# Recently purchased Ebay week added to DC program for no additional charge



## Clemson Fan (Jan 24, 2011)

I didn’t want to advertise this until I was able to confirm that it went through, but Marriott just added a week that I recently purchased through Ebay to the DC program. The kicker is they didn’t charge me extra to add it on.

The story goes like this. I enrolled my previous weeks (all purchased resale) in the DC soon after it was announced and I paid the $1995 to enroll the weeks. Then, back in Sept/Oct there was a deal on Ebay I couldn’t pass up and it was for a week that I planned on using anyway. I actually didn’t care if I could use it in the DC program or not. After the week closed back in late Nov, I called Marriott to make sure it had been added to my overall ownership account and it had. I then asked the guy I was talking to whether it would be put in the DC program and he told me flat out it wasn’t eligible nor would it ever be eligible. I said OK because frankly I really didn’t care. 

Well, I needed to call in a few weeks later for something simple and I asked the lady on the phone the same question about enrolling it in the DC program. She was super nice and did a test to see if she could enroll it and bingo – she was able to enroll it without any difficulty. I asked her if there was any charge and she said NO since I already paid my $1995. She just told me I would get a confirmation e-mail which I needed to respond to with my acceptance of the terms and conditions. I got that e-mail and responded to it. I just called Marriott again today for something else and I was able to confirm that indeed ALL my weeks are enrolled in the DC program.

I don’t really plan on using that week at all for the DC program, but Marriott should using that one rep as an example of how customer service should be provided. IMO, the DC program would be much more highly thought of and accepted if they allowed all weeks to be enrolled (without that June 20th, 2010 deadline) for a nominal fee or no fee.


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## billymach4 (Jan 24, 2011)

Well I tell you what......

Since you have made this information public I thank you. 

However I would think that Marriotts DC backend system has some holes.... 

Gaping holes.

I would not be surprised if someone analyst now runs a query against their inventory system looking for weeks enrolled post 6/20.

Then your week might very well be red flagged. We all know the rules. All weeks post 6/20 are not eligible to be enrolled in the DC system. Cut and Dry. Easy rule to remember. 

The fact that you squeaked in is great, and I applaud you for that. However don't be surprised if Marriott does an audit and them removes your week from the DC system. 

Just my opinion...


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## saturn28 (Jan 24, 2011)

Clemson Fan said:


> I didn’t want to advertise this until I was able to confirm that it went through, but Marriott just added a week that I recently purchased through Ebay to the DC program. The kicker is they didn’t charge me extra to add it on.
> 
> The story goes like this. I enrolled my previous weeks (all purchased resale) in the DC soon after it was announced and I paid the $1995 to enroll the weeks. Then, back in Sept/Oct there was a deal on Ebay I couldn’t pass up and it was for a week that I planned on using anyway. I actually didn’t care if I could use it in the DC program or not. After the week closed back in late Nov, I called Marriott to make sure it had been added to my overall ownership account and it had. I then asked the guy I was talking to whether it would be put in the DC program and he told me flat out it wasn’t eligible nor would it ever be eligible. I said OK because frankly I really didn’t care.
> 
> ...



Did you have to post this. Sometimes it is better not to post everything you know. Especially something like this. In your excitement to let everyone know, you may end up loosing the week you just enrolled.


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## vacationhopeful (Jan 24, 2011)

Maybe we should all help by editting OUR posts - in case OP sees the error of their way.


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## Clemson Fan (Jan 24, 2011)

vacationhopeful said:


> Maybe we should all help by editting OUR posts - in case OP sees the error of their way.


 
C’mon folks.  I really don’t prescribe to the black helicopter conspiracy theory stuff.  I’ve gotten some PM’s asking me to remove my post so as not to make Marriott aware that this may be going on because it might end up ruining it for everybody.  TUG is supposed to be an exchange of ideas and experiences and if we’re afraid of posting them then it really ruins TUG IMO.  If Marriott does do an audit looking for all post June 20th weeks in the DC system to remove them, then so be it.  They would’ve done it anyway and my post on TUG I don’t believe would’ve been the root cause of such an audit.  If they do end up removing that week from my DC account, then so be it.  I actually plan on using that week and will probably never exchange it in for DC points.  I’ll let people on TUG know if they do remove it.

Who knows, Marriott may review their policy and realize that banning all post June 20th weeks was really a bad idea that in the end hurts everybody.  They may need the potential inventory for the DC program and they may be planning on loosening things up already.  I really don’t know either way?


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## billymach4 (Jan 24, 2011)

You are indeed a person that stands behind your principle feelings. Way to go. This is great information and might even tempt me into enrolling into the DC program!

Either way it does expose how sloppy their system has been tested. And I appreciate that you have chosen to keep the post as stated!

 

What I don't care for is the fact that some of the other folks here have been sheepishly PMing you to retract your post!



Clemson Fan said:


> C’mon folks.  I really don’t prescribe to the black helicopter conspiracy theory stuff.  I’ve gotten some PM’s asking me to remove my post so as not to make Marriott aware that this may be going on because it might end up ruining it for everybody.  TUG is supposed to be an exchange of ideas and experiences and if we’re afraid of posting them then it really ruins TUG IMO.  If Marriott does do an audit looking for all post June 20th weeks in the DC system to remove them, then so be it.  They would’ve done it anyway and my post on TUG I don’t believe would’ve been the root cause of such an audit.  If they do end up removing that week from my DC account, then so be it.  I actually plan on using that week and will probably never exchange it in for DC points.  I’ll let people on TUG know if they do remove it.
> 
> Who knows, Marriott may review their policy and realize that banning all post June 20th weeks was really a bad idea that in the end hurts everybody.  They may need the potential inventory for the DC program and they may be planning on loosening things up already.  I really don’t know either way?


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## SueDonJ (Jan 24, 2011)

OP, thanks for your post.  Every little bit of info we manage to gather about how Marriott does things helps every TUG poster to understand their ownership better.  I hope whatever Marriott does, you continue to post your experiences.

What I can't understand is the apparent double standard that some posters have about Marriott's actions.  We badmouth Marriott at every single opportunity, ranting and raving and complaining about every little mistake they make and everything they do to protect their business when we don't benefit, but we're thrilled to death when their mistakes give us something extra that we know we shouldn't be getting?  And now a new low on TUG, a call to not publicize Marriott's mistakes if they benefit us because that will alert Marriott to their mistakes.

Geeesh.  Isn't the point of all the complaining that we don't want Marriott to make mistakes?


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## dioxide45 (Jan 24, 2011)

What happened was a VOA decided to give it a try and it worked. It doesn't mean it wasn't against what Marriott states in it's own enrollment materials. Just because it worked, doesn't mean it isn't something Marriott can't revoke later if they opt to enforce their own stated policy. Of course you paid $0 for it, so if it is gone, you won't be out any money.

By publishing this you may be the only one to be able to accomplish the feat. Marriott's back end system has some holes and doesn't verify purchase date when going through the enrollment process. Something I suggested and mentioned could be possible in an older thread last year. Guess what I said was right.

Marriott will not change their mind any time soon based on this information. This being public will undermine Marriott's DC point system when trying to sell points to current enrollees. If one can go out and buy some cheap resales, why would they pay $10 per point? Though for a developer purchaser I would think they would have to lay out an additional $1300-$1400 to enroll a resale week.


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## KathyPet (Jan 24, 2011)

Well isn't that interesting???  I have refused to join the DC program with my 2 Marriott purchased weeks only BECAUSE they would not allow my St. Kitts resale week to be enrolled even though the contract was signed and all money sent to escrow before the deadline.  Maybe I should enroll my two weeks and then see if I can get my resale week in later.  Marriott does now have the paperwork to transfer the ownership and it is currently in process.


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## saturn28 (Jan 24, 2011)

dioxide45 said:


> What happened was a VOA decided to give it a try and it worked. It doesn't mean it wasn't against what Marriott states in it's own enrollment materials. Just because it worked, doesn't mean it isn't something Marriott can't revoke later if they opt to enforce their own stated policy. Of course you paid $0 for it, so if it is gone, you won't be out any money.
> 
> By publishing this you may be the only one to be able to accomplish the feat. Marriott's back end system has some holes and doesn't verify purchase date when going through the enrollment process. Something I suggested and mentioned could be possible in an older thread last year. Guess what I said was right.
> 
> Marriott will not change their mind any time soon based on this information. This being public will undermine Marriott's DC point system when trying to sell points to current enrollees. If one can go out and buy some cheap resales, why would they pay $10 per point? Though for a developer purchaser I would think they would have to lay out an additional $1300-$1400 to enroll a resale week.



You can bet that whatever back door exist will be quickly closed. Once people start calling in complaining that people are enrolling weeks that don't qualify, they will lock it. If that is what the OP wants, why not just call the supervisor at Owner Services and tell them what you were able to do.


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## SueDonJ (Jan 24, 2011)

saturn28 said:


> You can bet that whatever back door exist will be quickly closed once people start calling in to Marriott and complaining that people are enrolling weeks that don't qualify.



Who would do that?


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## dioxide45 (Jan 24, 2011)

SueDonJ said:


> Who would do that?



People who want to enroll their post 6/30 resale purchase. They will call and say they want to enroll. When turned down, they will say they read it on here where others were able to do it.


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## SueDonJ (Jan 24, 2011)

dioxide45 said:


> People who want to enroll their post 6/30 resale purchase. They will call and say they want to enroll. When turned down, they will say they read it on here where others were able to do it.



Those people would have a legitimate gripe and good reason to call, I think.  The one thing we should all be able to demand from Marriott is consistency, and 90% of the problems we read about with Marriott are due to inconsistency.

Saturn, I think I misunderstood your post - I thought you were saying you would expect someone to read OP's post and "tattletale" to Marriott for no good reason.  I'm sorry.


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## CMF (Jan 24, 2011)

I like to play with slippage now and then; love finding secret keyholes that work to my advantage.  

Charles


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## dioxide45 (Jan 24, 2011)

SueDonJ said:


> Those people would have a legitimate gripe and good reason to call, I think.  The one thing we should all be able to demand from Marriott is consistency, and 90% of the problems we read about with Marriott are due to inconsistency.
> .



I agree. They have a stated policy and they can enforce it. They should be consistent. It seems that the VOAs are fairly consistent in enforcing the rule.

I think this amounts to more of an oversight by Marriott and not something where they wanted us few Tuggers to know about and enroll post 6/20 resales en-mass. Their system was never setup to weed out these enrollments.


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## davidn247 (Jan 24, 2011)

The only issue here is that we give ammunition to lawyers to open a case.... and our MFs will go up! To the one that started this thing, please call back Marriott or your VOA and just let them know!

I do not want to defend them but Marriott is a big company and they are not perfect. I am sure that they put together this DC program in a rush to stay in business, unload $1.5 bio of inventory on hands and they have not realized all the implication of this change. These changes are massive to implement (procedures, systems and others). VOAs are surely making mistakes and confused with the different dates around (at least I am). Let's not put them in a weaker legal position here.


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## windje2000 (Jan 24, 2011)

davidn247 said:


> *The only issue here is that we give ammunition to lawyers to open a case.... and our MFs will go up!* To the one that started this thing, please call back Marriott or your VOA and just let them know!
> 
> I do not want to defend them but Marriott is a big company and they are not perfect. I am sure that they put together this DC program in a rush to stay in business, unload $1.5 bio of inventory on hands and they have not realized all the implication of this change. These changes are massive to implement (procedures, systems and others). VOAs are surely making mistakes and confused with the different dates around (at least I am). *Let's not put them in a weaker legal position here.*



I fail to see how MFs will be affected by the administrative oversight of a Marriott VOA, or how anyone's legal position is materially affected.  

Will Marriott go back and audit the purchase date of more than 100,000 enrolled weeks?  No way.  They would probably have to do it manually, looking at dead trees in filing cabinets.

OP got lucky.  Bully for him or her.


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## dioxide45 (Jan 24, 2011)

windje2000 said:


> Will Marriott go back and audit the purchase date of more than 100,000 enrolled weeks?  No way.



They possibly will if they can do it fairly easy by running a query against their system data. If they have no way of matching up enrollments to purchase dates systematically, they won't bother.


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## Clemson Fan (Jan 24, 2011)

davidn247 said:


> The only issue here is that we give ammunition to lawyers to open a case.... and our MFs will go up! To the one that started this thing, please call back Marriott or your VOA and just let them know!



Oh Oh!!! 

I guess I'll need to go into hiding like that wikileaks guy.


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## davidn247 (Jan 24, 2011)

As you all know, MFs are paying marriott management fees. If cost of doing business goes up, Marriott will pass it along and your MFs will go up. This is as simple as that.


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## windje2000 (Jan 24, 2011)

davidn247 said:


> As you all know, MFs are paying marriott management fees. If cost of doing business goes up, Marriott will pass it along and your MFs will go up. This is as simple as that.



Managing individual resort locations has nothing to do with the administration of the DC exchange program.  That's what the DC enrollment fees and annual dues pay for.


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## davidn247 (Jan 24, 2011)

Windje: you are finance guy and you understand what I am trying to say. At the end of the day, there is "no free lunch".


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## dioxide45 (Jan 24, 2011)

davidn247 said:


> Windje: you are finance guy and you understand what I am trying to say. At the end of the day, there is "no free lunch".



I agree with this. Any additional expenses paid by Marriott would be made up from other sources. The customer always pays for everything.

Though I don't think the disclosure of this information  opens Marriott to any legal action. If they let some weeks slip through the cracks, it doesn't mean they have to let every owner enroll post 6/20 resales. The limitation of excluding post 6/20 resales is stated when enrolling online. Just because they may have "waived" that in certain situations doesn't give everyone the right to expect it.


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## SueDonJ (Jan 24, 2011)

dioxide45 said:


> I agree with this. Any additional expenses paid by Marriott would be made up from other sources. The customer always pays for everything.
> 
> Though I don't think the disclosure of this information  opens Marriott to any legal action. If they let some weeks slip through the cracks, it doesn't mean they have to let every owner enroll post 6/20 resales. The limitation of excluding post 6/20 resales is stated when enrolling online. Just because they may have "waived" that in certain situations doesn't give everyone the right to expect it.



I'm sure you're right, especially if all of the DC docs contain similar language to what you copied and posted in another thread yesterday:


> G.
> Waiver. No failure of Exchange Company to enforce any provision under these Exchange Procedures, exercise any power given under these Exchange Procedures, or to insist upon strict compliance with any obligation specified in these Exchange Procedures, and no custom or practice at variance with the terms of these Exchange Procedures, shall constitute a waiver of Exchange Company’s right to demand exact compliance with the terms and conditions of these Exchange Procedures.



But I'll tell you, if I had a post 6/20 resale and had been told repeatedly that it was ineligible for enrollment, I'd be on that phone and working my way up the ladder until somebody gives me a good reason why I can't have the same waiver that others are now reporting.  Look at KathyPet here - if the stated rule should be waived for anybody it should be for her!  The only thing that kept her week ineligible was the slow processing of paperwork that had been completed prior to 6/20!  But no, she was rejected every time she asked and finally accepted what she'd been told by Marriott, that there could be no exceptions to the stated rule.

And again, I'm going back to consistency.  IMO Marriott should be consistent with how they do things, but so should TUGgers.  I don't understand badmouthing Marriott at every turn all the while you're exploiting what you absolutely KNOW are loopholes.


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## windje2000 (Jan 25, 2011)

davidn247 said:


> Windje: you are finance guy and you understand what I am trying to say. At the end of the day, there is "no free lunch".



No free lunch - but what we have here is an identifiable expense with an associated revenue stream.  

It would be absolutely wrong the have the maintenance fees cover any portion of DClub.  Most owners are not members.  Just as it would be wrong to have the maintenance fees subsidize any II expense.

If you don't cross the bridge, you won't pay the bridge toll.


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## CMF (Jan 25, 2011)

How many times can the sky fall?

Charles


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## dougp26364 (Jan 25, 2011)

I think it's good that the OP managed to potentially squeek on by on Marriott. I also think that Marriott would eventually close any such loop hole as soon as one VA states in a meeting that he/she was able to enroll a week someone says is impossible. If you don't think that VA's talk amongst themselves or brag that they were able to do something a boss told them was impossible, you're off your rocker. It doesn't matter if the OP posts this information or not, word will get out at Marriott HQ through their own employee.

I think it's great the loop hole is there right now. Anyone who has a week they want to sneek in, then you better get to doing it. There's no telling how long this opportunity will exist.

On the other hand, I wouldn't advise going out and starting a resale transaction with the idea you'll definately be able to enroll that week. It's not in Marriott's best interest to allow owners to buy resale weeks for $1,000 and allow it to be converted to 2,000 or 3,000 points that they're trying to sell for $10-$12/point. 

In short, some of you are fogetting that Marriott has an employee on the inside that already knows the "secrete." Know that we know it as well, better run before the opportunity is lost. It would have been a shame to lose this opportunity before we ever knew it existed.


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## davidn247 (Jan 25, 2011)

Clamson Fan: do a favour to this forum. Call back Marriott/your VOA, give your account and week number to them and ask the question straight about your situation. Is that an exception to the rule? Did the rule change, etc? Can you keep it?

Once done, please let us know. It will be very productive for this thread (that you started).


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## SueDonJ (Jan 25, 2011)

Now that's just crazy talk, David.  ClemsonFan is supposed to run out to buy another resale and enroll it, then another, then another ... until it can't be done anymore.

Oh, ClemsonFan is also supposed to be editing the OP to remove any trace of TUG knowledge of a loophole in Marriott's system and never speak publicly of it again regardless of whether it could help other TUGgers.  And for good measure, s/he needs to throw in some badmouthing of Marriott because s/he's  not doing enough of that to fit the TUG mold.

Now that I think of it, maybe none of us are supposed to speak of it again because as long as we keep contributing to this thread, then it won't fall off the first page and Marriott might find it easily.


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## pwrshift (Jan 25, 2011)

*Eventually all 'weeks' will be outside the new plan...*

Marriott made the June 20th rule when they were making a lot of mistakes and perhaps didn't realize what a rush there was going to be for eBay resales after this date...weeks not available to Marriott DC members.

In addition, what about the eventual resale of member deeds due to estate sales, etc., that have to drop out of the plan?  The last thing they want IMO is a bunch of DC members with weeks outside the plan as well...this and other situations just leads to plan failure over time, wouldn't you think...ultimately all DC member weeks will have to leave the plan either through choice or member death.  For the plan to succeed Marriott will have to make changes in their initial rulebook or they'll eventually be without 400,000+ weeks in the plan.

It doesn't surprise me that Clemson Fan found a backdoor and I think there will be more of them in the near future.

Brian


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## kds4 (Jan 25, 2011)

Clemson Fan said:


> Oh Oh!!!
> 
> I guess I'll need to go into hiding like that wikileaks guy.



It's official. DCLeaks has been launched. Unfortunately, however we will have to extradite your resale week to Sweden. :hysterical:


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## dougp26364 (Jan 25, 2011)

pwrshift said:


> Marriott made the June 20th rule when they were making a lot of mistakes and perhaps didn't realize what a rush there was going to be for eBay resales after this date...weeks not available to Marriott DC members.
> 
> In addition, what about the eventual resale of member deeds due to estate sales, etc., that have to drop out of the plan?  The last thing they want IMO is a bunch of DC members with weeks outside the plan as well...this and other situations just leads to plan failure over time, wouldn't you think...ultimately all DC member weeks will have to leave the plan either through choice or member death.  For the plan to succeed Marriott will have to make changes in their initial rulebook or they'll eventually be without 400,000+ weeks in the plan.
> 
> ...



Most programs seem to have some method for allowing resale weeks into any "exclusive" internal exchange program. The most liberal being HGVC and, at the moment, it seems the most restrictive might be Marriott. I honestly don't believe they can keep every single resale week out of the program in the long run for reasons such as you've pointed out. 

Might Marriott already be realizing the error of their restrictive ways? If so, would it surprise anyone if they hadn't communicated that information to legacy weeks owners? After all, I'm pretty certain there are still legacy weeks owners who are unaware the new DC program exists!

Marriott has mishandled this program from the very begining. Mistakes and misques seem to run rampant. One hand hasn't always known what the other hand was doing and VA's never seem to have the same answers. This program is still very new and changes are bound to happen.

I would imagine that there will eventually be a legitimate way for resale weeks to be added. It might be that one has to make a developer purchase or maybe pay a significant joiner fee. I don't see Marriott being able to continue to severly restrict resale weeks from membership. If for no other reason than the fact they like to advertise that you can sell you ownership if it no longer fits you needs. Restricting owners ability to resell their ownership by restricting it's value as a vacation ownership will eventually bite them in the hind end.


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## BarbS (Jan 25, 2011)

My resale Barony Beach week purchased after the deadline shows up in my account as being eligible to be enrolled and shows how many points it will get.  It's listed in the section for "external" inventory and shows enrollment fee of $0.    I'm curious as to whether anyone else's resale weeks show up as being eligible even though we know they're not supposed to be.  I'm tempted to click on through to enroll this week and see what happens.


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## JanT (Jan 25, 2011)

Our post 6/20 resale week shows up in our account as being eligible to enroll as well.  When I first noticed it, I called Marriott CS and asked about it and the guy said, "I can see it there as well and it says it is eligible to enroll.  If it's showing up as eligible, it's eligible."  I clarified with him by asking again about the 6/20 cutoff date.  Same response - if it's showing as eligible, it's eligible.

I didn't do anything with it because we really don't think we want to join the DC.  Just last week I was in our Marriott account and I noticed that the week still showed as being eligible to enroll.  I had an online "chat" session with a CSR and she did some checking and said, "No, that week is not eligible to enroll in the DC.  In the switchover there were a few glitches and some weeks are showing as eligible to enroll when they are not.  If you tried to enroll the week the process wouldn't complete because the week isn't eligible.  We would catch it."

So, who knows what would happen?  It might be worth a try if we really wanted to join but my guess is eventually Marriott is going to catch what has happened and the weeks that were enrolled when they shouldn't be will be pulled out.  Time will tell.



BarbS said:


> My resale Barony Beach week purchased after the deadline shows up in my account as being eligible to be enrolled and shows how many points it will get.  It's listed in the section for "external" inventory and shows enrollment fee of $0.    I'm curious as to whether anyone else's resale weeks show up as being eligible even though we know they're not supposed to be.  I'm tempted to click on through to enroll this week and see what happens.


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## dougp26364 (Jan 25, 2011)

BarbS said:


> My resale Barony Beach week purchased after the deadline shows up in my account as being eligible to be enrolled and shows how many points it will get.  It's listed in the section for "external" inventory and shows enrollment fee of $0.    I'm curious as to whether anyone else's resale weeks show up as being eligible even though we know they're not supposed to be.  I'm tempted to click on through to enroll this week and see what happens.



It's looking more like Marriott made a change they didn't feel the need to advertise. However, thanks to a TUG member with the guts to post their experience, we all seem to be learning about this unadvertised change to the program.


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## davidn247 (Jan 25, 2011)

davidn247 said:


> Clamson Fan: do a favour to this forum. Call back Marriott/your VOA, give your account and week number to them and ask the question straight about your situation. Is that an exception to the rule? Did the rule change, etc? Can you keep it?
> 
> Once done, please let us know. It will be very productive for this thread (that you started).



Clamson Fan: where are you?


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## Latravel (Jan 25, 2011)

Well, if I had a post 6/20 purchased resale week and I wanted to join DC, I would use this post as evidence to get in the DC program.  Once they break the rule for one person, you can make a convincing arguement they do it again for others.


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## larryallen (Jan 25, 2011)

Stuff happens. Good for you Clemson. That's cool it worked. Lots of haters on here.

Most of the rest of you CRACK ME UP!  "Edit your post before Marriott finds out...."  Really!?  Like there is some national security involved.  Some of you take your timeshares REALLY seriously. They are vacations so relax a bit.


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## KathyPet (Jan 25, 2011)

*Got my external week added too!*

I have 2 Marriott purchased weeks and for months now we have been in escrow awaiting the deed recording for a external purchase week.  I refused to enroll my two Marriott weeks in the program because they refused to allow my external week to be enrolled according to the initial program information  The recorded deed to my external week was recently forwarded to MVCI from the closing company.  
I just logged onto the MVCI website and began the process of enrolling in the DC points program just to see what would happen.  When it brought my weeks up it showed the two Marriott purrchased weeks in one area and in a separate area it showed a separate heading called External Purchase and my new week was listed there.  All three weeks required that I select them to enter them in the DC program.  I clicked on all three and then clicked Calculate to get the fee amount.    The total cost was $1995.00.  I clicked Continue and it asked for my credit credit information.  I entered everything and clicked where I needed to to agree to the charge and received a confirmation page showing my three weeks as enrolled and the total amount paid.
Now will they catch me????  Maybe!   I will let everyone know if they contact me and tell me  "Nay, Nay"


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## KathyPet (Jan 25, 2011)

*E Mail from Marriott*

Here is the confirmation E Mail I just received:

Welcome to the Marriott Vacation Club Destinations™ Exchange Program! 	Submitted on January 25, 2011

As a member of this exciting new product, you will be able to use your Vacation Club Points for vacations anywhere in the Marriott Vacation Club system. To enjoy this great new benefit, please remember to keep current on all yearly fees and dues.

