NO Access to trusts pool by enrolled owners (Marriott's response - post #447)

Moderator note: Marriott's approved response to the controversy developed in this thread, along with a summary of the issues, is in post #447.

Dave M
BBS Moderator

The remainder of this post is as siberiavol originally posted it.

* * * * *

This BAD NEWS came from the post related to points presentation at MCV. I don't know how to link that information but thought this needed a new topic title . Puckman discovered that enrolled members would not be able to use their points to get properties owned by the trust. This seemed incredulous to me and beyond the realm of possibilities.

I just called and he was apparently told the truth. Those of us who enrolled and deposited our weeks for points will only see other enrolled members deposits. The unsold weeks will not be available to us. The way we could get into the newer properties is if an owner of those properties deposited a week.

The representative said it had always been that way and that was the way she was trained. She said it wouldn't be fair to let the people who just paid an entry fee have the same access as people buying points. This was after talking to a supervisor. She said it is in the documents.

I still don't know what Marriott will do with unsold properties.

Feel free to merge this with previous post or retitled that post but this topic in a headline of some form.

Siberiavol is referring to a potentially very important finding in the attached thread -- starting at Post #46 and continuing thereon. It was first identified in Post #16 (on page 1 of that thread)

http://www.tugbbs.com/forums/showthread.php?t=126003&page=2

I agree that this is worthy of its own thread (this one). SV, thanks for opening it.

This is very bad if it is true. Marriott is totally dissing anyone who owned weeks in the past- whether it was re-sale or direct. They say there is no home resort advantage but this is like a home resort advantage for all the new points purchasers and the weeks owners don't get any advantage at all. They say that if you enroll then you will have access to all the newer resorts that weren't sold out and were put into the truse (as well as any new, future resorts) but now this seems to indicate that weeks owners will be at a disadvantage when it comes to having points. Some points are better than others (new points vs. legacy points).

Hope someone can link this to the other thread and then it will become more clear what we are talking about. I see it was done while I was typing this- thanks gregt.

Dave M. Have you heard anything about this from your Marriott sources? Please let us know if you do hear anything.

tlwmkw

A rep just told me ALL inventory is available

Rick : If I enroll in the new program, convert my weeks for points and then look for exchanges, do I have access to ALL points inventories?
Sadie B.: You have access to all the Marriott Vacation Club Timeshare inventory traded by owners.
Rick : Does that mean I do NOT have access to the inventory in the trust?
Sadie B.: The trust program is part of the program and yes you will have access to that inventory.
Rick : So I have access to those weeks traded by legacy weeks owners who also enrolled and exchanged their weeks for points as well as any weeks available in the trust. Is that correct?
Sadie B.: That is correct.
Rick : Thanks
Sadie B.: You're welcome

:hysterical:

Weeks converted for points can only see other weeks converted for points. WOW!!

And those first to the enrolled points party think they are going to get exactly what for trades?

Weeks not available via weeks trades?

Well, I read all the posts in the other thread and can really only say DITTO. Quite a crappy discovery.

What I am wondering is that if we don't have access to any weeks in the trust account (until someone trades out), how the hell is everyone going to use the 800 bonus points Marriott is making available to everyone for joining. While skimming is putting some points into their pocket, I haven't seen anyone skimmed more than 10% and the 800 points received the first year exceeds the skim for everyone. If that is the case...Marriott is basically giving out more points than can possibly be used (give the "pool" restrictions described in the other thread).

While people banking points forward may alleviate the problem, it doesn't change the fact that Marriott is essentially printing funny money...

I just posted this on the other thread and reposted it here.


I just made a couple of phone calls to MVCI reference this heretofore unannounced two party system. Both times I was transferred to points specialist. The first call went well. The rep put me on hold for about 30 seconds or so while she checked with her supervisor. When she came back on she allayed my concerns with the statement"..Points are points, no matter where they came from". As soon as she said this a power outage occurred at my end and we were disconnected.

The second phone call didn't go as well. Again I was transferred to a points specialist and she put me on hold for about 3-4 minutes while she talked to her supervisor. She did indeed confirm everything that Puckman had put out in his original post on this topic. I was stunned. Legacy week owners can only use their points at resorts where other legacy week owners have handed over their weeks for points. We will have no access to the points in the beneficial trust. Not now, not ever.

As I had just enrolled last night I asked her to un-enroll me. She transferred me again to someone who tried to satisfy me by saying that I could still get a week in the beneficial trust if a beneficial owner deposited with II. I told her that wasn't worth $700 to join and $200 a year as I can do that already with II. I just received my cancellation notice back via E-mail.


