Marriott Vacation Club "Destinations" - What I Like and What I've Done

Dennis, You make my "point". You are paying for an abstract commodity without any true substance. This commodity can (and I believe is) manipulated by Marriott. If you have to pay thousands of dollars for family memories I feel sorry for you. As you may, or may not know, the airline tickets and cruises are definitely a "rip off" under the point system. You can do much better on your own. I brought this up at my last presentation in June. After laying it all out to our sales person-he agreed with me. I went over several other aspects of the point system (as I have researched it extensively) and I had him agreeing with me that points are not a good value and you can do considerably better on your own. My uncle & aunt (who sat in along with my wife) were impressed by the dollar and cents presentation I gave as it relates to doing business in the point system. Enjoy your points-oh, by the way; I added to my October week in Maui this year by renting an oceanfront 2 bed/2 bath condo for 4 extra days (located near Marriott). Total cost (w/ taxes, cleaning etc.)-$825.00. If I used points, the cost would have been over 10K plus maintenance fees, parking fee etc. - remember, people that use points at the Hawaii resorts currently pay $25/day to park while owners, such as myself, do not pay. All I can say is-do the math and enjoy your points.

michaelf666 wrote:

Dennis, You make my "point". You are paying for an abstract commodity without any true substance. This commodity can (and I believe is) manipulated by Marriott. If you have to pay thousands of dollars for family memories I feel sorry for you. As you may, or may not know, the airline tickets and cruises are definitely a "rip off" under the point system. You can do much better on your own. I brought this up at my last presentation in June. After laying it all out to our sales person-he agreed with me. I went over several other aspects of the point system (as I have researched it extensively) and I had him agreeing with me that points are not a good value and you can do considerably better on your own. My uncle & aunt (who sat in along with my wife) were impressed by the dollar and cents presentation I gave as it relates to doing business in the point system. Enjoy your points-oh, by the way; I added to my October week in Maui this year by renting an oceanfront 2 bed/2 bath condo for 4 extra days (located near Marriott). Total cost (w/ taxes, cleaning etc.)-$825.00. If I used points, the cost would have been over 10K plus maintenance fees, parking fee etc. - remember, people that use points at the Hawaii resorts currently pay $25/day to park while owners, such as myself, do not pay. All I can say is-do the math and enjoy your points.

Michaeld, I would undoubtedly agree with you that buying points is more expensive. However, my point that I dispute with you is that for those of us who are owners of weeks prior to June 2010 and decided to join the points program, is a good deal for us. There are lot of advantages and we have not given up anything but aquired some additional flexibility. We have lost nothing but in my opinion gained. Nothing is ALL bad.

Michaeld, I would undoubtedly agree with you that buying points is more expensive. However, my point that I dispute with you is that for those of us who are owners of weeks prior to June 2010 and decided to join the points program, is a good deal for us. There are lot of advantages and we have not given up anything but aquired some additional flexibility. We have lost nothing but in my opinion gained. Nothing is ALL bad.

I am in agreement with Dennis. We own four properties 2 in Myrtle Beach,1 in Vegas, and 1 in Aruba. Both Vegas and Aruba are lock offs and so this means we can yearly make 6 weeks of top notch vacationing. We joined the points plan, but didn't buy the new points. We sometimes think that perhaps we should have in order to access new properties, but we are truly happy with what we've been able to do with Marriott and with Interval. What we have really enjoyed is losing all the blasted fees we used to have to pay. $75 to lock off,$109 to trade Marriott to Marriott through interval, and the list goes on. I think that Dennis is right in saying that it does give some extra flexibility to ownership. I also think that we as weeks owners aka Legacy Owners do have the best options. The points are too expensive now for us to think about buying, and we have liked what we are able to do with our properties. I also agree with what Michael said and the math didn't make sense to us either, so we didn't buy. But we have lots of properties we can turn into DP's if we want to check out short stays etc. What it comes right down to is: do what makes you happy. We thoroughly enjoy our properties and what we can do with them. We have never regretted the decision to be MVCI owners. I'd bet Dennis feels the same.

Please forgive my rambling thoughts on a Sat morning after a sales presentation.