Upon completion of enrollment, the following Marriott Vacation Club weeks will be enrolled into Marriott Vacation Club Destinations Exchange Program:


Total 	  	9000 	$1,995.00
Your Resorts 	  	Point Value 	Enrollment Fee Charged
XXXXX XXXX
Season: GOLD
Deed ID: **********B	 	3325	$595.00

XXXXX XXXX
Season: PLATINUM
Deed ID: **********B	 	2375	$100.00

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Season: PLATINUM
Deed ID:***********B	 	3300	$1,300.00

The following credit card has been charged for the amount noted above.
Billing Information	Billing Address
Name: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Credit Card Method: Visa
Credit Card Number: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX	1


As a member of the Exchange Program, you'll enjoy unparalleled levels of flexibility:

    * You can choose to use your week as you have in the past, or elect to use Vacation Club Points for even more choices.
    * Check in any day of the week, any week of the year.
    * Choose the accommodation size you need - from a studio to 3-bedroom town house.
    * Choose the length of vacation that's right for you - a few days or a few weeks.
    * Additional choices such as adventure travel, cruises, guided tours and special hotel experience packages.

      *all subject to availability

To elect your enrolled weeks for usage, please call Owner Services at 800-845-4226. For details about the election process, click here.

By choosing to enroll your externally purchased weeks, if your week is eligible, we are also opening up the opportunity for you to trade your week into the Marriott Rewards program.

To review the details of your enrollment documents, please click here.


So,  this E Mail does say something about "Upon completion of enrollment the following weeks WILL be enrolled."  So it sounds as if something else needs to occur and that this not completely final yet

In addition I was interested in the comment about possibly being eligible to enroll this External week in the Marriott Rewards program.   I thought that no9 weeks purchased on the external market could be enrolled in Marriott Rewards for trading for rewards points  but yet here they are dangling the possibility in front of me.   Anyone know what this is about????


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## Clemson Fan (Jan 25, 2011)

davidn247 said:


> Clamson Fan: do a favour to this forum. Call back Marriott/your VOA, give your account and week number to them and ask the question straight about your situation. Is that an exception to the rule? Did the rule change, etc? Can you keep it?
> 
> Once done, please let us know. It will be very productive for this thread (that you started).


 
Nah!    I've gone into hiding from the DCLeaks police.

BTW, nice play on the word Clemson.


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## Clemson Fan (Jan 25, 2011)

KathyPet said:


> So, this E Mail does say something about "Upon completion of enrollment the following weeks WILL be enrolled." So it sounds as if something else needs to occur and that this not completely final yet
> 
> In addition I was interested in the comment about possibly being eligible to enroll this External week in the Marriott Rewards program. I thought that no9 weeks purchased on the external market could be enrolled in Marriott Rewards for trading for rewards points but yet here they are dangling the possibility in front of me. Anyone know what this is about????


 
They'll send you an e-mail where you'll need to reply back agreeing to the terms and conditions of the DC program.  That's the only thing else that needs to occur.

As part of the DC program, all enrolled weeks (whether purchased resale or through Marriott) will be eligible for MRP based on the MRP rules for those particular resorts.

Again, this resale week that's causing all this controversy is actually a week that I'll probably never use for DC or MRP as its a week I plan on using for the forseable future.  I didn't even care if it was entered in the DC program and it wasn't something I was looking to accomplish.  I just asked a simple question as an afterthought to the rep for which I was calling about something else entirely.  

I actually hope it's not a mistake and is a seechange in Marriott's policy that they're just not advertising at this point.  Who knows???  I certainly don't!  If it is a mistake and they do end up removing the week from my DC account, then so be it.


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## SueDonJ (Jan 25, 2011)

I just want to say, it's been really disappointing for me to find out that there are TUGgers out there who are only too willing to take advantage of every bit of information that's offered here BUT also think it's okay to try to bully others into not posting when it might affect them negatively.

And I don't care who thinks this is taking TUG too seriously.  This forum has always encouraged a free exchange of ideas, and without TUG there aren't too many of us who would be knowledgeable enough to get the very best out of our timeshare usage.  I think that TUG will suffer if the bully mentality is allowed to stand.


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## SueDonJ (Jan 25, 2011)

KathyPet said:


> I have 2 Marriott purchased weeks and for months now we have been in escrow awaiting the deed recording for a external purchase week.  I refused to enroll my two Marriott weeks in the program because they refused to allow my external week to be enrolled according to the initial program information  The recorded deed to my external week was recently forwarded to MVCI from the closing company.
> I just logged onto the MVCI website and began the process of enrolling in the DC points program just to see what would happen.  When it brought my weeks up it showed the two Marriott purrchased weeks in one area and in a separate area it showed a separate heading called External Purchase and my new week was listed there.  All three weeks required that I select them to enter them in the DC program.  I clicked on all three and then clicked Calculate to get the fee amount.    The total cost was $1995.00.  I clicked Continue and it asked for my credit credit information.  I entered everything and clicked where I needed to to agree to the charge and received a confirmation page showing my three weeks as enrolled and the total amount paid.
> Now will they catch me????  Maybe!   I will let everyone know if they contact me and tell me  "Nay, Nay"



Excellent, Kathy!  I always thought that you and others who were midway through closing on resales at the 6/20 deadline were being unfairly treated by Marriott, and I'm glad that you learned about this here.


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## OldPantry (Jan 25, 2011)

I also have a post June resale week (Ko Olina, EOY even), and also saw it "available" for enrollment in the points program, even though marked as "External."  However, since is would cost me $1995 to enroll both EOY weeks, I can't see it worth my while.  It would take years to make that money back in fee savings, and the disadvantageous point allotments (4050 for a platinum mountainview 2BR) make the traditional route (exercise of lockoff, with home resort usage or trade through II) seem infinitely better.  
I was just able to trade a deposited Beach Towers week (a really good one, I must say) for a Christmas week at Newport.  (Yeah, I know, low season, but we really wanted to stay near LA over Christmas.)  The point is that the exchange flew through, with 24 hour confirmation.  So, the II alternative still seems to work.  As long as it does (are other people getting what they want?), points enrollment still looks like an inferior option to me.


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## KathyPet (Jan 25, 2011)

Clemson Fan,  I really want to thank you for your posting about your getting your supposedly "not eligible resale week" into the program.  If you had not related your experience I would never even attempted to see what would happen if I tried to enroll.  Our experiences were different because you had already enrolled your weeks that were eligible under the initial program requirements and then asked about enrolling this supposedly "not eligible" week on the phone with a Marriott advisor whereas I was not going to enroll my two Marriott weeks because I was mad at them for telling me I would not be able to enroll my resale week when Marriott finally got the recorded deed.  You got your resale week in without having to pay the higher amount for your enrollment fee whereas I paid the full freight by enrolling on line but that's OK.  Anyway Thanks


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## FlyerBobcat (Jan 25, 2011)

Good for you, Kathy.....  :whoopie:   Glad things worked!


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## Clemson Fan (Jan 25, 2011)

KathyPet said:


> You got your resale week in without having to pay the higher amount for your enrollment fee whereas I paid the full freight by enrolling on line but that's OK. Anyway Thanks


 
I actually did pay the $1995 to enroll all of my weeks at the time last summer soon after the DC program was announced.


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## dougp26364 (Jan 25, 2011)

larryallen said:


> Stuff happens. Good for you Clemson. That's cool it worked. Lots of haters on here.
> 
> Most of the rest of you CRACK ME UP!  "Edit your post before Marriott finds out...."  Really!?  Like there is some national security involved.  Some of you take your timeshares REALLY seriously. They are vacations so relax a bit.



Not to mention it was a MARRIOTT EMPLOYEE that found the loop hole. It's not like someone inside Marriott didn't already know.


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## BarbS (Jan 25, 2011)

KathyPet said:


> Here is the confirmation E Mail I just received:
> 
> Welcome to the Marriott Vacation Club Destinations™ Exchange Program! 	Submitted on January 25, 2011
> 
> ...



I hope it all works out for you.  I decided to go ahead and try to enroll my resale week too.......but after I filled in everything the $0 it had been showing changed to $1300 to enroll that week.   That would be in addition to the $695 I already paid to enroll my other two weeks.   I backed out and decided not to enroll it now.  I will only get 1925 points for that Barony silver week.  I'm not sure it's worth paying an extra $1300.  It will be interesting to see if yours goes through.


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## KathyPet (Jan 25, 2011)

The additional points that are added from my external week bring me to over 9000 which I think gives me Platinum status and a 13 month advance reservation request time.  I do think however that I will seldom if ever actually use the points program.
I do find it interesting however that Marriott either by a failure in their software or by deliberate choice is now allowing post 6/20 purchased resale weeks to be enrolled.


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## scpoidog (Jan 25, 2011)

KathyPet said:


> The additional points that are added from my external week bring me to over 9000 which I think gives me Platinum status and a 13 month advance reservation request time.  I do think however that I will seldom if ever actually use the points program.
> I do find it interesting however that Marriott either by a failure in their software or by deliberate choice is now allowing post 6/20 purchased resale weeks to be enrolled.



Congrats on getting all your weeks enrolled.


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## dioxide45 (Jan 25, 2011)

In the Enrollment Notice that you indicate you understand before beginning the enrollment process, it still indicates



> Weeks purchased externally before June 20, 2010 may be enrolled for $1,495 for the first week or $1,995 for more than one week. Weeks purchased externally, with a deed recording date after June 20, 2010 are not eligible for enrollment in the Exchange Program.



It is possible that Marriott changed their rule and never updated the Enrollment Notice given the following text in the same notice:



> If you are a multiple-week Owner who purchased directly from Marriott Vacation Club International and also purchased externally please do not enroll online. Instead, please contact Owner Services, to ensure that you are charged the appropriate enrollment fee.



We now know that it is no longer necessary to call Owner Services to enroll external and internal weeks. The system is smart enough to know what to charge these enrollees. Though Marriott never removed the text from the Enrollment Notice.

I still believe this is an oversight by Marriott. Perhaps putting in the fix to charge the appropriate amount to external and internal purchasers caused a break in another part of the application and now permits external purchases.

I don't see Marriott offering any type of cheap way of getting external purchases enrolled any time soon. They may offer something in the future when buying new trust points. But in the current system if external purchases were permitted to enroll it would undermine their DC trust sales program. If they have opted to permit external weeks to enroll, there will be no way they will advertise it.


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## dioxide45 (Jan 25, 2011)

I wouldn't suggest anyone go out and buy up resale weeks in hopes of getting them in to the DC program. It is possible that Marriott will turn off this ability prior to closing on those weeks. It is also possible that they could pull those weeks back out if they discover them. You do indicate that "You Understand" that post 6/20 external purchases are not eligible to enroll.

Even if they did permit post 6/20 external resales, it still wouldn't change our choice to not enroll. We don't need any additional weeks and we don't want to pay more MF than we currently do now. So there would be no benefit as we would currently be paying the max $1995 enrollment fee. There would be no "free" weeks for us to add.


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## davidn247 (Jan 25, 2011)

Clemson Fan said:


> Originally Posted by davidn247
> Clamson Fan: do a favour to this forum. Call back Marriott/your VOA, give your account and week number to them and ask the question straight about your situation. Is that an exception to the rule? Did the rule change, etc? Can you keep it?
> 
> Once done, please let us know. It will be very productive for this thread (that you started).
> ...



Come on: you have principles (right?), so please make that famous phone call and go to the end of it. We are all waiting...


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## saturn28 (Jan 25, 2011)

davidn247 said:


> Come on: you have principles (right?), so please make that famous phone call and go to the end of it. We are all waiting...



I agree with you. He should call the VOA supervisor and tell that person what happened. Then see what the VOA  supervisor says. If the VOA supervisor says it is allowed, then everyone can enroll their post June 2010 weeks. The OP says that he or she is not going to use the week for Destination or Marriott Reward Points anyways. So, it should not matter if Marriott says there is some problem with their software and the week should not have been enrolled. 

I heard from someone else that they tried to enroll a post June 20, 2010 resale week online, and it didn't work. They got a message that resale weeks purchased after December 10, 2010 are not allowed to enroll. So, it seems the June 20, 2010 date may or may not be the final date. It would be nice to know the definative answer, and whether weeks that were bought and enrolled after the June 20, 2010 date will remain in the Destination Points program. One way to find that out is for the OP to call in to the supervisor and find out. Especially, if they don't want to use it in the Destination Points Program anyways.


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## Clemson Fan (Jan 26, 2011)

davidn247 said:


> Come on: you have principles (right?), so please make that famous phone call and go to the end of it. We are all waiting...


 
I have a better idea! How about I post the PM you sent me soon after I started this thread? :ignore: 

Here it is: "I personnally think that you need to edit your comment and delete the information. Otherwise, all tuggers have done the same will be in trouble. This is not something that needs to be public..."


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## dioxide45 (Jan 26, 2011)

And the plot thickens.....


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## windje2000 (Jan 26, 2011)

dioxide45 said:


> I wouldn't suggest anyone go out and buy up resale weeks in hopes of getting them in to the DC program. It is possible that Marriott will turn off this ability prior to closing on those weeks. It is also possible that they could pull those weeks back out if they discover them. You do indicate that "You Understand" that post 6/20 external purchases are not eligible to enroll.
> 
> Even if they did permit post 6/20 external resales, it still wouldn't change our choice to not enroll. We don't need any additional weeks and we don't want to pay more MF than we currently do now. So there would be no benefit as we would currently be paying the max $1995 enrollment fee. There would be no "free" weeks for us to add.



If they changed the program, there would be new documents filed and available.  (Unless they are following the _Animal House (Delta) Double Secret Probation_ model for revising the program.)  

These are therefore most likely clerical errors, . . . which Marriott will correct.  

If they don't, they will undermine their ability to sell points.


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## larryallen (Jan 26, 2011)

davidn247 said: _Come on: you have principles (right?), so please make that famous phone call and go to the end of it. We are all waiting... _

Now it comes out that davidn247 allegedly also said:
_"I personnally think that you need to edit your comment and delete the information. Otherwise, all tuggers have done the same will be in trouble. This is not something that needs to be public..." _


This is one of the better threads here in a long time! 

I should add it is remotely possible Marriott has done this intentionally. I know, not likely. It makes me wonder can I buy a low amount of points from Marriott and then buy a nice Hawaii week on Ebay, pay $1,995 and get it put into the points system!?  I realize there is no guarantee but I would do that.  Probably too good to be true....


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## SueDonJ (Jan 26, 2011)

Clemson Fan said:


> I have a better idea! How about I post the PM you sent me soon after I started this thread? :ignore:
> 
> Here it is: "I personnally think that you need to edit your comment and delete the information. Otherwise, all tuggers have done the same will be in trouble. This is not something that needs to be public..."



"Oh snap."

This business of using PMs to say one thing and the boards to say another is all just THAT ridiculous, but I'll admit it's helping me figure out who should and shouldn't be helped out with answers to their questions from here on out.

Clemson Fan, you should change your name to Geraldo.  :hysterical:   Good for you exposing the seedy TUG underworld!


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## DanCali (Jan 26, 2011)

SueDonJ said:


> Clemson Fan, you should change your name to Geraldo.  :hysterical:   Good for you exposing the seedy TUG underworld!



"Clemson Fan at Large"


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## jimf41 (Jan 26, 2011)

On a related note yesterday I was put on a waitlist for MFC. I thought this was unusual but the VOA said she could do it. She even checked with a supervisor. The 12 month mark for wait listing should have started about the 1st of February at MFC.

About an hour later she called back and said the "audit department" caught the error and cancelled the wait list request. Evidently they do have some sort of final check to see if things are done correctly. I'm not sure this would apply to the OP's case but it seemed relevant.


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## KathyPet (Jan 26, 2011)

Well all I can say if they come back and tell me that they will not allow me to enroll  my resale week is that 1.  They allowed me to do it and I am not responsible for their software errors and (2) and more importantly, they happily collected my $1995.00 .  Money has changed hands here and I certainly feel that a good case could be made here for them allowing my resale week in even if they say they "made a mistake"

Clemson,  How long should it take to get that final E Mail that you mentioned I should receive????


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## davidn247 (Jan 26, 2011)

Please read the initial thread (see below) and the immediate responds to them... (editing post, legal, etc.). If you put things/issues into the public, you have to try to resolve it and find constructive solutions.

If the purpose of this thread is just to complain again about Marriott, not be constructive, edit PMs, etc..  we are all losing our time (and further devaluating the value of our deeds by badmouthing Marriott).

The key question is: are VOAs enrolling the famous weeks bought after 6/20 and is this an exemption to the rule (or not)? I personnaly think the one that started this thread can help all of us resolve it.

So Clemson Fan, please execute yourself and make a positive contribution to the forum.







Clemson Fan said:


> I didn’t want to advertise this until I was able to confirm that it went through, but Marriott just added a week that I recently purchased through Ebay to the DC program. The kicker is they didn’t charge me extra to add it on.
> 
> The story goes like this. I enrolled my previous weeks (all purchased resale) in the DC soon after it was announced and I paid the $1995 to enroll the weeks. Then, back in Sept/Oct there was a deal on Ebay I couldn’t pass up and it was for a week that I planned on using anyway. I actually didn’t care if I could use it in the DC program or not. After the week closed back in late Nov, I called Marriott to make sure it had been added to my overall ownership account and it had. I then asked the guy I was talking to whether it would be put in the DC program and he told me flat out it wasn’t eligible nor would it ever be eligible. I said OK because frankly I really didn’t care.
> 
> ...


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## ondeadlin (Jan 26, 2011)

I have two other friends who have done this, one a Tugger.

Neither has heard a peep out of Marriott since enrolling their resale weeks. 

It's a good move by Marriott IMO. The points program has, so far, been a dud. The vastly higher MFs make buying points alone very uneconomic. But the more weeks users that you move into the system, the more people who become accustomed to the system, and maybe add on points.

And David, I'd just let it go, man. If you really sent that PM, that's all anybody's gotta know.


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## SueDonJ (Jan 26, 2011)

davidn247 said:


> Please read the initial thread (see below) and the immediate responds to them... (editing post, legal, etc.). If you put things/issues into the public, you have to try to resolve it and find constructive solutions.
> 
> If the purpose of this thread is just to complain again about Marriott, not be constructive, edit PMs, etc..  we are all losing our time (and further devaluating the value of our deeds by badmouthing Marriott).
> 
> ...



I personally think anyone who has been able to enroll a post-6/20 Week, or really any of us who have read about it happening here, is in the exact same position as you say Clemson Fan is, able to call a VOA supervisor to "help us all resolve it."  But s/he (really hate how impersonal that is but don't want to get it wrong) doesn't appear to be as concerned with getting a definitive answer about why this is possible from Marriott as you do; her/his posts are pretty transparent in that s/he wanted only to share that there is a mechanism in place to get it done.  Since it's been exposed now that your concerns are different, why don't YOU "execute yourself and make a positive contribution to this forum?"


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## davidn247 (Jan 26, 2011)

Big difference: (1) I do not have a VOA to call that enrolled me and (2) I do not want to lose my week and (3) Clemson stated he does not care if he lose his enrolled week.

By the way, is WikiLeaks the new way? Just dropping bombs on everything and everyone and taking information out of context.

I really enjoy this forum when positive contribution


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## ondeadlin (Jan 26, 2011)

David,

Perhaps you'd take a moment to consider that at least three posters consider your request of Clemson, the way it was stated, and your behavior on this thread to be somewhat inappropriate. You've made your request, it's been rejected. You've stated your views, they've been disagreed with. Why not move on?


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## KathyPet (Jan 26, 2011)

I most assuredly am not "rocking the boat" here.  If Marriott has a software issue and I should not have been allowed to enroll my week I am hardly going to call them and bring it to their attention.  I am believer in the "No news is good news" school of thought.

Anyone can pick up the phone and call customer service and ask them right out if they can enroll a resale week that they are "thinking" of purchasing.   Feel free to call and let us know what they say!


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## MVCI Customer Advocate (Jan 26, 2011)

*Marriott Vacation Club Response*

I thought it would be appropriate to respond to this thread since the absence of correct information may result in more confusion regarding the policy on the enrollment of resale weeks.   Weeks purchased on the external market after June 20, 2010 are not eligible to be enrolled in the Destinations Points program.  However, as this thread illustrates, several people have been able to enroll external purchases made after June 20, 2010.  This is a system error which we were made aware of prior to this initial post, so the fact that it was posted here did not have any impact on Marriott Vacation Club's course of action.  However, as many have speculated, because it is against the policy and inconsistent with the established enrollment process, external purchases after June 20, 2010 that have been enrolled in the Destinations Points program will be un-enrolled and if applicable, all fees refunded.  If you have any additional questions regarding this policy, please contact us at customer.advocacy@vacationclub.com.
MVCI Customer Advocate


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## Latravel (Jan 26, 2011)

Oh no!  But everyone sort of expected this.  For those that have enrolled weeks purchased after 6/20, please let us know how this goes.  I don't see how they could "un-enroll" weeks especially if money has changed hands like Kathy stated.


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## Fredm (Jan 26, 2011)

Well, there you go.

Thank you MVCI Customer Advocate for your clear and timely post.


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## BarbS (Jan 26, 2011)

KathyPet said:


> I most assuredly am not "rocking the boat" here.  If Marriott has a software issue and I should not have been allowed to enroll my week I am hardly going to call them and bring it to their attention.  I am believer in the "No news is good news" school of thought.
> 
> Anyone can pick up the phone and call customer service and ask them right out if they can enroll a resale week that they are "thinking" of purchasing.   Feel free to call and let us know what they say!



I agree with you.  It would be very foolish of you to call Marriott and report yourself.  However, after reading this thread, I have a feeling someone will feel it is their obligation to report the loophole (if there is one) to Marriott.  This reminds me of the thread at Flyer Talk where someone felt it was her duty to report Marriott Rewards members for scheduling "fake" meetings to get 10 nights credit.  

I'm trying to decide if I should go ahead and enroll my week while I still have the opportunity to do so.  I wonder if there is some criteria we don't know about that apparently is allowing some members to enroll their supposedly ineligible weeks when others can't.


Oops, never mind.


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## Fredm (Jan 26, 2011)

See Post 71.


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## SueDonJ (Jan 26, 2011)

MVCI Customer Advocate said:


> I thought it would be appropriate to respond to this thread since the absence of correct information may result in more confusion regarding the policy on the enrollment of resale weeks.   Weeks purchased on the external market after June 20, 2010 are not eligible to be enrolled in the Destinations Points program.  However, as this thread illustrates, several people have been able to enroll external purchases made after June 20, 2010.  This is a system error which we were made aware of prior to this initial post, so the fact that it was posted here did not have any impact on Marriott Vacation Club's course of action.  However, as many have speculated, because it is against the policy and inconsistent with the established enrollment process, external purchases after June 20, 2010 that have been enrolled in the Destinations Points program will be un-enrolled and if applicable, all fees refunded.  If you have any additional questions regarding this policy, please contact us at customer.advocacy@vacationclub.com.
> MVCI Customer Advocate



Whoa.  Skeeeeeery!

But I will be thrilled to death, over the moon!, if this is an indication that Marriott is willing from this point forward to contribute to TUG in ways that they never have before.  Even on a limited basis, every outreach is an improvement.


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## Latravel (Jan 26, 2011)

Agreed.  I think it's a positive step if Marriott participates in the TUG forum from time to time.


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## windje2000 (Jan 26, 2011)

SueDonJ said:


> Whoa.  Skeeeeeery!
> 
> But I will be thrilled to death, over the moon!, if this is an indication that Marriott is willing from this point forward to contribute to TUG in ways that they never have before.  Even on a limited basis, every outreach is an improvement.



MVCI Customer Advocate
Guest

*BBS Reg. Date: Jun 21, 10*
Location: Orlando, FL
Posts: 1

First post - registered one day after DClub DDay.


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## Latravel (Jan 26, 2011)

Great to know.  At least that means they were reading all the posts from people who were unsatisfied with the DC program.  I'm happy they are at least trying to get feedback on how the new program was received by owners.


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## Time2Buy (Jan 26, 2011)

MVCI Customer Advocate said:


> I thought it would be appropriate to respond to this thread since the absence of correct information may result in more confusion regarding the policy on the enrollment of resale weeks.   Weeks purchased on the external market after June 20, 2010 are not eligible to be enrolled in the Destinations Points program.  However, as this thread illustrates, several people have been able to enroll external purchases made after June 20, 2010.  This is a system error which we were made aware of prior to this initial post, so the fact that it was posted here did not have any impact on Marriott Vacation Club's course of action.  However, as many have speculated, because it is against the policy and inconsistent with the established enrollment process, external purchases after June 20, 2010 that have been enrolled in the Destinations Points program will be un-enrolled and if applicable, all fees refunded.  If you have any additional questions regarding this policy, please contact us at customer.advocacy@vacationclub.com.
> MVCI Customer Advocate



Is this really a MVCI Customer Advocate or someone posing as a representative? Why is this is your first post? Can you provide a name and contact information other than a general email address?


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## Fredm (Jan 26, 2011)

vacationclub.com is Marriott's domain.


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## larryallen (Jan 26, 2011)

_Great to know. At least that means they were reading all the posts from people who were unsatisfied with the DC program. I'm happy they are at least trying to get feedback on how the new program was received by owners.
_

+1


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## KathyPet (Jan 26, 2011)

*Bummer!*

Well the Lord Marriott giveth and the Lord Marriott taketh away.  I have not heard anything from them yet.  I will wait until they contact me and let everyone know if and when they do.  However, if they won't enroll my resale then they are not getting my two Marriott direct purchase weeks enrolled either.

