# When are Marriott Owners trading for Vacation Club Points?



## ladyjadegd (Jul 31, 2011)

So, I decided what vacation I was looking for and thought I'd trade next year's weeks for for Marriott Vacation Club Points and discovered that if others have not yet decided that they want to trade their weeks for points, I gotta wait until September.  SO, my question is how is this working for others?  This is my first time trying the points and I realize that some people may not decide to trade their week for points until the last minute.  I'm curious if my fellow TUG members are making plans ahead of time or waiting until September to make this decision?  I want to stay at the Imperial Palms in Orlando, so I'm waiting, waiting, waiting....  hoping someone in that property decides to trade their week for points.  It' s my first time trying this, so how has this been working out for others?  Is anyone else sitting in the Hope someone  trades for points queue? I'm flexible and can choose another property if I need to, but I'm going to hold out until at least the September deadline for the one I want.  Has anyone NOT gotten what they wanted?  I'm feeling nervous.  THANKS!


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## GregT (Jul 31, 2011)

ladyjadegd said:


> So, I decided what vacation I was looking for and thought I'd trade next year's weeks for for Marriott Vacation Club Points and discovered that if others have not yet decided that they want to trade their weeks for points, I gotta wait until September.  SO, my question is how is this working for others?  This is my first time trying the points and I realize that some people may not decide to trade their week for points until the last minute.  I'm curious if my fellow TUG members are making plans ahead of time or waiting until September to make this decision?  I want to stay at the Imperial Palms in Orlando, so I'm waiting, waiting, waiting....  hoping someone in that property decides to trade their week for points.  It' s my first time trying this, so how has this been working out for others?  Is anyone else sitting in the Hope someone  trades for points queue? I'm flexible and can choose another property if I need to, but I'm going to hold out until at least the September deadline for the one I want.  Has anyone NOT gotten what they wanted?  I'm feeling nervous.  THANKS!



Good morning,

I'm pretty confident that moderators will move this to the Marriott forum, and you'll get more complete responses.

I believe you may be mixing the September deadline with week availability -- if you are sure that you want to use points for your vacation, then you need to redeem your week before September 30 (prior to its use year).  So your 2012 points need to be available to you before September 30, 2011.

Since you want to travel in 2012, I'd redeem right away and place a Waitlist Request for your desired travel.   Marriott will be sourcing the inventory needed for your request all the time, and not just waiting until September to begin matching trades.

They're getting the needed inventory from other owners that redeem for points, from weeks traded for MRPs, and from weeks deposited into Interval International by non-enrolled Marriott owners.   They've got a variety of sources from which they accumulate the weeks needed, and they will match them against the Waitlist Request as soon as available.

The September 30 deadline doesn't represent when people redeem for points (they redeem earlier), because an owner that wants to travel in January 2012 needs to redeem for points in January 2011 so they can request their reservation 12 months out.

Good luck, I hope this is helpful!

Best,

Greg


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## ladyjadegd (Aug 1, 2011)

GregT said:


> Good morning,
> 
> Since you want to travel in 2012, I'd redeem right away and place a Waitlist Request for your desired travel.   Marriott will be sourcing the inventory needed for your request all the time, and not just waiting until September to begin matching trades.



That is exactly what I did, but when I discussed the waitlist with the Marriott rep, the person I spoke to said that a lot of people haven't decided to opt for the points and that they expect a lot of the points weeks to become available in September as the deadline approaches.  I had thought, as you said, that people would need to make that decision sooner than September, but while I am waitlisted, there is no availability yet at the location I want.  Luckily there are plenty of others "just in case", but the whole process makes me nervous.  I prefer instant gratification and waitlisting makes me worry that I might not get my dates/location.  Clearly, this process is NOT "much easier than trading through II" as was being advertised.  

I was just wondering if others have had experience being waitlisted and how often they got what they were asking for.


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## pfrank4127 (Aug 1, 2011)

I'm currently wait listing also!

The two big dates I was told are Sept 30th (this is the latest date people can exchange their week for DC points) and Dec 31st (this is the latest date people can exchange their week for Marriott Reward points).  The rep I was dealing with said Marriott gets a lot of inventory from these two sources.


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## Weimaraner (Aug 1, 2011)

I inquired about wait list and the rep said the big deadline is Sept 30th and they are hoping it will open up more availability.


