Starwood Vacation Ownership, Inc. (SVO)

Starwood Vacation Network (SVN)

(Previously encompassed some Westin, Sheraton, Embassy and Vistana resorts)

Revised 10/16/03

Submitted by

Chris Nettleton

Disclaimer: The information presented here has been gathered from my experience as a SVN member, my membership materials, and conversations with other owners and SVN personnel. I have no affiliation with Starwood Vacation Ownership, Inc., other that I am an owner of a SVN week. I have tried to be as accurate as possible, any errors or omissions are mine. SVN reserves the right to modify the program at any time. Please visit their website at http://www.starwoodvo.com

Starwood is the latest major hotel chain to jump into the vacation ownership arena. Starwood’s hotel properties include Westin, Sheraton, Four Points, St. Regis, The Luxury Collection, and W Hotels. SVO refers to their timeshare sales program. SVN refers to their internal exchange network, and enrollment is included with a new purchase. SVN costs $99/year (paid with maintenance fees). Participation is mandatory at some resorts; voluntary at others. If purchasing a second week, it can be added to the SVN membership for $30/year (no additional charge for 3 or more weeks owned). SVN membership also includes an account with Interval International (new resorts). The II account is technically a Starwood corporate account, with all II membership fees paid by Starwood. More on this is under EXTERNAL EXCHANGE below.

While SVO is only a few years old, they have purchased several quality properties from other developers, and built several of their own (with more planned). These properties are all Gold Crown/5Star and rival Marriott and Royal properties in terms of size, amenities, and furnishings. Current properties include:

Sheraton’s Broadway Plantation (formerly Embassy Vacation Resorts at Myrtle Beach)

Sheraton’s Desert Oasis (formerly Embassy Vacation Resorts Scottsdale)

Sheraton’s Mountain Vista, Avon CO.

Sheraton’s PGA Vacation Resort, Port St. Lucie, FL

Sheraton’s Vistana Resort (Lakes and Cascades sections only), Orlando

Sheraton’s Vistana Villages, Orlando

Westin Ka’anapali Ocean Resort Villas (open but still building), Maui

Westin Mission Hills Resort Villas (open but still building), Rancho Mirage CA

Westin Kierland Resort (opens April 2004), Scottsdale AZ

Westin St. John’s Resort Villas (formerly Virgin Grand Villas/Hyatt Regency), USVI

Lakeside Terrace, Avon CO

Harborside Resort at Atlantis (jointly built by Starwood and Sol Enterprises), Nassau

As of 2000/2001, these properties came under the umbrella of SVO. New owners also join SVN for $99/year. Owners who bought from the previous developer or a third party (resale) may or may not be able be able to join SVN (more under Eligibility below).

Older, existing resorts are keeping their previous affiliations with RCI; however all new properties will be with II only. Note that other properties with Westin/Sheraton names are NOT part of SVO (i.e. Club Regina Cancun/Los Cabos at the Westin, Whiski Jack at the Westin, Sheraton’s Vistana Resort at Golf World Village, Sheraton Island Villas).

SVN -STAROPTIONS

SVN properties are deeded resorts, with either fixed or float time; ownership is not points based. Fixed weeks owners may reserve a float week instead. Owners may trade with RCI and/or II. However, for internal trading to other SVN resorts, SVN has developed a unique points based system. Weeks are assigned a “StarOption” point value, depending on the resort, season, and size of the unit. StarOption values for each resort/season size can be found at http://www.starwoodvo.com/tug/daily_StarOptionChart.html There is no charge to use StarOptions instead of reserving the week you actually own.