By the way my DH is about the only one who will be really happy about this.  When he came home last night I told him that I had managed to enroll our resale week and give Marriott $1995.00 he asked what we were getting for that money.  I went through the explanation of what the points program was going to give us and he was underwhelmed to say the least.  He thinks it was a complete "waste of money" as he put it.   

He's such a nice guy that he didn't tell me to cancel the transaction although I could tell he thought I had taken leave of my senses.


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## Ann in CA (Jan 26, 2011)

SueDonJ said:


> Whoa.  Skeeeeeery!
> 
> But I will be thrilled to death, over the moon!, if this is an indication that Marriott is willing from this point forward to contribute to TUG in ways that they never have before.  Even on a limited basis, every outreach is an improvement.




Hmmm,  "Skeeeeeery" indeed.  There was another thread, on another subject I won't identify, which could have warranted a response from Marriott, and didn't.  Now are we going to hesitate to air concerns online, on questions we would rather not have answered officially from Marriott?

Sometimes you just want an opinion, not a potential ruling.


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## wvacations (Jan 26, 2011)

Hundreds perhaps thousands of post on this site that are not to favorable to the DC program and Marriott in general. Suddenly Marriott pops up and makes a post. Or maybe someone doesn't want a rush on the enrollment of the post 6/20 weeks to trigger a "real" Marriott reaction. As of right now the online system still shows my weeks eligible. If Marriott knows about the problem, I think they could shut down online enrollment mighty quick. Just my opinion but I don't think that post from Marriott advocate is really from Marriott.


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## Latravel (Jan 26, 2011)

KathyPet said:


> Well the Lord Marriott giveth and the Lord Marriott taketh away.  I have not heard anything from them yet.  I will wait until they contact me and let everyone know if and when they do.  However, if they won't enroll my resale then they are not getting my two Marriott direct purchase weeks enrolled either.
> 
> By the way my DH is about the only one who will be really happy about this.  When he came home last night I told him that I had managed to enroll our resale week and give Marriott $1995.00 he asked what we were getting for that money.  I went through the explanation of what the points program was going to give us and he was underwhelmed to say the least.  He thinks it was a complete "waste of money" as he put it.
> 
> He's such a nice guy that he didn't tell me to cancel the transaction although I could tell he thought I had taken leave of my senses.




What if you immediately trade your unit (since it's currently enrolled) for DC points?  What would happen?  I know once you trade, you can't undo that transaction.  

Hmmmm, i'm not so sure Marriott can so easily un-enroll units.  What if people have taken action already, such as trading for DC points and making subsequent DC reservations?


----------



## KathyPet (Jan 26, 2011)

How far in advance can you trade for points????   We already have booked a week for usage at the resale week resort for 2011.


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## Latravel (Jan 26, 2011)

Once you get your confirmation email and you respond to it, you can trade your usage for DC points right away.  I did it 3 days after I enrolled.  I haven't made any reservations using DC points just because I don't know how I want to use those DC points yet.  They are now banked.

If you did that, I'm not sure Marriott could reverse that transaction because someone else might have already reserved your unit you gave up.  How would they undo that transaction?


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## KathyPet (Jan 26, 2011)

The Welcome E Mail that I got yesterday had the following sentence in it:

"Upon completion of enrollment, the following Marriott Vacation Club weeks will be enrolled into Marriott Vacation Club Destinations Exchange Program:"

I am not sure what is meant by that sentence.  Is there anything more that needs to be done????   What does completion of enrollment mean????


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## SueDonJ (Jan 26, 2011)

Ann in CA said:


> Hmmm,  "Skeeeeeery" indeed.  There was another thread, on another subject I won't identify, which could have warranted a response from Marriott, and didn't.  Now are we going to hesitate to air concerns online, on questions we would rather not have answered officially from Marriott?
> 
> Sometimes you just want an opinion, not a potential ruling.



I like things cut-and-dried and consistent, which Marriott doesn't have a stellar reputation of providing, so I love the idea of getting official answers (whether I like them or not) from Marriott on TUG.  But like you my second thought was, "hmmm, why this thread and not others ..."

About whether or not this MVCI CA is an official Marriott spokesperson?  I'd bet my timeshares on it because of what Fred pointed out - vacationclub.com is Marriott's domain.  Who here would be willing to take a chance on bringing Marriott's wrath down upon their head by using it in such a silly fashion, to play a foolish game or to try to make a point that most of us think Marriott will eventually get around to making anyway?

{edited to add}  Now that I think of it, anybody can register on TUG to pretend to be something they're not, and including email links in posts is a relatively simple thing to do.  But there is one way to verify that the TUG User Name is as legitimate as the Marriott email address contained in the post.  Somebody could ask Brian to look into the registration and at least try to verify its authenticity ...

{edited again}  I have no patience, just sent Brian a PM ...


----------



## hotcoffee (Jan 26, 2011)

I know that people at Marriott read TUG because I have discussed TUG posts with a person at Marriott.  This person reads TUG when he/she gets a chance (and did so prior to my references to it).  However, I would not jump to any conclusions about the authenticity of the post in this thread until those resale weeks are actually un-enrolled from the program.

I think Marriott is making a mistake in not allowing resale weeks into the program.  Sooner or later, many, if not most, weeks will be sold.  They will eventually lose weeks from the DC program due to resales.


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## saturn28 (Jan 26, 2011)

KathyPet said:


> How far in advance can you trade for points????   We already have booked a week for usage at the resale week resort for 2011.



If you enrolled a resale week that is not eligble and already opted for points and made a reservation, they will probably cancel your reservation. Or, maybe you can convince Marriott to charge you an exchange fee similar to II. But, from reading the Marriott Advocates post, I would say they will cancel the reservation and say it was your responsibility to read what was in the contract. In there it clearly states, any resale weeks that closed after June 20, 2010 are not eligble. And they would probably add you should have called them and informed them what happened. Then they could have confirmed that week was not eligble. Hopefully, you haven't purchased any airline tickets for this trip.


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## windje2000 (Jan 26, 2011)

saturn28 said:


> If you enrolled a resale week that is not eligble and already opted for points and made a reservation, they will probably cancel your reservation. Or, maybe you can convince Marriott to charge you an exchange fee similar to II. But, from reading the Marriott Advocates post, I would say they will cancel the reservation and say it was your responsibility to read what was in the contract. In there it clearly states, any resale weeks that closed after June 20, 2010 are not eligble. And they would probably add you should have called them and informed them what happened. Then they could have confirmed that week was not eligble. Hopefully, you haven't purchased any airline tickets for this trip.



If they were smart and looking for goodwill from their owner base, they'd  undo the enrollments, but let the reservations persist this one time and take credit for being customer friendly.  

Remember that Southwest pilot who wouldn't take off without the grandfather who going to the funeral of the granddaughter and was 12 minutes late, thanks to TSA.  Southwest got more favorable PR from that action than $10 million in ads.  

Based on past performance, Marriott doing anything like Southwest ain't bloody likely.  Although any organization has the ability to change.  We'll see.  

They sure aren't selling many points.  

Tick off your best customers (existing owners) . . . and they'll just go away.


----------



## VacationPro (Jan 26, 2011)

MVCI Customer Advocate said:


> I thought it would be appropriate to respond to this thread since the absence of correct information may result in more confusion regarding the policy on the enrollment of resale weeks.   Weeks purchased on the external market after June 20, 2010 are not eligible to be enrolled in the Destinations Points program.  However, as this thread illustrates, several people have been able to enroll external purchases made after June 20, 2010.  This is a system error which we were made aware of prior to this initial post, so the fact that it was posted here did not have any impact on Marriott Vacation Club's course of action.  However, as many have speculated, because it is against the policy and inconsistent with the established enrollment process, external purchases after June 20, 2010 that have been enrolled in the Destinations Points program will be un-enrolled and if applicable, all fees refunded.  If you have any additional questions regarding this policy, please contact us at customer.advocacy@vacationclub.com.
> MVCI Customer Advocate



First, thank you for clarifying this issue.

Instead of finding weeks that were purchased after 6/20 that have been incorrectly enrolled (which seems like an arduous task which may not even be possible), I have an alternate proposal.  Why don't you let all TUG members with resale weeks that are in the act of closing as of today's date (say ROFR waiver request submitted to Marriott prior to today or proof of committment to buy if the property doesn't use ROFR) enroll those weeks if they are so inclined.  This probably only represents less than 20 owners that would be impacted, so it wouldn't materially impact Marriott's profitability, and it won't let people go out and game the system based on this information.  Then, you truly are acting as a "Customer Advocate" without impacting point sales prospectively.  Marriott gets to keep the enrollment fees this has generated and the additional weeks in the program (that Marriott obviously covets (as do those of us wanting to exchange), not to mention the goodwill of the members of this board.

If you must, charge them an additional enrollment fee.  You get additional revenue for your good will.


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## Latravel (Jan 26, 2011)

If they do that for people on TUG, what are they going to do with the thousands of other people who own resale weeks and wish they could enroll?  They have to make an exception for everyone or no one.


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## VacationPro (Jan 26, 2011)

Latravel said:


> If they do that for people on TUG, what are they going to do with the thousands of other people who own resale weeks and wish they could enroll?  They have to make an exception for everyone or no one.



Why?  Marriott didn't make an exception for everyone with the rollover nights, only those on Flier Talk (and here as it was linked) who actually asked.


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## SueDonJ (Jan 26, 2011)

VacationPro said:


> Why?  Marriott didn't make an exception for everyone with the rollover nights, only those on Flier Talk (and here as it was linked) who actually asked.



On flyertalk.com some have theorized that the only Marriott Rewards members who would have expected to receive those rollover nights are the folks who read there that they could expect them.  Marriott's incorrect statement that led to the expectation was posted there, not to the entire Marriott Rewards membership, and Marriott subsequently posted there that they intend to honor their written statement for any folks who read it there - who else would have the expectation?

With respect to post-6/20 enrollments for external resales, Marriott hasn't issued a false statement that those Weeks could be enrolled.  They've been quite clear that those Weeks are not eligible for enrollment.  To fix their error they are going to have to send out notifications to everyone who was able to exploit their system problem, whether that's folks who found out about it through TUG connections, folks whose VOA processed the incorrect enrollments, folks who deliberately tried to enroll the Weeks despite the restriction that they knew existed, and folks who just plain didn't know better and got lucky.

What you're asking is for Marriott to allow exceptions for only a subset of owners that will need to be notified of the system failure and its correction.  That's different from Marriott allowing exceptions for every MR member who was mistakenly led to believe that their rollover nights would be counted.

{edited to add} There are exceptions I'd like to see Marriott make for those who were in the process of purchasing an external resale on 6/20/10.  With no lead time of the announcement of the DC those people were, IMO, unfairly restricted.  That would be a relatively simple exception to execute, even on a case-by-case basis, if they set the parameters to require proof by way of any purchase papers which were signed by the buyers on or before 6/20/10.  But I won't be surprised if Marriott is consistent with what those people (such as KathyPet here) have been told thus far, that there will be no exceptions.


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## SueDonJ (Jan 26, 2011)

SueDonJ said:


> ...{edited to add}  Now that I think of it, anybody can register on TUG to pretend to be something they're not, and including email links in posts is a relatively simple thing to do.  But there is one way to verify that the TUG User Name is as legitimate as the Marriott email address contained in the post.  Somebody could ask Brian to look into the registration and at least try to verify its authenticity ...
> 
> {edited again}  I have no patience, just sent Brian a PM ...



Brian's response:


> email is valid ... in order to register on the forums, you have to provide a valid email address as the forum sends you a verification email that you must open and click on in order to complete the registration.


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## scpoidog (Jan 26, 2011)

*Are you that petty and clueless?*



davidn247 said:


> Please read the initial thread (see below) and the immediate responds to them... (editing post, legal, etc.). If *you put things/issues into the public, you have to try to resolve it and find constructive solutions.*If the purpose of this thread is just to complain again about Marriott, not be constructive, edit PMs, etc..  we are all losing our time (and further devaluating the value of our deeds by badmouthing Marriott).
> 
> The key question is: are VOAs enrolling the famous weeks bought after 6/20 and is this an exemption to the rule (or not)? I personnaly think the one that started this thread can help all of us resolve it.
> 
> So Clemson Fan, please execute yourself and make a positive contribution to the forum.



Why does someone who brings a topic up "have to try to resolve it"?  This seems like someone wanted to share his experience and enlightend the people on this board.  If you want clarity - call Marriott yourself.  

If you are mad at Clemson Fan for getting something that you want - quit whining about it and go try to get it done yourself.   Pretty simple.


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## KathyPet (Jan 26, 2011)

davidn247 said:


> Please read the initial thread (see below) and the immediate responds to them... (editing post, legal, etc.). If you put things/issues into the public, you have to try to resolve it and find constructive solutions.
> 
> If the purpose of this thread is just to complain again about Marriott, not be constructive, edit PMs, etc..  we are all losing our time (and further devaluating the value of our deeds by badmouthing Marriott).
> 
> ...





Don't you think that requiring Clemson Fan to "execute himself" is just a tad too harsh????


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## VacationPro (Jan 26, 2011)

SueDonJ said:


> What you're asking is for Marriott to allow exceptions for only a subset of owners that will need to be notified of the system failure and its correction.



I fully understand the problem.

Having been in the corporate world for going on 3 decades, I've learned that taking things back once given, even if in error, is rarely the best course of action.

What I'm trying to provide is a solution that makes the most of an awkward  situation.  While my solution may not be optimal, neither is just taking away the "ineligible" enrollments.

I am not vain enough to think my proposal is the only one with merit, I just thought it may add to the discussion.

If others have ideas please post them, as the representative is from customer advocacy, and we're customers.


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## davidn247 (Jan 26, 2011)

KathyPet said:


> [/B]
> 
> 
> Don't you think that requiring Clemson Fan to "execute himself" is just a tad too harsh????



English is not my mothertongue, so maybe it did not translate well. Wanted to say "do what you preach" in the sense of "calling the VOA as you do not care about losing...". Please read my previous posts for details.

Anyway, thanks to the ones supporting (ton of PMs...received). The subject seems now closed!


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## pwrshift (Jan 26, 2011)

I am very encouraged that Marriott obviously reads TUG and sincerely hope they will continue to contribute.  

A few years back, a senior level VP at Interval (Craig) joined TUG and answered all questions and concerns we had right here and even changed some procedures as a result.  This elevated II's status on this board to the point RCI countered with an official rep of their own.  Unfortunately, after Craig left II, he left the board, II didn't appoint anyone else, and RCI also dropped off a while later.  Too bad...having official people comment here openly calmed down the rumor mills because we could get official answers and felt we were being listened to.

There is so much negativity and misinformation about Marriott on TUG these days I suggest Marriott would be wise to get involved directly...and I'm pretty sure we'd all welcome that.

Brian



MVCI Customer Advocate said:


> I thought it would be appropriate to respond to this thread since the absence of correct information may result in more confusion regarding the policy on the enrollment of resale weeks.   Weeks purchased on the external market after June 20, 2010 are not eligible to be enrolled in the Destinations Points program.  However, as this thread illustrates, several people have been able to enroll external purchases made after June 20, 2010.  This is a system error which we were made aware of prior to this initial post, so the fact that it was posted here did not have any impact on Marriott Vacation Club's course of action.  However, as many have speculated, because it is against the policy and inconsistent with the established enrollment process, external purchases after June 20, 2010 that have been enrolled in the Destinations Points program will be un-enrolled and if applicable, all fees refunded.  If you have any additional questions regarding this policy, please contact us at customer.advocacy@vacationclub.com.
> MVCI Customer Advocate


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## billymach4 (Jan 26, 2011)

Personally I find this quite disturbing. 

How can anyone here think that this loophole would ever get past Marriott. Posted here on Tug or not. 

Yes the system has bugs, but the rules are crystal clear. Anything past 6/20 does not qualify for the DC program. 

Why on Earth would anyone think Marriott would let this slip under the radar. 

Anyway David347 Marriott has now acknowledged the issue. However I tend to think that we here on TUG have made Marriott aware of this sooner rather than later. 

I don't believe the statement by the Marriott Advocate whatsoever. That is to say 'We were aware of this problem'. 

Yes your fear was that Marriott would take notice. Your fear came true. 

But sooner rather than later TUG did expose the truth. 

And yes thank TUG for that.

This just confirms what I already knew. Marriott does monitor this FORUM!


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## KathyPet (Jan 26, 2011)

Well all I can say is that I am one very very upset and unhappy Marriott owner.  As far as I am concerned I have been royally screwed over by them and I will never have another good word to say about them.   First they announce this new program and give absolutely no leeway to allow those of us who were in the process of closing a sale some notice to get our resale in under the wire.    Then I called Marriott and talked to a rep who told me that if my paperwork was signed by the cut off date (which it had been) that my week would be eligible.  Then they said "No that wasn't correct" and my weeks was not eligible after all.  Then Clemson Fan actually talks to a advisor who actually enrolls his post deadline resale unit for him.  Hope rises again.  I am actually able to log on and "enroll my weeks" on line.  Now I am told "Sorry another mistake on our part."  
Marriott obviously employs idiots.  I am just disgusted with the entire organization.


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## dougp26364 (Jan 26, 2011)

KathyPet said:


> Well all I can say is that I am one very very upset and unhappy Marriott owner.  As far as I am concerned I have been royally screwed over by them and I will never have another good word to say about them.   First they announce this new program and give absolutely no leeway to allow those of us who were in the process of closing a sale some notice to get our resale in under the wire.    Then I called Marriott and talked to a rep who told me that if my paperwork was signed by the cut off date (which it had been) that my week would be eligible.  Then they said "No that wasn't correct" and my weeks was not eligible after all.  Then Clemson Fan actually talks to a advisor who actually enrolls his post deadline resale unit for him.  Hope rises again.  I am actually able to log on and "enroll my weeks" on line.  Now I am told "Sorry another mistake on our part."
> Marriott obviously employs idiots.  I am just disgusted with the entire organization.



Marriott has made it very clear that they're in this for themselves and not for their owners. They've forgotten those of us who put them where they are as far as I'm concerned. 

However, I'll wait to see the posts where weeks have actually been un-enrolled before passing final judgement on this subject. Just because it's posted as being official doesn't mean it's official. I've been fooled to many times to just jump on any information posted on a public forum.

I said early on that it could be an unadvertised change in Marriott's policy but, I also wouldn't advise buying resale weeks under the assumption this wasn't a mistake. Only time will tell fact from fiction. It very easily could fall either way IMHO.


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## Clemson Fan (Jan 26, 2011)

davidn247 said:


> If the purpose of this thread is just to complain again about Marriott, not be constructive, edit PMs, etc..


 
Are you saying that I edited your PM to me and that I did not post it verbatim to what you sent me?


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## Clemson Fan (Jan 26, 2011)

davidn247 said:


> Please read the initial thread (see below) and the immediate responds to them... (editing post, legal, etc.). If you put things/issues into the public, you have to try to resolve it and find constructive solutions.


 
Is that a law that I’m not aware of? Anytime we post information we need to also propose potential solutions?

All I was doing was posting my experience and I stated multiple times that I didn’t know the answers. I also stated in my OP that the first rep I asked the question to told me, “no, the week could not be enrolled.” There have also been many instances posted on TUG where different reps have been giving different answers about the DC program – including supervisors. So, IMO calling back to speak with a supervisor would have really served no purpose except for just wasting my valuable time.

It appears that this MVCI CA has “officially” cleared things up. So, you should have your answer and no further concerns.


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## dioxide45 (Jan 26, 2011)

SueDonJ said:


> I personally think anyone who has been able to enroll a post-6/20 Week, or really any of us who have read about it happening here, is in the exact same position as you say Clemson Fan is, able to call a VOA supervisor to "help us all resolve it."  But s/he (really hate how impersonal that is but don't want to get it wrong) doesn't appear to be as concerned with getting a definitive answer about why this is possible from Marriott as you do; her/his posts are pretty transparent in that s/he wanted only to share that there is a mechanism in place to get it done.  Since it's been exposed now that your concerns are different, why don't YOU "execute yourself and make a positive contribution to this forum?"



I wouldn't jump to any conclusions on why Clemson Fan posted this information. I am also not defending David in any way. However, Clemson Fan's post came across more of a brag than passing along helpful information. Sure it holds potential to help other, but the title of the thread alone could easily be interpreted as bragging. After getting a number of PMs, Clemson Fan quickly found out that he/she wasn't the only one that know of this little Destinations Club secret. Perhaps Clemson became bitter when discovered this wasn't really unknown information.

Its just a theory, we will never really know the motives behind Clemson's post other than his/her own words. But I don't see how they are as transparent as you suggest

I don't agree with the motives of everyone, though I don't suggest we crucify anyone when we don't know everyone's motives. Personally I consider posting a PM in an open forum to be unconscionable regardless of the circumstance.


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## dioxide45 (Jan 26, 2011)

SueDonJ said:


> Brian's response:



So that means the person who posted as MVCI Customer Advocacy registered last on 6/21/2010 using the e-mail address in the post today. In order to confirm registration they had to respond to that e-mail. Since the e-mail would have gone to the one in the post, it would have had to have been posted by someone with access to that account at MVCI.


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## billymach4 (Jan 26, 2011)

dioxide45 said:


> So that means the person who posted as MVCI Customer Advocacy registered last on 6/21/2010 using the e-mail address in the post today. In order to confirm registration they had to respond to that e-mail. Since the e-mail would have gone to the one in the post, it would have had to have been posted by someone with access to that account at MVCI.



We have an official confirmed sighting of the Marriott species lurking in the Land of TUG!

Genus:  Marriott Timeshareasoreas

cousin of the Starwood Timeshareasoreas

The Starwood species has not yet been found


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## dioxide45 (Jan 26, 2011)

billymach4 said:


> Personally I find this quite disturbing.
> 
> How can anyone here think that this loophole would ever get past Marriott. Posted here on Tug or not.
> 
> ...



How do we know that someone didn't e-mail customer advocacy with a link to this thread? They may not monitor this at all.


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## KathyPet (Jan 26, 2011)

And I can describe it.  It has horns on its head, a long tail and is carrying a pitchfork.


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## billymach4 (Jan 26, 2011)

Dioxide,

Anyone can review all of the postings in TUG as an anonymous guest. This FORUM is a free living FOCUS GROUP for MVCI and all timeshare related entities. 

The executives at MVCI would literally have to have their heads in the sand really, really, and I mean like 10 feet deep in the sand if they did not have some unofficial, or official summary reports about the rumors and facts generated here on TUG. 

So I am sure that a percentage of MVCI Sales, and Execs, and Customer Reps take a casual look at TUG at least once a week. 

I am willing to even put a wager on this fact.

And yes someone could have also emailed a link as well.


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## brianfox (Jan 26, 2011)

*Looks like the "bug" still exists in the MCVI website*

I have three externally purchased weeks, one of which was purchased after the cutoff date.  I just did a test run to try to enroll the weeks.

All three were seen as "eligible" for the $1995 fee.  I didn't go through with the enrollment.  By eligible, I mean they were willing to take my money and process the application - they did not specifically say they were eligible, but they did not say they were ineligible.

But it did get me thinking: why would Marriott choose now to stick their head up and say that there is a bug in the system, instead of fixing it and saying there WAS a bug in the system?  

As I see it, they had several options:

1) Don't say anything and fix the bug quickly, and only then possibly make the TUG post.

2) Throw up an official statement on the enrollment page saying that all weeks enrolled would be subject to audit and will be subsequently disqualified from enrollment if it is found that the closing date was after the cutoff.

3) Do what they did.

I just don't see why they would choose to make their very first TUG post to address THIS controversy, when there are so many more unanswered Marriott questions.  It really makes me wonder if that Marriott post was legitimate.

Why even address it at all, when the SOP for MCVI is to keep us in the dark for as long as possible?


Say, I might as well use this forum to ask a quick question about the Marriott point system.  Early on, there was a huge question regarding the fact that joining the point system meant switching your II account over to a "Marriott II account".  At that time, we were speculating as to whether one could do searches the old fashioned way and request exchanges the same as before.  Can anyone please summarize how the II account works for Points people vs how it works for Weeks people?  What (if anything) do weeks owners lose the ability to do or search for?  For people who own external weeks that qualify and others that don't, would they still have both types of accounts, or one hybrid account?


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## SueDonJ (Jan 26, 2011)

dioxide45 said:


> So that means the person who posted as MVCI Customer Advocacy registered last on 6/21/2010 using the e-mail address in the post today. In order to confirm registration they had to respond to that e-mail. Since the e-mail would have gone to the one in the post, it would have had to have been posted by someone with access to that account at MVCI.



I was a little confused by Brian's responses, questioned him a couple of times, and that's why they're separated by "..." in the quote.  First I asked him if he could confirm that MVCI CA here is an official Marriott representative and his response was "email is valid."  I wrote back and said we knew the email address in the post was valid but there were some concerns that a non-Marriott somebody could have registered the User Name as some sort of hoax and simply put a valid Marriott email address in the post.  Brian replied to that, "in order to register on the forums, you have to provide a valid email address as the forum sends you a verification email that you must open and click on in order to complete the registration."  So I took that to mean that Brian's first response was a validation of the email address used to register the name, which is the same as the one in the post.    IF that's the case then I'm convinced the post came from a Marriott spokesperson.  If not then I don't know what to think, other than somebody would have to be crazy to screw around with a domain name owned by Marriott.  No way, no how, not worth it.

(And for the record, I asked Brian for permission to post his responses here in the thread.    )


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## scrapngen (Jan 26, 2011)

Conspiracy theories are rife here!!