As requested, the following inventories have been un-enrolled from the Marriott Vacation Club Destinations program.
then it lists my resorts followed by;

If you have already elected your ownership week for Vacation Club Points, your Vacation Club Points will still be available for your use. The option to continue to elect your ownership week to Vacation Club Points will no longer be available.

If you purchased your ownership week outside of Marriott Vacation Club, your benefit of trading your Marriott Vacation Week for Marriott Rewards Points will also end with your un-enrollment in the program.

All I can say is I'm stunned by this development. I've been a fairly strong supporter of Marriott on this board but now I'm completely disillusioned.

And I thought this was giving me a migraine before....sheesh....ok so what would be the point for any week owner to join then? Shouldnt Marriott(or any company for that matter) when introducing a complete overhaul of their product provide clear cut easily interpreted rules. Truly, wouldnt everyone complain if they purchased a product that needed assembly and it came with no instructions, or better yet with 5 different sets all saying something different(except perhaps my dh who would try to pretend he knew what he was doing

Possible small savings in xchng fees? possible shorter weeks(but that would be subject to an owners week being broken down now?)

Looking at the material, the other threads, and now this ....all I can say is I would have thought that Marriott must have some relatively intelligent individuals working for them and therefore they have intentionally made this as complicated as possible to assist in "selling" the "dream"....imho there are only 2 options, this mess was either intentional(and that could only be for sale purposes) or if im wrong....well lets just say that many people have been historically giving them way too much credit !

Documents?

Has anyone been able to find language in the documents that supports this position? If so, can you please direct us to it, as I am very curious as to how I missed it up until this point!

Thanks for the good work being done here by so many TUGgers!

good afternoon

Now the fun starts!!!! Let the postings begin...

Come on Tombo, give me a big whopping I told you so. I deserve it!!!!

you were right and I was wrong!!!

I can hear the black helicopters...

MikeZ said:

Has anyone been able to find language in the documents that supports this position? If so, can you please direct us to it, as I am very curious as to how I missed it up until this point!

Thanks for the good work being done here by so many TUGgers!

Click to expand...

It isnt there....but then again neither are half the other things so we shouldnt be surprised. What is there is the legal interpretation of the "exchange program". Noticeably absent is a user friendly "guide" telling a purchasor how to use the program. Of course to provide such documentation would require Marriott to advise owners of the various priorities, what they intend to do vis a vie I.I. etc. , hence my previous post wherin I stated that this appears to be quite intentional on Marriotts part.

MikeZ said:

Has anyone been able to find language in the documents that supports this position? If so, can you please direct us to it, as I am very curious as to how I missed it up until this point!

Thanks for the good work being done here by so many TUGgers!

Click to expand...

Look at tiel's post here

When we first heard of this limitation imposed on legacy point converters at our sales presentation, we were stunned. We hadn't heard of this nuance before, and are still trying to determine its accurracy. But, in the other related thread, we think dbbk may be on to the wording in the docs which delineates the separation. Can't check that now though, limited access to a PC.

Also, our rep told us all the inventroy pools were described in detail on their website at one time, but it was taken down because it was so confusing. :hysterical:

Personally, I don't recall seeing it, but maybe it was there. Anyway, he was right...it IS confusing, except it's the whole program, not just this part!

This revelation further justifies recommendations to postpone enrollment.

puckmanfl said:

good afternoon

Now the fun starts!!!! Let the postings begin...

Come on Tombo, give me a big whopping I told you so. I deserve it!!!!

you were right and I was wrong!!!

I can hear the black helicopters...

Click to expand...

I don't have to say i told you so, Marriott did it for me.

m61376 said:

Look at tiel's post here

Click to expand...

which references this post -

here

I believe this is the operative language and reasoning. - dbbk94404 nailed it

puckmanfl said:

good afternoon

Now the fun starts!!!! Let the postings begin...

Come on Tombo, give me a big whopping I told you so. I deserve it!!!!

you were right and I was wrong!!!

I can hear the black helicopters...

Click to expand...

You gotta love a man who can admit he's wrong.

Ricci said:

You gotta love a man who can admit he's wrong.

Click to expand...

Without a doubt he manned up. He said oops, I messed up, I trusted Marriott to do what was right and they stabbed me in the back.

My turn. One of my biggest you were right I was wrongs has been before this was launched i told everyone it would cost several $1000 for retail owners to convert, and I didn't think resale owners would be given any chance to convert. Oops, I was wrong about how they were going to make profit using points on the backs of current owners. I didn't trust marriott to treat owners well, but they did give retail buyers a cheap buy in to the points program, and they gave resale owners a chance to convert too.I was way wrong. What I didn't foresee was that they wouldn't really screw the new owners over until they actually converted to points. The black helicopters were actually flying overhead, they just attacked a different target than I was anticipating.