As an example, here are some StarOption values:

WESTIN MISSION HILLS (WMH)

Unit	Season	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat	Sun	WEEK
2bedroom	Platinum	14,800	14,800	14,800	22,225	29,625	29,625	22,225	148,100
1bedroom	Gold	4,400	4,400	4,400	6,600	8,800	8,800	6,600	44,000

SHERATON’S VISTANA VILLAGES

Unit	Season	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat	Sun	WEEK
2bedroom	Platinum	9,550	9,550	9,550	14,350	19,175	19,175	14,350	95,700
1bedroom	Gold	4,400	4,400	4,400	6,600	8,800	8,800	6,600	44,000

EXAMPLES:

12 - 8 months in advance (home resort preference period)

12 - 10 months in advance (home resort priority period): Fixed week owners call to confirm usage of their fixed week, or request a different week in their season. Float week owners can request a floating week in their season.
10 – 8 months in advance (home resort float period): If a Fixed week owner does not reserve his fixed week by month 10, it is made available to Float owners. Both Fixed and Float owners can reserve any week within their season during this period. Note that during this period, owners can only reserve a week at their home resort and season.

8 – 0 months in advance (network float period)

8 – 0 months in advance, owners can use their StarOptions to reserve any week at any SVN resort based on StarOptions value. Using the chart above, a Vistana Villages 1-bedroom gold owner (44,000) can reserve a 1-bedroom WMH gold (also 44,000). A 2-bedroom platinum Vistana Villages owner (95,700) could reserve two 1-bedroom gold WMHs (2 x 44,000) and have 7,700 StarOptions remaining. A platinum 2-bedroom owner could reserve three 1-bedroom weeks during gold season (148,000 minus 3 x 44,000 = 132,000). This owner would use 132,000 StarOptions and have 16,100 remaining. Starwood also allows incremental daily stays as well. In this example, the remaining 16,100 StarOptions can be used to reserve an additional Thursday and Friday (6,600 and 8,800) during the gold season. Doing this, he has turned his 2-bedroom platinum week into 23 days in a 1-bedroom gold season. Incremental day reservations can be made during the network float period ONLY WHEN used consecutively in conjunction with a full week.
90 days in advance (network options period): Remaining unused StarOptions can be used to reserve individual days at any resort, regardless if they are used consecutively with a full week. An owner can use his StarOptions to reserve, for example, several 3 or 4-day weekend trips. During this 90-day period, StarOptions may also be borrowed from next year for use during the current year.

StarOptions are very flexible and allow for guaranteed reservations (subject to availability) without using an external exchange company. However, StarOptions cannot be carried over into a future year, and expire if not used within the current year.

SVN-STARPOINTS

Not to be confused with StarOptions, StarPoints refers to Starwood’s Preferred Guest program (SPG). SPG is similar to other major hotel frequent stay programs. Owners (who purchase “new” weeks directly from Starwood) are automatically enrolled and given Gold membership. Owners may relinquish their weeks in non-consecutive years for a pre-determined amount of StarPoints. Since I originally wrote this guide, Starwood has improved this feature. Owners of 2-bedroom lockout units now can convert half of their unit into StarPoints and keep the other half for their use or to deposit with RCI/II. This may be done every year, as long as the owner alternates which half is converted to StarPoints. There is a $99 fee to convert to StarPoints and the annual maintenance fee must be paid. To convert, the request must be made no earlier than Oct 1^st of the year before and no later than March 31^st of the use year (6 month window).

StarPoints may be used for free hotel stays, frequent flier miles, etc. A nice feature is that Starwood has no blackout periods for award redemption. Also, hotel redemptions can be done online instantly at the Starwood website. When transferring StarPoints to a frequent flier account, Starwood gives a 20% bonus. If you were to transfer 20,000 StarPoints to your frequent flier account, you would actually get 25,000 miles. StarPoints usually exchange 1:1 for miles. For more information, see http://www.spg.com

ELIGIBILITY

All weeks purchased directly from the developer (Starwood) are assigned a StarOption and StarPoint value and the owner may participate fully in the programs. Resale weeks (not purchased directly from Starwood) may or may not participate in the SVN program using StarOptions. Since I originally wrote this article, Starwood will allow third party buyers (resale) of “SVN mandatory” resorts to participate in SVN. Third party buyers (resale) of “SVN Voluntary” resorts cannot participate in SVN. If considering the purchase of a resale week, you should contact owner services to confirm eligibility. Resale weeks are not assigned a StarPoints value, so resale owners will not be allowed to exchange for SPG StarPoints, regardless if they are SVN mandatory or SVN voluntary resorts.