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## erm (Aug 2, 2011)

I did not join DC but I do have MR points available.  I was planning to get a 5 night travel package and try to get into MM1 using the travel certificate.  Can I waitlist using the cat 6 certificate?


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## dougp26364 (Aug 2, 2011)

It's going to be interesting to see if they get the responce of weeks owners trading in their weeks for points or, if weeks owners are going to opt to keep their weeks, using the one fee for all services to economize their ownership like we're doing. 

As the DC stands now I'm not interested in giving up my weeks for points. I don't feel that there's enough value in the points option. I can see where I'll get greater value just trading weeks like we've always done. 

To me, it's scary that Marriott might be counting on a large number of owners to deposit their weeks for DC points in order to confirm exchanges. IMO, that's no better than what owners had prior to the DC. The only difference is being able to book more/less nights rather than one week at a time. If they're counting on the flexiblity of booking individual nights to be the strong selling point for existing owners, they may have miscalculated the programs impact.


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## GregT (Aug 2, 2011)

dougp26364 said:


> *It's going to be interesting to see if they get the responce of weeks owners trading in their weeks for points *or, if weeks owners are going to opt to keep their weeks, using the one fee for all services to economize their ownership like we're doing.
> 
> To me, *it's scary that Marriott might be counting on a large number of owners to deposit their weeks for DC points in order to confirm exchanges*. IMO, that's no better than what owners had prior to the DC. The only difference is being able to book more/less nights rather than one week at a time. If they're counting on the flexiblity of booking individual nights to be the strong selling point for existing owners, they may have miscalculated the programs impact.



I agree with these comments -- I hadn't realized there might be a (large?) group of Waitlisted owners that are waiting until September 30 and hoping that their desired reservation will become available.   I'm not convinced that (the other party with the week needed) is truly waiting until September 30 to redeem their week because they are missing 2012 reservation opportunities over the last 7 months.

Points still have disincentives (skim, bizarre points chart) that do not make their widespread usage a certainty -- Marriott did not make it easy for us to _want_ to use points.

I hope these waitlisted owners get their matches -- please post back with your results...

Best,

Greg


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## RBERR1 (Aug 2, 2011)

I am not surprised that people are waiting for Sept 30 to decide what they are going to do.    I know that I booked all of my 2012 weeks at my home resort and then depending on whether some of all of my II pending trades go (I should know by mid-Sept) , I will either deposit into II, use my home week or convert to points.

The one thing I find interesting is now I am thinking about 2 years out about what where I want to go vs. 1 year because of the converting to points and banking.


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## abdibile (Aug 6, 2011)

I just canceled my 2011 reservation at home resort 35 days before checkin and they let me transfer the 2011 ownership into 2011 MVD Points.

THe September deadline means that I should only have been able to transfer into Points unitl September 2010, correct?

Was this different for this year or what am I getting wrong?


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## GregT (Aug 6, 2011)

abdibile said:


> I just canceled my 2011 reservation at home resort 35 days before checkin and they let me transfer the 2011 ownership into 2011 MVD Points.
> 
> THe September deadline means that I should only have been able to transfer into Points unitl September 2010, correct?
> 
> Was this different for this year or what am I getting wrong?



That's correct, I don't believe you should have been able to elect 2011 points at this point in time.  The customary deadline for electing points is September 30, prior the Usage Year begins -- and I believe they allowed up until 12/31/10 last year because it was the introductory year.

With only 5 months to go in 2011 and the inability to bank points into 2012, I'm not sure how much of a favor they really did here?

Good luck!

Greg


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## dioxide45 (Aug 6, 2011)

abdibile said:


> I just canceled my 2011 reservation at home resort 35 days before checkin and they let me transfer the 2011 ownership into 2011 MVD Points.
> 
> THe September deadline means that I should only have been able to transfer into Points unitl September 2010, correct?
> 
> Was this different for this year or what am I getting wrong?



Make sure they didn't just cancel your 2011 reservation and then elect points for 2012 on you. With the inability to verify anything online with DC, it is hard to trust the VOAs are doing everything correctly and what you ask for.

Some people have had future years elected and borrowed when they really didn't want to and Marriott was unwilling to fix their own mistake.


