# *** NEW *** :  Starwood is starting a new points program



## DeniseM (Jan 29, 2015)

I pulled this quote out of another thread - looks like this is similar to the new phase at WSJ:  





mirish said:


> I just attend an update at vistana last week.  We did not get the "hard sell" -thankfully. We did learn of the new way they are selling SVV SVR SDO SBP and Sheraton Jensen Beach.
> 
> They are now selling them as a trust and you will buy into that for a staroption amount and will have 12 month priority for all 5 resorts. No more seasons.
> 
> ...


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## mirish (Jan 29, 2015)

I did not get any new charts to take with me, I tried.  I collected all of the charts etc I was shown and was told I couldn't have them as they were her (salespersons) only copies.  We were told that the day we were there was the first day they were selling this new system, they were at meeting until late the night before.  She did not have all the answers we were asking as it was brand new.  Since it was VERY evident we were not gong to buy when she went to ask her manager if she wanted to speak with us, the manager declined.  

I do not know if they will allow us owners to convert and the cost to do so.  Also unclear what will happen with options for those that currently own a season that is less then platinum, since in the new system there will be no low season.  

As I see it there are many unanswered questions, if anyone else does go to the "presentation" maybe they will get more answers


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## mirish (Jan 29, 2015)

sorry Denise did not see new thread until after I commented, but it copy my response to the new thread


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## DeniseM (Jan 29, 2015)

No worries - thank you so much for posting this BRAND NEW info!


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## carpie99 (Jan 29, 2015)

So I am not clear ... is this applicable to current SVV owners?  I guess this would be a benefit if I was looking to go to Myrtle instead.


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## tschwa2 (Jan 29, 2015)

carpie99 said:


> So I am not clear ... is this applicable to current SVV owners?  I guess this would be a benefit if I was looking to go to Myrtle instead.



I doubt it unless you paid to convert or enroll your week into the trust.


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## DeniseM (Jan 29, 2015)

carpie99 said:


> So I am not clear ... is this applicable to current SVV owners?  I guess this would be a benefit if I was looking to go to Myrtle instead.



My guess is that this is just the tip of the iceberg, and that we are going to see this offered at other resorts in the future.  It's similar to Marriott offering DC points to their owners.  They had to pay ($3,xxx ?) if they wanted to convert their week to DC points.

I'm SURE there will be a buy-in…

***If anybody has an "in" with a sales person, see if you can get more info. for us.

It will be really interesting to see if they allow VOLUNTARY owners to buy in...


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## mirish (Jan 29, 2015)

They noted that they were not changing what we have now.  What we have will stay the same unless we are looking to make a change.  Not sure what they are going to do in the future. 
Seems like there would be some issues in changing current owners to the new system as there currently is seasonal differences and that means there are different star option amounts.  This will not exist in the new system a week is a week is a week in the new system. 
 Also unclear as to how they will bill maintenance fees in future.  New system you "own" a week in the trust and maintenance fees are billed dependent on unit size, not on unit size and resort as is the current way. 

Many many questions, few answers.. so far anyway


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## tschwa2 (Jan 29, 2015)

For owners that are already in SVN bumping up your priority to 12 months at these resorts really wouldn't be that much of a draw and certainly not worth any money.  I imagine it will be more like club wyndham access.  They probably have enough inventory to put in the trust now.  Many of these resorts have such broad float periods, it isn't like they have to go chasing after re-acquiring platinum weeks.  I don't think there will be a buy in.  It would just be an opportunity to trade in and buying points in the trust, similar to what you can do now at many resorts trading in and getting something else either at the same resort or somewhere else in SVN.


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## GregT (Jan 29, 2015)

DeniseM said:


> It's similar to Marriott offering DC points to their owners.  They had to pay ($3,xxx ?) if they wanted to convert their week to DC points.



When Marriott rolled out their system, people who had purchased directly from Marriott could pay $595 for the ability to enroll their week, or $695 if they had two or more weeks to enroll.  Resale purchasers had to pay $1,995.

I think only the Resale Purchasers would have an enrollment option, because a direct purchaser already has StarOptions.

This is an interesting deviation from Starwood, and perhaps makes it easier to sell those 5 properties.

I will be curious if similar regional clubs come out (a Hawaii club?  a Caribbean club?)  but not sure if Starwood has the same issues Marriott had.   The StarOptions feature was a core function that Marriott lacked, and Marriott needed to do something fairly radical to change its system.

Will be interesting to follow -- thank you for posting this.

Best,

Greg


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## DeniseM (Jan 29, 2015)

tschwa2 said:


> I don't think there will be a buy in.



Really?  We all know that Starwood doesn't have much of interest to sell these days, so like many other resort systems, they have re-invented themselves, so they have something else to sell.  

