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Just want to provide a bit more factual information regarding a post that occurred on the 30th of December. All of these comments are specific to my situation at Grande Ocean, an owner of 1 Platinum and 1 Bronze. 1. The point system value. I receive 93% in current points for my Platinum week. 4200 Points, 4500 to occupy with points. If it was strictly a 6 nights for 7 that was suggested that would be 86%. Now I wouldnt convert to points to occupy at my home resort, dont have to. BUT, I now COULD go twice for 5 days Sun thru thurs, and still only use 4000 of my 4200 points. And upgrade to oceanfront at that. Hmm, flexibilty.... My Bronze week, btw, is worth 1100 points, but only takes 825 to stay the same period. Hmm, 133% or more than 9 days for 7. Or if I want to convert both weeks to points, and use those points to stay for 7 days at my normal time periods, I would only be 25 points short. Not much... So what I got for my weeks is 99.5% of what it takes to occupy. If I dont use the points, of course I will bank them for next year. Maybe to get an extra day or two, or do consider a cruise, or maybe one of the explorer trips, Hmm, flexibility. 2. "If you prefer to go to your home resort, you'll find it harder". Sorry, that is not exactly on spot. There are two types of inventory in the new system, Inventory that previously is unsold weeks, owned by the MVC Trust and inventory from the Destination Exchange program. Each resort is clearly marked online and in the plan books as to T or E or both. At my resort Grande Ocean, we are an E. Basically a sold out resort. There are no units to be sold by Marriott for the first time, only resales. For anyone to reserve a week at my resort, someone like me has to first trade my usage week for points. Period, end of story. Fact. On those resorts that are designated with a T, then Marriott still owns a signifcant portion of the inventory and can put weeks into the points pool to satisfy the demands of points owners requests. I suspect that this is where the"I think Marriott can give away 50% of the rooms to point users" claim came from. I have found no documentation that mentions a specific percentage. (update, Found it the 50% refers to the maximum amount of "available" inventory that can be requested 13 months in advance by the Premier, or Premier Plus points owners. 3. Yearly fee. $199. Yes that is more than the annual fee for Interval if you do not do anything but occupy. Ok so what. It is what it is. If you do trade for points, or MR points, or exchanges, then you are done. No more fee for this, fee for that. So it's $100 more than before. If you own less than 6500 points, the fee is $165. 4. I let this one ride as is. Generally, it is a fair statement. 5. Excellent trades are over. Perhaps, but then if you own Silver or Gold you should trade for Silver or Gold. We all bragged too much about the great trades, and too many of us rented our weeks also, and too many of us bought in the after market for resales. Those are all ok though, right? It is all relative. We were never promised or guaranteed great trades. 6. Maintenance Fees on points purchases. Yes of course there is. It is currently .40 Cents per point. So, at first I thought that was high, so I compared it to my existing maintenace fees. Currently around $1100 for both the Platinum and Bronze weeks each. That works out to a little over .40 cents per point. (based on the point value in the new system) But the only was to pay for maintenance in the new system at those resorts being sold as points only is to pay per point, not per week. So if I was to buy my Bronze week's value, i.e. 1100, my maintenance fee would only be $440 not $1100. Now my Platinum week, 4200 points, would be $1680. More than the $1100 I pay today. So what? Incentive to buy the lesser demanded point values. Dont know? Fair for the Platinum users to pay more of their fair share? Perhaps? The jury is out on that, but .40 cents per point is comparable with what exists today, so it is not really fair to simply say " I hear the fee is high". Compared to what? Time will certainly tell whether we get more benefit versus feeling being squeezed in the system. But it will evolve based on the success of it's acceptance by us, the owners... UPDATED NOTE; The MVCI owners web site now has a significant amount of information answering a lot of the questions that have been raised on this blog. From the home page of the owner login, Go to the very bottom and click on FAQ. It has tabs then for Points Owners, Enrolled Owners and just plain old Weeks Owners. Much of all the hype on this blog is explained in quite a bit of detail from questions compiled from folks like us.