The New Marriott Points System

[taffy19 Gold Contributor Find all posts View Profile Close taffy19]

Were they still able to rescind the contract? It's only three business days if you enroll online. Is it different when you go in person?

[StressCadet Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close StressCadet]

Dear Heather - Fear not. You can continue to use your weeks as you always have. There are two different buckets. Keep using them as weeks or elect each year to to turn them into Destination points. You won't lose your 13-month privilege. We can talk on the phone and it will become clear. The program is fabulous and they have added an Explorer collection that is phenomenal. You would never turn your regular weeks into Destination points to use at your home resort. You are a LEGACY owner. You have the best possible position. It is the new person that would use Destination points to come to Myrtle Beach. If you decide to enroll, your points can get you three or four weeks in other locations. We definitely need to talk. Right now if you buy additional points - and all the LEGACY owners are lined up out the door - you can buy a minimum of 1,000 points and a max of 10,000. The Introductory Special is $9.20 per point. If you just enroll they give you 800 points to "play" with as an incentive. If you buy additional points, the incentives are fabulous. Basically, you can buy what would have been silver or bronze and add it to what you have, and upgrade to oceanfront, or spend one or two nights additional, take a week in Orlando, or go the Great Wall of China on an Explorer trip. I'm loving it, and I think you will, too. You were on my list of people to speak to. I know once we speak, you'll get it.

Let's talk before you enroll and before you come down - I don't want you to miss out on any perks.
You are going to be all over this program, - this will give your husband
what he's always wanted - golf in the off season - you will have
Explorer packages and you can still have Myrtle Beach - you probably
will want to buy more Destination Points - the new bucket. But
basically for the price of what a Bronze week used to cost, you can
augment what you already own.

Oh forgive me...but this email makes me sick. "AND all the legacy owners are lined up out the door" Hope they are serving them more kool aid while they wait.

[camachinist Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close camachinist]

I'd have to be permanently drunk or stoned to be a salesperson

[GrayFal Silver Contributor and supermoderator Find all posts View Profile Close GrayFal]

One thing to keep your eye on are provisions pertaining to rentals.

In the Diamond system, when you join your week to the Club you also pretty much surrender your right to rent the week. Technically, you can still rent, as long as the rental is not "commercial use", but "commercial use" is explicitly defined to include any advertising that you have a unit for rent. So posting a rental ad here or OY is commercial activity that is against DRI Club rules. The stated rationale is that the Club is for the personal use of members and renting units removes units from usage by members.

******

So I would suggest that anyone who joins Marriott's club be sure that all of the rights of usage that you are accustomed to having be spelled out explicitly in your contract. Don't rely on references to club rules, because those can be changed. If it's important to you, make it a condition of your affiliation agreement. If they won't put it into the contract, then you'll have to decide how important it is to you and how much you trust them.

Angela told me (she read on the website) that you can NOT get a guest certificate for a reservation made with points.
That seems to support what you are saying.

[GrayFal Silver Contributor and supermoderator Find all posts View Profile Close GrayFal]

I just talked to a new Marriott "points" buyer.. Purchased 1500 points for over $13,000! He had no idea what he was getting for that amount of money.. When I showed him the point charts he was furious!

Said the salesperson had thrown so much at them they'd gotten confused and thought they were actually getting enough points for a 2br villa..

It's a family of six that comes to Orlando almost every year.. That point total won't even get them a full week in a studio villa for some of the year (and with six they can't stay in a studio anyway!)

They were also told by the sales weasel that if they didn't buy points, they wouldn't be able to exchange in the future... They also got the same old story about Marriott buying back all the resale contracts, and that resale buyers often can't get clean title and find they owe thousands in back maintenance fees..

It's just sad.......

And to think the resale industry is the one with a bad reputation right now in the press....

Here is the points required for Grande Vista Orlando stay
Grande Vista (Orlando)
Marriott gives me 2775 for my Platinum week...-
to reserve in plat time 3900,
to reserve in late Feb thru early April 4225,
to reserve my usual Presidents week resie 4775

1500 will get them 2.5 days in a 2BR in the winter - not so good, huh

[camachinist Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close camachinist]

Perhaps an apples and oranges thing, but, when I rent our NCV intervals, I just call owner services (lately I just e-mail them) and they add the tenant's name to the reservation. If I'm an enrolled owner making 'reservations' at my home or another resort with enrolled points, I can see how this would fit the 'renting an exchange' methodology and preclude renting, but if I were 'purchasing' points 'new' from Marriott, with no underlying 'home' resort, then I could see those points being rentable just like renting out one's deeded ownership.

