Report Abuse

Re: Marriott Going to Point Syst

There is a reason Marriott reps are having difficulty providing a meaningful spin on 'what does points do for you?' Marriott, for the most part, sold out all properties (there are some exceptions). They spent 26 years finding out what weeks people want. Then, they cherry picked the weeks out of each location, charging much higher points for the prime weeks - weeks that have already been sold out, but now will be much less available (if at all) to the weeks people. Marriott, having already sold 100% of a given property, gains the "right" to sell it again due to the 20-30% (or more) inflation for the desirable weeks. Points don't work for owners returning to their resort for the reasons noted previously (Marriott didn't provide enough points for you to get the weeks you already bought). Points don't work for people who trade (again, not enough points to get what you got before via II trades). Amazingly, points work for those who bought on the resale market at 20 cents on the dollar in order to rent - if they built a sufficiently large portfolio, they can get the prime weeks (via Premier and Premier Plus reservation advantage) and rent them out at prime prices. It will take data to prove all of this, but you can do the math with the data available. The only data currently available is the points being charged to reserve a week (and the points that YOU get for YOUR week - they would not answer 'what points would an owner that owned xxx type week get?'). I bought MDS White - access to 20 weeks per year. The points offered would give me access to 6 of those weeks. If I buy more points, I get access to more weeks that I had already bought access to when I first paid them. This is the story for 95-98% of the 400,000+ owners (shortage of points unless they buy more). By getting people to convert to points and use points, they can sell a second time what they already sold out previously. What a deal.