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## Clemson Fan (Jan 26, 2011)

dioxide45 said:


> I wouldn't jump to any conclusions on why Clemson Fan posted this information. I am also not defending David in any way. However, Clemson Fan's post came across more of a brag than passing along helpful information. Sure it holds potential to help other, but the title of the thread alone could easily be interpreted as bragging. After getting a number of PMs, Clemson Fan quickly found out that he/she wasn't the only one that know of this little Destinations Club secret. Perhaps Clemson became bitter when discovered this wasn't really unknown information.
> 
> Its just a theory, we will never really know the motives behind Clemson's post other than his/her own words. But I don't see how they are as transparent as you suggest
> 
> I don't agree with the motives of everyone, though I don't suggest we crucify anyone when we don't know everyone's motives. Personally I consider posting a PM in an open forum to be unconscionable regardless of the circumstance.


 
I can see how my OP may come across as bragging.  However, I’m not sure what I was really bragging about because my intention when I purchased this week was and is to use it to occupy and not to use towards the DC program.  Besides, if I was bragging about this proposed benefit, wouldn’t I have listened to the multiple PM’s (I received PM’s from 3 different TUGgers asking/telling me to remove the post) and removed the post to avoid the risk of losing this proposed benefit I received?

I can’t really say I was bitter at the PM’s I received, but I was taken aback a little at their tone where they were telling me I was essentially screwing them for making this “public” knowledge.  I also had no intention of posting any of the PM’s I received, but David kept badgering and belittling me (Clamson etc…) that I did succumb to some human emotion and posted his PM.  I have not posted any of the other PM’s I received – one of which was actually far worse than the one David sent.


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## SueDonJ (Jan 26, 2011)

brianfox said:


> ... Say, I might as well use this forum to ask a quick question about the Marriott point system.  Early on, there was a huge question regarding the fact that joining the point system meant switching your II account over to a "Marriott II account".  At that time, we were speculating as to whether one could do searches the old fashioned way and request exchanges the same as before.  Can anyone please summarize how the II account works for Points people vs how it works for Weeks people?  What (if anything) do weeks owners lose the ability to do or search for?  For people who own external weeks that qualify and others that don't, would they still have both types of accounts, or one hybrid account?



I'm still a little bit confused about what happens if you have both enrolled and un-enrolled Weeks, whether you need to keep an individual as well as a corporate account.  I've seen reports on TUG that say you can put all Weeks into the corporate account and fees for II services will be charged only to your un-enrolled Weeks, but I've also seen reports that you must have the separate accounts.  

But about your other question if there are any differences in searching with either a corporate or individual II account -  those of us who have enrolled and gotten an AC in lieu of canceling the old accounts will have the two accounts to work with until the individual accounts expire.  99% of us do not see any difference between our two accounts in the results of phantom searches or in Getaways inventory.  (I'd say 100% but anything's possible.)  When doing online transactions every screen looks exactly the same in the two accounts except for the payment screens and that's because there are no fees for Marriott-to-Marriott exchanges in the corporate accounts.


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## wof45 (Jan 26, 2011)

I feel bad for those who might see a week taken out of the DC when they thought they had a fair reason to have it added.

I don't feel bad for those who thought they could get something for nothing and are now yelling at others since they might not get something for nothing.

If Marriott is indeed saying that all of these weeks wrongly enrolled will be removed, that is only what any rational person should have expected.  If they warn you that it will do no good if you try to now buy a resale week to sneak in, they are doing you a favor.

In my opinion, MVC will eventually let in some resale weeks, based on buying something from them, but they have a lot more to fix before they get to that.

The mantra at TUG has been buy where you want to use, because everything else might change and that could be all you have left.  Well, what do you think you are entitled to more than you bought in the first place?   You have nice places, well kept up, in good locations, and you can join the future plans -- so what's the problem?


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## billymach4 (Jan 26, 2011)

Clemson,

I am really disappointed at some of the behavior you have described by the PM's you have received.

I applaud you for standing firm. 

There are many other open secrets here that we all know how to leverage our TS ownership. This back door was not going to slip by Marriott's sniff test. They would have discovered this sooner or later. I would bet there is a team in place right now scrambling to fix this faux pas as we speak. 

My empathy also goes out to those owners that have been frustrated by Marriott's lack of quality in this rollout. 

All of this now makes sense. We all openly discuss how we got great trades, lock off, and trade up. All the while most of us were thinking Marriott did not notice. But the almightly $$ forced their hand into this big DC cesspool! 

It is really beginning to fill up and stink around here.


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## brianfox (Jan 26, 2011)

Thanks for the answer, Sue!  That's pretty clear - I was really concerned about the thought of losing the ability to do phantom searches.

Of my three weeks, my Ko Olina has by far the biggest point potential (4025)....but it is also the one purchased after the cutoff.  Based on your response, I'd most likely join if I was able to include it.  Not much reason to join based on getting 850 points for my Willow Ridge...

I'd be willing to bet that Marriott will gradually extend the cutoff date (i.e. by a year on the 3rd birthday of the DC) - and at probably a much higher initiation cost for those units.   But they HAVE to eventually address the cutoff date, especially as people choose to resell their weeks.

What happens if someone sells an enrolled week?  Does it get excommunicated from DC?


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## JanT (Jan 26, 2011)

I was told previously by a Marriott CSR (before the OP started this thread) that Marriott WAS aware of the problem.  You can read my earlier post about my resale week that closed after 6/20 showing as eligible to enroll for the details.  So, if the post here was truly by a Marriott Advocate then they are being honest - Marriott did and does know about the problem.  Why it hasn't been fixed I do not know.  I continue to be amazed at the lack of programming experience that exists by people behind the scenes in a lot of companies - not just Marriott.  They just can't seem to get it right, i.e., just found out that I cannot change my username in my RCI account without wiping out the account and starting all over again.  WTHeck????  

Anyway, I believe Marriott was aware of the problem previously.  Why it hasn't been fixed, I don't know.  Time will tell if the people who successfully enrolled their post 6/20 resale weeks have that reversed.  And if they don't, I wonder if they'll tell us?  Who the heck would blame them if they didn't?  Not me.

Honestly, I cannot believe where this thread has gone.  



billymach4 said:


> I don't believe the statement by the Marriott Advocate whatsoever. That is to say 'We were aware of this problem'.


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## dioxide45 (Jan 26, 2011)

Clemson Fan said:


> I have not posted any of the other PM’s I received – one of which was actually far worse than the one David sent.



So there were others? David wasn't the only one poking the stick, though perhaps he was the most vocal. Yet he was the only one called out while everyone gets a free pass? I am NOT advocating posting anyone else's PMs, just that everyone needs to keep this all in perspective.


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## dioxide45 (Jan 26, 2011)

brianfox said:


> As I see it, they had several options:
> 
> 1) Don't say anything and fix the bug quickly, and only then possibly make the TUG post.



I would have to agree with your post overall. I still find the MVCI Customer Advocacy post highly suspect. They registered the day after DC rollout and save their first post to respond to this when they had so many opportunities to respond to many other issues.

I will give them the benefit of the doubt. In the early days after rollout even I couldn't keep up with all the posts. So I wouldn't fault them for not following along either. Heck even PerryM couldn't keep up, so much so that he had to start his own forum that has a lot slower pace and I would think is easier to keep on top of.


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## KathyPet (Jan 26, 2011)

I have absolutely no sympathy for Marriott here.  I used to be a Quality Assurance Analyst doing QA testing for a large corporation.  Test plans are supposed to be written to cover both positive and negative test cases.  Someone should have run a test case to ensure that resale weeks added to Marriott's database after the cut off date could not be enrolled in the DC program.  Somebody screwed up and now they are scrambling to cover their programming mess.  I hope somebody's butt is in a sling over this.


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## Clemson Fan (Jan 26, 2011)

dioxide45 said:


> So there were others? David wasn't the only one poking the stick, though perhaps he was the most vocal. Yet he was the only one called out while everyone gets a free pass?


 
Yes, there were 3 separate individuals (not all of whom have actually posted on this thread) who sent me multiple PM’s asking/telling me to remove my post and to kill this thread.  Again, I wasn’t planning on posting any of them, but David kept poking and poking that finally admittedly he got the best of me.


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## dioxide45 (Jan 26, 2011)

brianfox said:


> What happens if someone sells an enrolled week?  Does it get excommunicated from DC?



No one really knows. Perhaps the MVCI Customer Advocate poster will chime in to answer. :hysterical: The general thought is that your weeks are not members of the DC the owner is, though the owner has enrolled weeks. So when you sell the weeks, the enrollment of those weeks does not transfer to the buyer.


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## KathyPet (Jan 26, 2011)

It was made pretty clear that the enrollment of weeks in the DC program is attached to the owner of the weeks.  If you have weeks enrolled and sell one  of them to a secondary market buyer the DC membership for that enrolled week does not pass to the new owner and of course the new owner cannot even enroll it by paying the $$ to Marriott.  This serves to even further devalue resale weeks for those owners attempting to sell them on the secondary market


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## GregT (Jan 27, 2011)

All,

I emailed the director of consumer advocacy seeking confirmation that our new TUG friend was legit.

I received a very pleasant response (it really was -- not being sarcastic) acknowledging that "We do occasionally monitor TUG and other on line forums.  However, our business practice is to respond to customers individually though direct email and personal dialogue. "

There was no direct response to my question asking to confirm the poster was legitimate, but I believe that avoiding a specific answer to the question was adequate and I would have received a response with some concern if there was an imposter (my opinion).

So, I think our new TUG friend is legit -- and welcome to TUG!    Please continue to chime in and help us sort thru the new program.

Best,

Greg


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## Latravel (Jan 27, 2011)

I am grateful to the poster that he shared this information.  That is what we do on TUG.  It's not a good feeling to think that some people take, take, and take tips/information but don't share information they find simply for their own self-centered interests.  It's sort of selfish.  

If he didn't share this information, we would not find out that MVCI is reading our forum or that post 6/20 enrollees might be unenrolled.  Hopefully others aren't afraid of sharing their experiences based on the tone of this thread!


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## DeniseM (Jan 27, 2011)

To clarify what Brian said-  To register for TUG one must provide a valid email address.  In other words, if I register with DeniseM@Marriott. com - TUG sends an email to DeniseM@Marriott. com and I have to be able to respond from that address.  If I don't have access to that Marriott email address - I can't respond, and I can't register for TUG.

But....the last time I checked there were more than 20 Marriott folks registered on TUG with Marriott email address - it's far from rare!  

Is this person the OFFICIAL spokesperson for Marriott?  I don't know, but there is no reason to think that it's a hoax.  In fact when they first registered, I exchanged a few PM's with them in which they offered the same email address for folks who would like to contact them.  DaveM posted the info. at their request.

If I were a Marriott owner, I'd be pleased that they posted here...  YMMV


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## KathyPet (Jan 27, 2011)

The more I think about it the less worried I am that they will be able to locate and un-enroll those post 6/20 weeks that managed to register their weeks for DC.  After all these are the same people who allowed this huge hole in their software to start with.  Why should I think they are now capable of finding those who slipped through???


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## windje2000 (Jan 27, 2011)

dioxide45 said:


> They registered the day after DC rollout and save their first post to respond to this when they had so many opportunities to respond to many other issues.



This is the only issue discussed on TUG that I can recall where the inmates were taking advantage of a hole in their system.  And they couldn't allow that.  

Taking advantage of the inmates?  Not post worthy.


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## SueDonJ (Jan 27, 2011)

windje2000 said:


> This is the only issue discussed on TUG that I can recall where the inmates were taking advantage of a hole in their system.  And they couldn't allow that.
> 
> Taking advantage of the inmates?  Not post worthy.



Ah, that's the thought I had but I couldn't figure out the words.


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## SueDonJ (Jan 27, 2011)

DeniseM said:


> To clarify what Brian said-  To register for TUG one must provide a valid email address.  In other words, if I register with DeniseM@Marriott. com - TUG sends an email to DeniseM@Marriott. com and I have to be able to respond from that address.  If I don't have access to that Marriott email address - I can't respond, and I can't register for TUG.
> 
> But....the last time I checked there were more than 20 Marriott folks registered on TUG with Marriott email address - it's far from rare!
> 
> ...



Thanks, Denise.  I am pleased to see Marriott here.   

But I've been wondering where Dave is, haven't seen him for a while, and your post reminded me ... hope all is well in your world, Dave.


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## larryallen (Jan 27, 2011)

_Yes, there were 3 separate individuals (not all of whom have actually posted on this thread) who sent me multiple PM’s asking/telling me to remove my post and to kill this thread. Again, I wasn’t planning on posting any of them, but David kept poking and poking that finally admittedly he got the best of me._


I wouldn't ask you to out the people by name but at least post if they are long time TUG members and/or frequent posters.  Would be interesting to me.  By the way, great job on this thread!


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## BarbS (Jan 27, 2011)

KathyPet said:


> The more I think about it the less worried I am that they will be able to locate and un-enroll those post 6/20 weeks that managed to register their weeks for DC.  After all these are the same people who allowed this huge hole in their software to start with.  Why should I think they are now capable of finding those who slipped through???




That's kind of what I was thinking too.  I hope it works out for you.  However, if it were me, I doubt if I would post here about my success.


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## Time2Buy (Jan 27, 2011)

Latravel said:


> What if you immediately trade your unit (since it's currently enrolled) for DC points?  What would happen?  I know once you trade, you can't undo that transaction.
> 
> Hmmmm, i'm not so sure Marriott can so easily un-enroll units.  What if people have taken action already, such as trading for DC points and making subsequent DC reservations?



I'm in that situation. I enrolled all my weeks which included a post-6/20/10 resale week. Last month, I exchanged it for DC points which I then used to reserve a week in Maui in June 2011.

Does that mean my reservation will be cancelled and the points taken back? Will I get the week I exchanged back?

Greg


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## SueDonJ (Jan 27, 2011)

Time2Buy said:


> I'm in that situation. I enrolled all my weeks which included a post-6/20/10 resale week. Last month, I exchanged it for DC points which I then used to reserve a week in Maui in June 2011.
> 
> Does that mean my reservation will be cancelled and the points taken back? Will I get the week I exchanged back?
> 
> Greg



If Marriott is strict about un-enrolling all of the Weeks that their system mistakenly allowed to go through, one solution for folks in your situation would be for Marriott to "gift" your existing reservation to you.  They have plenty of surplus DC Points in their own inventory which they can use to do such a thing, and it would go a long way towards restoring some of the credibility that their system foul-up destroyed.  If they did this, though, I'd expect that your use of the un-enrolled Week would not be restored - for this one year you'd either get the existing reservation OR use of the Week, not both.

However, just like some have cautioned that a mad scramble to try to enroll ineligible Weeks would be a bad idea despite the loophole that's been exposed in this thread, I would caution that anybody who now makes a mad dash for Points reservations by converting one of the ineligible-but-enrolled Weeks may find themselves out of the reservations as well as any Marriott goodwill.  It's one thing to make the reservation before Marriott's notice that this is an error they intend to correct (as opposed to a lifting of the post-6/20 restriction); it's quite another to try to put one over on Marriott.


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## Latravel (Jan 27, 2011)

I don't see how they could give you your week back when they repeatedly state that once you trade for DC points, the transaction cannot be undone.  Since your reservation is in June, you will probably go on your vacation before they figure out which people enrolled post 6/20 weeks.

I would bet that they unenroll people next year and let this year go.  I'm sure some people allready enrolled for the year and traded for DC points.  Since it would be difficult to undo this, I would think they let it pass this year with those weeks unenrolled starting 2012.  It would probably take that long to identify disqualified weeks anyways.


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## JanT (Jan 27, 2011)

SueDon,

Well, I personally am not going to try it but quite honestly, Marriott hasn't really put out "the notice" that it's an error they intend to correct.  Just because it was posted here really doesn't mean a thing in terms of "notice" to owners.  We're a small handful of Marriott owners so taking time to post a notice about it here isn't going to cut it.  They are going to have to address this issue system-wide.

Personally, I would LOVE it if I could get our post 6/20 weeks in since we are in the closing process of a KBC week.  That with the other two weeks we own would give us a substantial amount of weeks to play with if we enrolled.   It would make sense for us to join then but not now with only the one week being eligible.  

But, I sure the heck am not going to try enrolling the non-eligible weeks.  Why?  In the end I'm sure Marriott would correct it and what a big freakin' hassle to go through.  Just my opinion, of course.  



SueDonJ said:


> However, just like some have cautioned that a mad scramble to try to enroll ineligible Weeks would be a bad idea despite the loophole that's been exposed in this thread, I would caution that anybody who now makes a mad dash for Points reservations by converting one of the ineligible-but-enrolled Weeks may find themselves out of the reservations as well as any Marriott goodwill.  It's one thing to make the reservation before Marriott's notice that this is an error they intend to correct (as opposed to a lifting of the post-6/20 restriction); it's quite another to try to put one over on Marriott.


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## SueDonJ (Jan 27, 2011)

Latravel said:


> I don't see how they could give you your week back when they repeatedly state that once you trade for DC points, the transaction cannot be undone.  Since your reservation is in June, you will probably go on your vacation before they figure out which people enrolled post 6/20 weeks.
> 
> I would bet that they unenroll people next year and let this year go.  I'm sure some people allready enrolled for the year and traded for DC points.  Since it would be difficult to undo this, I would think they let it pass this year with those weeks unenrolled starting 2012.  It would probably take that long to identify disqualified weeks anyways.



You're right that it's going to take some time for Marriott to deal with each individual affected on a personal basis, and I really can't imagine how Marriott is going to extricate itself from this mess and keep some semblance of customer loyalty from those Owners unless they offer some type of compensation - Marriott Reward Points, existing DC reservations that couldn't have been made if the system didn't fail?  Something else (other than simply allowing the ineligible Weeks to remain enrolled?)

But I think that the easiest part of their problem will be to identify those that are affected - we already know that the sales staff and check-in personnel at the resorts have immediate access to info that differentiates between direct-purchase and external resales.  (They don't use that "R" for any purpose but we do all know it's there.)  If that info is available at the resort point-of-service level where it's not necessary, it must be available throughout the entire system.  All Marriott has to do is run a query through their computer system to match post 6/20-closing dates with enrolled "R" Weeks.


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## SueDonJ (Jan 27, 2011)

JanT said:


> SueDon,
> 
> Well, I personally am not going to try it but quite honestly, Marriott hasn't really put out "the notice" that it's an error they intend to correct.  Just because it was posted here really doesn't mean a thing in terms of "notice" to owners.  We're a small handful of Marriott owners so taking time to post a notice about it here isn't going to cut it.  They are going to have to address this issue system-wide.
> 
> ...



You know, you're absolutely right.  I guess until Marriott puts out a formal notice to all affected Owners then they don't have any way to determine if those who take advantage of this had access to what's been posted here or not.  But if it was me the only thing that would matter is that I would know I was doing it, which is of course my hang-up and nobody else's.  And it's not out of some loyalty or principle thing - I would simply be afraid to get caught.

I really can't wait for the day that Marriott gets its act together FINALLY with the Destination Club.  I am honestly happy with what they're offering but it's clearly not advantageous for every Owner, and they've had some serious issues since the roll-out.  This one is by far the worst, IMO.


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## windje2000 (Jan 27, 2011)

SueDonJ said:


> All Marriott has to do is run a query through their computer system to match post 6/20-closing dates with enrolled "R" Weeks.



You are assuming someone with remarkable clairvoyance created a field in their database with the closing date of the purchase.  There would have been no conceivable reason to do that unless you knew in advance its importance to DClub.  

Moreover, if it is that easy for Marriott to fix this, the Consumer Advocate's first post would never have occurred.  They could simply update the myvacationclub enrollment procedure with a query to a lookup table for the date value, and do the same for the enrolled weeks.

IMHO, it will take them a lot of time and effort to go back and look up each enrolled week's closing date.  They'll be looking at dead trees in filing cabinets or image files thereof.  Manually.


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## SueDonJ (Jan 27, 2011)

windje2000 said:


> You are assuming someone with remarkable clairvoyance created a field in their database with the closing date of the purchase.  There would have been no conceivable reason to do that unless you knew in advance its importance to DClub.
> 
> Moreover, if it is that easy for Marriott to fix this, the Consumer Advocate's first post would never have occurred.  They could simply update the myvacationclub enrollment procedure with a query to a lookup table for the date value, and do the same for the enrolled weeks.
> 
> IMHO, it will take them a lot of time and effort to go back and look up each enrolled week's closing date.  They'll be looking at dead trees in filing cabinets or image files thereof.  Manually.



Wow.  You really think that with all the info Marriott has stored in their systems about every one of us Owners, there isn't a field somewhere with the purchase date of our Weeks?  I guess it's a possibility but it truly is inconceivable to me. They HAVE to know when exactly a certain Owner is eligible to use a certain Week for the first time, anyway, and how else would they know that?  Why would they not enter a field for it somewhere, back when each of our Weeks usage began - why would they leave that to a manual search?

I do agree, there hasn't been enough effort put into resolving this mess since they've had knowledge of it.  But that doesn't make me think their computer systems aren't able to identify the owners affected; it only makes me wonder what ELSE is going wrong that's so much worse than this mess, that they can't pull every available resource to fix this?


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## windje2000 (Jan 27, 2011)

SueDonJ said:


> Wow.  You really think that with all the info Marriott has stored in their systems about every one of us Owners, there isn't a field somewhere with the purchase date of our Weeks?



Yes.  (I think that field doesn't exist.)


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## SueDonJ (Jan 27, 2011)

windje2000 said:


> Yes.  (I think that field doesn't exist.)



That's almost more skeeeery than MVCI CA coming out of hiding in this thread.

{edited to add}Maybe, as long as MVCI CA is here, we could figure out a way to help Marriott fix this?  Oh, I can hear the boo-hiss-boo laughing already, but the sooner they get their act in gear the sooner we can go back to only worrying about which resort we want to visit next.

So if that field doesn't exist anywhere, maybe the query they should run to narrow the field is Enrolled Weeks-External Resale-Last Stay by Owner.  Then they can immediately discard from the manual search any external-resale weeks of which the current owner of record/enrollee had stayed at their home resort prior to 6/20/10.


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## wof45 (Jan 27, 2011)

this is not a hard IT problem.
All they need to do is compare the owner holdings on June 20, with the owner holdings now.
And then do a system compare of that differences list with the enrolled weeks for DC.


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## KathyPet (Jan 27, 2011)

First year of usage of a week is not a reliable indicator of when a transfer of ownership occurred.  A week could have sold and the paperwork sent to Marriott prior to the 6/20/10 cut off date with a first year of usage for 2011


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## hotcoffee (Jan 27, 2011)

This thread has grown awfully long.  I'm no longer reading every line of everyone's post.  I have a couple of comments before exiting this thread for good:

1.  I was a programmer for years in a previous life.  Even though I am sure they probably have millions of lines of code (assuming it is all in-house written), it should not be too hard to fix the problem because any good system is modular (or, should be).  In other words, a programmer does not have to scan the millions of line of code to find the bug.  He should be able to go right to the subroutine that checks eligibility.  If this bug has gone on for a long time, I have to wonder why it was not fixed long ago.

2.  Marriott made the mistake, Marriott should absorb the fallout.  In other words, anyone who enrolled their post-June 20 week and received a confirmation should be grandfathered in.  If a store makes a mistake on a price, and the cashier rings up the wrong price, the store does not call you later and tell you to bring back your purchase so that they can charge you more.  I don't care how many get mistakenly enrolled, Marriott should not inconvenience their customers because of their own mistake.


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## wvacations (Jan 27, 2011)

The "closing date" field was right there on the screen at my last presentation. He knew exactly which post 6/20 weeks could not be enrolled. I for the life of e can't figure out why all my weeks still show eligible to enroll both online and calling the 800 number today the agent said all  weeks show as eligible. I don't get it. 

I won't risk enrolling and getting some weeks kicked out. I'm all in or I'm all out!!


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## KathyPet (Jan 27, 2011)

Wvacations,  ITA.  If they reject my enrollment of my resale week then they are not getting my 2 Marriott purchased weeks either.  Both of my other two weeks are at sold out resorts.  It is all or nothing.


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## windje2000 (Jan 27, 2011)

wvacations said:


> *The "closing date" field was right there* on the screen at my last presentation. He knew exactly which post 6/20 weeks could not be enrolled. I for the life of e can't figure out why all my weeks still show eligible to enroll both online and calling the 800 number today the agent said all  weeks show as eligible. I don't get it.
> 
> I won't risk enrolling and getting some weeks kicked out. I'm all in or I'm all out!!



Haven't been on a tour in years, so I haven't seen the current data screens.  

But based on your comment, I really can't understand why Marriott can't easily and promptly fix this.


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## billymach4 (Jan 27, 2011)

hotcoffee said:


> This thread has grown awfully long.  I'm no longer reading every line of everyone's post.  I have a couple of comments before exiting this thread for good:
> 
> 1.  I was a programmer for years in a previous life.  Even though I am sure they probably have millions of lines of code (assuming it is all in-house written), it should not be too hard to fix the problem because any good system is modular (or, should be).  In other words, a programmer does not have to scan the millions of line of code to find the bug.  He should be able to go right to the subroutine that checks eligibility.  If this bug has gone on for a long time, I have to wonder why it was not fixed long ago.
> 
> 2.  Marriott made the mistake, Marriott should absorb the fallout.  In other words, anyone who enrolled their post-June 20 week and received a confirmation should be grandfathered in.  If a store makes a mistake on a price, and the cashier rings up the wrong price, the store does not call you later and tell you to bring back your purchase so that they can charge you more.  I don't care how many get mistakenly enrolled, Marriott should not inconvenience their customers because of their own mistake.



