Seven Maui timeshare resorts have just joined the portfolio of Travel + Leisure Co., putting more Hawaii visitors and owners within one of the industry’s largest sales, financing, and exchange systems. For travelers booking ordinary resort stays, the significance isn’t just who owns the properties. It’s also about the sales operation, owner fees, and exchange relationships that follow.
Here’s where it gets confusing. The buyer is what was formerly known as Wyndham Destinations. That’s an Orlando timeshare company, which, back in 2021, paid $100 million for the Travel + Leisure name.
We wrote about that unusual arrangement at the time in Strange bedfellows: Why Wyndham Acquired and Became “Travel + Leisure”, asking whether a timeshare operator could own one of travel publishing’s best-known brands without creating questions. People Inc. still publishes the magazine independently under a license agreement.
This week’s acquisition makes the overlap more relevant to Hawaii travelers because the same company behind the Travel + Leisure name has now added more Maui timeshare properties to its portfolio. Guests booking these resorts may encounter the familiar owner update meeting, the free breakfast, and the long sales pitch that often come with timeshare properties, as we too have experienced, while existing owners face a new company behind the fees, financing, and exchange access tied to their ownership.
What the company actually bought.
Travel + Leisure Co. described the acquisition using phrases such as “owner monetization” and “receivables optimization,” which we found to be confusing corporate-speak. The company wants an established owner base, a stream of management and sales opportunities, and consumer-financing receivables it can leverage.
The resorts themselves were only part of what changed hands. What the company wanted was the owners, the customer base the industry calls vacation ownership, and most travelers call timeshares. Travel + Leisure Co. says it retains 97% of its owners, and its filings describe them as a steady source of upgrades, financing income, and management fees. Buying a company’s owners outright beats spending years chasing after new ones.
Why Maui keeps attracting buyers.
Company executives said the acquisitions add inventory in markets where new development is particularly challenging. They named Maui, along with Hilton Head, as the two destinations driving the purchase, which suggests Maui was a primary target and that the completed Yes& Vacations acquisition delivered all seven Maui properties at once.
The conflict we already named.
Travel + Leisure still publishes its Maui hotel lists, resort awards, and destination recommendations under a brand that Travel + Leisure Co. owns and licenses. That company’s Maui timeshare portfolio now holds seven more properties than before.
What changes for visitors and residents?
The company’s announcement did not identify any immediate changes to reservations, resort names, owner fees, exchange access, or on-property operations. Travel + Leisure Co.’s filings put existing owners at the center of its business, but the release does not indicate any current changes for those booked at these Maui resorts.
We do not have to guess what that concentration feels like from the owner’s perspective, because our readers told us about it as long as five years ago. Under that original article, a Wyndham timeshare owner of 30 years described being charged $239 for a single exchange through RCI, the timeshare trading network, done with one click online, housekeeping fees added on top, and a check-in that routed her to a separate counter for a parking pass, where the real business was a pitch to buy more.
Travel + Leisure Co. did not name the seven Maui resorts, nor did it disclose them when the deal closed. One property we can confirm as a Yes& Vacations resort is Sands of Kahana, on West Maui. Travel + Leisure Co. has not identified the remaining Maui properties. Instead, the company emphasized owner counts and portfolio growth while leaving the individual resort names unstated.
For anyone who already owns one of the seven, the deal reaches past the front desk and into the account. Travel + Leisure Co. also owns RCI, the largest timeshare exchange network. For owners whose resorts are integrated into that system, a single company can end up managing resort operations, exchanges, and other aspects of the ownership experience. We have heard from enough Hawaii timeshare owners over the years to know that fees and exchange terms are where a change like this first hits. That is what we will be watching, and if you own one of the seven, you will see it before we do.
Lead Photo Credit: © Beat of Hawaii at Wailea Beach on Maui.
By Rob and Jeff, Beat of Hawaii.
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Since I live on Maui and have friends who own timeshares at the Westin, Marriott (now one) and the Hilton (previously Kaanapali Beach Club and Embassy Suites before that), I would love to know the 7 resorts that will be part of Travel & Leisure Co. I am a Realtor and Property Manager on Maui, but don’t handle short term rentals, hotel rentals or timeshares.
These are the 7 properties that were managed by Soliel Management:
Sands of Kahana (Lahaina)
Kahana Beach Resort (Lahaina)
Kahana Villa Resort (Lahaina)
The Gardens at West Maui (Lahaina)
Hono Koa (Lahaina)
Maui Beach Vacation Club (Kihei)
Maui Banyan Vacation Club (Kihei)
I have seen no evidence T&L bought the resorts, instead I have only seen that they bought the company that manages those resorts, that being Soleil Management.
Travel + Leisure Co. (T&L) actually purchased and acquired the timeshare resort properties and companies outright, which includes Yes& Vacation which owned Soliel Management, as corporate acquisitions, rather than just acting as a simple third-party management company.
