Roth v Traditional IRA

[disneysteve]

Not if you do the math. If you consider the average price of a hotel room between now and the time I am too old to stop vacationing will be $100 (given my predisposition for reasonably nice hotels in big cities, a conservative number), and assuming I will spend ten nights a year in such hotels for the next 30 years, you have $30,000 in hotel expenses. The membership I have will get me the same number of nights in perpetuity. Even if I let the loan amortize completely, I will be ahead in the long run.

Is there no annual fee beyond the initial buy-in?

[jIM_Ohio]

Is there no annual fee beyond the initial buy-in?

I saw a similar presentation for a vacation club.

Pay about a 10k one time fee
Pay a $400 fee any year you want to use service. You get 8 credits for one week stays (or some # of credits). If you travel to a peak location at peak time of year (like Cancun in March) it takes 2X credits or 4X credits.

But the fees ($400) are locked in for the lodging for life. So even if inflation kicks up cost of hotel room, the $400 fee is for life.

Usually this is offered through travel agencies, so they also make $$ arranging the trip (airfare, car rentals etc...).

I am assuming it's something similar.

[mariogreymist]

Is there no annual fee beyond the initial buy-in?

There is a maintenance fee that is about $300 annually for my level. It's an amount that can only go up by a vote of all members. I expect that will increase at roughly the same rate as hotel rates do. What $100 per night buys you this year will cost $200 in ten years. I'll still be at a nice resort for the same money. It's the same principle as owning vs renting your housing. Owning is more expensive in the short term only. I really have done the math on this thing, and given my youth and my desire to travel, I will come out ahead - even if I pay the loan as is, which was never my intention.

[mariogreymist]

I saw a similar presentation for a vacation club.

Pay about a 10k one time fee
Pay a $400 fee any year you want to use service. You get 8 credits for one week stays (or some # of credits). If you travel to a peak location at peak time of year (like Cancun in March) it takes 2X credits or 4X credits.

But the fees ($400) are locked in for the lodging for life. So even if inflation kicks up cost of hotel room, the $400 fee is for life.

Usually this is offered through travel agencies, so they also make $$ arranging the trip (airfare, car rentals etc...).

I am assuming it's something similar.

You buy a certain number of "points." The points you buy renew annually and are owned. That number of points purchases stays in any member resort(dozens), or for a fee, affiliate resorts(nearly a thousand). The point cost for a particular resort varies by season, but not by year. That is, spring in Cancun is more expensive than summer, but spring 2030 will be the same nightly points price as spring 2008. You can use points for airfare and other expenses, but I'm not sure how much of that I'll do - I have family in the airline industry and generally travel very cheaply.

All the resorts are held by the club without mortgages, and if a resort is ever destroyed the club must build a comparable resort in the same area for the same point cost.