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

dennish144 wrote:

I believe the new program was concieved to relieve Marriott of excess inventory in a bad economy, a wind down exit strategy. If there were also troubled properties, this resolves that inventory by blending it in with some good properties. VCP or Destinations buyers are sold on the dream, not on what properties are actually included in the trust.

For example, the trust inventory at inception includes 31 different timeshare properties or 364 annual units of 52 weeks each. However, eleven (11) of these timeshare properties account for 336 annual units (92% of the trust inventory) leaving just 8% of the inventory spread over the remaining 20 properties.

The trust includes only 129 annual units (out of 364) of what I consider prime year-round properties (Hawaii and Newport Coast, CA). For those who like Florida, there are also 73 annual units in Florida. Just over half of the trust inventory is in Hawaii, Newport Coast, and Florida. The issue then is what is the rest of the stuff in the Trust - subpar properties, bad weeks, etc.? Remember, the trust is filled with unsold weeks as of a particular start date.

I don't know if this helps anyone, but it helped me to understand why Marriott needs "owners" to enroll their weeks. I also expect that Marriott got full retail value for some less desirable inventory.

Could not have said it better myself.

The Destinations program is only "efficient" if Legacy (Floating week) owners sign up ..... but more importantly turn their weeks in for points. So far this has been problematic for Marriott. Not a significant number of owners have signed up for Destinations Exchange - and far fewer are assigning weeks for points.

Most of the Trust properties were acquired at the top of the market - and once customers (owners and sales prospects) refused to pay Marriott's high asking prices, the company had to find an innovative way to sell its inventory (without loosing its shirt) - and thus the great idea, Destination Points, was conceived.

Unfortunately for consumers this program has a lot of room for over embellishment - and lack of full disclosure by its sales operation.