If they allow current owners to "convert" PLUS they sell new pkgs. to new owners, that gives them the opportunity to make even  more money - we'll see!


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## tschwa2 (Jan 29, 2015)

I think it will be a trade in, not a conversion.  I don't think they would be looking for $600-$2000 in a conversion.  They will be looking for $10,000+ or so in a new sale which may include taking back what you have and selling you something in the trust and then later converting what they bought and depositing in the trust.


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## PamMo (Jan 29, 2015)

mirish said:


> ...I did not get any new charts to take with me, I tried.  I collected all of the charts etc I was shown and was told I couldn't have them as they were her (salespersons) only copies...



If anyone else goes to a sales presentation, a tip to keep this information to examine more fully (if they don't have copies to share), is to take photos of the pages with your cellphone. There is almost always a time when you're left alone with the paperwork, while the sales person goes to retrieve their manager to talk with you.

I did this at a resort we owned, which was not very transparent about our conversion to a completely different system in their new phase (they tore down our old units). Having information when we got home helped us better understand what they wanted us to do - and we could decide what was best for us.


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## PamMo (Jan 29, 2015)

mirish said:


> They noted that they were not changing what we have now.  What we have will stay the same unless we are looking to make a change.



That's exactly how Marriott handled owners when they introduced the DC points system. My deeded Marriott weeks that I did not enroll work exactly the same as before.



mirish said:


> Seems like there would be some issues in changing current owners to the new system as there currently is seasonal differences and that means there are different star option amounts.  This will not exist in the new system a week is a week is a week in the new system.



Interesting...if you treat EVERY week as a red week, you can charge more for the points. But, there will be a lot more competition to book those prime holiday weeks. Marriott's points allotments/requirements which vary by resort, size, view, and season, make more sense (from an owner standpoint).



mirish said:


> Also unclear as to how they will bill maintenance fees in future.  New system you "own" a week in the trust and maintenance fees are billed dependent on unit size, not on unit size and resort as is the current way.



Currently all units the same size at the same resort have the same MF's - no matter what season you own. Since theoretically you could book at the most expensive resort in the trust, perhaps everyone will be asked to pay those MF's, plus a little extra for the trust, plus the SVN fees... Starwood will have to figure out SOME way to make money off this new program!


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## DeniseM (Jan 29, 2015)

PamMo said:


> If anyone else goes to a sales presentation, a tip to keep this information to examine more fully (if they don't have copies to share), is to take photos of the pages with your cellphone. There is almost always a time when you're left alone with the paperwork, while the sales person goes to retrieve their manager to talk with you.



Great tip - and it doesn't have to be SVR - chances are that they are selling the same thing at all of these resorts:  SVV SVR SDO SBP and Sheraton Jensen Beach.


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## alexadeparis (Jan 29, 2015)

Maybe this is why they recently realigned the staroptions for Vistana?


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## gregb (Jan 29, 2015)

In a trust arrangement, I think you can expect the MF fees to be the average of the MFs for the included resorts.  So if you come from a low MF resort, your MFs would go up, because of the inclusion of the high MF resorts.  But if you are in a high MF resort, your MF should go down.

One way to address the differences in MFs across resorts is to do what I think they are doing, regionalize the trusts. That is a trust for the Florida properties, where the MFs are generally low, and a different trust for the Hawaii properties, where the MFs are high.

That's my two cents.

Greg


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## sjsharkie (Jan 29, 2015)

For the 5 resorts (assuming those were the only ones included), I'm not too worried of any impacts.  Those are lesser demand resorts in the portfolio anyway.  I do wonder if this will be extended to other resorts -- maybe this is to test the waters to some extent.

The challenge for Starwood is that they do not have ROFR with the exception of a few resorts.  This will present larger challenges to them should they extend to other properties.

I don't think the every week is the same approach will work too well.  With those properties, they will end up with the same leftovers that they usually do but maybe the trust will buy the underlying deeds accordingly.

-ryan


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## cubigbird (Jan 29, 2015)

I wonder how this could/will change for voluntary weeks that could be retro'd.  I now have a fixed SVR week that I'd like to retro eventually but no way would I give it up, or spend $$ for just a pure points week like Marriotts DC.


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## DeniseM (Jan 29, 2015)

cubigbird said:


> I wonder how this could/will change for voluntary weeks that could be retro'd.  I now have a fixed SVR week that I'd like to retro eventually but no way would I give it up, or spend $$ for just a pure points week like Marriotts DC.



What advantage would it be to Starwood if you don't pay them anything.


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## sjsharkie (Jan 29, 2015)

DeniseM said:


> What advantage would it be to Starwood if you don't pay them anything.



...and can they be paid in Strawberry Greek yogurt? 

Seriously though, they may take your fixed week 52 if you offer it for points.  But I think those deals would be far and few between.

