Sources of inventory

TUGgers,

We’ve debated before on TUG what happens to Marriott prime weeks that are deposited into II, and who gets that week. We never satisfactorily answered that question and it pops up from time to time. Some of my comments following are repetitive of previous discussions, but included here to try and be complete.

Based upon recent experience (recounted below), it is my belief that that Marriott is “stocking” the Exchange Inventory with prime weeks deposited into Interval International 13 months out, by Marriott week owners. This would require some agreement or permanent, perpetual trade request between II and Marriott, but it is plausible.

We know that one of the most important challenges facing Marriott is having sufficient inventory to meet points owner reservation requests. We know that Marriott will get inventory from enrolled owners who redeem their weeks for points – but that weeks owner has until September 30 before the use year to redeem that week, so that is not a reliable source of inventory. Especially if only 20% enroll (and fewer redeem).

We’ve speculated the Marriott has a “Right of First Refusal” on a highly sought-after week that an enrolled owner wants to deposit into Interval International, and may make the trade with its pockets of inventory before passing that week into Interval International. However, this is unproven, and even if true, with only 20% enrolling, that’s not a reliable source of inventory either.

We believe that Marriott will take weeks that have been redeemed for MRPs and put them into the Exchange Inventory. They have years and years of history on this redemption pattern, but owners have until 12/31 prior to the use year to redeem – that’s a predictable, but not reliable source.

Accordingly, all of these potential sources of inventory are variable and unpredictable, and I bet that Marriott was unwilling to place its critical inventory needs – the Achilles heel of its system – on such unreliable sources.

Then, consider the potential importance of the 13-month rule to the Marriott points system. Marriott has an (un?)official policy of permitting 13 month reservations by multi-week owners. There is an established pattern -- at 9am ET, 13 months out, Marriott multi-week owners make their reservation and deposit that prime week into II for maximum trading power. And a prime, sought after week, is now sitting in Interval International.

Who gets that prime week?

I believe Marriott gets it, not the first II member who has a on-going search for that week. I believe this for several reasons:

1) Marriott really really needs inventory to make exchange requests at 12-13 months out.
2) Sources noted above are unreliable, unpredictable, and not punctual to a 12-13 month reservation requirement
3) It answers some questions on the point allocation chart – Marriott needs to give lots of points to MOC owners to entice them to enroll & redeem, because they rarely trade. Marriott doesn’t need to give lots of points to Aruba owners, because those are well traded properties.

This theory of mine was a factor (in addition to my enthusiasm for warm water) in the decision to go to Aruba next February, 2012. We have a very powerful MOC studio on Deposit First (deposited 12 months prior to check-in), for a Week 24 Lahaina Villas studio, which is a very high TDI week in Maui. That should be a powerful deposit, sufficient to capture an early Aruba Ocean Club studio, with February 3 or 4 check-in. And I believe Aruba owners have been making reservations for those check-in days all week.

My trade hasn’t cleared yet. No big deal, it will clear, maybe next week or next month. But it hasn’t cleared yet. And Interval International has no/zero/none inventory for either Aruba Ocean Club or Aruba Surf Club, any size unit. So.....maybe I'm farther down the line in trade requests then I thought, and there are more Marriott owners willing to "down-trade" their 1BR or 2BR for that Ocean Club studio then I anticipated.

But.......Yesterday, Marriott’s DC didn’t have any inventory either. Today, it has sufficient Aruba Ocean Club Studios/1BRs/2BRs with the desired February 3rd or 4th check-in to offer me anything -- I can book whatever I want, any size, any view category, using DC points.

I do not believe this inventory could have been sourced from Marriott’s own ownership of the property. Perhaps this inventory came from many many (2012?) MRP redeemers – or perhaps there are more enrolled owners who very-early redeemed their 2012 week than we anticipated. Or.... this was Aruba reservations cycled through Interval International.

