Star Options

Do you own Starwood Vacation Ownership? Lucky you! Your status as an owner with Starwood Vacations comes with lots of perks and benefits, including StarOptions and StarPoints. SVO StarOptions provide Starwood timeshare owners with unique exchange benefits while StarPoints can expand your opportunities for vacationing and travel.

StarOptions and a World of Travel and Timeshare

The Starwood family of properties includes nineteen timeshare villa resorts that are part of the brand’s network of approximately 1000 hotel properties. As a current Starwood timeshare owner (or a prospective resale buyer), your property ownership is defined as a deeded interest in one of the nineteen timeshare resorts. Deeded interest in a Starwood resort may be held as a fixed week(s) or a floating week(s).

With fixed week ownership, you can enjoy vacationing during the same favorite week each year, bank your timeshare week for future use, or use it for timeshare exchange through your membership with an external timeshare exchange company.

Starwood owners of floating weeks receive timeshare points called StarOptions. How many StarOptions an owner has is based on which resort is designated as the owner’s home resort, the villa size owned, the season owned, and how many floating weeks the owner purchased.

If the owner buys timeshare by paying the developer’s full price directly from Starwood Vacation Ownership, he or she can then use StarOptions for exchange (based on availability) at any of the nineteen Starwood villa resort properties. The owner uses StarOptions for timeshare exchange within the network by converting StarOptions to StarPoints at a fixed rate of exchange.

Starwood owners can make these exchanges every other year and an exchange fee may apply. StarOptions also may be used at the owner’s home resort for unit upgrades in size or season. Lockoff units can be exchanged through StarOptions either as an entire unit or by exchanging only one part of the timeshare lockoff.

The Difference between StarOptions and StarPoints

Starwood Vacation Ownership and Starwood Hotels structure their three-tiered loyalty program by using StarPoints. StarPoints are accrued by anyone enrolled in the Starwood Preferred Guest Rewards program. This program is offered as free membership, open to timeshare owners and non-owners, with three levels of participation: 1. Starwood Preferred Guest; 2. Starwood Preferred Guest Gold; and 3. Starwood Preferred Guest Platinum. Each level has excellent benefits and discounts and the opportunity to accrue rewards quickly.

If you purchased your timeshare from Starwood Vacation Ownership, you automatically received rewards and status at the Gold Preferred Guest level and you can convert your StarPoints into Star Options to enhance your travel rewards. If you purchased your timeshare by-owner on the secondary market, you do not have this option, yet you can still be part of the StarPoints reward program, earning StarPoints for every Starwood hotel stay, restaurant meal at a Starwood property, and other types of expenses that are related to your hotel accommodations.

StarOptions and the Starwood Timeshare Resale Owner

As a timeshare resale owner, you can take advantage of StarOptions if you own timeshare at one of these Starwood resorts:

• Harborside at Atlantis (I and II)
• Vistana Villages (Bella and Key West phases)
• Westin Ka’anapali and Westin Ka’anapali North
• Westin St. John (Virgin Grand- Hillside phase)
• Westin Kierland Villas

The properties available for exchange through StarOptions are known as Starwood Vacation Network (SVN). If your Starwood timeshare resale is not on the above list of resorts (often described as the Mandatory list), you cannot exchange your unit/week/points through SVN. However, you can enjoy booking your vacation at your home resort as much as 12 months in advance or exchanging it for a different week or resort (Starwood or any other available exchange property) through your paid membership in a timeshare exchange company.