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Re: Ripoff - Marriott Vacation Club Destinations Program - New Point System

Hi again Kathrynm! I'm really sorry to all of you that I have not been on top of this thread. But I do feel for all of you fellow owners that are feeling confused, frustrated, or down right angry. Let me assure you that I will try to the best of my abilities to shine a little light in the darkness that we feel thrown into. First I'd like to address a few things seeing as how I still enjoy my vacations and the Marriott properties. I love what I own and also love the new product. It breaks my heart to hear the anger and disgust that my fellow owners are feeling towards Marriott. Much of which I fully believe is due to a lack of communication and or clarity of EXACTLY what Marriott accomplished with their new product. So most of this will be for Frank :) Although some of the stuff that I state won't be all butterflies and rainbows, it will be the truth and like the old saying goes, sometimes the trust can be painful. The first thing that I'd like to point out is that there is no basis for a lawsuit of any kind. I understand that we all purchase timeshare, regardless of what company, to be able to stay in nice places and exchange to other locations. And I understand that you are seeing a huge difference in the amount of inventory available in Interval and therefore feel that Marriott's new system is taking away from what you already purchased. There are two things that we, as owners, need to realize and accept. 1. The ONLY accommodations that we are GUARANTEED are the ones that we have a legal piece of paper to with our names on it. That means our HOME RESORT, in the SEASON we purchased and the SIZE that we bought. ANYTHING and EVERYTHING outside of that deed is not ours. We do not own anything other than what is on our deed and therefore are NOT entitled to other resorts, seasons, or sizes. 2. Exchange companies such as Interval are not owned by Marriott nor do they own any resorts. They are a service provider that allows owners to swap their timeshares amongst each other without actually having to find or know the person we are swapping with. Interval services over 2.5 million members and obviously they are not all Marriott owners. With that said, please take a moment and logically ask yourself how Interval gets their inventory. They get it from us, owners. We ultimately decide whether to deposit our week with them or not. And if I decide not to deposit my Lakeshore Reserve week, then that is one less Lakeshore Reserve week available within Interval for someone to exchange in. No one can blame Marriott for that, nor can Marriott force me to give up my week just because someone else wants to exchange for it. Now let's assume that not a single Marriott owner decides to deposit their week into Interval. Does that mean that there are grounds for a lawsuit? Think about this extreme example. There wouldn't be a single Marriott property available to exchange into and it's not Marriott's fault. As owners, we have the right to NOT deposit our week and Marriott is not liable nor responsible to provide Interval with inventory in case such a situation would occur. So, now that you know how Interval gets their inventory and why exchanges can be difficult to get what you want every time(the person that owns what you want may not have decided to deposit it, and if they did, your competition is 2.5 million other members. Forget about the VIP desk at Interval. All that really is, is a hotline where Interval employees assist Marriott owners. They do not work for Marriott and can not magically predict when what you want will be deposited by the person who owns it) Let's address the question of where all the inventory is going if owners like myself aren't putting it into Interval, which has the snowball affect of what Frank is dealing with. Marriott was the only company who solely depended on an outside exchange company to facilitate all of their exchanges. Most companies have an Internal exchange system. Therefore Interval always had a lot of Marriott inventory...there was no other place for it to go (unless it wasn't deposited or was traded in for MRP) However, now, Marriott has created it's own internal exchange system. So for owners like myself, or Kathrynm, or anyone else who has enrolled, we now have 2 options when we decide to deposit our week. If we elect points for them, we are giving it to Marriott's Internal Exchange system and therefore those weeks are not finding themselves into Interval. And that is why you are feeling a shortage of options in Interval. The simplified answer is that a lot of owners enrolled and elected points for their weeks for 2012. And if you decide not to enroll yourself, you won't have access to all that Inventory. Again, let me clarify...YOU CAN NOT BLAME Marriott for this. It's my right as an owner what I want to do with my week and how I decide to use it. This last comment is for dennish. You completely pulled the amount of points and cost of those points from the air. I dislike that because other owners looking for answers can read your post and be under the wrong impression. I understand venting, but adding comments and opinions that have no basis is just adding to the confusion. I have the points chart and if you are referencing those time periods and places like Park City during Sundance, then yes, I agree it takes a lot of points if you want to stay the whole week. But if you don't need to stay the whole week, then Sun-Thurs cost half the points and at least you can experience these trips whereas they never found themselves in Interval. The people that paid 60K+ for those weeks aren't depositing them and paying $129...they are renting them out on this site or others like it make thousands of dollars. At least now with the Trust, I have access to the unsold inventory and can get into those places during those times. And at 60k+, in this economy...i believe that there are a lot of unsold units that found their way into the Trust. It just makes sense. And Frank...these unsold units were never given to Interval. Only owned weeks could be deposited from the owner of that week. So please do not feel that Marriott is blocking you out of this inventory or taking it away from you unless you fork over more money...the reality is that we, as owners, NEVER had access to unsold inventory. We only had access to what our peers deposited with Interval. So in Marriott's effort to INCREASE availability for exchanges...they opened up the unsold inventory to those who want to purchase into the Trust. To other who don't, that's okay too. You can't complain about not having access to something you never had access to in the first place. That's a hard truth, but Marriott is a business. Just because they created a new product doesn't mean we are entitled to it for free. Hope this helps! p.s. Rhonda can not put a gun to anyone's head to force them to deposit the inventory you want. If it's not there, it's not there and nothing she can do can make it appear. But I do hope for your sake that something pops up. I can attest that my exchanges have miraculously appeared just when I was sure that they wouldn't. Keep faith.