Marriott Going to Point Syst

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Original Message:

Re: Marriott Going to Point Syst (by R Michael F.):

brucek88 wrote:
robertw312 wrote:
Below is a FAQ on the Marriott website

I originally purchased my Marriott Vacation Club week(s) as an external sale through the secondary market. Would the benefits of enrolling be different for me? If your external purchase closed prior to June 20, 2010, it is eligible to be enrolled with the Marriott Vacation Club Destinations Exchange Program. The enrollment fee for one externally purchased week will initially be $1,495, and enrolling multiple externally purchased weeks will initially total $1,995. This offer is expected to be available only through December 31, 2010. Once you enroll your week(s), you will gain the annual option to elect Vacation Club Points, and you may also add the option of trading your week(s) for Marriott Rewards points if the week(s) you purchased externally are eligible for Marriott Rewards trade. You also will gain the benefit and convenience of the annual single-use fee (Club Dues).

Does his mean that they are not going to accept external purchases after June 20, 2010? If this is so, then what are our resale options?

From my tour visit, the points program essentially shuts down the resale industry. You can still buy resale weeks from other "legacy" owners, but they will not be open to the new points program.

Also, if you buy new points on tour, like the one I just took, you can't resell those points anymore. If you want to sell, I was told Marriott would buy the points on a 60/40 split. Marriott just closed the door on the resale industry from what I can tell.

Regarding the 60/40 split resale split. Did you get that in writing from your rep? That was the old Marriott resale structure once your timeshare was sold. When Marriott did its buyback programs three or four years ago (at the top of the market) - sellers got $.40 (forty cents) on the dollar.

With the market downturn in the last two to three years - Marriott hasn't bought anything back - and has executed almost no, if any, FROR purchases. So I am not too sure how reliable of a resource Marriott will be if a points owner has a lifestyle change, financial hardship, or just decides the program is not for them - and wants/ needs to sell.

With respect to Marriott resale - little effort has been given to assisting Marriott owners that needed to sell. Had your contacted Marriott to list over the last couple of years - they would not even accept a listing because they had so many weeks listed.

With respect to the Destinations program - Marriott notes in the public offering statement that an Owner may sell his/ her points. It is however clear that Marriott intends to make it quite difficult for owners to sell their club points possibly requiring initiation fees for the new buyer - and limiting/ eliminating use of certain features ie Marriott rewards even if the initiation fee is paid. Other than the initiation fee - this is consistent with how the Marriott addressed external sales of legacy weeks in the past.

With this said - I would note a couple of things.

1. I would not put too much weight in the 60/40 comment .... unless you had it in writing by the rep and it was endorsed by the sales/ resort manager.

2. How has the resale market been "shut down?" Destinations point owners will be able to bring their points into the secondary market albeit with transfer fees. (Who do you think will pay this? This will become priced into the secondary market pricing and will be absorbed by the Seller unfortunately.)

Additionally, there are 400,000 legacy owners (500,000+ weeks) whereby an argument can be made that these owners own a better product than the points product. Resale buyers will be pretty savvy to discovering the merits of each program. Certainly there will be those individuals that prefer the "Legacy" program to the "Destinations" program.

Throughout history companies have tried to manipulate the market. The market is the market and it is very difficult to control even by companies with the size and scale of Marriott. Not to mention the last time I looked - it was illegal for companies to blatantly manipulate markets in an effort to stifle or curtail competition.