Original Message:
Re: Ripoff - Marriott Vacation Club Destinations Program - New Point System (by Frank D.):
Dear g333s,
Thanks for taking the the time to submit your thoughtful response. However you are missing some crticial and seminal points that is going on here.
In respect to your response I wanted to make a logical, informted and unemotional response to your categorization of the situtation. So I went back and did more reading and research and also relooked at my source for my dissatisfaction and dissapointment.
Background * My wife and I made our one week Marriott vacation club purchase in 2008. At the time we made the purchase for the following reasons: - We wanted to establish a tradtion where we would have an annual family vacation with the entire family, my children and grandchildren. We liked the idea of a family vacation tradtion, especially with the children going their separate ways as they got older etc. - While we were not crazy about the Marriott home resort being considered for purchase, our MVCP sales rep, Billy Lovitz ( John Lovitz cousin for a bit a trivia for ya) reassured us multiple times that exhanges would be easy to implement. In fact he offered many of his customers at the resort in consderation never, ever use their home resort; they easily exchanged them for any of the hundreds of properties represented not only by Marriott but Interval as well.Geez, I have to laugh looking back at how Mr Lovitz was telling us we would be able to go to Carpi Italy. By purchasing a PLatinum week we would have no problems with exchanges we were told. just give them enough notice and several options. Which we have in the past and have had no problems with getting exchanges. even for xmas week. - As a deeded property Mr Lovitz, indicated our week would be able to left as a legacy to our children after we passed on. Actually that was a nice thought; envisioning a nice week vacation that could be shared by my family after me and the mrs kicked the bucket. Now the reality is they may be saddled with a property decreasing in value and annual maintaince fees that they will have to pay. Boy, great legacy!!! - The Marriott brand name was the other compelling point for purchasing the vacation week. The credibility of the Marriott brand and the heritage of the Marriott family was a big positive to us. We trusted the brand through years of first hand experience with their quality hotels etc. They are a top hotelier for a reason.
So with background in context, here is where I'm having a problem with your response
* In the beginning of your response you state: "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."
That is exactly what is wrong with what has transpired besides the confusion in communication. Destination Points IS a totally NEW product. A product, that I'm sure you know, the majority of Marriott owners feel is inferior to the original deeded product. Not only this board, but check out the 20+ pages of comments to Bill Marriott on his blog regarding the deep resentment that exists by Marriott Owners to the Desintation Point program
( copy and past this link to check them out at) http://www.blogs.marriott.com/.a/6a0120a73c0f0d970b0133f1c8912c970b-popup
What I find also troubling to these posted comments to Mr Marriott is that he has failed to respond to any of these owners. This lack of response is making their frustration deeper. I expected better from the Marriott family
Besides all this negative reaction to the DP which artfully stated in not warrented, g333s, my point in short is I signed up for a product that has been materially changed (to my/owners detriment) and I'm still paying for it. I:ve been thinking alot about this and an applicable analogy. Consider this: if you purchased a LEXUS, had a normal bank loan on it, and some time during the night in the early part of the loan payments, the LEXUS was removed from your driveway and was replaced by a Toyota Camry . This is the essence of my dissapointment with the Destination Points program. They made " material retroactive changes" to the Marriott Vacation timeshare product without getting express affirmative consent" from it's owners. Check out the very recent FTC vs Facebook privacy settlement case. Take a look at it, very similar to what we have here: if not identical to what we have here with Marriott.To make the analogy even tigher it's interesting that at the time Zuckerberg described the changes to the Facebook privavcy settings were made a as "a simpler model for privacy control". The FTC said hog wash, these " simpler changes" were "material retroactive changes" and Facbook will be required to change their privacy policy from "opt out" to "opt in".
This is what I'm upset about, Marriott spun the company off and changed what I purchased in good faith with a lot of reassurances from their sales rep. But irregardless of the reps sales tactics, as has been documented on these boards by dissatisfied owners, the product has been replaced by an inferior product all under the guise of "greater flexibility"???? Please don't misunderstand me, I love Camry's, but I paid for a Lexus....Yes Lexus like all autos will depreciate over time, but I put my money down for a Lexus, not a Camry. I did not give anyone my consent to make this "material retrocative" change to my purchase/agreement/business relationship.
* g333s, to your point 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.
Ok lets go down that route despite all the assurances about ease of exchange by the MVC rep. Let's say I wasn't interested in exchanging my deeded week and wanted to stay on my home resport, the original owners are still treated like second class citizens. People with Trust points have preference to the actual home resort property (13 month advantage). Think about this when you read Marriott's stated objective is to convert 95% of their owners into Destination Point participants in two years. YIKES!!! Then to add insult to injury if I was to convert my owner deed week into DP's I would get about 30% less value from my week ( I would need to buy trust points) in order to get my week back through Destination Points...c'mon g333s....this not something befitting the Marriott brand nor fair practice. Let's call it what it is, Marriott wanted out of the real estate business and created a point system where everything more in their favor and steer consumers to their inventory like a puppeteer. Two words comes to mind when I think of these destination points: 'Tulip Bulbs" all over again.
BTW: where do you think all the Marriott inventory that went into foreclosure the last few years? Yes, it went into their Trust Inventory not Exchange inventory. So In essence the pot of inventory possiblities for exachange is now divided into 3 parts: Trust, Exchange and Interval, with very very hard push to shift the majority of this inventory into the Trust column where Marriott can manipulate the point system to their advantage e.g. weekends have higher point value, annual devaluation of points etc.
In conclusion g333s, I'm not looking for anything for free, but I do want to retain what I paid for. It's kinda sad because if I had received my exchange request I would be a happy camper all would be fine with the world. But the last few days based on my investigation, discussions and very deep soul searching in terms of fairness and what is right, my eyes have been opened wide. That is, this is not right for all the reasons I stated above; it is not morally or legally. At this point I just want to cut my losses and not leave my family with the burden or nuisance of maintenance fees. Of course g333s if you would like to purchase my deeded week, I will give you a great deal. C'mon g333s, it's a steal!!!!
Cheers, Frank