If we can confirm this theory, it would explain a great deal about where Marriott is going to get the desirable prime week inventory and also explains why Marriott didn’t design the system in a manner that enticed/appealed to the existing owners to participate (something that has caused much angst to many TUGgers, myself included). They developed a work-around, an alternative source for the needed inventory.

It’s really quite interesting to think about the ramifications/implications of this.

I would be very very curious if any other TUGgers have either:

1) Deposited an Aruba Surf or Aruba Ocean Club into II for those check-in dates
2) Been confirmed into either of those properties for those check-in dates
3) Been recently confirmed into any PRIME reservation at exactly 13 months

Any thoughts, comments or alternative views would be appreciated.

Best,

Greg

I would like to see someone with knowledge of how Starwood manages their II inventory comment on your theory. If Starwood can get away with doing something similar to this, then I would presume Marriott can also. I don't think Marriott would bother grabbing low demand weeks away from II, but they might very well take high demand weeks and give II a substitute week for deposit.

A similar type of process can occur with request-first searches in II. Marriott could satisfy the request-first search from its own inventory rather than allowing II to satisfy it, and give II a week that would allow II to satisfy a different search.

I just can't believe DClub is materially affecting available inventory based on DClub statistics, as follows

20 weeks ended 11/17/10

Enrollments..........................36,809
Weeks................................79,237
Banking.................................3,738
Borrowing..............................5,594
Reservations..........................9,192
Nights Reserved....................30,000
Number of points purchasers...10,500
Number of points sold...... 16,600,000


per week

Enrollments...........................1,840
Weeks..................................3,962
Banking...................................187
Borrowing................................280
Reservations............................460
Nights Reserved.....................1,500
Number of points purchasers.......525
Number of points sold..........830,000


Analysis

370,000 owners and 1.3 weeks per owners = nearly 500,000 weeks or about 10,000 owner owned occupancies/week or 70,000 nights per calendar week

9,192 points reservations in 20 calendar weeks = about 460 per week.

460/10,000 = 4% of reservations




30,000 nights /20 weeks = just over 1,500 nights per week

1,500/70,000 = 2.1% of nights reserved

How many of these are for pluspoints? My guess is a material percentage. Multiply the enrollments by 800 per enrollee and you get about 29.4 million plus points, nearly twice as many as have been sold. They've sold 16.6 million, about 1,580 per purchaser. 1,580 points doesn't buy a lot of prime occupancy

Greg, I'll be the first to admit these are crude calculations based on available data for a start up. Marriott is certainly basing their reservation activities on forecasts and not history.

Despite the limitations of these data, I just don't see the new program having a material effect . . . yet.

hotcoffee said:

I would like to see someone with knowledge of how Starwood manages their II inventory comment on your theory. If Starwood can get away with doing something similar to this, then I would presume Marriott can also. I don't think Marriott would bother grabbing low demand weeks away from II, but they might very well take high demand weeks and give II a substitute week for deposit.

A similar type of process can occur with request-first searches in II. Marriott could satisfy the request-first search from its own inventory rather than allowing II to satisfy it, and give II a week that would allow II to satisfy a different search.

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all of the II marriott inventory goes first to the marriott desk, so they have the opportunity to see what is available.

Starwood is (now) totally different. You no longer have the ability to make a reservation and then deposit it into II...all deposits to II are generic and receive the same trade power for the season owned. Therefore, Starwood obviously has the ability to control what weeks are actually deposited into II and which it grabs for its own use or leaves for reservations.

The one difference is that Starwood is not selling "points" to anyone, it still sells weeks that are worth points. In other words, it's as if they only operated the overlay being offered to Marriott's existing weeks owners and not a trust system in addition. Therefore there isn't a desire to boost inventory into a trust system...however one concern has long been that Starwood could snag the high demand weeks for renting (those they are entitled to as owners of unsold developer weeks or from Starwood Points). there was a long debate about this some time ago and we all went through our governing docs to see what sort of restrictions they had on actually reserving those weeks which it was entitled to and no real consensus was reached.

windje2000 said:

I just can't believe DClub is materially affecting available inventory based on DClub statistics, as follows

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Windje,

I agree -- it's not Trust Points purchasers that is affecting inventory patterns/availability -- it has to be Marriott's need to accumulate inventory that will be desired by their customers (points users).

