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Re: Marriott Going to Point Syst (by L M.):

Hi Everyone, I would like to share the recent experience I have gone through with our Marriott ownership. We currently own 5 weeks that we purchased directly from Marriott many years ago. Like many of us we became accustom to the excellent trades and up grades (one bedroom to a two bedroom) we received from Interval for our exchanges most of the time.

We did decide to try the new point system because we were going to be "premier elite" and have so many extra benefits because of our owner level. (I say this tongue in cheek of course) This discussion has gone over prices and many other details about this so I will leave it at that.

Last week I tried to make reservations for next year. I am trying to make a pretty complicated exchange for high demand areas. In the past I have been very successful with Interval to accomplish the trades and receive the upgrades using the master portion of our Grand Vista lock off.

This time my normally very accommodating rep at II was very flustered and flatly refused to even consider the upgrade. I found that odd and of course felt some anger. But one thing we (myself included) have to remember is that the true intent of the exchange is a trade for what you have to an equal (hopefully) to another place that you want to go.

I have not read my contracts recently so if I am wrong please accept my apology, but I don't think there is anything that said we were guaranteed an upgrade from a one bedroom to a two bedroom or that we would get into the place we wanted to go.

It is the dream that we were all sold to be able to do this but as always it is based on availability. If no one has put it in for trade, no one is going to be able to exchange. That is why the basic rule of "buy what you want when you want to go there" is absolutely key. Because the worst case is you use your home resort when you purchased.

However, I am the same as most people, I am not happy with the changes that have happened with availability so far. The confusion that is going on within Marriott about the new system and with Interval on how to use it is tremendous. The prospect of getting the great exchanges that we used to get seem to be diminished tremendously and the point system inequity makes me crazy.

The inequity makes the system something I will probably not use unless it is a last resort. Like many others we can not get into another place in Marriott equal to ours for a week using points. It takes more points than we are given for our week. This to me seems outrageous. A platinum 2 bedroom should be equal to a platinum 2 bedroom. Again, this is just my opinion. But I do think it is another way for Marriott to make more money. "Oh, you want to go there? Well you just need another 1,000 points to make that happen. Oh, and by the way they expire by the end of the year if you don't use them."

Another very confusing factor is the deadlines to manage the points on the new system. Some of the deadlines are associated with the season you own, some are June, some are September and of course there is still the December deadline. I truly hate that bit.

Lastly I did try to use the points we have from the incentive to join to make a reservation. Funny, I could reserve the dates all around when I wanted to go but not the actual dates I wanted to stay. So much for no blackout dates. It still may have been an availability issue but how can I tell for sure?

So, that is my rant about my experience so far. Not too positive but at least it is first hand about what happened.