IIUC, in the Marriott system, if a legacy owner 'enrolls' their week, it merely gives that owner access to the points/internal exchange functionality. It doesn't change their deeded ownership, including the right to rent it, if it has not been exchanged for points for that use year.

[GrayFal Silver Contributor and supermoderator Find all posts View Profile Close GrayFal]

Pat, does anything keep us from booking time like we always have to get the season and view we purchased rather than use devalued points?

You can still book your week ownership BUT over time, as people convert and start to use these points, it will be harder and harder to get the week you want......since ANY point owner can reserve at your home resort during your time/season.
Right now you are only competing with other people who own the same season/view as yourself.....point people can reserve ANYTHING and many will be able to reserve at 13 months without any discussion of holding back ANY time for deeded owners.
I don't think Marriott would be so stupid as to take more inventory then they actually control....but they certainly can hold the best weeks for the point program.
Your only guarantee is a week in your season/view.... - but not necessarily what u want.

[camachinist Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close camachinist]

I think the downside risk of deeded 'legacy' owners not getting their desired weeks diminishes at sold-out resorts as well as at resorts with well thought-out 'seasons'. IMO, the 'sold-out' factor is more critical than the season factor, because the more unsold developer inventory Marriott has to play with, the more they can, without notice or recourse, skew the seasonal availability to their favor.

TBH, the fact that this appears to be some sort of contracted work by II and not native to Marriott's own reservation systems (I've noted a lot of re-directs on vacationclub since the roll-out), the more concerned I have become. The 'old' II and the 'new' points systems are a bit too cozy for my taste. YMMV...

[GrayFal Silver Contributor and supermoderator Find all posts View Profile Close GrayFal]

I think the downside risk of deeded 'legacy' owners not getting their desired weeks diminishes at sold-out resorts as well as at resorts with well thought-out 'seasons'. IMO, the 'sold-out' factor is more critical than the season factor, because the more unsold developer inventory Marriott has to play with, the more they can, without notice or recourse, skew the seasonal availability to their favor.

TBH, the fact that this appears to be some sort of contracted work by II and not native to Marriott's own reservation systems (I've noted a lot of re-directs on vacationclub since the roll-out), the more concerned I have become. The 'old' II and the 'new' points systems are a bit too cozy for my taste. YMMV...

This is where Marriott plans on getting the inventory....from your weeks u deposit in II - and I wonder WHO will get priority - you with your requested week to week exchange or a request from a Club member???

From the MVCI website

"Marriott Internal Exchange Procedures and Priorities

1. For all Club Program Trust Members and all Club Program Exchange
Members requesting exchange services based on the relinquishment
of Points, the Club Program Manager will be solely responsible for the
performance of exchanges into the Marriott Resorts. Where a requested
internal exchange cannot be confirmed through inventory available in
the MVC Club Program, the Club Program Manager will submit internal
exchange requests through II and, where the necessary inventory is
or becomes available in the Exchange Program, II will issue the
Confirmation to the Club Program Manager, who in turn will issue such
Confirmation to the applicable Club Program Member. "

[camachinist Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close camachinist]

I fully expect Marriott to cherry-pick II. This is why I had hoped for totally disconnected functionality, even incorporating the system into MARSHA, which is already set up for points transactions (MRP's). *If* (and I'm not completely clear on it) II is the contractor for IT on this 'new' internal exchange system, and their respective systems talk to each other, it's a foregone conclusion that there's already a 'get it done' button in place.

I'm more worried about the home resort MVCI reservation system for weeks and how it's being programmed for reservation priority and from what inventory. Only an insider will know the truth, but we can extrapolate from historical patterns. Developer owners have a big sunk cost into their now 'legacy' weeks and this particular regular guy values his vacation money dearly. I don't like to see it p!ssed away at the push of a clandestine button.

I hope Marriott knows we're watching carefully and some of us have memories like elephants

[camachinist Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close camachinist]

Here's some numbers and further thoughts:

At NCV there are a total of 36,400 use/weeks (700 villas x 52 weeks). During the eight weeks of July and August, there are 5600 use/weeks. Let's say Marriott still owns 10% of the total use/weeks, or 3640 use/weeks in both seasons, with 30%, or 1092 use/weeks being in platinum/platinum plus season, since gold historically sells like used motor oil.

1092 use/weeks. They can be anywhere between the beginning of June and New Years. I'm imagining if I owned all those weeks. When would I book them? What a nice pipe dream....