Somehow, an Aruba Studio week for which a Trade Request is on-going in II, is not (yet) available from II, but that same week (all views) is available from Marriott.

How did it get there? How is Marriott just sitting on multiple weeks of all view categories?

Either they've actively traded for that week from II, or they've restricted II's ability to match trades until Marriott is sure they don't need the week in question at this time.

I think it's the former -- they've figured out which weeks points users will want, and they've actively acquired them from II -- ahead of me. I'm confident I'll still get my trade from II, but not at 13 months out -- maybe 11 months?.

Please ponder this for a minute -- II does not have Aruba inventory 12.5 months out. Conversely, Marriott has lots of Aruba inventory that is unmatched and is available to someone spending points.

That's interesting -- if not from II, how did the Aruba inventory get there?

Best,

Greg

windje2000 said:

. . . They've sold . . . about 1,580 [points] per purchaser. 1,580 points doesn't buy a lot of prime occupancy . . .

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I personally do not believe the points per person will go much higher for the foreseeable future. That is why most of the best Trust weeks will end up in the exchange inventory. It will be out of reach for most Trust owners.

GregT said:

Windje,



Please ponder this for a minute -- II does not have Aruba inventory 12.5 months out. Conversely, Marriott has lots of Aruba inventory that is unmatched and is available to someone spending points.

That's interesting -- if not from II, how did the Aruba inventory get there?

Best,

Greg

Click to expand...

Greg - I'm at a loss.

The only pertinent experience I've had is that II's systems can sometimes be less than accurate. Perhaps all II Aruba inventory was instantly snapped up by by pending/ongoing requests.

It wouldn't surprise me at all if there was both a side deal between II and Marriott as regards exchange priorities and that Marriott was 'warehousing' some inventory they got from foreclosures/MRP (and maybe II) in anticipation of demand.

Marriott's hope springs eternal, I guess. It'll be interesting to see what numbers they report at year end.

We’ve debated before on TUG what happens to Marriott prime weeks that are deposited into II, and who gets that week. We never satisfactorily answered that question

Click to expand...

There's always been an answer to this question. Interval's metric for matching MVC trade requests is conducted on a like-for-like basis. The "fuzzy" part has been how Interval determines the "trading power" of a given MVC week. All we MVC folk have been able to do is to infer the relative trading power of an Interval week. That said, the one gift that Marriott's introduction of Destinations gives we MVC folks is that by setting their new DC currency as VC points, Marriott reveals by inference how both Marriott and Interval rank trading value of MVC weeks ( and this has always been a function of supply and demand which is a trade secert, but no longer as secret in the new DC program ).

Note that my remarks refer only to Interval as an MVC owner trading inside of Interval. Those who Conduct their MVC trades via MVCEC are not acting within the same trading parameters as Interval ( like-for like ). Marriott has elected to negate "MVC seasons" and instead uses it's VC points currency as the metric of "relative demand worth". For those who enroll their MVC weeks and place MVCEC trades for those weeks, he who gets the request in first, queues first ( actually a huge disincentive for an MVC owner who holds highly valued weeks to trade in MVCEC ) . That said, the fundamental metric of both MVCEC and Interval are predicated upon supply & demand. Just a guess on my part, but at this moment I would expect Interval's inventory and demand curve to be close to previous years as reluctant MVC folks are still trying to figure things out. MVCEC with fewer folks placing trade requests is a different animal. Best question to ask is how many of those 100,000 enrolled MVC weeks are being put up for an MVCEC trade? Next best question is will Marriott be able to shuffle around inventory from the Trust to help MVCEC folks place successful trades these first few years?