One exception to this rule: Owners of some older resorts built and sold by a previous developer (Embassy, Vistana, etc.) before Starwood took control may be allowed to “buy in” to the SVN network and participate fully in the StarOption and StarPoint features; though sometimes at reduced point values. Because many of these resort weeks were purchased before SVN was introduced, there is very limited availability of these weeks within the SVN system. On occasion, SVO will offer SVN membership to the current owners of these weeks in order to get more weeks from that resort to be available within SVN. I have never seen SVN offer membership to a resale owner of a Starwood built “SVN voluntary” resort – this is because these resorts already have an abundant supply of SVN available weeks.

EXTERNAL EXCHANGE

As stated previously, owners can also exchange their weeks through either RCI (some older resorts) or Interval International (newer resorts). When a new SVO week is purchased and enrolled in SVN, the owner is also automatically given a membership account with II. The account is a “Starwood Corporate” account, and Starwood pays all the membership fees. In my opinion, there are a few drawbacks and a few benefits to this system.

Drawbacks:

This account is only for Starwood SVN weeks. No other timeshare weeks can be used with this account. In my case, I now have two II accounts – the account with only my Starwood week, and a separate account with my other timeshare weeks. Starwood will not let an owner “waive” this account or put a SVN week in a different account.
As of this writing, Starwood will not let owners use II’s “request first” feature. This is a MAJOR drawback, because to start an “ongoing search” for a compatible exchange, the owner must first deposit his week (there is a way around this, listed below).
When depositing a floating week with II, Starwood actually picks the week; the owner does not get his choice of weeks. This can be a problem for the owner, especially if you own a high demand week in the platinum season. Remember that an individual resorts’ seasons don’t necessarily correspond to the way that II ranks seasons. For example, Harborside has three seasons (platinum, gold, and silver). For exchanging purposes, II considers every season at Harborside “red” (high). So even though you may own in the high demand platinum season, you may be assigned a lower demand silver week to deposit. Although II claims every week is red, every red week is not equal. Remember the “value” of your week depends very much on the demand, and a higher demand week will be “worth” more trading power. If a well-informed Starwood owner “objects” to being assigned a certain week to trade with, SVN may be flexible – knowledge is power!
Starwood will only let you deposit a week at your home resort. This means that you can’t use StarOptions to reserve a week at another SVN resort during the Network Float Period and deposit that week.

Benefits:

The II account is included with SVN, so you will not have to pay the normal membership fees.
Because Starwood picks the week to deposit instead of you, you do have more options. At any given time, Starwood has numerous developer-owned weeks in a “master” account with II. These weeks include unsold inventory, and weeks owners have converted into StarPoints or StarOptions. When you (as an owner) decide to deposit your week, Starwood will transfer one of these weeks from their II account into yours. Although you don’t get the benefit of picking the exact week, you do get the benefit of receiving a “previously deposited” week, which carries with it the original deposit date. Remember that earlier deposits are valued more than later deposits. This way, you can decide at any time of the year to deposit your week, and you will still get the benefit of an early deposit. I have actually deposited a week that had already passed. It was a week that Starwood held in their II account. Although the date had passed and someone had already traded into it, I was given full credit in my account – just as if I had deposited it up to a year earlier.
Although you cannot do a “request first”, Starwood will assign you a specific week (from their account) to experiment with. If you don’t find a satisfactory trade, Starwood will “un-assign” the week (put it back into their account) and you can still reserve your normal week for your own use.
As of this update, SVN owners can “shop” with their week using their online II account. This means that although you may not have been assigned (or requested) a specific week yet, there will be a generic “float” week from your resort and season listed in your account. You can use this week to shop for available trades. Remember that this “float” week has not been assigned an actual week number yet, so the search (“shop”) results may not be as good as they could be with a high-powered week (an October week at Harborside is not nearly as good as a March week at Harborside, although they are both considered “red”). While “shopping”, if you do find a match for which you would like to exchange, you can reserve it for 24 hours while Starwood assigns you an actual week to use in trade.

I will try to answer any other questions that I can!

Chris Nettleton

TUG user ID: seenett

nettleton@comcast.com