Its not modular.

They have outsourced the programming to an offshore consultant outfit in the Philippines.

The code is a mix of Legacy, distributed middleware, also some java.

It is a real mess


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## Latravel (Jan 27, 2011)

It's not difficult for them to make the fix.  If I spent some time on their system, i'm sure I could develop a query that could identify post 6/20 enrollees.  I'm sure they allready have that list.

The difficult part is determining how they will handle this mess from a customer service point of view.  Admittingly, it's a big mess.  What do you do with those that enrolled but didn't trade for points?  What do you do with those that traded for points but did not make a reservation?  What do you do with those that did both?  These are the difficult questions and i'm sure they don't want to mess this up legally.


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## dan_hoog (Jan 27, 2011)

The really dumb thing behind all this -- virtually all of the legacy owner consternation, as in irritating potentially hundreds of thousands of their customers, is due to this simple restriction.

Other than a slightly harder climb in new point sales, I just can't see the logic in prohibiting ongoing resales going forward.  I think it should be less expensive than the 1495/1995 level, but even with that fee, making all resale weeks eligible would boost their customer relations, help resale prices at least a tiny bit, and give them a better pool of inventory in their proprietary trading system.  Further, very few non-DC members will ever join if they do acquire a post 6/20/10 resale week.  They could fix this.

Maybe, they plan to remove this restriction anyway and this isn't really a bug, but rather a difference in a long term intention and a short term policy.  Just hoping.

Marriott, if you are listening, this really is a silly policy from a customer relations standpoint.  The ill will you have created among experienced timeshare owners is palpable and spreads like the latest greatest youtube video.

I personally have little stake in the matter, as I rarely trade, but it still irritates me as a legacy owner.


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## wvacations (Jan 27, 2011)

KathyPet said:


> Wvacations,  ITA.  If they reject my enrollment of my resale week then they are not getting my 2 Marriott purchased weeks either.  Both of my other two weeks are at sold out resorts.  It is all or nothing.



My concern is that they will keep the weeks that were pre 6/20 enrolled and kick out the post 6/20. I would never pay $1995 just for the 2 weeks. I don't care about the pints, I was just wanting to save Lock off fees, Trade fees and such. If I could not save on all weeks it would take far too long to recoup the fee.


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## dioxide45 (Jan 27, 2011)

wvacations said:


> My concern is that they will keep the weeks that were pre 6/20 enrolled and kick out the post 6/20. I would never pay $1995 just for the 2 weeks. I don't care about the pints, I was just wanting to save Lock off fees, Trade fees and such. If I could not save on all weeks it would take far too long to recoup the fee.



I agree. If I were KathyPet, I would rescind my enrollment. Who knows what Marriott will do in this situation. You can always enroll later for the same price through 6/30.


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## Latravel (Jan 27, 2011)

I think you can only rescind within 3 days.


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## dioxide45 (Jan 27, 2011)

Latravel said:


> I think you can only rescind within 3 days.



Kathy only enrolled on the 25th, so she should have until end of day tomorrow (Friday the 28th) to rescind.


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## KathyPet (Jan 27, 2011)

I'm not rescinding anything.  If they contact me and tell me I cannot enroll my resale week and that I was allowed to do so "in error" they have to give me the option to cancel the entire transaction or keep only my two legacy weeks enrolled.  They certainly cannot force me to keep my two legacy weeks enrolled when that is not what I signed up for.


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## dioxide45 (Jan 27, 2011)

KathyPet said:


> I'm not rescinding anything.  If they contact me and tell me I cannot enroll my resale week and that I was allowed to do so "in error" they have to give me the option to cancel the entire transaction or keep only my two legacy weeks enrolled.  They certainly cannot force me to keep my two legacy weeks enrolled when that is not what I signed up for.



I wouldn't take that chance. If they follow through with their promise to unenroll post 6/20 resales, it won't be worth the hassle to get them to cancel the entire transaction. It may not be as easy as you are envisioning.

If you are hoping they don't pull your post 6/20 week back, then by all means take your chances. But if they do, don't say I didn't warn you.


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## csalter2 (Jan 27, 2011)

*[Behavior lecture deleted]*

[Behavior lecture deleted - DeniseM Moderator]



> Be Courteous
> As we read and respond to others, disagreements are inevitable. Differing points of view are welcomed, and indeed the bbs would be a dull place without them. All users are expected and required to express their disagreements civilly. *Refrain from name calling and behavior lectures.*


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## larryallen (Jan 27, 2011)

[Response to deleted post removed (this post is not objectionable, but quotes the deleted post.) - DeniseM Moderator]


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## saturn28 (Jan 27, 2011)

KathyPet said:


> I'm not rescinding anything.  If they contact me and tell me I cannot enroll my resale week and that I was allowed to do so "in error" they have to give me the option to cancel the entire transaction or keep only my two legacy weeks enrolled.  They certainly cannot force me to keep my two legacy weeks enrolled when that is not what I signed up for.



Up to a few days ago, you refused to sign up for the Destination Points Program. Then you read this thread and jumped at the chance to enroll your non qualified resale week. The other day the Marriott Advocate, stated that money will be refunded, and those enrolled weeks that don't qualify will be removed. So, you should be able to get your money back and have your Developer weeks removed from the program. It will be like this whole thing never happened.:hysterical:


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## larryallen (Jan 27, 2011)

My deleted post also mentioned to KathyPet that I would not be worried about your situation. Will work out ok I do believe.


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## csalter2 (Jan 27, 2011)

*Why was my post deleted?*

[Per TUG posting rules - send me a private message if you have any questions. - DeniseM Moderator]



> Honor changes entered by moderators
> 
> In addition, do not enter complaints about moderation into BBS messages. Such posts will be considered off-topic and will be removed. Any such complaints or discussion should be communicated to the bbs staff directly via email or personal message.


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## KathyPet (Jan 28, 2011)

I originally refused to enroll my weeks for two reasons.  First and foremost I was (and still am) angry with Marriott for refusing to allow owners who were already in the process of purchasing a resale week to enroll those weeks when in fact the transaction had already "settled" (all documents signed and full monies sent to the settlement co) .   
Also the number of "points" (5700) that I would receive from trading my two existing weeks did not seem sufficient to me to do something really special with considering the # of points required for say a week in Hawaii in a oceanfront unit.    Even if I had never purchased my resale week I would not bother to enroll my two weeks because I really fail to see the benefit from the program.  However the addition of the resale weeks brings me a additional 3000 points so now I have a lot more flexibility.
So  if they "catch" me and unenroll my resale they will have to allow me to back completely out of the program.  By changing the terms of the confirmation E Mail they will have to give me the option to back out of the entire transaction and I will do so.


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## windje2000 (Jan 28, 2011)

KathyPet said:


> I originally refused to enroll my weeks for two reasons.  First and foremost I was (and still am) angry with Marriott for refusing to allow owners who were already in the process of purchasing a resale week to enroll those weeks when in fact the transaction had already "settled" (all documents signed and full monies sent to the settlement co) .
> Also the number of "points" (5700) that I would receive from trading my two existing weeks did not seem sufficient to me to do something really special with considering the # of points required for say a week in Hawaii in a oceanfront unit.    Even if I had never purchased my resale week I would not bother to enroll my two weeks because I really fail to see the benefit from the program.  However the addition of the resale weeks brings me a additional 3000 points so now I have a lot more flexibility.
> So  if they "catch" me and unenroll my resale they will have to allow me to back completely out of the program.  By changing the terms of the confirmation E Mail they will have to give me the option to back out of the entire transaction and I will do so.



Kathy, you might want to take another look at the Advocate's wording.



MVCI Customer Advocate said:


> I thought it would be appropriate to respond to this thread since the absence of correct information may result in more confusion regarding the policy on the enrollment of resale weeks.   Weeks purchased on the external market after June 20, 2010 are not eligible to be enrolled in the Destinations Points program.  However, as this thread illustrates, several people have been able to enroll external purchases made after June 20, 2010.  This is a system error which we were made aware of prior to this initial post, so the fact that it was posted here did not have any impact on Marriott Vacation Club's course of action.  However, as many have speculated, because it is against the policy and inconsistent with the established enrollment process, *external purchases after June 20, 2010 that have been enrolled in the Destinations Points program will be un-enrolled and if applicable, all fees refunded.*  If you have any additional questions regarding this policy, please contact us at customer.advocacy@vacationclub.com.
> MVCI Customer Advocate



emphasis added

Please note they specifically state that they will unenroll only the post 6/20 purchases.  Note further the "if applicable" qualifier as regards refunds.  

One could easily read this to mean that all fees would be refundable if all the weeks enrolled were post 6/20.

I hope for your sake that Marriott doesn't take the position that the fee for enrolling your eligible weeks is not refundable, but the incremental fee for the post 6/20 week is refundable.  But that certainly seems to be what they are saying.


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## KathyPet (Jan 28, 2011)

I find it impossible to believe that Marriott, after first making existing customers angry by notifying them that they were unenrolling resale weeks that Marriott had allowed to be enrolled (through their error) would then force that already irate customer to keep weeks that were eligible to be enrolled in the DC program and keep the money for the eligible weeks.  You talk about a customer relations nightmare!     They would hear me screaming all the way in Salt Lake.  My DH who has substantial knowledge of contract law thinks that by unenrolling the weeks they have "voided" the original contract by changing the terms so that the original agreement is no longer in effect.


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## windje2000 (Jan 28, 2011)

KathyPet said:


> I find it impossible to believe that Marriott, after first making existing customers angry by notifying them that they were unenrolling resale weeks that Marriott had allowed to be enrolled (through their error) would then force that already irate customer to keep weeks that were eligible to be enrolled in the DC program and keep the money for the eligible weeks.  You talk about a customer relations nightmare!     They would hear me screaming all the way in Salt Lake.  My DH who has substantial knowledge of contract law thinks that by unenrolling the weeks they have "voided" the original contract by changing the terms so that the original agreement is no longer in effect.



Good luck to you.  I would urge you to read (or reread as the case may be) Herb33s posts about his experiences with this program.

EDITED TO ADD:  I could envision Marriott taking the position that each enrollment represented a standalone contract.  Suppose you sell or give away a week.  The enrollment of the other weeks would not be affected.

EDITED AGAIN TO FURTHER ADD:  When you join, the first week is billed $x, the second seek is billed $y, etc. and in my case the third week was billed $0.  But that form of billing would suggest they consider each weeks' enrollment to have its own consideration, a further indication of separate contracts for each week.


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## wvacations (Jan 28, 2011)

The problem as I see it, and why I have done the enrollment, is the very first page that comes up before it shows your weeks. It says on that page that post 6/20 weeks cannot be enrolled. You have to click the "I understand " button to continue. Somehow Marriott could claim you understood that this weeks are not eligible to enroll. On the other hand, as late as yesturday the person at the 800 number said all weeks are eligible and was ready to take my CC info. I still chickened out!!


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## larryallen (Jan 28, 2011)

Don't worry Kathy. Will work out. You may have to talk to a few levels of supervisors and may end up writing a letter to Mr. Marriott but I am sure it will eventually work out fine for you. Don't listen to other people here pointing to certain words some low level Marriott employee posted on a message board. It will work out.


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## KathyPet (Jan 28, 2011)

The more I read about other's experiences dealing with Marriott regarding enrollment of "Non eligible" weeks the more convinced I become that they really, really don't know what the heck they are doing.  A supposed Marriott employee posts that they are aware of the problem and will unenroll non eligible weeks and yet their own customer reps are still telling people that they can enroll them.  Now I am sure that they have a internal E Mail list for all their customer reps which they can and do use to send out important internal E Mails.  So while they are saying that this is computer problem which they are going to fix no one has sent a E Mail to the customer service reps which says "Do Not Tell Owners with post deadline enrolled weeks that they can enroll that week in the DC program even though the computer system says they can.  This is a computer error and we are working on fixing it"    Nope! their customer service reps are still happily telling owners that they can enroll those weeks.  I find it impossible to believe that Marriott would allow the continual enrollment of those weeks to occur.


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## larryallen (Jan 28, 2011)

You assume the employes READ the emails from their managers! 




KathyPet said:


> The more I read about other's experiences dealing with Marriott regarding enrollment of "Non eligible" weeks the more convinced I become that they really, really don't know what the heck they are doing.  A supposed Marriott employee posts that they are aware of the problem and will unenroll non eligible weeks and yet their own customer reps are still telling people that they can enroll them.  Now I am sure that they have a internal E Mail list for all their customer reps which they can and do use to send out important internal E Mails.  So while they are saying that this is computer problem which they are going to fix no one has sent a E Mail to the customer service reps which says "Do Not Tell Owners with post deadline enrolled weeks that they can enroll that week in the DC program even though the computer system says they can.  This is a computer error and we are working on fixing it"    Nope! their customer service reps are still happily telling owners that they can enroll those weeks.  I find it impossible to believe that Marriott would allow the continual enrollment of those weeks to occur.


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## SueDonJ (Jan 28, 2011)

Kathy, I think that only you can decide what you want to do today, whether you want to rescind while the window is open or take a chance that things will work out the way you want.  But I also think that you have some serious thinking to do, while you have today to do it, about which usage options make the most sense for your future.

Depending on if/how Marriott chooses to correct their error you could be looking at either extreme discussed here - Marriott does nothing to fix any of this and all of your Weeks remain enrolled OR Marriott fixes things in the worst possible way, true to their written statements, and only your ineligible Week will be un-enrolled by them at some point in the future.  And the possibility exists that their correction may be something that falls in between the extremes - a happy or not-so-happy medium.  None of us can say with any validity what Marriott's solution will or won't be.

If it was me in your shoes I would use the email address contained in MVCI CA's post and lay all my cards on the table, documenting everything for them that you've documented here on TUG for the last few months.  I know that's not the route that many would take, but several of us who have enrolled are already familiar with getting answers from that Marriott office which are clear, concise and effective.  You may not be given the answer you want to hear (which has happened to me,) but if that contact stays true to form then you will be given an answer you can trust.

You're in a difficult position and I don't blame you, or any of us really, for thinking that Marriott's reputation and service have been lacking since the DC rollout.  But I also know that Marriott does make exceptions on an individual basis when extenuating circumstances warrant them, and I truly believe that your circumstances do.  Good luck.  I hope this gets worked out so that you can continue to enjoy the Marriott vacations that you obviously love so much.


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## windje2000 (Jan 28, 2011)

larryallen said:


> Don't worry Kathy. Will work out. You may have to talk to a few levels of supervisors and may end up writing a letter to Mr. Marriott but I am sure it will eventually work out fine for you. Don't listen to other people here pointing to certain words some low level Marriott employee posted on a message board. It will work out.



It's noteworthy that after seven months MVCI has elected to make its presence known on this board by addressing this issue.  They were reluctant even to respond to DaveM's questions just after the roll out of DClub, and took forever to do so.

The OP here was on 1/24 at 6:26PM.  MVCI posted about 36 hours later.  That's about as fast a response as one can expect from a large corp that heretofore had a policy of lurking.

But why now?  My theory - they do not want any enrollees to assume that its silence on a public board was an indication of its acquiescence to these enrollments.

Lastly, that post may well have been made by a low level Marriott employee, but the decision to make an 'official' MVCI post was made at some level higher on the food chain and the writing it contains clearly appears to have been authored and/or blessed by the legal beagles.


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## SueDonJ (Jan 28, 2011)

windje2000 said:


> It's noteworthy that after seven months MVCI has elected to make its presence known on this board by addressing this issue.  They were reluctant even to respond to DaveM's questions just after the roll out of DClub, and took forever to do so.
> 
> The OP here was on 1/24 at 6:26PM.  MVCI posted about 36 hours later.  That's about as fast a response as one can expect from a large corp that heretofore had a policy of lurking.
> 
> ...



I completely agree with this entire post, as well as your earlier one where you said that the reason Marriott came out of TUG-lurkdom for this thread is because this is the first where a method to exploit a deficiency in their system is explained and encouraged.

It doesn't hurt Marriott financially if we are confused and that's why they haven't jumped into every thread since the DC rollout.  (We've been confused about certain Weeks things on TUG for years; in that way the DC is no different.)  It hurts Marriott financially if this loophole is exploited because post-6/20 resales that are incorrectly allowed to be enrolled are direct competition to the only product on which they want to focus, DC Points.


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## windje2000 (Jan 28, 2011)

SueDonJ said:


> I completely agree with this entire post, as well as your earlier one where you said that the reason Marriott came out of TUG-lurkdom for this thread is because this is the first where a method to exploit a deficiency in their system is explained and encouraged.
> 
> It doesn't hurt Marriott financially if we are confused and that's why they haven't jumped into every thread since the DC rollout.  (We've been confused about certain Weeks things on TUG for years; in that way the DC is no different.)  It hurts Marriott financially if this loophole is exploited because post-6/20 resales that are incorrectly allowed to be enrolled are direct competition to the only product on which they want to focus, DC Points.



If I wanted to be really cynical, I'd postulate that the reason the VOA's are telling people they can enroll post 6/20 resales along with pre 6/20 resales is to get the pre 6/20 weeks in the DClub door by hook or by crook.  

They'll de-enroll the post 6/20 weeks later (our bad - sorry) 

They'll keep the $ for the pre 6/20 weeks whether you want to stay in or leave.  It was an initiation/enrollment fee.  You were initiated/enrolled.  No refunds.


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## SueDonJ (Jan 28, 2011)

windje2000 said:


> If I wanted to be really cynical, I'd postulate that the reason the VOA's are telling people they can enroll post 6/20 resales along with pre 6/20 resales is to get the pre 6/20 weeks in the DClub door by hook or by crook.
> 
> They'll de-enroll the post 6/20 weeks later (our bad - sorry)
> 
> They'll keep the $ for the pre 6/20 weeks whether you want to stay in or leave.  It was an initiation/enrollment fee.  You were initiated/enrolled.  No refunds.



You're right, that's REALLY cynical!  I think it's simply a matter of the VOA being an almost entry-level position and some of them being robots - if the computer allows it then it must be okay.  They don't take the time to think about any of this because they don't have to - the computer does their thinking for them.  Their jobs are mundane and repetitive, what they do is take phone calls and do data entry on the computer - their whole thought process is what goes in that field, what goes in that field, what goes in that field ... click click click and done.  Nothing more, nothing less.

Now I'm sure there are some VOA's with some limited understanding of the basics, but I also know that the minute you question one of them with something that can't be answered by their computer then you're either given an answer that's wrong or referred to a supervisor (and if you have more knowledge than them, which is entirely possible, on up the chain until you finally find yourself at that Customer Advocacy office and you hear some sanity.)  I'm at the point where if I ask a VOA a question and there is the slightest hesitation in the response, I hang up and use a CA contact.


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## dougp26364 (Jan 28, 2011)

windje2000 said:


> It's noteworthy that after seven months MVCI has elected to make its presence known on this board by addressing this issue.  They were reluctant even to respond to DaveM's questions just after the roll out of DClub, and took forever to do so.
> 
> The OP here was on 1/24 at 6:26PM.  MVCI posted about 36 hours later.  That's about as fast a response as one can expect from a large corp that heretofore had a policy of lurking.
> 
> ...



Or, it may not be a Marriott employee at all.

Let's look at one fact and that is that Marriott has never, at least to my knowledge, adressed any of our concerns on TUG. So why now? It would be just as easy for them not to say anything and take care of business internally. TUGGERS would post soon enough that Marriott had made a mistake.

I've been around discussion forums long enough to understand that there are all sorts of personalities on the Internet. Some who like to just stir the pot and read as everyone jump to conclusions. 

I think the only thing we can take from all of this is that one person enrolled a resale week purchased after Marriott's stated deadline. Others have mentioned that weeks that should be excluded are now showing that they can be included online. Is this a mistake? It could be. But if I already owned a week that wasn't eligable and, if I had already enrolled and, if I could enroll that week without additional cost then I'd do it. Right now, it's to early in the game to assume this will continue, that non-eligable weeks won't be unenrolled or that maybe Marriott has changed it's policy.

The program has been rife with problems since day one. We really just need to wait this out and see if Clemsonfans week gets unenrolled somewhere down the line.


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## SueDonJ (Jan 28, 2011)

But Doug, considering Brian's and Denise's contributions to this thread, how do you explain a non-Marriott employee being able to register on TUG with a marriott.com domain email address?  Or, if it's a rogue Marriott employee who registered and posted to TUG, how do you explain that Marriott has allowed the post to sit here uncontested?  One notice from Marriott's legal department to Brian asking that the post be deleted is all it would take.  And that's assuming Marriott doesn't have a tracking mechanism whereby they'd only have to make the demand to the probably-immediately-terminated employee and leave Brian out of it entirely.  But if Brian was to get such a notice, do you think he'd ignore it?  I wouldn't think so.

We know Marriott reads TUG.  Too many TUGgers have said over the years that they've been in contact with Marriott reps and execs about information they've learned/seen on TUG.  Marriott knows TUG exists, and like the other Brian (pwrshft) says they'd have to be all shades of stupid to not monitor this site.


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## KathyPet (Jan 28, 2011)

Not rescinding.  This is getting to be too much fun.  Let's see Clemson Fan called MVCI and got his "illegal" week enrolled over the phone.  I was enable to enroll mine on line.  I think there was another poster in this thread who said they also had enrolled a "illegal" week and another poster who called yesterday and was told that they could enroll their illegal week although they did not go through with it.  I guess the web site would still allow illegal weeks to be enrolled and obviously the reps are positively clueless so I am not believing anything anyone says whether it is the customer advocacy group or some nameless supposed Marriott employee who posted here.  As far as I am concerned they have made a unholy mess out of this and I am sitting tight until somebody with real name and title gives me something official in writing.


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## JanT (Jan 28, 2011)

Just my opinion, but anyone who enrolls their non-eligible week in the DC KNOWING it really is not eligible is taking a huge gamble.  Sometimes gamblers win and sometimes they lose - it's a crapshoot, so-to-speak.  Because it clearly states on the beginning enrollment page that post 6/20 weeks are NOT eligible to enroll, I don't see how anyone that does it has any kind of argument in the matter.  Loophole or not, the information is right there for the person to see if they do NOT already know they can't enroll the week.  But, TUGGERs KNOW those weeks aren't allowed in.  I KNOW it and even though it shows I can enroll my post 6/20 week, I can't convince myself that taking advantage of the loophole is the right thing to do because for me it's not.  I'm not casting judgement on anyone else, I'm just saying for ME personally, taking advantage of the loophole is not the right thing to do.

If someone has enrolled their 6/20 weeks KNOWING they weren't eligible they had to know, too that most likely Marriott would eventually catch on and reverse the enrollment.  

Perhaps Marriott won't reverse the enrollment.  Perhaps they will say, "Oops!  Our fault," and will grandfather those weeks in. I can see that happening, honestly.  I know many people think Marriott is this terrible, horrible, customer-hating, "It's all about Marriott" company now, but I still think they are a decent company doing what every other company is trying to do - stay alive and make a profit.   They have made poor business decisions and that has cost them in the profit department.  Some of what is occurring in terms of profit loss is what is occurring with every other company - the economy sucks!!  

Did they roll out the DC program correctly?  Well, it certainly could have been done much, much better and with adequate notice to owners of the new program.  My guess is there are still owners out there that don't have a clue about DC.  Did they owe it to their customer base to say, "Hey, don't tell anybody but we're rolling out this new DC and any outside resale weeks closed after 6/20 won't be allowed in?"  Well, not in my opinion they didn't.  They are in the business of making money, not throwing it away.  Are we really all so naive to think they wanted people rushing out and buying outside resale weeks when they had plenty of weeks on the books they needed to sell?  We'd have to be living in "La-La Land" to believe or expect that in all reality.  They had to take a stand on a cutoff date for outside resales and 6/20 is what they chose, period.

We knew it, we know it, we have to live with it.  If Marriott has unwittingly created a loophole they are going to have to figure out the solution.  However, the bottom line is if anyone enrolls their post 6/20 weeks KNOWING that it isn't eligible, they are going to have to live with the consequences - whether they like it or not.  Lawsuit?  Does anyone honestly believe they can beat a team of Marriott attorneys?  Who has that kind of money?  And if Marriott can't outlast them for some reason, they will prevail in the end if for no other reason than they are holding a piece of paper in their hands that says specifically, "Post 6/20 weeks are not eligible to enroll" and the enrollee clicked the "I agree to these terms" button.

Ok, I'm done now.


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## taffy19 (Jan 28, 2011)

SueDonJ said:


> But Doug, considering Brian's and Denise's contributions to this thread, how do you explain a non-Marriott employee being able to register on TUG with a marriott.com domain email address?  Or, if it's a rogue Marriott employee who registered and posted to TUG, how do you explain that Marriott has allowed the post to sit here uncontested?  One notice from Marriott's legal department to Brian asking that the post be deleted is all it would take.  And that's assuming Marriott doesn't have a tracking mechanism whereby they'd only have to make the demand to the probably-immediately-terminated employee and leave Brian out of it entirely.  But if Brian was to get such a notice, do you think he'd ignore it?  I wouldn't think so.
> 
> We know Marriott reads TUG.  Too many TUGgers have said over the years that they've been in contact with Marriott reps and execs about information they've learned/seen on TUG.  Marriott knows TUG exists, and like the other Brian (pwrshft) says they'd have to be all shades of stupid to not monitor this site.


