Marriott Vacation Club: The best timeshare in the industry?

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Recently, we named Shell Vacations Club as “The Best Timeshare in San Francisco”.
The criteria we set were very specific – a mainstream club, with a presence in the Bay Area, and Shell met those requirements.
 

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We received numerous inquiries asking what we felt was the best timeshare company overall?

There are many companies in timeshare these days, both independent companies like Westgate, Shell and ILX, as well as traditional hospitality firms. Known as the “Flags”, they include names like Hyatt, Hilton, Disney and Starwood.

Once again, with the disclaimer that we have not visited all resorts, and this is a subjective opinion, I think the Marriott Vacation Club family of properties stands head and shoulders above the rest as the “Best” timeshare company in the country. 

Hyatt has really nice properties, in some very popular destinations, but there are just not that many of them. Plus they are all in the upper price tier.
 

Marriott earns their status in part for the tremendous impact their entry into the timeshare industry had in the mid-eighties. In the early days timeshare suffered from high pressure, often-shady sales practices.

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The poorly regulated industry had seen its share of scandals, resulting in black eyes and a loss of consumer confidence. One of the most noteworthy was probably the Glen Ivy overselling scam. (click here for a brief background of the Glen Ivy scam)

Today the timeshare industry is one of the most thoroughly scrutinized and regulated industry’s there is, and enjoys a high consumer satisfaction level. But in the late seventies and early eighties, this was not the case.

And this is the environment that existed when Marriott first ventured into the timeshare market in 1984. They were not the first of the Flags to enter the industry (Hyatt, at least dipped its toe in the pool as far back as the mid-seventies).

But they entered in a big way, and today they are, by many measures, the largest resort company in the business. They currently have more than 60 resorts under their various brands.