My dear wife talked me into attending a 90 min. presentation. Three hours later we finished. They confirmed the following: 1. No new owned properties will be developed. VAC (Vacation Club) will just offer our weeks and repackage "stuff from others" for our points. VAC is selling off undeveloped resort property. 2. VAC will buy our weeks under the ROFR for next to nothing and resell them as points - recycling the same old stuff. 3. No customer will ever own enough of our recycled product. 4. VAC has developed the perfect business model, a profit with every move forever. 5. VAC owners will never have an acceptable exit strategy that will enable even a modest return of their investment. A points purchase has even less residual value than a week purchase. 6. VAC's cost of sales is and will continue at a targeted 33%. 7. The dream is the product.

My conclusions - Rent what you need from week owners. If you buy, buy a "Platinum" week in the resale market that you would use. Help some fellow owner by relieving a burden. If you own, get involved with your owner's association - we must take this back.

Oh for heaven's sake. Does anyone really buy these things with the idea of making a profit? As a legacy owner in Aruba, I've been very pleased with the travel opportunities available and have taken advantage of them. It also introduced me to the wonderful Maria Echeverry, vacation club counselor, who goes out of her way to accommodate. Do I wish MVC didn't play so many games with how and when to deposit points or weeks, or how they figure the value of points to frequent flyer miles, etc? Yes. Am I irritated by dubious reasoning for ever rising maintenance fees? Absolutely. Was my purchase of 2500 DC points so close to retirement my most inspired decision? Probably not. But, I'm not one with patience or time to look for the better deal. Looking at my investment over a 20 year period, it looks like it will be wash. I'm fine with that. And, really, people if you don't want to buy, just say a polite no to your salesperson. They're just trying to do a job. Bullying them with how intelligent you are about the value or not of the product is really unnecessary.

You make my point. Marriott takes properties i.e. silver week @ Branson Mo; use inflated values for the trust and sells points based on these values. Marriott then turns around and sells these points representing the inflated values-reminds me of the 2008 real estate market crash. The points are then used on properties of high value i.e. Hawaii and this creates an "oversold" position in violation of the agreement with the owners of said property. Sort of a Ponzi scheme. There are two victims here as I see it; the property owners who are unable to use their weeks and the point purchasers who are being sold something without value. Remember, a property's value is determined by what a ready, willing and able party will pay. Not what the "asking" price is. Therefore, when Marriott buys back a unit for, let's say, $6000 and values it as $50,000, this is wrong. Marriott then requires points equivalent to the make believe value. I could go on and on-but I hope you see my point. It is not about enjoying the system-just remember Marriott is making suckers out of all.

There should be a positive point and outcome to this, to the advantage of the owners and to Marriott as our vendor.

Owners do not gain anything by just voicing anger and/or frustration. It is also not to Marriott's advantage to have unhappy customers voicing complaints on these boards and holding back from purchases. Unhappy customers have loud voices with their friends and families.

What positive actions can owners and Marriott take to improve our positions? Perhaps, someone from Marriott can even share their thoughts. Perhaps, there should be an owner's council.

Dennis, It appears to me that you are trying to convince yourself of any "value" from the DC program. I understand the program all too well. I an definitely upset with Marriott about totally devaluing my timeshare without so much as a vote or input. I do not like when I am lied to. I was sold something, agreed to usage etc. and them had that restricted. Put it on another level-let's say I sold you a piece of land to build a house. I prodded you to buy by promising you access to the pond for boating and fishing. Then a couple of years later I advised you that you could no longer have access to the pond.

Would you be upset with me? Would you want to do business with me?

Be honest and answer. This is the point of the threads

Michael - First, there is a finite number of week ownerships at each resort and weeks/days cannot be sold beyond this limit. The trust has owned weeks plus owned weeks redeemed for points from week owners which are then made available to point participants for points. Owned weeks that are not redeemed for points are owned and used by the week owners. I don't see how this infringes on your rights at all. It is more likely that people are just using their ownership interests, weeks from points or weeks, and this fills up the resorts.

In other words, you have access to what you bought and no more.

If you could prove that weeks (as expressed in points) were sold in excess of actual weeks owned by the trust, you would likely have a cause of action.