Anyway, all that needs to happen is for Marriott IT to install a 'I want to do the Magic Kingdom happy dance in July' button and some marketing type gets the itchy finger and all those Marriott owned weeks could easily just disappear off the back-end database and my resort calendar will look bleak indeed when I settle in at 6:00am in July for my yearly ritual. I've heard precious little from 13 month owners so far. Perhaps no one pushed the button. Perhaps no one will. Maybe there is no button. The reality that it's a *possibility* and one without scrutinization nor legal recourse gives me pause. Along with the other insults to legacy developer owners, it's just one more little 'thing'. For someone who's been a consistent Marriott customer for nearly 15 years to even *think* it, says something.

[StressCadet Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close StressCadet]

Anyway, all that needs to happen is for Marriott IT to install a 'I want to do the Magic Kingdom happy dance in July' button and some marketing type gets the itchy finger and all those Marriott owned weeks could easily just disappear off the back-end database and my resort calendar will look bleak indeed when I settle in at 6:00am in July for my yearly ritual. I've heard precious little from 13 month owners so far. Perhaps no one pushed the button. Perhaps no one will. Maybe there is no button. The reality that it's a *possibility* and one without scrutinization nor legal recourse gives me pause. Along with the other insults to legacy developer owners, it's just one more little 'thing'. For someone who's been a consistent Marriott customer for nearly 15 years to even *think* it, says something.

This is exactly where I am....they can, can they? They will, will they? It could happen, will it happen? In all the legal mumbo jumbo it's the word "may" that gives me pause and them the authority to do so.

May is such a nice month...flowers and all. I don't like Marriott owning "may"

[GrayFal Silver Contributor and supermoderator Find all posts View Profile Close GrayFal]

Here's some numbers and further thoughts:

At NCV there are a total of 36,400 use/weeks (700 villas x 52 weeks). During the eight weeks of July and August, there are 5600 use/weeks. Let's say Marriott still owns 10% of the total use/weeks, or 3640 use/weeks in both seasons, with 30%, or 1092 use/weeks being in platinum/platinum plus season, since gold historically sells like used motor oil.

1092 use/weeks. They can be anywhere between the beginning of June and New Years. I'm imagining if I owned all those weeks. When would I book them? What a nice pipe dream....

Anyway, all that needs to happen is for Marriott IT to install a 'I want to do the Magic Kingdom happy dance in July' button and some marketing type gets the itchy finger and all those Marriott owned weeks could easily just disappear off the back-end database and my resort calendar will look bleak indeed when I settle in at 6:00am in July for my yearly ritual. I've heard precious little from 13 month owners so far. Perhaps no one pushed the button. Perhaps no one will. Maybe there is no button. The reality that it's a *possibility* and one without scrutinization nor legal recourse gives me pause. Along with the other insults to legacy developer owners, it's just one more little 'thing'. For someone who's been a consistent Marriott customer for nearly 15 years to even *think* it, says something.

This is exactly where I am....they can, can they? They will, will they? It could happen, will it happen? In all the legal mumbo jumbo it's the word "may" that gives me pause and them the authority to do so.

May is such a nice month...flowers and all. I don't like Marriott owning "may"

Yup...I agree

Plus, for those who still want to exchange week to week - why would they give the exchange resie to me, a week to week exchanger when they want to show how easy it is to get what you want using points - I suspect the "tie breaker" will go in Marriotts favor - the point request will be filled before my week request.

I think the best "defense" for week to week exchangers will be to get the requests in 14 months out - so that hopefully there won't be any point requests in when the week you want is deposited and MarriotII (now the same entity!) will fill MY request rather then hold it for a future points request/reservation.

Only time will tell.

[camachinist Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close camachinist]

I'm wondering out loud if the blue week strategy might not be a good defense, utilizing the points to resale cost spread along with the 13+ month rule and the enrollment cap.

I'll be curious to see if in fact enrolled owners, whether developer or not, can actually add new resale weeks to their accounts. It sounds like 'no', but perhaps I misunderstand. That's an aspect I'll examine as I have time.

[taffy19 Gold Contributor Find all posts View Profile Close taffy19]

Yup...I agree

Plus, for those who still want to exchange week to week - why would they give the exchange resie to me, a week to week exchanger when they want to show how easy it is to get what you want using points - I suspect the "tie breaker" will go in Marriotts favor - the point request will be filled before my week request.

I think the best "defense" for week to week exchangers will be to get the requests in 14 months out - so that hopefully there won't be any point requests in when the week you want is deposited and MarriotII (now the same entity!) will fill MY request rather then hold it for a future points request/reservation.

Only time will tell.

How can a single week owner do this? They are left out again as this happened once before when the 13 months' reservation window was introduced. Do they tell you this when you buy your first week or point package? I doubt it. Many people will be very disappointed quickly in this new "super duper" plan, imho.