 100% in this camp. When I evaluate a timeshare purchase, I do so from the assumption that the resale value will be zero. If the purchase still makes sense, I consider it. Any salvage value is found money.
Note that DVC
can still make sense under these assumptions. The break-even point is farther in the future, but it exists.
are there not any transfers or upgrades in points that need to occur in order to be able to use them sometimes?
Not as far as I know. There are some "internal" exchanges for which that's true. For example, a Wyndham owner who wants to book a stay at a WorldMark resort can only use points purchased from the developer, and pays a modest exchange fee. But, that's sort of like the old BVTC days when DVC owners could book at e.g. Manhattan Club or the Club Interwest resorts directly--those aren't Disney resorts, but there is a special exchange agreement between them.
When using Wyndham points for Wyndham resorts, points are points. Likewise for WorldMark Credits in WorldMark.
our favorite place in the whole world Aruba
A good friend just stayed at one of the MVC Aruba resorts in May. She really enjoyed it!
my understanding has always been that they’re also not maintained well because there are so many hotels to take care of in respective systems so there just isn't always the budget for the necessary maintenance
The hotel system and the timeshare system within a brand are in principle different financial entities---and in most cases they are different in practice as well. The needs of the hotel side do not directly impact the timeshare side, and vice versa.
That's no different from the DVC vs. Disney hotel structure. Upkeep and maintenance for the DVC resort componets are paid for out of Member Dues, not Disney's hotel budget.
I guess I’ve always equated the slimy timeshare sales with the quality of their resorts, which clearly isn’t the case.
Exactly---sales is one segment of the company, and resort management is another. Wyndham resorts range from pretty good to really great, but their sales organization could be charitably described as predatory.
I have never, not once, attended a timeshare sales pitch in almost 20 years as an owner. It's gotten to the point that when I talk to the "parking pass people" (i.e.:
the body-snatchers) I tell them that I want to keep my perfect record intact. The last guy I did this with--at Wyndham Shearwater/Ka Eo Kai--was actually quite nice. But he was flabberghasted that I'd never been to a pich meeting. "I don't think I've ever met an owner who has never done a tour."
doesn’t it just have more usable value from that standpoint to go with a different timeshare system, specifically if you can use points and not fixed weeks?
This is largely why our first purchase was a points-based timeshare, but
not DVC. We were not convinced we would want to return to Just Disney that often. Again using Wyndham as an example, they have more than 65 different resort locations within the Club Wyndham system proper, and many of those locations have more than one resort.
We stay in a variety of different accommodations when we travel domestically and internationally, so didn't want to be locked into using a timeshare and staying at whatever specific (no matter how lovely) resorts in a specific system.
I don't think
any single purchase would satisfy any family's total vacation needs. We've used our timesahares for many great vacations, but we've also done other things---a week in an apartment in the 14th arr in Paris, a half-dozen different
DCL cruises, many weeks at VRBO-like homes in the Outer Banks, etc. I just got back from a business trip to Tokyo to which I added a few days at a
ryokan in the Ginza district--a bargain given the current JPY/USD exchange rate!
Owning timeshare does not mean never vacationing any other way, just as owning DVC doesn't mean you are forbidden from traveling elsewhere.
Why would anyone ever want to do that? #GoBlue