I only hope that Brian will not delete the post of the Marriott employee if the Marriott Legal Department requests this and that he will let us know about it too.

If the email address is a phony email address then it should be reported too so we all know that it didn't come from the Marriott but if you start deleting posts then reading the thread doesn't make any sense and is not helping anyone either.

My respect for the Marriott has gone down the drain already but even more so if KathiePet is not allowed to enroll since all her documents were signed before the deadline date.  I hope that it will work out for her and that they will accept others too eventually.

If they don't, the trust will not survive because most people sell one day but it will cost a bundle because it is all about their bottom line but first they will destroy our resale value and our enjoyment too which we have experienced already.     I feel this way because of that second exchange program where most of the best inventory will end up and we will no longer be selling a product as desirable as before because of that new program.  JMHO.


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## DeniseM (Jan 28, 2011)

I exchanged several PM's with this person when they registered, and I checked out their email address, and I have ZERO doubt that they are a Marriott employee.  

Now maybe this is the world's greatest hacker, and they have hacked into Marriott's email system and they are passing themselves off as a Marriott employee, but that's pretty far-fetched.  The PM's I exchanged with them were extremely courteous and professional.  YMMV


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## taffy19 (Jan 28, 2011)

Denise, I have no doubt that it came from a Marriott employee but I would be very surprised if the Marriott would demand Brian to remove the post and he would abide.  I hope that he will not let himself be bullied by their Legal Department because of the mess they have made of this new program that * STINKS*, IMHO.


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## dougp26364 (Jan 28, 2011)

SueDonJ said:


> But Doug, considering Brian's and Denise's contributions to this thread, how do you explain a non-Marriott employee being able to register on TUG with a marriott.com domain email address?  Or, if it's a rogue Marriott employee who registered and posted to TUG, how do you explain that Marriott has allowed the post to sit here uncontested?  One notice from Marriott's legal department to Brian asking that the post be deleted is all it would take.  And that's assuming Marriott doesn't have a tracking mechanism whereby they'd only have to make the demand to the probably-immediately-terminated employee and leave Brian out of it entirely.  But if Brian was to get such a notice, do you think he'd ignore it?  I wouldn't think so.
> 
> We know Marriott reads TUG.  Too many TUGgers have said over the years that they've been in contact with Marriott reps and execs about information they've learned/seen on TUG.  Marriott knows TUG exists, and like the other Brian (pwrshft) says they'd have to be all shades of stupid to not monitor this site.



I won't attempt to explain it. Surfice it to say that, when I moderated a forum many years ago, I quickly learned that there are people smart enough to manipulate any system for their own entertainment.

All we really know is that Clemson Fan states he was able to register a week that he wasn't suppose to be able to register. Marriot hasn't changed the rules posted on their website. Others have stated that the online system will allow them to enroll weeks that they aren't suppose to be able to enroll. Past that, all we can do is watch and wait. 

Marriott may very well have unintentionally omitted the exclusion when they started allowing resale weeks be enrolled online rather than calling. It won't surprise me if this is simply a glitch in their system. But, I'm not taking some post on a discussion forem by an annonamous source as the final word or, even as a trustworthy word. Marriott's history speaks for itself and that history is Marriott doesn't particpate on TUG. I see no reason to believe they've changed that policy.

If I were a betting man, I'd bet it's nothing more than a member of Marriott's sales team who made the post. That could explain the Marriott domain and, it's been posted here that Marriott sales staff (Fletch comes to mind) read these forums. I have little trouble believing an uninformed sales person would post this information and, as a sales person, they would have a vested interest in making TUG members believe that resales after June 20th can't be enrolled. 

I've been sucked in before. Enough to know that it's best to read, contemplate but not make decisions or jump to conclusions when it's a first time poster I can't confirm or one that has no history to go by.

Heck, even "informed" and trusted posters such as Fletch get it wrong from time to time. Fletch had my attention when he stated his manager told him that EOY weeks would NOT be eligable for the new DC. I believe we all know that was more or less a statement that was misunderstood than a fact that EOY weeks weren't eligable. EOY weeks are no longer sold now that the new DC has come along but, legacy EOY weeks are, in fact, eligable.


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## dougp26364 (Jan 28, 2011)

DeniseM said:


> I exchanged several PM's with this person when they registered, and I checked out their email address, and I have ZERO doubt that they are a Marriott employee.
> 
> Now maybe this is the world's greatest hacker, and they have hacked into Marriott's email system and they are passing themselves off as a Marriott employee, but that's pretty far-fetched.  The PM's I exchanged with them were extremely courteous and professional.  YMMV



A salesman is a Marriott employee. That does't mean they're an informed employee or speaking officially for the company.


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## dougp26364 (Jan 28, 2011)

JanT said:


> Just my opinion, but anyone who enrolls their non-eligible week in the DC KNOWING it really is not eligible is taking a huge gamble.  Sometimes gamblers win and sometimes they lose - it's a crapshoot, so-to-speak.  Because it clearly states on the beginning enrollment page that post 6/20 weeks are NOT eligible to enroll, I don't see how anyone that does it has any kind of argument in the matter.  Loophole or not, the information is right there for the person to see if they do NOT already know they can't enroll the week.  But, TUGGERs KNOW those weeks aren't allowed in.  I KNOW it and even though it shows I can enroll my post 6/20 week, I can't convince myself that taking advantage of the loophole is the right thing to do because for me it's not.  I'm not casting judgement on anyone else, I'm just saying for ME personally, taking advantage of the loophole is not the right thing to do.
> 
> If someone has enrolled their 6/20 weeks KNOWING they weren't eligible they had to know, too that most likely Marriott would eventually catch on and reverse the enrollment.
> 
> ...



If you already own the week, what have you got to lose? I would be reasonably comfortable believing that Marriott would refund any funds they collected if they cancelled the transaction. 

Now, I wouldn't advice going out and buying resale weeks with the sole intention of enrolling them into the new DC. Should this "loophole" be closed, they could be left holding the bag.


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## DeniseM (Jan 28, 2011)

> A salesman is a Marriott employee. That does't mean they're an informed employee or speaking officially for the company.



Doug - I agree and I said that in my earlier post.

However, Dave M also communicated with this poster, and some of the info. that Dave posted early on, came from that communication. So I have to believe that Dave thinks they are Legit.  Hopefully, Dave will weigh in.

I am just offering what I know - I have no dog in this fight.


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## dougp26364 (Jan 28, 2011)

BTW, I don't believe any posts should be removed from this thread unless they are in clear violation of TUG rules. I'm just one of those who prefers facts and has a great deal of sceptisism. Enough TUG members have stated, Marriott is enrolling perviously non-eligable weeks. Enough that I believe it is reasonable to believe. One unknown Marriott employee, or someone possing as a Marriott employee, posted this was an accident and would be reversed. I know Marriott has never participated on TUG. I'll take that post with a grain of salt........for now. 

Really, I don't understand what the big deal is. There's a loophole. We know there's a loophole. The big question is, will Marriott unenroll these weeks or let them stand? Is this an unannounced, unadvertised change in policy or will it be reversed/corrected? The only time it would be a big deal is if someone spent thousand of dollars on a resale week just to enroll that week, only to find out it wasn't eligable.


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## SueDonJ (Jan 28, 2011)

iconnections said:


> Denise, I have no doubt that it came from a Marriott employee but I would be very surprised if the Marriott would demand Brian to remove the post and he would abide.  I hope that he will not let himself be bullied by their Legal Department because of the mess they have made of this new program that * STINKS*, IMHO.



Emmy, I'm not thinking that Marriott will ask for the post to be removed.  I LIKE that Marriott has offered a definitive statement here!  What I was trying to say is that if the post was a hoax of some kind, whether from a hacker or a rogue Marriott employee etc., then Marriott would not have let the post sit here for as long as it has.

I'm convinced Marriott monitors the site on a regular basis, can't prove it so I can understand that some might not share the conviction.  But it doesn't matter if Marriott came across the post on their own or not, because GregT told us in post 130 that he wrote to Customer Advocacy and told them it was here.  Now at that point, if the post was a hoax, Marriott would have done something to get it removed.  They would have contacted Brian and told him that the domain name was being used illegally and that the text in the post does not constitute an official Marriott statement despite the appearance.  And at that point, I would hope that Brian would edit the post to remove the text and say that Marriott's Legal Dept. had contacted him to let him know the post was a hoax.  I wouldn't want Brian to do it because he is being bullied by Marriott, though - I'd want him to do it because it makes a difference in the discussion.  What good is it to us if it's left sitting there but it can't be believed?

The fact that it's still sitting there, and both Denise and Brian have confirmed the TUG user name and email address, makes me think it's legit.  And if it is, it only strengthens Marriott's position that post-6/20 external resales are ineligible for enrollment in the DC.


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## SueDonJ (Jan 28, 2011)

dougp26364 said:


> A salesman is a Marriott employee. That does't mean they're an informed employee or speaking officially for the company.



But "Customer Advocacy" is a real department in Marriott's structure, and a salesperson would not have access to the customer.advocacyATvacationclub.com email address.  That address isn't new with this suspect post, and a few of us in this thread have confirmed that we've had occasion to use it to contact the Customer Advocacy office.


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## KathyPet (Jan 28, 2011)

dougp26364 said:


> If you already own the week, what have you got to lose? I would be reasonably comfortable believing that Marriott would refund any funds they collected if they cancelled the transaction.
> 
> EXACTLY!!!   The absolute worst that can happen is they catch this, unenroll the week and refund me the extra charge I paid to enroll a re-sale week.  I think I could also make a really  really good case to have them back out the two Marriott weeks that I enrolled and putting me back to zero in the DC program.


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## KathyPet (Jan 28, 2011)

Just another comment here and that is what is meant by "recorded".  When the DC program was originally announced I called MVCI and talked to three different CSR.  I posed the question about what "recorded" meant to all 3 of them.  None of them knew and had to ask supervisors.  So if in fact they did ask a supervisor here are the answers I received:

1.  It is the date that you (the purchaser) signed the deed.  THis was prior to the cut off date
2.  It is the date that the deed transfer was recorded in the local government office that does the recordation of title.  This was after the cut off date
3.  It is the date that Marriott records the new owner in their records (obviously after the cut off date).


If they can't define their own terminology then how is some poor uneducated consumer supposed to????


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## wvacations (Jan 28, 2011)

SueDonJ said:


> But "Customer Advocacy" is a real department in Marriott's structure, and a salesperson would not have access to the customer.advocacyATvacationclub.com email address.  That address isn't new with this suspect post, and a few of us in this thread have confirmed that we've had occasion to use it to contact the Customer Advocacy office.



Just note customer.advocacy@Marriott.com is not a personal email. It is the department email. It is the email address that customers use to contact the CA department. This email address was put in the post but may not be the email that was used to register. Peoples' registered email address is not shown on this site.


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## larryallen (Jan 28, 2011)

In my opinion people are going much deeper on this issue than it warrants. There was a glitch, some people took advantage of it, and they will probably be rewarded with their weeks being enrolled. End of story. If not, Marriott will unwind the entire transaction. There is no chance they are going to penalize someone in any way for Marriott's glitch. Also, I can't imagine why Marriott would ask a post to be deleted.  Some of you act like this is some major military operation here. These are just some timeshares. All the theories and everything on here make me laugh. I enjoy the Marriott timeshares as a vacation with my family. I save the covert military operations for the fictional books I enjoy reading.


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## dioxide45 (Jan 28, 2011)

KathyPet said:


> Just another comment here and that is what is meant by "recorded".  When the DC program was originally announced I called MVCI and talked to three different CSR.  I posed the question about what "recorded" meant to all 3 of them.  None of them knew and had to ask supervisors.  So if in fact they did ask a supervisor here are the answers I received:
> 
> 1.  It is the date that you (the purchaser) signed the deed.  THis was prior to the cut off date
> 2.  It is the date that the deed transfer was recorded in the local government office that does the recordation of title.  This was after the cut off date
> ...



In real estate transactions, "recorded" had a defined definition. It isn't up to interpretation. It is the date the county records the deed or security instrument in their county records.


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## wvacations (Jan 28, 2011)

Marriott might be closing the loop hole in the online software. About an hour ago I checked again and all my weeks could be enrolled. Logging in now there is no online enrollment. It goes to an “unrecoverable error” when trying to enroll the weeks. Guess we will see if anyone gets to keep the weeks that got in!


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## dioxide45 (Jan 28, 2011)

wvacations said:


> Marriott might be closing the loop hole in the online software. About an hour ago I checked again and all my weeks could be enrolled. Logging in now there is no online enrollment. It goes to an “unrecoverable error” when trying to enroll the weeks. Guess we will see if anyone gets to keep the weeks that got in!



I didn't have any problems getting to the enrollment page.


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## wvacations (Jan 28, 2011)

Yup, it is back online and all weeks are good to go. Wish I was willing to gamble and risk the $2000.


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## JanT (Jan 28, 2011)

No problem for me either and it is still showing both my eligible and ineligible weeks as being "eligible."  Must have been a hiccup in the system or your computer.


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## Davidr (Jan 29, 2011)

sorry, misclick


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## dougp26364 (Jan 29, 2011)

larryallen said:


> In my opinion people are going much deeper on this issue than it warrants. There was a glitch, some people took advantage of it, and they will probably be rewarded with their weeks being enrolled. End of story. If not, Marriott will unwind the entire transaction. There is no chance they are going to penalize someone in any way for Marriott's glitch. Also, I can't imagine why Marriott would ask a post to be deleted.  Some of you act like this is some major military operation here. These are just some timeshares. All the theories and everything on here make me laugh. I enjoy the Marriott timeshares as a vacation with my family. I save the covert military operations for the fictional books I enjoy reading.



Yep, you've pretty well nailed it on the head. This is really much ado about nothing.

I think the larger issue is how many more ways can Marriott screw this new program up. Everytime another glitch is found, it generates a long thread debating exactly "What does Marriott mean by this?" or, "What does this mean for owners?" Sometimes I feel like we're all just feeling around in the dark, looking for the light switch. We need to know the rules to make the most of what we own. 

To me, this is just another example of Marriott's right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing. Because of that, it's worth debating.


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## saturn28 (Jan 29, 2011)

dougp26364 said:


> Yep, you've pretty well nailed it on the head. This is really much ado about nothing.
> 
> I think the larger issue is how many more ways can Marriott screw this new program up. Everytime another glitch is found, it generates a long thread debating exactly "What does Marriott mean by this?" or, "What does this mean for owners?" Sometimes I feel like we're all just feeling around in the dark, looking for the light switch. We need to know the rules to make the most of what we own.
> 
> To me, this is just another example of Marriott's right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing. Because of that, it's worth debating.



Did you ever consider that Marriott may have put that glitch in the software because they want to enroll as many resale weeks as they can, so the availability will be there for the Destination Points members. They may have come to the conclusion that they needed more weeks then were enrolled. However, they didn't want to officially move the June 20, 2010 date, since it would be a disincentive for people to buy Destination Points. Instead if they did it by stealth, hoping present members would figure it out, they could continue to enroll resale weeks that closed after the June 20th deadline. Once they feel they got enough weeks, so the program works smoothly, they will remove the ability to enroll resale weeks that don't meet the criteria.


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## dioxide45 (Jan 29, 2011)

saturn28 said:


> Did you ever consider that Marriott may have put that glitch in the software because they want to enroll as many resale weeks as they can, so the availability will be there for the Destination Points members. They may have come to the conclusion that they needed more weeks then were enrolled. However, they didn't want to officially move the June 20, 2010 date, since it would be a disincentive for people to buy Destination Points. Instead if they did it by stealth, hoping present members would figure it out, they could continue to enroll resale weeks that closed after the June 20th deadline. Once they feel they got enough weeks, so the program works smoothly, they will remove the ability to enroll resale weeks that don't meet the criteria.



This doesn't make any sense. Marriott advertises that that post 6/20 weeks can't be enrolled, but for those chosen few (and it likely is very few, dozens, at most a hundred) they can enroll their weeks. Either Marriott wants the post 6/20 weeks or they don't. Those few that were able to enroll have very little effect on Marriott's bottom line or over all enrolled week numbers. They are a drop in the bucket. Keeping this "hidden benefit" won't get them all the weeks they want.


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## saturn28 (Jan 29, 2011)

dioxide45 said:


> This doesn't make any sense. Marriott advertises that that post 6/20 weeks can't be enrolled, but for those chosen few (and it likely is very few, dozens, at most a hundred) they can enroll their weeks. Either Marriott wants the post 6/20 weeks or they don't. Those few that were able to enroll have very little effect on Marriott's bottom line or over all enrolled week numbers. They are a drop in the bucket. Keeping this "hidden benefit" won't get them all the weeks they want.



It does make sense. What doesn't make sense is it taking more than 1 day after Marriott found out, to close the ability to enroll the non-qualified weeks down. According to the Marriott Advocate, they have known for some time.


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## DCBoy (Jan 29, 2011)

Some Marriott timeshare owners don't receive a deed to their property and nothing is recorded at the local registry of deeds (e.g. Aruba properties). Is there a distinction here for DC membership purposes?


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## billymach4 (Jan 29, 2011)

DCBoy said:


> Some Marriott timeshare owners don't receive a deed to their property and nothing is recorded at the local registry of deeds (e.g. Aruba properties). Is there a distinction here for DC membership purposes?



Aruba TS's are not part of the DC program.


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## hotcoffee (Jan 29, 2011)

SueDonJ said:


> . . . I'm convinced Marriott monitors the site on a regular basis, can't prove it so I can understand that some might not share the conviction. . . . .



I know that some of their employees read these threads when they get a chance.  In fact, the salesperson I talked to at Marriott even refers to this forum as "TUG", and seems well informed of the issues discussed here.  I have no problems believing that the person who posted here was indeed from Marriott.

The one thing that would diminish my respect for Marriott is if they carried through with their threat to unenroll any non-eligible weeks mistakenly enrolled.  The glitch was their fault, and the consequences is the price they should pay.  The weeks mistakenly enrolled should be allowed to stay in the program.


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## KathyPet (Jan 29, 2011)

If Marriott knows about this loophole and cannot plug it right away then they could simply "take down" the entire on line enrollment process and put up a message saying that is was temporarily unavailable and to call  MVCI customer service for further assistance.  Any calls that come in could then be routed to a special group of CSR's who are thoroughly trained in what weeks can and cannot be enrolled.  The process could then be completed on the phone and non-eligible weeks could be prevented from enrolling.  The fact that Marriott has not taken this action and still continues to allow on line enrollment and still shows non eligible weeks to be enrolled tells me a lot about what is going on behind the scenes.  If they considered the problem to be that serious they certainly could take action to prevent it.  That they have not done so says that either they don't care or they have decided to allow these weeks in.  The E Mail that was on this web site purported to be from a Marriott person could also be used as a telling argument to fight any attempt by Marriott to unenroll these weeks by using that E Mil to prove that Marriott knew about the problem prior to my enrollment and Clemson Fan's enrollment of our weeks and that they took  no action to prevent our weeks from being enrolled.


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## dioxide45 (Jan 29, 2011)

KathyPet said:


> If Marriott knows about this loophole and cannot plug it right away then they could simply "take down" the entire on line enrollment process and put up a message saying that is was temporarily unavailable and to call  MVCI customer service for further assistance.  Any calls that come in could then be routed to a special group of CSR's who are thoroughly trained in what weeks can and cannot be enrolled.  The process could then be completed on the phone and non-eligible weeks could be prevented from enrolling.  The fact that Marriott has not taken this action and still continues to allow on line enrollment and still shows non eligible weeks to be enrolled tells me a lot about what is going on behind the scenes.  If they considered the problem to be that serious they certainly could take action to prevent it.  That they have not done so says that either they don't care or they have decided to allow these weeks in.  The E Mail that was on this web site purported to be from a Marriott person could also be used as a telling argument to fight any attempt by Marriott to unenroll these weeks by using that E Mil to prove that Marriott knew about the problem prior to my enrollment and Clemson Fan's enrollment of our weeks and that they took  no action to prevent our weeks from being enrolled.



I wouldn't say the fact that they haven't taken down the online enrollment system is an indication that they are permitting these weeks to enroll, it is all about convenience. Many people will enroll online but wouldn't bother to pick up the phone and call to enroll. It is about having more avenues to enroll than giving a green light to post 6/20 enrollments.

My take is that Marriott likely doesn't have a "recording date" data field in their system. Or it is not included in the data that is fed to their online system. Making these fixes doesn't happen overnight. Taking down their online enrollment system would reduce enrollments for that time period. It would be a costly mistake.


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## hotcoffee (Jan 29, 2011)

KathyPet said:


> If Marriott knows about this loophole and cannot plug it right away then they could simply "take down" the entire on line enrollment process and put up a message saying that is was temporarily unavailable and to call  MVCI customer service for further assistance. . .



This is a very good point.  Something fishy is going on here.  So, their software has a bug that is allowing ineligible weeks into the program, and this has been going on for some period of time.  Yet, they do nothing to put a stop to it.  They don't fix it.  They don't take the online enrollment offline.  What is going on here?  Is Marriott so lame that they cannot figure out how to put a stop to this?


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## dioxide45 (Jan 29, 2011)

I think Marriott was thinking that the verbiage alone on the Enrollment Notice page was enough to keep people from attempting to enroll post 6/20 weeks. They mistakenly thought they didn't need a system edit to prevent these weeks from being enrolled. Some people found a loophole. The numbers are small, they don't want to cut off a enrollment channel to prevent a few people from enrolling weeks online. It still doesn't mean that Marriott is wanting these post 6/20 weeks enrolled.


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## hotcoffee (Jan 29, 2011)

dioxide45 said:


> . . . My take is that Marriott likely doesn't have a "recording date" data field in their system. Or it is not included in the data that is fed to their online system. Making these fixes doesn't happen overnight. Taking down their online enrollment system would reduce enrollments for that time period. It would be a costly mistake.



Marriott does not have a "recording date" data field in their system????  So, they impliment a major program with a cutoff date, and forget to put a key date field in their software???  I hope that Marriott is not as stupid as you theorize or we are all in trouble.  We all own timeshares in a company with an IT department staffed by idiots.


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## KathyPet (Jan 29, 2011)

I don't see it that way.  It is going to be a lot more costly for them time wise because now they are going to have to manually check every single on line enrollment that involved resale weeks to try to find when these were "recorded".  Then they are going to have to contact all the owners who did enroll non-eligible weeks to try to "fix" the problem and resolve the matter.  What about owners who enrolled non-eligible weeks and then traded those weeks for DC points and actually got a reservation using those points!  What a mess!  It is a PR nightmare.  They are going to have a lot if very unhappy owners who will say something along the lines of "Well I expected Marriott to define what they mean by "enrolled date" and they did not specify what that was and they did not have any edit to prevent me from enrolling so I thought I was good to go"    They also may have some legal difficulty even though they say that you understand that you cannot enroll weeks that were "recorded" past the deadline date when they do not define what date people are to use as the recorded date and their system allowed owners to enroll these weeks after Marriott admitted in this thread that they were aware of the problem and they have failed to take any action to prevent the problem from continuing.


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## saturn28 (Jan 29, 2011)

KathyPet said:


> If Marriott knows about this loophole and cannot plug it right away then they could simply "take down" the entire on line enrollment process and put up a message saying that is was temporarily unavailable and to call  MVCI customer service for further assistance.  Any calls that come in could then be routed to a special group of CSR's who are thoroughly trained in what weeks can and cannot be enrolled.  The process could then be completed on the phone and non-eligible weeks could be prevented from enrolling.  The fact that Marriott has not taken this action and still continues to allow on line enrollment and still shows non eligible weeks to be enrolled tells me a lot about what is going on behind the scenes.  If they considered the problem to be that serious they certainly could take action to prevent it.  That they have not done so says that either they don't care or they have decided to allow these weeks in.  The E Mail that was on this web site purported to be from a Marriott person could also be used as a telling argument to fight any attempt by Marriott to unenroll these weeks by using that E Mil to prove that Marriott knew about the problem prior to my enrollment and Clemson Fan's enrollment of our weeks and that they took  no action to prevent our weeks from being enrolled.



As I suggest in my previous post, I believe that Marriott is knowingly allowing these weeks to be added. I didn't believe that until the Marriott Advocate said that they have been aware of the problem. This has been probably been going on since the enrolments started.

If they wanted to stop it, they could do it over night. When you sign up online, you don’t receive your confirmation until the next day. Surely, someone has to be checking the new enrolment for eligibility before the confirmation email is sent out. If they don’t do that at the present time, they could start doing it and delay the confirmation email for as many days as it takes to confirm each enrolment.


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## larryallen (Jan 29, 2011)

Just so it's clear the "glitch" is only working for people who already have one week enrolled? Or might this work for anybody right now?


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## saturn28 (Jan 29, 2011)

larryallen said:


> Just so it's clear the "glitch" is only working for people who already have one week enrolled? Or might this work for anybody right now?



There is only one way to find out. Try to enrol and see what happens.


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## dioxide45 (Jan 29, 2011)

larryallen said:


> Just so it's clear the "glitch" is only working for people who already have one week enrolled? Or might this work for anybody right now?



It seems to work for anyone. Kathy didn't have any enrolled weeks and was able to enroll developer weeks and a post 6/20 week in one transaction.

Getting additional weeks in for free only works for people who have already enrolled two resale weeks or one developer and one ore more resale weeks.