Based upon recent experience (recounted below), it is my belief that that Marriott is “stocking” the Exchange Inventory with prime weeks deposited into Interval International 13 months out, by Marriott week owners . . . . We’ve speculated the Marriott has a “Right of First Refusal” on a highly sought-after week that an enrolled owner wants to deposit into Interval International, and may make the trade with its pockets of inventory before passing that week into Interval International. . .

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Greg, what you're suggesting here requires collusion both by Marriott and Interval -- a breach of terms to Interval members, which at this point in time also means the bulk of MVC owners who belong to a trading partner. Furthermore, do you really think that Interval ( who has lost a very important client with the start up of MVCEC ) gets anything out of swapping suppossedly high demand Interval Marriott inventory?

. . . Accordingly, all of these potential sources of inventory are variable and unpredictable, and I bet that Marriott was unwilling to place its critical inventory needs – the Achilles heel of its system – on such unreliable sources . . ..

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Marriott, through the Trust which oversees DC, owns 31 MVC resorts and the previously unsold MVC inventory at each of them. This is a substantial number of weeks. In a broad sense, "Marriott has sufficient DC inventory for quite some time into the future "( I quote here a Marriott source of mine ). The only additional sources of potential additional DC inventory that Marriott can put into the Trust ( and hence into the hands of DC folks seeking inventory, and for now, MVCEC traders ) will come from acquiring full ownership at any of remaining non-Trust MVC resorts, or from MVC owners who elect to take MR Points for their MVC week. As you note, this stream of weeks is somewhat unpredictable ( in past years @ 20% of MVC owners deposit into the MR pool ). The real problem here is that Marriott & we MVC owners have no real insight as to which weeks/resorts will be the most requested and if the Trust controls those weeks and hence the ability to fulfill requests.

So if one is trying to read the timeshare tea leaves to divine how successful a trade might be, I'd suggest scouring the DC resort VC points redemption catalogue as this affords the best information for gauging demand. Then it comes down to how individual MVC owners strategize. Trading for any extremely popular MVC week is difficult under any circumstances. Now if I had to chose between Interval versus MVCEC to place a "high demand" trade, I too would clearly stick with Interval as one's best chance as an MVC owner remains playing in the Interval virtual swimming pool. Good Luck!


Barry

one thing that Marriott certainly could do is to deposit all of the weeks that it owns at legacy resorts into the points exchange when they reach the reservation calendar date.

that would prime the pump for anyone trading points of either kind.

Remember that Marriott has the ability to forecast usage and point trading patterns based on past data. Thus if they expect 25% of owners that own platinum season to trade for Marriott reward points, they can pull 20% of the platinum weeks out of the weeks reservation pool and put in to exchange/trust. So much of that inventory you are seeing in points can indeed be MRP trades, even though the physical trade hasn't been done by the owners yet.

MRP trading inventory is a very reliable source of inventory that Marriott can pull to fulfill point exchanges even though the deadline to trade for points is 12/31. In the future once Marriott has better data on DC point conversions, they will be doing the same with that also.

Marriott also knows that x % of weeks go unreserved every year that they get the rights to, so they can also pull that at any time to place in point inventory.

I don't think we can assume yet that Marriott and II are truly on the same page about valuations in all cases. I have some units that net me less than 1000 destination club points per week As you can imagine I am unlikely to convert these to destination club points even though I am enrolled.

I recently traded one of those low points week for a Jan 2012 platinum Florida week that would have cost me 4225 destination club points. II obviously values that week differently than Marriott or they would have not made the trade.

If Marriott was getting the higher point value properties from II before they got to the II traders , why would this even be available a year in advance ?

siberiavol said:

I don't think we can assume yet that Marriott and II are truly on the same page about valuations in all cases. I have some units that net me less than 1000 destination club points per week As you can imagine I am unlikely to convert these to destination club points even though I am enrolled.

I recently traded one of those low points week for a Jan 2012 platinum Florida week that would have cost me 4225 destination club points. II obviously values that week differently than Marriott or they would have not made the trade.