-ryan


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## DeniseM (Jan 29, 2015)

alexadeparis said:


> Maybe this is why they recently realigned the staroptions for Vistana?



No doubt...


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## cubigbird (Jan 29, 2015)

sjsharkie said:


> ...and can they be paid in Strawberry Greek yogurt?
> 
> Seriously though, they may take your fixed week 52 if you offer it for points.  But I think those deals would be far and few between.
> 
> -ryan



I would never trade in a fixed week right for just their pure points idea to be essentially never guaranteed availability.  I would however retro my existing fixed week into SVN.  That I would be willing to negotiate.


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## DeniseM (Jan 29, 2015)

cubigbird said:


> I would never trade in a fixed week right for just their pure points idea to be essentially never guaranteed availability.  I would however retro my existing fixed week into SVN.  That I would be willing to negotiate.



Starwood will spin this new program, so the great unwashed masses will think this is the best offer ever.  They will make (uninformed non-TUG) owners believe that they will have a hard time making a home resort reservation, if they don't convert.  They will make up a bunch of minor perks associated with this offer, and make them sound fabulous.  This is the standard ploy for any kind of sales pitch where they are trying to sell points...


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## cubigbird (Jan 29, 2015)

DeniseM said:


> Starwood will spin this new program, so the great unwashed masses will think this is the best offer ever.  They will make (uninformed non-TUG) owners believe that they will have a hard time making a home resort reservation, if they don't convert.  They will make up a bunch of minor perks associated with this offer, and make them sound fabulous.  This is the standard ploy for any kind of sales pitch where they are trying to sell points...



Otherwise know as: "we'd rather not expand and offer new resort inventory.  Instead, we'd rather churn the accounts of existing owners and oversell the existing resorts."

In a sense inventory could be unlimited then // How high can you pile sand??

What good are the points if what you want isn't available??  

Got it!!


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## tschwa2 (Jan 29, 2015)

One spin I could see happening would be the SO's might transfer on resale.  But my guess is it would come with something akin to the Junk fees of $2000+ that Marriott Destination points have.  Once a unit is in the trust I don't see it being able to be moved in and out of the trust and I think the trust will have the SO's built in.

Isn't it fun to theorize.


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## DeniseM (Jan 29, 2015)

cubigbird said:


> What good are the points if what you want isn't available??



Starwood will make a lot of money…

Sales people will make a lot of money…

A lot of owners/newbies will buy something they don't understand, and don't need….

Bright Side:  It may cause the resale value at these resorts to increase - maybe...


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## suzannesimon (Jan 29, 2015)

This is one way for Starwood ( and Marriott) to sell all those unsold off-season weeks as points.  People buy the points and then discover that all they can get is hurricane season.  If they buy a lot of points, then they'll be able to get 2 weeks in hurricane season.


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## Ken555 (Jan 29, 2015)

Which five properties are being included? I see mention several times in this thread of five, but not which five...


Sent from my iPad


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## DeniseM (Jan 29, 2015)

Per the OP:  





> I just attend an update at vistana last week. We did not get the "hard sell" -thankfully. We did learn of the new way they are selling SVV SVR SDO SBP and Sheraton Jensen Beach.


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## pacman777 (Jan 29, 2015)

I think this new trust approach is may be bad news for deeded owners of other mandatory resorts outside of FThe trust as it will be very difficult to exchange into these sheraton properties at 8 months for the peak seasons (eg Summer when school is out). But then again I probably wouldn't do a staroptions exchange for a FL resort just because I can probably rent my home resort for more than what I could book via SPG or rent from red week for any of the resorts currently in the trust.  I would be more worried if SVN took this approach for the better properties such as The Hawaii properties, WLR, WSJ and HRA


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## SMHarman (Jan 29, 2015)

sjsharkie said:


> For the 5 resorts (assuming those were the only ones included), I'm not too worried of any impacts.  Those are lesser demand resorts in the portfolio anyway.  I do wonder if this will be extended to other resorts -- maybe this is to test the waters to some extent.
> 
> The challenge for Starwood is that they do not have ROFR with the exception of a few resorts.  This will present larger challenges to them should they extend to other properties.
> 
> ...


ROFR is not a problem they just hoover them up on eBay at $1 a piece.


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## blondietink (Jan 29, 2015)

My understanding of real estate trusts in fairly limited, but it seems that all owners interested in going into the trust would have to pay for the titles to be transferred into the trust and news deeds would need to be written/signed.  Starwood would be the trustee of the trust and could move property in and out of the trust at will without consent of the owners of the deeds, I think. Therefore, the trustee (Starwood) would be able to refuse people to move deeds in or out of the trust, therefore exercising a type of ROFR for non-mandatory resorts, driving up the resale price on the open market. 