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## wvacations (Jan 29, 2011)

Don't forget they are still allowing all weeks to be enrolled when you call. I have called at least 5 times and told that all my weeks can be enrolled. If I do it on the phone I don't have to chek the box that "I understand" about external weeks. I just give them a credit card. My problem is I also don;t have anything to print saying I am enrolling all my weeks. What a mess they have made of this. There can't be that many operators on the phone, that they could not put out a memo or hold a staff meeting and put an end to this.

My last sales person had the exact closing date, or at least the date that Marriott added the week to my account. It was right on a screen in front of me. Wish there was a way to record the phone and call and enroll my weeks!!


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## TheTimeTraveler (Jan 29, 2011)

wvacations said:


> Don't forget they are still allowing all weeks to be enrolled when you call. I have called at least 5 times and told that all my weeks can be enrolled. If I do it on the phone I don't have to chek the box that "I understand" about external weeks. I just give them a credit card. My problem is I also don;t have anything to print saying I am enrolling all my weeks. What a mess they have made of this. There can't be that many operators on the phone, that they could not put out a memo or hold a staff meeting and put an end to this.
> 
> My last sales person had the exact closing date, or at least the date that Marriott added the week to my account. It was right on a screen in front of me. Wish there was a way to record the phone and call and enroll my weeks!!




Don't worry.  Your phone call is recorded, only it's at the other end:rofl: 



.


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## Kokonut (Jan 29, 2011)

dioxide45 said:


> I think Marriott was thinking that the verbiage alone on the Enrollment Notice page was enough to keep people from attempting to enroll post 6/20 weeks. They mistakenly thought they didn't need a system edit to prevent these weeks from being enrolled.



When the transfer of my post-6/20 resale week was completed at the beginning of December, the week showed as being ineligible with the reason that it was purchased after 12/08/10. I'm not sure why that date was given instead of 6/20/10.

A week later when I checked again, the week showed as being eligible. 

So Marriott had a way to prevent the week from being enrolled.

K.


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## dioxide45 (Jan 29, 2011)

Kokonut said:


> When the transfer of my post-6/20 resale week was completed at the beginning of December, the week showed as being ineligible with the reason that it was purchased after 12/08/10. I'm not sure why that date was given instead of 6/20/10.
> 
> A week later when I checked again, the week showed as being eligible.
> 
> ...



I think Marriott made some changes to their online enrollment system in late December. Early on, owners of developer and resale weeks had to call a VOA to enroll to make sure they only paid the $1995 fee. If they tried to enroll online it would over charge these owners. Now apparently per some TUG reports, the system is smart enough to make the proper calculations when enrolling developer and resale weeks together. It seems when they made that fix, it caused a break in another part of the system. Not unusual, though it doesn't seem they did any reverse testing and testing on other areas of the system.


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## hotcoffee (Jan 29, 2011)

Kokonut said:


> When the transfer of my post-6/20 resale week was completed at the beginning of December, the week showed as being ineligible with the reason that it was purchased after 12/08/10. I'm not sure why that date was given instead of 6/20/10.
> 
> A week later when I checked again, the week showed as being eligible.
> 
> ...



So you are saying that as of mid-December the ineligible week has been showing as eligible; but prior to mid-December, it were showing as ineligible? That could suggest that they are making changes to their software.


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## wof45 (Jan 29, 2011)

dioxide45 said:


> I think Marriott made some changes to their online enrollment system in late December. Early on owners of developer and resale weeks had to call a VOA to enroll to make sure they only paid the $1995 fee. If they tried to enroll online it would over charge these owners. Now apparently per some TUG reports, the system is smart enough to make the proper calculations when enrolling developer and resale weeks together. It seems when they made that fix, it caused a break in another part of the system. Not unusual, though it doesn't seem they did any reverse testing and testing on other areas of the system.



I've been trying to hold down my hand on this thread for a long time, but

IMHO, this could be an unannounced feature, that MVC could disavow if needed.

We all know that MVC benefits from enrollment of weeks, since the bad weeks get very few DC points if enrolled, so why would an owner turn them in for points instead of trading on II.  If the owner trades in good weeks for DC points, everyone wins, except maybe some II traders.

I see the wisdom of announcing that post June weeks would not be accepted to stop a run on purchase of resale weeks.  But, we have already seen the feelings of people whose sale was caught mid-stream.  It would certainly be nice if MVC now allowed entry of weeks purchased anytime in 2011, since it is too late to buy resale, but brings in new enrollments and weeks eligible for deposit into DC. 

That's what I would do, but I would never admit doing it :ignore:


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## hotcoffee (Jan 29, 2011)

A bug introduced by a change in software is a very plausible explanation.  Having spent most of my life in the IT field, I am very familiar with software updates introducing new bugs.  (I have been responsible for some of these types of things.)  Where this theory falls short is in Marriott's letting it continue on.  When a serious bug like this is discovered, the proper thing to do is to disable the online links to the enrollment and require phone calls.  Staff need to be instructed by memo to manually check the resale date to make sure it complies prior to enrolling the week.  It does not appear that Marriott has done any of this.  That is what makes me wonder what is going on.


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## BarbS (Jan 29, 2011)

wof45 said:


> I've been trying to hold down my hand on this thread for a long time, but
> 
> IMHO, this could be an unannounced feature, that MVC could disavow if needed.
> 
> ...



That's kind of what I was thinking.  What if Marriott deliberately created the loophole for some "ineligible" weeks because they needed those weeks in the destination club.  My silver Barony week doesn't get that many points, but the silver season does include President's week and Thanksgiving week.   

I've been debating for quite a while (even before this thread appeared) on whether I should enroll my "ineligible" week since my account was showing me that I could.   The only reason I hesitated is because I would have to pay an additional $1300.  I finally decided to go ahead and enroll it......which I just did.   I can't see that I have anything to lose since if it's unenrolled, I will get my money back.


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## KathyPet (Jan 29, 2011)

hotcoffee said:


> A bug introduced by a change in software is a very plausible explanation.  Having spent most of my life in the IT field, I am very familiar with software updates introducing new bugs.  (I have been responsible for some of these types of things.)  Where this theory falls short is in Marriott's letting it continue on.  When a serious bug like this is discovered, the proper thing to do is to disable the online links to the enrollment and require phone calls.  Staff need to be instructed by memo to manually check the resale date to make sure it complies prior to enrolling the week.  It does not appear that Marriott has done any of this.  That is what makes me wonder what is going on.



That was exactly my point.  Who allows a "bug" like this to exist in their system without taking some remedial action?


----------



## hotcoffee (Jan 29, 2011)

KathyPet said:


> That was exactly my point.  Who allows a "bug" like this to exist in their system without taking some remedial action?



I really don't want to believe that they would use a "bug" to capture high value resale weeks into the program.  So, at this time, I still have to doubt that theory.

However, I have made a number of posts in other threads insisting that having a blanket policy that excludes all resale weeks purchased after the program initiation is self-defeating to the program.  Many resale weeks are high demand weeks.  Given that over time, a significant number of such weeks will be sold, the program will become increasingly starved of valuable weeks without coming up with a way to recapture them.  The problem, of course, is that Marriott probably does not want to flood the program with low value weeks.  So, a resourceful way to capture high value resale weeks might be something worth implementing at some point.


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## wof45 (Jan 29, 2011)

hotcoffee said:


> Many resale weeks are high demand weeks.  Given that over time, a significant number of such weeks will be sold, the program will become increasingly starved of valuable weeks without coming up with a way to recapture them.  The problem, of course, is that Marriott probably does not want to flood the program with low value weeks.  So, a resourceful way to capture high value resale weeks might be something worth implementing at some point.



MVC doesn't have a problem with low value weeks flooding the DC program.
bronze weeks pay the same high MF as the platinum weeks, but they bring next to nothing in DC points if they are exchanged for points.  Pretty much no bronze owner who enrolls in DC would do the exchange since it makes so much more sense to use or exchange through II.  

But if someone enrolls their platinum or gold weeks in the DC program, it makes sense to also enroll the bronze week since they could save II fees on bronze week exchanges.


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## hotcoffee (Jan 29, 2011)

wof45 said:


> MVC doesn't have a problem with low value weeks flooding the DC program. . . .



Of what value are lots of low demand bronze weeks that very few people will want to exchange into?  Once a week in enrolled into the program and is exchanged either internally by points election or externally via II, that week becomes available to DC exchangers.  But probably few, if anyone, will want to exchange into it.  So, it does not have much value to the program.  A high demand platinum week, however, will get snatched up almost immediately when available.  I would think that Marriott would prefer those weeks.


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## wof45 (Jan 29, 2011)

hotcoffee said:


> A high demand platinum week, however, will get snatched up almost immediately when available.  I would think that Marriott would prefer those weeks.



That's why MVC offers lots of DC points in exchange for those weeks


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## dougp26364 (Jan 29, 2011)

KathyPet said:


> That was exactly my point.  Who allows a "bug" like this to exist in their system without taking some remedial action?



Marriott.


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## hotcoffee (Jan 29, 2011)

dougp26364 said:


> Marriott.



You have successfully answered question number one.  Now to take home the prize, answer question number two:

Why?

Possible answers:

1. Their whole IT staff is in a complete panic running around bumping into each other and no one is accomplishing anything.
2. They lost the telephone number to their oursourced programming shop and no one can figure out how to call information in the Philippines.
3. Their WEB person has a virus on his computer and cannot disable the online enrollment link to stop people from enrolling. Plus, their telephone system is down preventing them from telling their customer service personnel to stop telling customers they can enroll their ineligible weeks.
4. They decided not to fix it.


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## csalter2 (Jan 29, 2011)

*Thank  you.*



JanT said:


> Just my opinion, but anyone who enrolls their non-eligible week in the DC KNOWING it really is not eligible is taking a huge gamble.  Sometimes gamblers win and sometimes they lose - it's a crapshoot, so-to-speak.  Because it clearly states on the beginning enrollment page that post 6/20 weeks are NOT eligible to enroll, I don't see how anyone that does it has any kind of argument in the matter.  Loophole or not, the information is right there for the person to see if they do NOT already know they can't enroll the week.  But, TUGGERs KNOW those weeks aren't allowed in.  I KNOW it and even though it shows I can enroll my post 6/20 week, I can't convince myself that taking advantage of the loophole is the right thing to do because for me it's not.  I'm not casting judgement on anyone else, I'm just saying for ME personally, taking advantage of the loophole is not the right thing to do.
> 
> If someone has enrolled their 6/20 weeks KNOWING they weren't eligible they had to know, too that most likely Marriott would eventually catch on and reverse the enrollment.
> 
> ...



Thank you. I posted this very logic, but was deleted.


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## dougp26364 (Jan 29, 2011)

hotcoffee said:


> You have successfully answered question number one.  Now to take home the prize, answer question number two:
> 
> Why?



With the way they've screwed up the launch of the DC and the inaccurate information given out by not-so-well trained staff, you have to ask why?

The answers to #2 is the same as the answer to #1, because they're Marriott.


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## dougp26364 (Jan 29, 2011)

csalter2 said:


> Thank you. I posted this very logic, but was deleted.



If you already own the week, there's no harm in putting it into the DC. Even if Marriot goes back and unenrolls the week, what's been lost? Nothing! If Marriott took money for something they cancelled, they'll give that money back. 

I see only two risks involved.

#1. If you use that week to book a vacation, that vacation exchange might be cancelled.

#2. If you go out and buy a resale week just to get it in the DC and it gets unenrolled, then you might have just wasted a little money.

Right now, there's very little risk to the owner. You'll just have to be careful with your planning until we know for certain what Marriott's going to do.


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## DeniseM (Jan 29, 2011)

csalter2 said:


> Thank you. I posted this very logic, but was deleted.



That's correct, except your post consisted of a "behavior lecture" which violated the TUG posting rules:  1) you made it personal 2) you told people they were "unethical" and 3) you compared it to cheating on your taxes.

If you still don't understand, please send me a pm, as I previously requested.


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## hotcoffee (Jan 29, 2011)

Was I dreaming or did one or more people post in this thread that even when they called Marriott, they were told that their week(s) is eligible?  If so, there would not be anything unethical or wrong about enrolling an ineligible week if Marriott accepts it as eligible.  Marriott is responsible for policing their own system and making sure their own employees perform the correct actions.  What truly would be unethical in my opinion is for Marriott to tell someone that his ineligible week is eligible, enroll the week, send out a confirmation, and then later unenroll the week perhaps after the customer might have already started to make plans on how to use his points.

I do believe that the customer advocate who posted here was probably indeed from Marriott.  However, I think they raised more questions than they answered.  Worse, I think their solution to the problem which appears to allow the glitch to stay in place and then unenroll customers at some later date after they get around to fixing the glitch is just downright horrible.


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## dan_hoog (Jan 29, 2011)

I am sure a simple daily query could identify the affected enrollments. At the least, they could send an email to those enrollees stating that there may be an issue and they will review it. Of course stronger wording or action could be taken if desired. 

Fixing a simple qualification bug should be trivial. However, if their system completely missed that one owner could have both qualified and unqualified resale weeks, in the same owner account, it might take longer to fix as a real database change could be needed (shouldn't though).  Of course, the first option is certainly still easy. 

They have a small databae, a few million units, a million owners. This should take 60 minutes to write the query and at most a few seconds to run.  Add a few days of testing to prevent further missteps.  A query and 'being looked into' email for a few hundred owners would be trivial. 

You'd think it would get addressed. Having a few hundred DC rollbacks, particularly after DC point elections, could be a real pain. 

I'm interested, as I own some post 6/20 weeks. I might join if they qualified. Plat oceanfront would make nice dc inventory, though I don't know if they need it. 

Very curious indeed.


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## DeniseM (Jan 29, 2011)

Just in case you are wondering, the customer advocate hasn't been back to see the Doo Doo Storm they kicked up, with their post!


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## hotcoffee (Jan 29, 2011)

DeniseM said:


> Just in case you are wondering, the customer advocate hasn't been back to see the Doo Doo Storm they kicked up, with their post!



What is so troubling to me about the customer advocate's post is his statement that anyone who gets an ineligible week enrolled will later get it un-enrolled.  What I would have preferred for him/her to have said is something like: _"we are working to fix the problem.  Please rest assured that if your week gets mistakenly enrolled, we will not inconvenience you by un-enrolling it.  It was our mistake, and we will absorb the consequences."_  Where is their customer relations?


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## billymach4 (Jan 29, 2011)

DeniseM said:


> Just in case you are wondering, the customer advocate hasn't been back to see the Doo Doo Storm they kicked up, with their post!



Denise,

Customer Advocate does not have to log on to see the Proverbial Doo Doo hitting the fan. 

All one has to do is view all of these posts without even logging on. That is why I am so adamant about Marriott and all of the Execs and employees of Timeshare resorts viewing most everything we say here. 

There are many times I will just take a peek here without logging on.


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## DeniseM (Jan 29, 2011)

True - but I didn't say anything about "logging on."  I said, "hasn't been back."


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## dougp26364 (Jan 29, 2011)

DeniseM said:


> Just in case you are wondering, the customer advocate hasn't been back to see the Doo Doo Storm they kicked up, with their post!



If they were a Marriott employee and they got caught posting on TUG, they may have either been told never to do that again or, they might not be a Marriott employee anymore. Since they haven't been back, the later might be more likely.


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## dougp26364 (Jan 29, 2011)

hotcoffee said:


> What is so troubling to me about the customer advocate's post is his statement that anyone who gets an ineligible week enrolled will later get it un-enrolled.  What I would have preferred for him/her to have said is something like: _"we are working to fix the problem.  Please rest assured that if your week gets mistakenly enrolled, we will not inconvenience you by un-enrolling it.  It was our mistake, and we will absorb the consequences."_  Where is their customer relations?



I think customer relations for legacy week owners went out the window the day the DC became effective.


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## hotcoffee (Jan 29, 2011)

dougp26364 said:


> I think customer relations for legacy week owners went out the window the day the DC became effective.



I think that is only half true.  The new program has some correctable flaws, and no one is being forced to join.  I think Marriott was looking to pump some life into its timeshare business which was losing money.  They did not roll out the program as well as they should have.  But, they can still salvage their customer relations to some extent by changing their cutthroat approach and offering a program with some real incentives to join.  Regardless of what they did (or could have done), there were going to be unhappy people.  That was unavoidable.  There were a lot of people who made the weeks system work to their advantage.  Those people will see some of those advantages lost under the new program.  So, they are unhappy.  The new program is a major change, and there are always winners and losers when things change.


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## siesta (Jan 30, 2011)

the marriott advocate is listed as a tug guest.  If this "loophole" thread was started in the sightings forum, he would have not seen it.  but according to him they were already aware of it.


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## windje2000 (Jan 30, 2011)

DeniseM said:


> True - but I didn't say anything about "logging on."  I said, "hasn't been back."



MVCI could be lurking off the record if they are using something similar to what is described at LINK and LINK 

I would try to be an anonymous lurker on this board if I were MVCI.


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## iamnotshopgirl (Jan 30, 2011)

I do not believe for one New York minute that Marriott is not aware of this problem. I think that Marriott does have people snooping around, "lurking" in the shadows (lol) on these boards and is quite aware of this post as well as others. Sure they do not advertise that fact that they are here but I would certainly bet on it because if you have a going business you would want information on your business plan. Whether or not it has been done deliberately by them to gain more weeks for the DC program I don't know. But this post has been up for several days with what 11 pages of comments and the percieved problem has not been fixed by them leaves me very skeptible if Marriott has not done this on purpose. IMHO with all the tech geniuses on their payroll and all the contacts and subcontractors for tech issues at their beck an call if this issue was not fixed since it was known months ago it would lead me to believe it was done on purpose.

bob


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## larryallen (Jan 30, 2011)

I think Marriott is probably spending tens of thousands of dollars, hacking into the Tug system, to find out everybody's real identities. They are going to mark in their computer system, in the new "Tugger" field, stuff like: "Customer made bad comments about Marriott on Tug so always give them a bad room."


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## dougp26364 (Jan 30, 2011)

larryallen said:


> I think Marriott is probably spending tens of thousands of dollars, hacking into the Tug system, to find out everybody's real identities. They are going to mark in their computer system, in the new "Tugger" field, stuff like: "Customer made bad comments about Marriott on Tug so always give them a bad room."



Is that why there's a black helicopter and strange cars driving by my house, all with the Marriott logo on them? 

TUG's a great place but, it's a small drop of water in the ocean. Sometimes I think people over estimate the strength of TUG in the opinion of developers. 

TUG's strength lies in it's ability to educate and inform timeshare owners about what they own and how to get the most out of their ownership. To think it's anything more is......well.......:hysterical:


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## larryallen (Jan 30, 2011)

_TUG's a great place but, it's a small drop of water in the ocean. Sometimes I think people over estimate the strength of TUG in the opinion of developers. 

TUG's strength lies in it's ability to educate and inform timeshare owners about what they own and how to get the most out of their ownership._


I totally agree. Tug is a GREAT place to educate oneself and, at times, help educate others.  However, Marriott has bigger fish to fry than to worry about what a very few people are doing.


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## wdmenke (Jan 30, 2011)

saturn28 said:


> Did you ever consider that Marriott may have put that glitch in the software because they want to enroll as many resale weeks as they can, so the availability will be there for the Destination Points members. They may have come to the conclusion that they needed more weeks then were enrolled. However, they didn't want to officially move the June 20, 2010 date, since it would be a disincentive for people to buy Destination Points. Instead if they did it by stealth, hoping present members would figure it out, they could continue to enroll resale weeks that closed after the June 20th deadline. Once they feel they got enough weeks, so the program works smoothly, they will remove the ability to enroll resale weeks that don't meet the criteria.



This sounds like a very plausible explanation, given that Marriott has extended introductory pricing for the new program to midyear. Seems like they may be lacking inventory, and what better place to find it than among current members.


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## taffy19 (Feb 1, 2011)

hotcoffee said:


> Was I dreaming or did one or more people post in this thread that even when they called Marriott, they were told that their week(s) is eligible? * If so, there would not be anything unethical or wrong about enrolling an ineligible week if Marriott accepts it as eligible.*  Marriott is responsible for policing their own system and making sure their own employees perform the correct actions.  What truly would be unethical in my opinion is for Marriott to tell someone that his ineligible week is eligible, enroll the week, send out a confirmation, and then later unenroll the week perhaps after the customer might have already started to make plans on how to use his points.
> 
> I do believe that the customer advocate who posted here was probably indeed from Marriott.  However, I think they raised more questions than they answered.  Worse, I think their solution to the problem which appears to allow the glitch to stay in place and then unenroll customers at some later date after they get around to fixing the glitch is just downright horrible.


I agree and they have made a mess of it for sure.  Why not take advantage of it, if you can and want to own the additional weeks?  It may help resale value for the owners a little bit, if they want to sell, so not all is bad for us but what a way to do business by a big Corporation.


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## thinze3 (Feb 2, 2011)

iconnections said:


> I agree and they have made a mess of it for sure.  Why not take advantage of it, if you can and want to own the additional weeks?  It may help resale value for the owners a little bit, if they want to sell, so not all is bad for us but what a way to do business by a big Corporation.



I agree.

Does anybody know how many MR points are given to DSV 1 & 2 'red' weeks? Seems like I read 125K a long time ago. What about Canyon Villas n AZ? I might have to consider another Marriott purchase.


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## dioxide45 (Feb 2, 2011)

thinze3 said:


> I agree.
> 
> Does anybody know how many MR points are given to DSV 1 & 2 'red' weeks? Seems like I read 125K a long time ago. What about Canyon Villas n AZ? I might have to consider another Marriott purchase.



I am not sure I would take the chance. If it is a week you otherwise wouldn't mind using or trading through II, then go for it. However if you are only buying it to get it in to DC, then buying probably isn't a good idea since that possibility could be closed at any moment.


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## VacationPro (Feb 2, 2011)

dioxide45 said:


> I am not sure I would take the chance. If it is a week you otherwise wouldn't mind using or trading through II, then go for it. However if you are only buying it to get it in to DC, then buying probably isn't a good idea since that possibility could be closed at any moment.



Sound advice.  My recent purchase was just added to my Marriott account and when I tested to see if I could enroll it online, I get a message stating the week is ineligible.


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## thinze3 (Feb 2, 2011)

dioxide45 said:


> I am not sure I would take the chance. If it is a week you otherwise wouldn't mind using or trading through II, then go for it. However if you are only buying it to get it in to DC, then buying probably isn't a good idea since that possibility could be closed at any moment.



I sold my DSV week last year.


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## brianfox (Feb 2, 2011)

VacationPro said:


> Sound advice.  My recent purchase was just added to my Marriott account and when I tested to see if I could enroll it online, I get a message stating the week is ineligible.



I just tried it and it says all of my weeks are eligible.  I am referring to the page where it says my total points and cost of $1995. There's one final terms and agreements clause, then a button that says "Enroll".  One of these weeks was purchased post-deadline.


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## hotcoffee (Feb 3, 2011)

brianfox said:


> I just tried it and it says all of my weeks are eligible.  I am referring to the page where it says my total points and cost of $1995. There's one final terms and agreements clause, then a button that says "Enroll".  One of these weeks was purchased post-deadline.



I just think it is so downright bizarre that they have not fixed this problem.  This thread was started back on 1/24/2011.  The Marriott Customer Advocate post implied that they knew about the problem before this thread began.  Yet, here it is 10 days after the thread began and it sounds like they have yet to take any action.  So, they are just going to continue to allow as many people enroll ineligible weeks as the system allows in and then kick them all out later after issuing confirmations?  If so, what a completely irresponsible way to run a business.  Incredible!


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## windje2000 (Feb 3, 2011)

hotcoffee said:


> I just think it is so downright bizarre that they have not fixed this problem.  This thread was started back on 1/24/2011.  The Marriott Customer Advocate post implied that they knew about the problem before this thread began.  Yet, here it is 10 days after the thread began and it sounds like they have yet to take any action.  So, they are just going to continue to allow as many people enroll ineligible weeks as the system allows in and then kick them all out later after issuing confirmations?  If so, what a completely irresponsible way to run a business.  Incredible!



Not incredible - - the points sales run rate is absolutely dismal and they are booking fee income which they probably won't reverse until they 'discover' the erroneous enrollments.  

Wall Street Rules.


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## VacationPro (Feb 3, 2011)

hotcoffee said:


> I just think it is so downright bizarre that they have not fixed this problem.  This thread was started back on 1/24/2011.  The Marriott Customer Advocate post implied that they knew about the problem before this thread began.  Yet, here it is 10 days after the thread began and it sounds like they have yet to take any action.  So, they are just going to continue to allow as many people enroll ineligible weeks as the system allows in and then kick them all out later after issuing confirmations?  If so, what a completely irresponsible way to run a business.  Incredible!



My week closed early this year.  When I click on the enroll button, my recently purchased week shows as ineligible and the ineligibility reason given is purchased after *12/10/10*.  To be honest, I'm not happy (with Marriott, not other owners) that others are being allowed to enroll (maybe only temporarily), while I am not.  If this is truly an error, it should be fixed by now, as the clearly have a date field they can use to determine which weeks are eligible and which are not.  If it was a business decision to get more weeks enrolled, it should have been handled differently.


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## hotcoffee (Feb 3, 2011)

VacationPro said:


> My week closed early this year.  When I click on the enroll button, my recently purchased week shows as ineligible and the ineligibility reason given is purchased after *12/10/10*.  To be honest, I'm not happy (with Marriott, not other owners) that others are being allowed to enroll (maybe only temporarily), while I am not.  If this is truly an error, it should be fixed by now, as the clearly have a date field they can use to determine which weeks are eligible and which are not.  If it was a business decision to get more weeks enrolled, it should have been handled differently.