If Marriott was getting the higher point value properties from II before they got to the II traders , why would this even be available a year in advance ?

Click to expand...

See this thread about the subject.

Marriott Marbella

One small anecdote on source of weeks for points. As I was looking to go to Marriott Marbella Beach resort, I asked to a representative on the phone if this resort is going to be soon available for points (I had my GRande Vista 3BR President's week to exchange in II for more than 2.5 months without success and finally I abandoned entering soon in the 60 days window).

Surprisely, he told me to wait as he will be calling II to see something. Finally, he proposed me to book 7 days (only full week, not shorter/longer) for 5'000 points (June 2011, 3BR). Exactly what i was trying to exchange myself without success. Very interesting: he made a trade in II to have a week that he then proposed to sell me with points (of course 5'000 points is more that my 3'725 for GV).

Although I do not like it (too much), it is showing that they are trying to solutions for you. Balanced feeling...

davidn247 said:

One small anecdote on source of weeks for points. As I was looking to go to Marriott Marbella Beach resort, I asked to a representative on the phone if this resort is going to be soon available for points (I had my GRande Vista 3BR President's week to exchange in II for more than 2.5 months without success and finally I abandoned entering soon in the 60 days window).

Surprisely, he told me to wait as he will be calling II to see something. Finally, he proposed me to book 7 days (only full week, not shorter/longer) for 5'000 points (June 2011, 3BR). Exactly what i was trying to exchange myself without success. Very interesting: he made a trade in II to have a week that he then proposed to sell me with points (of course 5'000 points is more that my 3'725 for GV).

Although I do not like it (too much), it is showing that they are trying to solutions for you. Balanced feeling...

Click to expand...

I think this is verification of what we knew all along. It seems that perhaps you either didn't have the trade power to exchange your MGV to Spain, or there were lots of other people ahead of you in line. Likely a trade power issue.

It is interesting to note to those that seem to think Marriott will do week for week exchanges that Marriott wasn't willing to just give you the week for your MGV week.

this is actually a DC world traveler collection trade.

the way it is written is that you decide just what kind of a week you want in II, and you deposit that many points in the DC for the trade.

wof45 said:

this is actually a DC world traveler collection trade.

the way it is written is that you decide just what kind of a week you want in II, and you deposit that many points in the DC for the trade.

Click to expand...

That makes sense now, given the point value required. Though I thought that Marriott resorts were not available for trade through II using DC points. World Traveler would be exchanges through II but people can't see Marriott to Marriott units when searching online using points.

I tell you: these trade systems are becoming so complicated that this forum will have a long life! It will be soon a full time job. Thanks for the information. For me, it is important to have choice while still retaining your deed/weeks and I really think that Marriott is starting to acknowledge that DC was maybe not well introduced and it seems that they are trying to improve and deliver what you ask them.

I traded my studio side of shadow ridge platinum week for christmas week Cypress Harbour (orlando) which has only 2BRs. I put an ongoing search and it matched at exactly 13 months out (last week of November 2010).
I thought a multiple week owner made reservation at 13 months window and depositted that week right away and matched with my request.
I also saw that bunch of prime (summer) weeks at legend edge were bulk depositted to II about one or two months ago. All of June, July, August weeks were there and other weeks throughout the year (except week 51 and 52).
There were similar bulk deposits for Grande vista and 3 palm desert resorts almost at the same time.
So it is very hard to say that Marriott is holding all the prime weeks for DC members. They have to give weeks to II and those weeks cannot be all silver or bronze weeks.

yumdrey said:

They have to give weeks to II and those weeks cannot be all silver or bronze weeks.

