Original Message:
Re: Marriott Aruba Surf Club - Lawsuit by Association against owners (by David C.):
I can certainly appreciate your insight and explanation and don't know whether you are an owner like many of us or represent the interests of Marriott in this mess.
I think that there are a number of flaws in some of the logic as pertains to how Marriott has applied their interpretation of bylaws:
First, nothing that you have outlined would serve to explain how an owner of multiple Platinum Plus weeks is harming anyone or preventing Marriott from making money! As a Platinum Plus week owner, the fees are outrageous and at least as far as Surf Club goes, any owner of a Platinum Plus week should be guaranteed their use week regardless of how many units i own or someone else might own. I do understand and respect the fact that this might not be the case at Ocean Club or other properties where weeks are all floating. But again, for a Platinum Plus weeks owner (fixed week 7, 51 or 52) - we are not preventing anyone from anything as regular Platinum owners (high season) are specifically NOT entitled to use their ownership interest to reserve a Platinum Plus week.
Second, there is also a distinction between a multiple weeks owner who may have systematically purchased multiple weeks on the various resale markets as opposed to someone who purchased their weeks through Marriott. In the case of the resale purchaser - I might acknowledge that is potentially a different situation - unless again the person was purchasing Platinum Plus/Fixed Weeks - for reasons outlined above. If the person is purchasing other high season units - the only problem i have heard that might complicate things for other owners has to do with the fact that the Marriott booking system is flawed and enables folks to essentially book more than 13 months in advance in some cases. This explains why people call MVC the moment after reservations open and still might not be able to get the week they want at Ocean Club or a property that operates on first come first serve basis according to season of use. As such, this would be something that Marriott could easily remedy rather than attacking what is largely a loyal base that has invested large sums of money in timeshare ownership.
In the case of the multiple week owner who purchased from Marriott, before this happened and since this situation started, i have spoken to many owners who were given the idea to rent by Marriott - seduced by promises of great rental income from Marriott; very low maintenance fee increases as well as the ability to rent on the open market! Marriott even providing financing and knowingly sold multiple fixed week units to people who had no intention of using all of them for personal use and had no thought of renting until the idea was brought up in the sales pitch!
In the end, it sounds to me like Marriott is creating a huge mess for themselves while also positioning the Association as the "bad guy" when in practice - it is Marriott that controls the Board and the Association! If there are issues with the reservation process that provides an unfair advantage to multiple weeks owners at locations that do not have fixed week ownership then they should fix that problem and close the loophole ASAP. I would be supportive of that and after speaking to people who received this letter, i learned about their hardships in this regard, specifically at Ocean Club. The irony is that folks who received the letter have actually been harmed by the very glitch in the reservation system to which i am referring!
If Marriott has found that they have oversold the ownership interests and/or want to change the rules then they offer owners like me their money back and take back their Platinum Plus units. That would seem fair considering that they are implying that they should never have been sold in the first place. Alternatively, the focus of this witch hunt should be narrowed to apply to those who might actually be gaming the system even though it is Marriott that controls that system in every way and can change the reservation process if they so desired.