Because they obviously have a problem, they ought to suspend the prohibition temporarily until the issue is fully resolved.  If some are getting in, then all should be able to get in.  It is not unreasonable, even given their apparent hatred for resales, to change the resale cutoff date until they resolve the issue.  

Ultimately, I think they are shooting themselves in the foot by denying resales into the program because they will eventually need to capture some of that inventory.  Some pretty good weeks are being purchased resale.  Keeping such weeks out of the program permanently seems to make little sense (unless they have other ideas on how they will be able to recapture some of the best of those weeks).


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## BarbS (Feb 3, 2011)

So the resale cutoff date is now 12/10/10???


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## dioxide45 (Feb 3, 2011)

BarbS said:


> So the resale cutoff date is now 12/10/10???



Who knows  . Apparently even Marriott doesn't know.


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## startime (Feb 3, 2011)

It looks like I can enroll my recently purchased NCV gold week.  The closed date is a couple weeks after the date 12/10/10 given above.  

Assume for a minute that Marriott wouldn't reverse the transaction...  Is it worth it to join for a single NCV gold week (2,700 points)?  It sounds like I would need to maintain a separate II account for all my other non-Marriott weeks.  $1,495 isn't that much money, if there is an annual longer term benefit in it for me.  I bought this with the primary intention to stay at NCV and not trade unless necessary.

I know Marriott will likely reverse the sign-up.  I am wondering if DC would be worth trying, in case they allow these mistaken enrollments to stick.


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## dioxide45 (Feb 3, 2011)

startime said:


> It looks like I can enroll my recently purchased NCV gold week.  The closed date is a couple weeks after the date 12/10/10 given above.
> 
> Assume for a minute that Marriott wouldn't reverse the transaction...  Is it worth it to join for a single NCV gold week (2,700 points)?  It sounds like I would need to maintain a separate II account for all my other non-Marriott weeks.  $1,495 isn't that much money, if there is an annual longer term benefit in it for me.  I bought this with the primary intention to stay at NCV and not trade unless necessary.
> 
> I know Marriott will likely reverse the sign-up.  I am wondering if DC would be worth trying, in case they allow these mistaken enrollments to stick.



If you will never trade it through II, then a single week owner of a non lock off will see little benefit to the program. Since you will have the $165 fee every year you are in the program. You will never make up the enrollment fee since your annual fee is higher than the fees that the $165 fee is supposed to be combining.


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## wof45 (Feb 3, 2011)

dioxide45 said:


> If you will never trade it through II, then a single week owner of a non lock off will see little benefit to the program. Since you will have the $165 fee every year you are in the program. You will never make up the enrollment fee since your annual fee is higher than the fees that the $165 fee is supposed to be combining.



or, you look at the DC points charts on vacationclub.com to see if the 2,700 points that you get will take you places that you would want to go.


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## dioxide45 (Feb 3, 2011)

wof45 said:


> or, you look at the DC points charts on vacationclub.com to see if the 2,700 points that you get will take you places that you would want to go.



You could do that; however, you would then have to give up the skim. Unless you were wanting to trade down for two or three weeks instead of less than one just about anywhere else, it probably isn't a good deal.


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## enma (Feb 3, 2011)

I just tried to enroll my weeks on the MVCI website - my developer weeks and my resale week that I bought in August -10. They all show to be eligible. I am so tempted to do it. My resale week is in Maui that gives me lots of points and I know I will not be going there every year. But then I am afraid to do it. On the terms that you need to agree to it says that I understandand post 06/20/2010 weeks are not eligible. I am afraid they would just take my money and not enroll my resale week after all.


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## VacationPro (Feb 3, 2011)

startime said:


> It looks like I can enroll my recently purchased NCV gold week.  The closed date is a couple weeks after the date 12/10/10 given above.
> 
> Assume for a minute that Marriott wouldn't reverse the transaction...  Is it worth it to join for a single NCV gold week (2,700 points)?  It sounds like I would need to maintain a separate II account for all my other non-Marriott weeks.  $1,495 isn't that much money, if there is an annual longer term benefit in it for me.  I bought this with the primary intention to stay at NCV and not trade unless necessary.
> 
> I know Marriott will likely reverse the sign-up.  I am wondering if DC would be worth trying, in case they allow these mistaken enrollments to stick.



This is really interesting regarding the date.  I've gone back to my account a few times, and I keep getting the same message.

If I were in your position, unsure, and wouldn't miss the $1,495, I would go ahead and enroll.  We don't know how long the "loophole" will last, so you may not get the chance again.  If you find you don't like the program, or it isn't worth the annual fee going forward, you can always opt out at a later date.


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## iamnotshopgirl (Feb 4, 2011)

hotcoffee said:


> I just think it is so downright bizarre that they have not fixed this problem.  This thread was started back on 1/24/2011.  The Marriott Customer Advocate post implied that they knew about the problem before this thread began.  Yet, here it is 10 days after the thread began and it sounds like they have yet to take any action.  So, they are just going to continue to allow as many people enroll ineligible weeks as the system allows in and then kick them all out later after issuing confirmations?  If so, what a completely irresponsible way to run a business.  Incredible!



OK.....you sound like me so here's the question. Where is the MVCI Customer Advocate and how does he/she explain why the issue has not been resolved after all this time?:hysterical: 

bob


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## hotcoffee (Feb 4, 2011)

iamnotshopgirl said:


> OK.....you sound like me so here's the question. Where is the MVCI Customer Advocate and how does he/she explain why the issue has not been resolved after all this time?:hysterical:
> 
> bob



I don't know, but if they intend to leave the loophole in place and just un-enroll those who slip through it, that shows that their irrational dislike of resales has clouded their judgment to the point that they no longer value their customers as important to their long term success.


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## tschwa2 (Feb 4, 2011)

hotcoffee said:


> I don't know, but if they intend to leave the loophole in place and just un-enroll those who slip through it, that shows that their irrational dislike of resales has clouded their judgment to the point that they no longer value their customers as important to their long term success.



...or even better if the un-enroll the weeks they don't like/need and let the late weeks that they think they want in the program to slip through.  Because you know they reserve the right to enforce their rules with whoever they want to even if they don't enforce them for everone (at least for exchange rules) and if you ask them they will only point to the rule and say that's the rule and if we want to enforce it we will. 

Waiver. No failure of Exchange Company to enforce any provision under these Exchange Procedures, exercise any power given under these Exchange Procedures, or to insist upon strict compliance with any obligation specified in these Exchange Procedures, and no custom or practice at variance with the terms of these Exchange Procedures, shall constitute a waiver of Exchange Company’s right to demand exact compliance with the terms and conditions of these Exchange Procedures.


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## brianfox (Feb 4, 2011)

enma said:


> I just tried to enroll my weeks on the MVCI website - my developer weeks and my resale week that I bought in August -10. They all show to be eligible. I am so tempted to do it. My resale week is in Maui that gives me lots of points and I know I will not be going there every year. But then I am afraid to do it. On the terms that you need to agree to it says that I understandand post 06/20/2010 weeks are not eligible. I am afraid they would just take my money and not enroll my resale week after all.



There is absolutely NO WAY Marriott will refuse your weeks and keep your money.  There would be a class F5 $h!tstorm.  That only leaves 2 choices for them:
1) Allow your weeks to stay in the club
2) Unenroll your weeks and return your money

That Marriott has not closed this already is truly incredible.  Every day they leave this gaping hole, they are exposing their shareholders to negative consequences.  

I think it's going to take forcing their hand to find out if this is a bluff.  That can be easily done by enrolling ineligible weeks, converting them to points, and then immediately spend some of those points on a quick trip.

Once your week has been converted and partially or wholly used, there's no longer any way of monetarily reversing things.  You can't "un-take" a vacation.  What are they going to do?  Unenroll your weeks and take the cost of your trip out of the enrollment refund?  It would be their fault for mistakenly enrolling you in the first place.


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## KathyPet (Feb 4, 2011)

If Marriott knows that this loophole exists (which it would appear they do) and they took no action to prevent illegal weeks from enrolling after discovering the problem (which they haven't) I am telling you that they could encounter serious legal challenges to unenrolling weeks that they allowed to slip through.


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## dioxide45 (Feb 4, 2011)

KathyPet said:


> If Marriott knows that this loophole exists (which it would appear they do) and they took no action to prevent illegal weeks from enrolling after discovering the problem (which they haven't) I am telling you that they could encounter serious legal challenges to unenrolling weeks that they allowed to slip through.



I agree. At first I was warning people not to enroll post 6/20 weeks; however, now I say enroll away.


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## hotcoffee (Feb 4, 2011)

Marriott has already taken a beating in the public relations department by the shakey rollout of the DC program.  This "bug" in their system actually gives them an opportunity to exercise some good will toward their customers.  If they are truly attempting to fix this issue (and one has to wonder about this since they seem to have made no effort to stop the ineligible enrollments), the logical thing for them to do is to extent the resale enrollment deadline for everyone until after they finally have the problem completely fixed.  

I hope the customer advocate is still keeping up with this thread.  I also hope that Marriott would consider extending the resale enrollment deadline until June 2011.  (Actually, I think it would be in the best interest of both the DC program and Marriott's customers for Marriott to come up with a way to not have a deadline at all.)  By June 2011, if their IT contractor has not fixed the problem, they need to find another IT contractor.


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## mjm1 (Feb 4, 2011)

Has anyone who enrolled a post June 20 week received an email confirming that their enrollment has been accepted?  I understand you should receive an email within a couple of days of enrolling, and you simply respond to the email to complete your enrollment.


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## KathyPet (Feb 4, 2011)

The procedure differs depending upon how you enroll.  If you enroll over the phone then you do receive a E Mail that your must "accept" and send back to ZMarriott.  If you enroll on line as I did then you have clicked the button accepting the terms as part of the on line enrollment and there is no further action required.  I enrolled on line 1/25.  I received a E Mail a few days later saying my Plus points were credited.  I spoke to a Marriott customer service rep and was told that my enrollment was complete.  I do now that I would be able to trade my resale week for Marriott Reward Points right now if I want to.


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## enma (Feb 9, 2011)

I was going to try to enroll my post 06/20/10 resale week into the DC program along with my developer weeks. All the weeks showed to be eligible as of Monday like they have the past few weeks. Today when I looked my MVCI account the resale week was now listed ineligible! So disappointed! Looks like Marriott has fixed the loophole.


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## DCBoy (Feb 9, 2011)

Just checked my account as well and you can tell that Marriott has made several changes to their website. I also no longer have the option of enrolling my post 6/20/10 week in DC even if I wanted to.


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## hotcoffee (Feb 9, 2011)

My opinion of Marriott has gone down somewhat because of this issue (it was not particularly high to start with).  A better response on their part after having taken so much time to fix the bug would have been to extend the grace period for resales for a reasonable period of time (e.g., one year, or perhaps until March 1, 2011).  Doing that would have shown a lot of good will toward their customers, and it would have probably captured some more good inventory into the DC program.  But, Marriott's position is to play a little hardball.  And why not, they have a captive customer base.  Resale prices are way down.  Very few of us will even attempt to sell our timeshares.  So, they can do pretty much whatever they want, and the only thing their customers can do is complain on forums like this.  As long as they don't break the law, there is no particular reason why they should not play continue to play hardball.


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## VacationPro (Feb 9, 2011)

hotcoffee said:


> My opinion of Marriott has gone down somewhat because of this issue (it was not particularly high to start with).  A better response on their part after having taken so much time to fix the bug would have been to extend the grace period for resales for a reasonable period of time (e.g., one year, or perhaps until March 1, 2011).  Doing that would have shown a lot of good will toward their customers, and it would have probably captured some more good inventory into the DC program.  But, Marriott's position is to play a little hardball.  And why not, they have a captive customer base.  Resale prices are way down.  Very few of us will even attempt to sell our timeshares.  So, they can do pretty much whatever they want, and the only thing their customers can do is complain on forums like this.  As long as they don't break the law, there is no particular reason why they should not play continue to play hardball.



I agree.  Marriott missed an opportunity to demonstrate some good will toward the customer base with this and chose not to.   This could have been a win/win (Marriott gets more weeks in the program and maybe incremental dollars, owners get the enrolled weeks).

Disappointing, but not surprising.


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## larryallen (Feb 9, 2011)

hotcoffee said:


> My opinion of Marriott has gone down somewhat because of this issue (it was not particularly high to start with).  A better response on their part after having taken so much time to fix the bug would have been to extend the grace period for resales for a reasonable period of time (e.g., one year, or perhaps until March 1, 2011).  Doing that would have shown a lot of good will toward their customers, and it would have probably captured some more good inventory into the DC program.  But, Marriott's position is to play a little hardball.  And why not, they have a captive customer base.  Resale prices are way down.  Very few of us will even attempt to sell our timeshares.  So, they can do pretty much whatever they want, and the only thing their customers can do is complain on forums like this.  As long as they don't break the law, there is no particular reason why they should not play continue to play hardball.




I don't see that they have played hardball. If they tried to unwind transactions made during the bug then that would he hardball. Just fixing the bug doesn't seem to be very hardball-esque to me. It's a minor issue affection very few people and, of course, everybody knew about the June 20th deadline. I just don't see this as a big deal.


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## DeniseM (Feb 9, 2011)

iamnotshopgirl said:


> OK.....you sound like me so here's the question. Where is the MVCI Customer Advocate and how does he/she explain why the issue has not been resolved after all this time?:hysterical:
> 
> bob



This user has not been back to TUG since posting.


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## hotcoffee (Feb 9, 2011)

larryallen said:


> I don't see that they have played hardball. If they tried to unwind transactions made during the bug then that would he hardball. Just fixing the bug doesn't seem to be very hardball-esque to me. It's a minor issue affection very few people and, of course, everybody knew about the June 20th deadline. I just don't see this as a big deal.



I agree that if they do not un-enroll anyone then you could say they are not playing hardball.  However, the Customer Advocate has clearly stated that they *will un-enroll *anyone who enrolls an inelibible week.  That would be playing hardball.

Additionally, in spite of whether a person knows the rules or not, if the rule enforcer fails to enforce the rules, then the person taking advantage of the broken rules should not be held accountable.  If you know that the price of a product should be a certain amount based upon your own research, and you happen to see the product priced unusually cheap in a particular store, and you buy the product at the sticker price at that store, were you the guilty party in the transaction?  If the store calls you and requests you to return the product because they sold it too cheaply, is that appropriate on their part?  Nearly every store making such a mistake will correct the mistake for future purchasers, but will not attempt to recover money from those who already have purchased the product at the wrong price.  However, if Marriott follows through with their threat, they can do so because they technically still possess the product (unlike the consumer who takes it home with him).  Having the product in one's possession and a valid receipt for its purchase is powerful.  Marriott's customers in this instance have a confirmation, but Marriott still technically possesses the product (i.e., the week).  So the purchaser (i.e., the person who paid the money to have it enrolled and received the confirmation) is at a disadvantage.

Also, Marriott has played hardball against resales for a long time.  Okay, so they have the right to provide benefits to retail purchasers.  Not a problem.  But, with the DC program they are potentially damaging the value of any week purchased resale.  This is a deliberate attempt to squash resales to the extent that they can.  This is also playing hardball.  They made their inflated money once on the original purchase of the week.  Now, they do not want the competition caused by a completely reasonable decision of an owner to sell his week.  So, they make a rule with the purpose of damaging our ability to sell our timeshares.  I suggest that this is an example of playing hardball.


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## Latravel (Feb 9, 2011)

hotcoffee said:


> Additionally, in spite of whether a person knows the rules or not, if the rule enforcer fails to enforce the rules, then the person taking advantage of the broken rules should not be held accountable...



What???!!!??? 

It's one thing to find a loophole in the system and gratefully use it to our advantage but it's an entirely different thing to feel entitled to it and upset if Marriott enforces the rule.  If it works for you, great, but don't be surprised if it's taken away.  It was never yours in the first place!


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## hotcoffee (Feb 9, 2011)

Latravel said:


> What???!!!???
> 
> It's one thing to find a loophole in the system and gratefully use it to our advantage but it's an entirely different thing to feel entitled to it and upset if Marriott enforces the rule.  If it works for you, great, but don't be surprised if it's taken away.  It was never yours in the first place!



I assume you just forgot that Marriott reps have actually told people over the phone that there week(s) are eligible.  Remember also that this loophole was left in place by Marriott apparently for several weeks even though it was known, and they was sending out enrollment confirmations during that time.

I also will repeat my analogy.  You walk into a store that has a big sign announcing the sale price of an item.  You walk back to look at the item and the sticker price is a lot lower on some of the items in the display than the sign at the front of the store.  So, you probably don't buy the mismarked items because the store obviously made a mistake.  But, I probably do take one of the cheaper ones up to the cashier to see what price it scans for.  If it scans at the price on the sticker, I don't feel the least bit guilty.  I did nothing wrong.  It was the store's mistake.


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## JanT (Feb 11, 2011)

I am interested to know if Marriott has un-enrolled any post 6/20 weeks that were enrolled.  Up until yesterday my post 6/20 week showed as eligible but the loophole has been fixed.  I'm still surprised that it took so long.  It's obvious that their IT people did not do their job correctly but now have fixed the problem.  It will be very interesting to see if they un-enroll weeks and I believe they will.  If people enrolled those weeks and used DC points to make trades already, I think Marriott will let those trades stand but the week will be un-enrolled for future use in the weeks program.  I could be wrong though.  

For those of you who enrolled your post 6/20 weeks please let us know what happens!!


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## BarbS (Feb 11, 2011)

My ineligible week has not been unenrolled yet.  It will surprise me if they actually do unenroll it.


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## JanT (Feb 11, 2011)

Barb,

I don't see how they can not un-enroll those weeks without a major problem on their hands.  Even if they say, "Oops this was our error."  I have to think they are either going to un-enroll those weeks or choose another date beyond 6/20/2010 to be the "cut off" date.  

Regardless, I hope everything works out for you!



BarbS said:


> My ineligible week has not been unenrolled yet.  It will surprise me if they actually do unenroll it.


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## BarbS (Feb 11, 2011)

JanT said:


> Barb,
> 
> I don't see how they can not un-enroll those weeks without a major problem on their hands.  Even if they say, "Oops this was our error."  I have to think they are either going to un-enroll those weeks or choose another date beyond 6/20/2010 to be the "cut off" date.
> 
> Regardless, I hope everything works out for you!



Thank you.  I'm just patiently waiting to see what happens.  I won't be upset if they unenroll it but I hope they don't.


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## OutAndAbout (Feb 12, 2011)

billymach4 said:


> The fact that you squeaked in is great, and I applaud you for that. However don't be surprised if Marriott does an audit and them removes your week from the DC system.



I don't think every DC owner is aware of all of the rules.

Marriott Customer service has their issues, but even if this was "mistakenly" added, I would be surprised they'd remove the week after it's already been added.

..besides Marriott wants more weeks in DC, who's to say they didn't intentionally allowing the "loophole" until it became "public"?


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## KathyPet (Feb 13, 2011)

As of today my ineligible week is still enrolled.  However I really do not expect to hear from Marriott in the near future if in fact they decide to unenroll me.  I would not be surprised if it takes them up to 6 months to figure out who enrolled ineligible weeks.  If i do hear from them I will post here and after 6 months I will post a update and let everyone know if they have contacted me.


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## golf4hrs (Feb 17, 2011)

*Marriott plugged the software hole*

I think Marriott plugged the software hole.  After I click on "Start Enrolling Now", there is now a large flag which states "Ineligible Inventories" - At least one property is ineligible and cannot be converted to points.....View the List.  My unit is specifically on this list.

I have an externally purchased week after 6/20/2010 and already decided the ROI did not make sense for me.  However, I was considering purchasing more resale and the ROI would have made more sense for points.  Oh well, the decision has been made for me and will be happy as a weeks owner.

I hope those who have slipped in via the software hole will not be unenrolled by MVCI or whatever the new company name will be.


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## BarbS (Feb 17, 2011)

For those of us who slipped in through the loophole and enrolled our ineligible weeks......I wonder how long we should wait before we try to actually use these weeks.  I think I might want to trade my week for DC points.


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## saturn28 (Feb 17, 2011)

BarbS said:


> For those of us who slipped in through the loophole and enrolled our ineligible weeks......I wonder how long we should wait before we try to actually use these weeks.  I think I might want to trade my week for DC points.




I wouldn't use any weeks that were enrolled and are not eligible. Personally, I can tell you that I had a week that showed up on the Marriott Vacation Club website as eligible in January and now it has been change to ineligible. In addition, I just had a new resale week that I purchased put into my account, and it shows up as ineligible. So, I think they have closed the loop hole for new resale week that are being added to people's Marriott accounts and reversing weeks that they find that were listed as eligible but were not. They may start unenrolling weeks at any time.


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## BarbS (Feb 17, 2011)

Hmmm, mine is still showing as enrolled as of today.


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## brianfox (Feb 18, 2011)

I was on the phone with Marriott yesterday (either they or II were dragging their feet verifying a Ko Olina week we had purchased four months ago).

Anyhow, the Marriott rep and I were on a 3-way with the II rep and we were both on hold, so I asked her what the response was to the points program.  She said they were getting over 200 people a day calling to enroll their weeks  

She then suggested I would definitely benefit from enrolling my week - you know, the one I purchased just a few months earlier??  I told her it would be great if I could enroll it.  She didn't seem to understand why I couldn't.  I then reminded her of the cutoff date.  Silence.  Then keys clicking on the other end.  Then she remembered and read me the exclusion.

Make no mistake - she was very courteous and helpful - but if they were really getting hundreds of people calling every day, a good percentage of them must have disqualifying weeks.  This couldn't have been her first exposure to the cutoff date.

By the way, thanks to Marriott for being proactive enough to get II on the phone when I called to complain about the slow verification.  Even though II ended the call telling me that the verification process had been restarted and could take a few weeks, I saw my MKO week in II the very next day.  It was clearly II that dropped the ball when I first tried to verify it in December.


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## BarbS (Feb 18, 2011)

That's interesting.  If you hadn't informed her about the cutoff date for enrolling resales, it sounds like you could have enrolled your week if you had wanted to.  I have a feeling that way more people have enrolled their ineligible weeks than we think.


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## BarbS (Feb 21, 2011)

The person selling these two Marriott Kauai Beach Club weeks must know something we don't know.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Marriott-Kauai-...Timeshares&hash=item2c5af6a68c#ht_4122wt_1139

We are offering our Marriott Kauai Beach Club ownership for bidding. The membership is Platinum, which means you can stay any week you choose throughout the year. The two bedroom ocean view apartment can be locked out to allow for a full months stay at the same cost as 2 weeks. Owning 2 weeks allows you to choose your annual selection a full month before everyone else, guaranteeing your choice of weeks selection, including the coveted Holiday and New Years seasons.* Also, Marriott is now offering a buy in to allow you to be a Marriott 1st party buyer and transfer your weeks into Marriott Reward points or Destinations Program points, which allows you to stay at any of Marriott's multiple destinations throughout the world. This allows you to bypass the costs of Interval International, but automatically enrolls you in that program if you choose to go outside of Marriott- for no extra charge.* The Beach Club boasts the largest pool in Hawaii at 26,000 square feet and the timeshare is Ocean  Front/View. This is a high demand destination, allowing easy exchange for timeshare/resort/cruise travel, not only within Marriott but at hundreds of other resorts, throughout the world. You will get the advantage of Marriott service and luxury with option of great flexibility to explore the world.


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## VacationPro (Jul 5, 2011)

Since it has been several months since this "news" broke, I was wondering if anyone who had enrolled weeks that were purchased post 6/20/2010 has be "de-enrolled" from the destination club?


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## KathyPet (Jul 5, 2011)

I was one of those who slipped under the wire during the "computer glitch"  I have never heard a word.  I have already traded one of my 2012 weeks for DC points and made a reservation with those points.

The only thing of interest that occurred is that for some unknown reason when my new II account # was set up my newly acquired resale week was not listed as one of my units in II.  When I called Marriott to inquire about it I was told that it was a error on their part and they would get it corrected.  The Rep I spoke to made some sort of a passing remark about how my new resale week was not eligible for the DC program so Marriott must have made some sort of a "special exception for my resale week".   I didn't really respond to this comment.  Anyway she called a few days later to tell me the problem has been corrected and all of my weeks are now shown on my new account # and I just checked and all is correct.


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## hotcoffee (Jul 5, 2011)

KathyPet said:


> I was one of those who slipped under the wire during the "computer glitch"  I have never heard a word.  I have already traded one of my 2012 weeks for DC points and made a reservation with those points. . . .



Perhaps some of our squawking here on TUG made a difference.  It was their mistake, and they had to pay the price, not you.


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## KathyPet (Jul 5, 2011)

Don't know if that is what did it but I think that trying to "unenroll" those of us who got in due to their error probably would have been a PR nightmare so they just decided to let it slide.  Anyway I owe Clemson Fan a big Thank YOu for bringing the entire matter up.  Of all the benefits that I have earned from being a TUG member being able to act on his post was by far the best!


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## dioxide45 (Jul 5, 2011)

I am not sure it is not a lack of desire on Marriott's part to enroll those weeks. If they could they probably would, and cancel any reservations. The problem is more likely that they don't know how or can't find the ones that were enrolled in error. Plus the fact that for some reason they can't undo deposits in to the exchange company, even if the mistake was theirs.


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