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I would have to agree. Marriott resorts are not completely filled with Marriott owners year round or even in peak season. I have said and will keep saying that DC didn't magically create more demand on implementation. Marriott will still be in possession of many weeks that in the past went to non Marriott owners and other non-Marriott owners through II. The same will continue in the future. DC only makes up about 10% of all owners at the moment. If 50% are converting, those 5% of owners as well as trust owners are not going to all of a sudden start to suck up all that prime inventory that in the past went in to II.

jerseyfinn said:

Greg, what you're suggesting here requires collusion both by Marriott and Interval -- a breach of terms to Interval members, which at this point in time also means the bulk of MVC owners who belong to a trading partner. Furthermore, do you really think that Interval ( who has lost a very important client with the start up of MVCEC ) gets anything out of swapping suppossedly high demand Interval Marriott inventory?


Marriott, through the Trust which oversees DC, owns 31 MVC resorts and the previously unsold MVC inventory at each of them. This is a substantial number of weeks. In a broad sense, "Marriott has sufficient DC inventory for quite some time into the future "( I quote here a Marriott source of mine ). The only additional sources of potential additional DC inventory that Marriott can put into the Trust ( and hence into the hands of DC folks seeking inventory, and for now, MVCEC traders ) will come from acquiring full ownership at any of remaining non-Trust MVC resorts, or from MVC owners who elect to take MR Points for their MVC week. As you note, this stream of weeks is somewhat unpredictable ( in past years @ 20% of MVC owners deposit into the MR pool ). The real problem here is that Marriott & we MVC owners have no real insight as to which weeks/resorts will be the most requested and if the Trust controls those weeks and hence the ability to fulfill requests.

So if one is trying to read the timeshare tea leaves to divine how successful a trade might be, I'd suggest scouring the DC resort VC points redemption catalogue as this affords the best information for gauging demand. Then it comes down to how individual MVC owners strategize. Trading for any extremely popular MVC week is difficult under any circumstances. Now if I had to chose between Interval versus MVCEC to place a "high demand" trade, I too would clearly stick with Interval as one's best chance as an MVC owner remains playing in the Interval virtual swimming pool. Good Luck!


Barry

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All,

Interesting comments and feedback, thank you. Yumdrey's experience with Cypress Harbour is encouraging.

Barry,

Collusion might be the correct term, but that suggests illegal activity. I could envision something in the recent contract extension where Marriott either received a preferential period of its own, or a higher weight to its bulk deposit trading power. We don't know what concessions Interval was forced to accept in order to have the contract renewed. Obviously, I don't know the mechanism here, of course, but I see the practical result of it.

We know there are no weeks in the Trust Inventory from Aruba Surf Club or Aruba Ocean Club. And yet the Exchange Inventory has many weeks available, all sizes and views, and Interval International is empty (to me at least, with a strong Like for Like trader). I don't know how these weeks got into the Exchange Inventory, and at the moment, my hypothesis could still be the explanation.

Perhaps its as simple as Marriott recognizing 2 years ago they were doing the points system, and started putting in many Trade Requests with II for weeks that the system will want, so they are first in line -- Like for Like trades that they are thinking about 2+ years in advance. Or perhaps there is a contractual arrangement giving Marriott a preference or some rights that Interval had to accept in order to renew the contract last April.

I don't know, but the practical result is the same -- the Aruba inventory is in the Destination Club and not in Interval International, and I remain intrigued as to how it got there.

If this pattern repeats, then it certainly suggests the Exchange Inventory will be robust and that the legal distinction between Trust Points and Exchange Points won't really matter since Exchange Inventory will have better access than I anticipated to the best weeks in the system.

Again, this assumes that Marriott has found out a way, contractually or through long-planned Trade Requests, to stock prime weeks inventory in advance of reservation requests from points owners, and not just wait for the request to be made by that points owner and then go look for the matching week.

Best to all,

Greg

My Theory

I raised a new theory in a recent thread and I have yet to see anyone prove it wrong.

