Timeshare Auctions

Monarch Grand Vacations is a popular timeshare ownership program with the majority of their timeshare resorts located in California. In addition to coastal and desert Southern California resorts, Monarch Grand Vacations also has one resort property in Vegas, one in Los Cabos, Mexico and one in Cedar City, UT.

Monarch is a great choice if you like to vacation mainly in California -- with resorts located in Tahoe, Palm Springs and Capistrano Beach, as an owner you would get to experience three very different California environment since this is a points-based timeshare program. With only nine resorts, Monarch is basically a mini-system compared to programs like Wyndham or Worldmark, but if you love their locations, then purchasing a contract on the timeshare resale market is an excellent buy.

Just be aware though, that if you decide to buy resale, you want to keep an eye on what exactly you are getting. Some Monarch sales will be for deeded properties, and for those the points can only be used at the home resort. To maximize use of Monarch Grand Vacations resorts, you'll want to make sure to buy a non-deeded resale, so you can use your MGV points at any resort on their mini-system.

One other thing to think about if you are looking at buying Monarch Grand points are the maintenance fees. While California timeshares, particularly beach resorts, tend to have higher than average maintenance fees regardless of brand, Monarch Grand Vacations maintenance fees can seem somewhat out of line considering the quality of the resorts. Their resorts are nice, but not exactly the Marriott.

Are you going to buy Monarch points on Ebay? Then you'll also want to look out for sellers who want to gouge you with closing fees. Since most Monarch sales will not be for deeded property, there's no need for overinflated closing fees. You should expect to pay about $200 or maybe a bit more. I would skip any auctions where the closing fees for buying Monarch Grand Vacations is over $400.

Be sure to buy enough points. If you want to stay in a one bedroom unit every year, 266 points will get you what you need. Monarch charges for combining contracts (a whopping $300) so make sure you buy the points you need the first time and you'll save some money further down the line.

There are many 72 point resales of MGV points available on Ebay and I don't recommend any of them as a deal -- you really need at least 133 points to book a week at any of their resorts. I don't even know why such smaller points packages are sold. Of course, you don't have to stay a week if you don't want to. One nice thing about Monarch is that you can book for any length of stay, so if you only have time to get away for a weekend, you can just book a couple of nights.

And a few final things to keep in mind. MGV points are issued for two years, so your points allocation is good for 24 months. So if you buy 266 points, that can get you two 133 point reservations over two years. It's up to you how you use them though -- so take two vacations this year, or one vacation this year and next. If you don't use your points however, it will be important that you deposit them for exchange (Monarch is affiliated with Interval International, which is awesome) because you cannot bank or borrow points.