As I have always understood it, Dennis, you have got it exactly correct.

michaelf666 wrote:

Dennis, It appears to me that you are trying to convince yourself of any "value" from the DC program. I understand the program all too well. I an definitely upset with Marriott about totally devaluing my timeshare without so much as a vote or input. I do not like when I am lied to. I was sold something, agreed to usage etc. and them had that restricted. Put it on another level-let's say I sold you a piece of land to build a house. I prodded you to buy by promising you access to the pond for boating and fishing. Then a couple of years later I advised you that you could no longer have access to the pond.

Would you be upset with me? Would you want to do business with me?

Be honest and answer. This is the point of the threads

Michael, in any court of law, it's going to depend on what was agreed to in writing and not what was said. If you were promised something and it changed then you have cause for action. If not, then just enjoy your ownership. The whole issue of devaluing your ownership is really incomprehensible to me. You have a right to use the property unit for one week and you still have that right. If the value goes up or down is insignificant unliess you want to sell it, but that could fluctuate on any real estate regardless of what kind it is as there are several factors related to property values.

The bottom line... yes points are expensive, but you don't have to worry about that. Also, you can still use your timeshare as you always have.

Charles, Missing the point-in the senerio; I deceived you and changed my commitment to you. Once your word is no good you loose all credibility-JUST LIKE MARRIOTT.

We need something positive here so I'll share our fun summertime timeshare adventures.

Boston - We started the summer with two concurrent weeks in late June at Marriott Custom House where we entertained our son, his wife and their 4 boys, ages 10 to 18. Don't miss the Custom House and Boston - so much history and a fun place with lots to do. Did this using our Boston week and a trade thru Interval.

Newport Coast, CA - We had nearly all of our children and grandchildren, 21 of us, at Marriott Newport Coast Villas for a late July week. We hold our family reunion there every other year and everyone looks forward to this. This is a great property and there is also much to do in the surrounding areas. Did this using three of our weeks and a trade thru Interval.

Rest of the year will include Marriott Mountainside and OceanWatch.

It is difficult to get prime weeks, but it seems to work with lots of advance planning.

Charles, Sounds like a fun summer. I will be at Newport Coast next week. I agree with you that using Interval and trading your week(s) is a great way to use your timeshare. I have only expressed displeasure in what Marriot has done to affect my weeks by comingling the DC program.

michaelf666 wrote:

Charles, Sounds like a fun summer. I will be at Newport Coast next week. I agree with you that using Interval and trading your week(s) is a great way to use your timeshare. I have only expressed displeasure in what Marriot has done to affect my weeks by comingling the DC program.

That's Dennish144 not me.

Has anyone had any recent experience with Marriott exercising the right of first refusal (ROFR)? Are they buying?

I know that they don't want our non-platinum week. We've asked several times... even as a trade for DP's. No dice.

dennish144 wrote:

Has anyone had any recent experience with Marriott exercising the right of first refusal (ROFR)? Are they buying?

Yes. They are. In fact their ROFR activity has increased. However, I read on TUG just recently that they are targeting certain kinds of properties. One person on TUG showed all of the ROFR's for the last year or so and did a brief analysis.

Charles, could you tell me how TUG would know the ROFR activity? I know weeks are advertised there. Do they also have a closing service that would give them visibility into ROFR activity?

dennish144 wrote:

Charles, could you tell me how TUG would know the ROFR activity? I know weeks are advertised there. Do they also have a closing service that would give them visibility into ROFR activity?

No, they don't have any special access to ROFR information. Some of them talk with various brokers to compare notes. Also, one of the TUGGERS has a database that people enter buybacks into. The can only put it in once an offer has been made. It shows if there is a resale or developer buyback offer. I looked at it and you can see from the reported information where Marriott exercised ROFR more starting in June 2013. I am posting below a post from that thread so you can see:

A little more data:

Activity from:

June 1, 2013 to August 10, 2013: 31 transactions reported, 13 ROFR'd -- (42% failure rate)

January 1, 2013 to May 31, 2013: 32 transactions reported, 9 ROFR'd -- (28% failure rate)

January 1, 2012 to Dec 31, 2012: 63 transactions reported, 9 ROFR'd -- (14% failure rate)

Three years 2009, 2010 and 2011: 262 transactions reported, 6 ROFR'd -- (2% failure rate)

Interesting stuff...