It is pretty simple:

There are two pools of weeks - enrolled owners and unenrolled. I should point out that this is contrary to what Marriott represented (verbally) to some people who contacted them because my pool involves enrolled owners (vs. owners who elect points)

Under my theory, the enrolled owners' weeks are always available in the DC exchange (I assume this is still on a prorata basis). The owner does not have to elect points. So an enrolled owner may or may not be able to reserve their week at 12 months out (they are the biggest losers in that sense). The winner is Marriott (owners who can't use home resort when they want will elect points by default, won't they?) and the DC exchange because it answers where inventory is coming from... It also explains the push Marriott has just to get enrollments. Note that the "you can do what you always did" still applies but that doesn't mean your home resort is available when you call... that's a pretty heavy price to pay for "fee savings" but did anyone thing Marriott was in the charity business?

Unenrolled weeks owners have their own (pro rata) pool which they can use to make home resort reservations. Under my theory, his pool is unavailable to enrolled weeks owners.

I would hope my theory is wrong - but I have yet to see indications to the contrary. This recent thread actually increases my suspicions. I hope someone proves me wrong...

Dan, I would have to agree that this is a likely theory. It is very possible that enrolled owners weeks are actually getting thrown in to the exchange company pool and then when they make their home resort reservations, that inventory is coming back from the exchange company pool. That is, if it is still available when you want to make a reservation.

At worst, the problem with this is that enrolled owners are now competing against points purchasers and DC converters for the inventory.

Of course Marriott does have to promise a week at the owners home resort, so it is also likely that Marriott has a separate pool for enrolled owners that is outside the exchange company and unenrolled owners pool. This ensures that if an enrolled member converts, Marriott has something to deposit to DC. This makes more sense since enrolled owners have until September 30th to convert, but Marriott will likely want to be able to use a peak March week to put in to DC instead of perhaps an off season Sept - December week.

DanCali said:

I raised a new theory in a recent thread and I have yet to see anyone prove it wrong.

It is pretty simple:

There are two pools of weeks - enrolled owners and unenrolled. I should point out that this is contrary to what Marriott represented (verbally) to some people who contacted them because my pool involves enrolled owners (vs. owners who elect points)

Under my theory, the enrolled owners' weeks are always available in the DC exchange (I assume this is still on a prorata basis). The owner does not have to elect points. So an enrolled owner may or may not be able to reserve their week at 12 months out (they are the biggest losers in that sense). The winner is Marriott (owners who can't use home resort when they want will elect points by default, won't they?) and the DC exchange because it answers where inventory is coming from... It also explains the push Marriott has just to get enrollments. Note that the "you can do what you always did" still applies but that doesn't mean your home resort is available when you call... that's a pretty heavy price to pay for "fee savings" but did anyone thing Marriott was in the charity business?

Unenrolled weeks owners have their own (pro rata) pool which they can use to make home resort reservations. Under my theory, his pool is unavailable to enrolled weeks owners.

I would hope my theory is wrong - but I have yet to see indications to the contrary. This recent thread actually increases my suspicions. I hope someone proves me wrong...

Click to expand...

From the FAQ LINK (Login required)

Where will the inventory come from to fulfill vacation reservations within the Marriott Vacation Club Collection?

Inventory throughout the Marriott Vacation Club Collection will be available for reservations for Enrolled Owners via other Marriott Vacation Club Owners who enroll their weeks and elect Vacation Club Points, and non-enrolled Owners who trade their usage for Marriott Rewards points or exchange their week through membership in Interval International.

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emphasis mine



Dan, I'm as skeptical as anyone (and probably more than most) as regards the big M, but I'm not going that far based on the anectodes we've seen on TUG so far. The answer in the FAQ is actually pretty unequivocal as compared to some writings that leave more questions than answers in their wake.

Is it proof? Not without an independent (paid for by someone other than M ) audit.

M can make some pretty good guesses on use of MRP, forfeited occupancy, etc., and may well be 'holding' II deposited inventory for anticipated or forecast demand.

If what you hypothesize is true, one lawsuit with some effective forensic accounting discovery and they're toast. It's clearly material to the decision as to whether or not to enroll, it wasn't disclosed and it's contradicted by its own representations in the FAQ.