Sheraton Timeshares

Sheraton timeshares are another popular choice among the hotel-owned brands of timeshares. Operating under the name Sheraton Vacation Ownership, Sheraton timeshares are part of the Starwood family of vacation resorts. The Starwood timeshares also includes the Westin brand and St. Regis. Starwood continues to build resorts under all three brand names with St. Regis primarily being fractional ownership properties and Sheraton and Westin continuing as traditional timeshare resorts.

The Sheraton's Vistana Resort in Orlando, FL is their flagship property. The resort has 8 pools, a miniature golf course and more than a 1000 villas. It is also located about a mile from Walt Disney World. Sheraton is also increasing their presence with the build-out of another resort in Orlando, called the Sheraton Vistana Villages, which will add another 1400 villas when the project is completed. Both resorts are very popular with Disney visitors.

Starwood also features two additional resorts in Florida:

• Vistana's Beach Club, Jensen Beach, FL
• Sheraton PGA Vacation Club, Port St. Lucie, FL

In additon to the Floridian resorts, Starwood also has Sheraton branded timeshare resorts in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, Scottsdale, Arizona, and at Vail and Steamboat Springs in the Colorado Rockies.

If you're thinking about buying a Sheraton timeshare resale, there are a couple of things to think about before you decide which resort to purchase.

Your main concern is probably going to be whether or not you will have access to Starwood's StarOptions program. This is Starwood's flexible points based program which converts your owned resort week to a points value that will allow you the flexibility of staying at another Starwood owned resort.

However, the right to use StarOptions is NOT passed between owners, with the exception of particular resorts. The only Sheraton branded resort that qualifies is Sheraton Vistana Villages, but even then I believe it is only certain villas. So it will pay to do your due diligence before any purchase if StarOptions is important to you.

On the other hand, some of the Sheraton resorts have been converted to RCI points which would mean that StarOptions would not be such a big loss if you decided to buy a Sheraton (or Starwood) resort which did not include StarOptions. Because if the resort has been converted to RCI points, you can use that for extremely flexible vacation planning with the exchange broker, RCI. I know that some of Sheraton Vistana Resort has been converted to RCI points so keep your eye out for that if it interests you. Just make sure that whatever unit you purchase has already been converted as it can be a bit pricey to have it done.

And finally, timeshares generally are affiliated with one of two exchange companies - RCI or Interval International. Some of the Sheraton resorts are with RCI, some with Interval International and some are duel-affiliated. So keep that in mind if you have a preference.