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## SueDonJ (Aug 6, 2011)

The deadline to convert Weeks to Points is Sept 30th of the year preceding usage, meaning 2011 Weeks should have had a 9/30/10 deadline to convert.  However, with the rollout last year being mid-year and enrollments ongoing, they were allowing 2010 Weeks to be converted right up to 30 days prior to the reservation date.  Is it possible that you enrolled this year and they're allowing that first-year leniency for you?  Or that they're allowing the leniency on a widespread basis while enrollments are ongoing?  Hmmmm.


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## wvacations (Aug 6, 2011)

I joined the DC in January and they allowed me to convert my existing 2011 reservation into 2011 DC points. The only restriction for 2011 week was that it was not within 30 days of check in. I had a request first in with II for a 2BR unit at Ko Olina using a DSV I White week. They rep was able to cancel the request first and put the points in my account. I then converted the same DSV I 2012 week to point and with my 800 bonus points got my 2 BR OV Ko Olina week on the exact day I wanted to check in in October 2011. I was not happy about giving them 2 weeks for 1, but really needed that check in date.

Here is the kicker, about 3  months (June) later in my daily search of II, I found a Ko Olina 2BR with instant exchange on II using a Shadow Ridge Lock Off for the exact same check in date. I grabed it and called the DC. I cancelled the points reservation, banked the 2011 points, and used the 2012 points to book a 3BR Ocean View at Kauai Kagoons using the 55% discount they advertised in a Insider Email. So now we are going to Kauai the week before our Ko Olina week. The exchange even shows it as Ocean View.

I'm not convinced that points are the way to go. It stills seems II will have the units, just not as early as in the past. If you have MRD points, seems like it would be better to book using those, then keep checking II. When/If you get the exchange, you cnacel the reward points reservation adn get your points bcak. At least this will let you grab your airline tickets and and least for me, book my time off from work. 

The 2011 points I banked for 2012 now have to be used for 2012. I cannot bank again and I cannot rent them either. In hind sight I wish that I had not convert those 2 years for an October Hawaii trip. Maybe a summer week, but not October!


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## GregT (Aug 7, 2011)

wvacations said:


> Here is the kicker,* about 3  months (June) later in my daily search of II, I found a Ko Olina 2BR with instant exchange on II using a Shadow Ridge Lock Off for the exact same check in date. I grabed it and called the DC. I cancelled the points reservation, banked the 2011 points, and used the 2012 points to book a 3BR Ocean* View at Kauai Kagoons using the 55% discount they advertised in a Insider Email. So now we are going to Kauai the week before our Ko Olina week. The exchange even shows it as Ocean View.



This is an outstanding example of stretching points -- my compliments to you.  A recap of what I think I saw here:

1.  Book the reservation you want using points 
2.  Start an II search/do online searching for identical reservation
3.  If/when II trade matches, cancel points reservation to restore DClub points
4.  Bank DClub points into following year for future reservation (or rent them for cash, or make another ressie)

The relevant dates to watch here are that the DClub reservation needs to be canceled more than 60 days before check-in, and the cancelation needs to happen prior to June 30, if you want to bank the points into the next year.

I was fortunate to do something similar with HGVC for my 2012 trip -- I planned to use my HGVC 2012 points to go to Big Island, but then HGVC did a bulk deposit into RCI and I was able to trade my Worldmark into the desired HGVC on Big Island.  This stretched my HGVC points (since those can also be banked) allowing for a bigger HGVC trip in 2013.  

Enjoy your vacation and thanks of sharing the real world example!

Best,

Greg


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## bogey21 (Aug 7, 2011)

Life should not be so complicated.  It is the reason all my TimeShares are Fixed Units/Fixed Weeks.  It is one of the reasons my last Marriott to go when I was extracating myself from Marriott was Monarch where I owned a Fixed Unit/Fixed Week.

George


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## kjd (Aug 8, 2011)

Converting to points IMO is a decision about how you're going to use them.  I believe that usually, (unless there is a question of availability) converting a week to points and then booking a week is a losing proposition because of the skim.  I don't know why anyone would want to pay extra or shorten their vacation just to have points.

I just put one of my units into points (MGV Gold) to have a cushion for extending a week or more importantly to reserve less than a week in shoulder or off season resorts. It's my opinion that is a good way to use points.  Those off season days are usually cheap and are better suited for combining with a trade or for simply staying a few days in an area.  Recently, I used points for two nights at MBP in order to go to the Lionel Ritchie concert.
So far my experience is using these points something like MRP's.  Unlike MRP's however, they have a deadline for their use.


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