Do you have a specific reference for that? As far as I can tell, Soleil didn’t own any Maui properties, they only managed them.
Aloha! Maybe you’re not familiar with timeshares. For example: Hono Koa is a deeding timeshare owned collectively by its individual interval owners, such as me, who paid about 15,000 for my one week every other year share a couple of decades ago. That’s why a person who buys a timeshare is given a “Deed”; therefore the Owner. So Soleil Management was the entity ensuring our place was taken care of, just like what every Management company does. So the people who actually Own the 7 properties now have a new property management company taking care of administration, onsite resort operations, and club reservations .
Soleil Management was a terrible management company: non-communicative about rising fees; demonstrated a lack of concern for owners who tried to get in touch through phone calls, email and snail mail; increased fees without giving any reasons; didn’t pay the property taxes in time and owners suffered the late-fee expense due to lack of on-time payment.
there were promises of air conditioning in units that cannot even be occupied in summer months because it’s too hot to sleep. There were rodent issues at Sands of Kahana that continued even after it was a known issue, and of course roaches are an issue for almost everyone. I have never seen a roach at the nicer hotels and timeshares on the island, only Sands of Kahana.
I hoped for Wyndham/Travel and Leisure to relieve us of this bad management by Soleil. Good riddance to Soleil!
Regarding roaches, a friend of mine stayed at the Westin Villas in Kaanapali and had roaches come out of the dishwasher when she opened it ….I also heard about roaches at the Hilton Vacation Club in Kaanapali and I am pretty sure they are roaches at other resorts where people can cook because they will leave trash behind, not clean the dishes right away …maybe waiting for the cleaning crew to come in …
Thank you for this. We just checked into Angels Camp and were told we needed to “ opt in” ( sales pitch ) to learn about the 23 acquired properties.
We won’t be attending.
Hi. Does that mean we can bequeath our Sands of Kahana
Timeshare week any easier now?
We just want to get rid of it permanently. Not burden our kids in the future further.
No monetary compensation wanted.
The timeshare companies push hard to get an heir to take the timeshares. They are printing money, and they don’t want that gravytrain to stop. But you can’t indenture your children with your contract.
The roadmap is here:
debt.org/real-estate/refuse-to-inherit-timeshare/
Share that with your children.
Just got this in the mail. I already feel a hand trying to reach into my pocket.
A Welcome to Travel + Leisure Co.
Earlier today, Travel + Leisure Co. announced the acquisition of Soleil Management and Somerpointe Resorts.
We want to be among the first to welcome you to the Travel + Leisure Co. family. We are a leading leisure travel company whose brands include Club Wyndham, WorldMark, Margaritaville Vacation Club, Sports Illustrated Resorts, Accor Vacation Club, Eddie Bauer Adventure Club, as well as booking platforms, vacation clubs and other travel businesses.
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Soleil Management (Tahiti Village) resorts were known for not releasing anyone for any reason. Wyndham stopped taking weeks back over a year ago and then announced they were filing for bankruptcy on 15 resorts, several Fairfield. Now they are starting over with these deteriorating resorts. They announced the acquisition of 23 resorts for $343 million. There are over 1,100 listings for WorldMark credits and over 1,800 listings for Wyndham points.
I have been a Worldmark owner for many years and have been totally satisfied. They do want me to attend the sales meetings each time I visit. They give me $100.00 American Express gift cards and it takes about 15 minutes of my time to tell them I have no interest in additional purchases. Pretty good pay for my time.
Aloha! What news! I wonder what that means to us, and those who own the purchased timeshares? I checked and see that timeshares under Soliel Management are the 7 places now added to Travel & Liesure. Sort of confusing, especially when Maui hasn’t made it’s final decision on what will happen to current timeshares in West Maui and Kihei. Although what I can see is Soliel most likely “dumped” the timeshares they owned that are the Minatoya List, leaving us still wondering. Aloha!
The seven properties on Maui including Sands of Kahana are probably Maui Beach Vacation Club, Hono Koa, Gardens at West Maui, Kahana Villa, Maui Banyan Vacation Club, and Kahana Beach Resort.
This sounds ominous. Sands of Kahana is (was?) a Soliel property, as is my timeshare, Hono Koa and Kahana Villa. I have not received any notice from Soliel of this transaction, and how it will impact us, which concerns me. HOA fees have already risen substantially in the last few years, to the point where they used to amount to about half the cost of a typical Kaanapali hotel room rate to now almost equal to the same cost. This may also reflect the reason for the ‘giveaway’ pricing of some of the units on timeshare resale sites. Crossing my fingers.
They acquired Soleil Management. Some of the other properties include Maui Banyan, Maui Beach Club, Gardens at West Maui, Kahana Beach, Khana Villa, along with Sands of Kahana.