Now I'm bummed out.............

I have been very interested in the points program despite ye olde skim but now am very unhappy. This does not seem logical to me and to make two inventories-I am wondering if realistically it can be administered. This is a huge flaw if it is true and I am now going to hold off joining until there is more clarity.

It is time for Marriott to send out a clarifying document on this and the other questions that have come up from owners...................

With 3 units, one of which locks off and 100% trading, the fee benefits alone looked good to me.

But its increasingly clear the 800 one time one year bonus points may have little inventory into which they can be exchanged.

The primary reason for me to enroll was fee savings, assuming II stays the same for access in the Marriott corporate master II account.

Given the 'gotchas' being unearthed in this program, I gotta believe there's a 'gotcha' or two buried in the so called access to the corporate master II account also.

I just renewed II for 3 years. That's where I'm staying till the dust settles.

Can you feel the love, Bill?

craftr said:

I have been very interested in the points program despite ye olde skim but now am very unhappy. This does not seem logical to me and to make two inventories-I am wondering if realistically it can be administered. This is a huge flaw if it is true and I am now going to hold off joining until there is more clarity.

It is time for Marriott to send out a clarifying document on this and the other questions that have come up from owners...................

Click to expand...

It is simple for Marriott to administer 2 inventories. The computer deposits your week into a legacy pool and you can only access the legacy pool.

Points owners who buy points directly from Marriott can access the trust inventory, and barring someone finding it to be specifically prohibited in writing, I would bet the retail points buyers can access the legacy weeks deposited into points too.

Just when you thought things couldn't get any worse...........

jimf41

She did indeed confirm everything that Puckman had put out in his original post on this topic. I was stunned. Legacy week owners can only use their points at resorts where other legacy week owners have handed over their weeks for points. We will have no access to the points in the beneficial trust. Not now, not ever.

Click to expand...

tombo

Points owners can access the trust, and barring someone finding it to be sepcifically prohibited in writing, I would bet the points owners can access the legacy weeks deposited into points too.

Click to expand...

I thought I had analyzed well the risk reward of this program. I sure never thought of this. Well what's a couple of thousand dollars to enroll resales when you can might get to use the explorer club for a bicycle trip.

In view of this news I still have some questions.

Why wasn't the sales force pushing the idea that you needed to spend $9200 to really get the benefits of the new resorts? People had not mentioned this until Tiel reported it this week. Did they recognize they might get a backlash? Did some of them not even know it?

What is Marriott going to do with all those rooms in the trust they own? Could this all be a sham where they will release some new resort weeks out of their inventory to non new points buyers but are not going to acknowledge it. Some

This whole deal is a comedy of errors or a well conceived plan by a corporate type to intentionally deceive a large number of consumers. Word of mouth has helped Marriott over the years. A few hundred thousand people with a bad taste in their mouth is not good for business.

tombo said:

It is simple for Marriott to administer 2 inventories. The computer deposits your week into a legacy pool and you can only access the legacy pool.

Points owners who buy points directly from Marriott can access the trust inventory, and barring someone finding it to be specifically prohibited in writing, I would bet the retail points buyers can access the legacy weeks deposited into points too.

Click to expand...

Of course (access to weeks deposited for points), isn't this the dream they are trying to sell to new Points Buyers.

It would seem that they would have to replace this inventory with comparable inventory from the trust pool (or some other source) or there might be nothing for the legacy weeks owner with points from a deposit to reserve from the legacy pool.

good afternoon

It's pretty simple folks...

Trust owners can access ANY week in the point inventory. Legacy owners that convert a week to points can access ONLY the inventory that other legacy owners have converted to MR or DC points + units available from delinquencies...

There are some provisions for crossover for legacy point players if and when trust owners hit the legacy points inventory.

This is 10 times worse than the skim. At least the skim was seen upfront and can be viewed as a feeble attempt to charge a fee for short stays, definitive dates and flexibility!! The two sets of inventories for points players are hidden in a well crafted clause about affiliated resorts when describing the exchange company for enrollee's...

I'm stuck (out $695) and will test drive my 4550 pts on 7/26 to see just how bad it really is...The good news is that if I don't see anything in pointr inventory. I can keep my week as a week (as I have not yet converted it). I can then lock off and play in the II account. If they ever contact me about it!!!!

yikes...