What I see is a money maker to Starwood. They will of course charge a lot more to do this legal work that it should actually cost if you filled out the forms and filed them yourself.  Also, mailing fees could be added in for all of the new documents going back and forth.  Who knows what added fees they will tack on needed to run the trust?


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## VacationForever (Jan 30, 2015)

blondietink said:


> My understanding of real estate trusts in fairly limited, but it seems that all owners interested in going into the trust would have to pay for the titles to be transferred into the trust and news deeds would need to be written/signed.  Starwood would be the trustee of the trust and could move property in and out of the trust at will without consent of the owners of the deeds, I think. Therefore, the trustee (Starwood) would be able to refuse people to move deeds in or out of the trust, therefore exercising a type of ROFR for non-mandatory resorts, driving up the resale price on the open market.
> 
> What I see is a money maker to Starwood. They will of course charge a lot more to do this legal work that it should actually cost if you filled out the forms and filed them yourself.  Also, mailing fees could be added in for all of the new documents going back and forth.  Who knows what added fees they will tack on needed to run the trust?



Starwood trust is like Marriott trust (destination club points).  Buyers of the "trust" do not move deeds in and out, nor buy deeds.  Starwood mainly designate their new program that way.  Starwood holds the deeds of what they "own"/"acquired" and put them into the trust.


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## Ken555 (Jan 30, 2015)

DeniseM said:


> Per the OP:




Thanks


Sent from my iPad


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## pedro47 (Jan 30, 2015)

More money from you/owners to buy into a new program.


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## suzannesimon (Jan 30, 2015)

And if it is anything like Marriott, the Deed owner has priority over the points owner in unit  assignment.  A Points owner is considered an Exchanger, but they are ahead of II Exchangers in pecking order.


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## SueDonJ (Jan 30, 2015)

A few basic things about Marriott's Points system, just in case a comparison might be helpful:

Buyers of Marriott's Destination Club Points do have deeds; they buy deeded interests in the DC Trust (which consists of conveyed Weeks that Marriott had not previously sold or that Marriott has since re-acquired.)  Trust conveyances are ongoing and it's not true that the Trust is comprised of only the least-demand intervals.  Deeded Trust interests are the same as deeded Weeks in that they can be passed to heirs and re-sold.  Annual MF's for deeded interests are determined on a per-interest basis. 

Owners of eligible Marriott Weeks can choose to enroll them in the DC Program but doing so doesn't involve a new purchase or any changes to the Weeks deeds - it's basically an overlay exchange system with some other unique usage options.  (In fact, Marriott hasn't instituted a program whereby Owners can elect to permanently exchange Weeks for Points.)  Once enrolled, Owners can choose to convert a Week to Points on an annual basis.  There's a one-time enrollment fee and various incentives for enrollment.  Weeks Owners whether enrolled or not pay annual MF's based on the individual resorts' operating budgets.  Usage remains the same for un-enrolled Weeks and for enrolled Weeks during the years in which Owners don't choose to convert the Week(s) to Points.

Trust Members (purchasers of Trust Interests/Points) and Exchange Members (Owners of enrolled Weeks) also pay an annual Club Dues fee which covers most transactions in both the Marriott account and an II corporate account.  The annual Points Chart closely resembles DVC's (Disney) program with each stay costing various amounts of Points depending on the resort, dates of stay and the particular unit size/view desired.

In addition to the Trust, at the outset Marriott established the DC Exchange Company which is the mechanism for mingling all available inventory so that Trust and Exchange Members can gain access to it.  With a nod to the caveat that availability is always an issue in any floating timeshare system, Points and Weeks Owners are generally happy with Marriott's new system.  The dire predictions of Trust Members taking all the good stuff and Weeks Owners being left in the dust, or the opposite of Trust Members not being able to access any good stuff, have not played out.

There's a lot more to it, of course, but those are the basics.  It'll be interesting for you Starwood folks at the beginning but hopefully, your new program is rolled out with much more help from Starwood than Marriott gave us.  We got a new home page on our online accounts and links to all the legal documents to get us started.  

Good luck!


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## blondietink (Jan 30, 2015)

So ...... if I elect to keep my SVV as is and not put it in the trust, who gets priority when making a reservation using my Star Options?  The people whose units are in the trust, or my SO's?  Right now we never travel during peak season, but you never know.  I also don't see us staying at any of the resorts being put in the trust other than what we own.


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## DeniseM (Jan 30, 2015)

blondietink said:


> So ...... if I elect to keep my SVV as is and not put it in the trust, who gets priority when making a reservation using my Star Options?  The people whose units are in the trust, or my SO's?  Right now we never travel during peak season, but you never know.  I also don't see us staying at any of the resorts being put in the trust other than what we own.



No one knows - we don't have anything official yet.  This is all SPECULATION.


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## DavidnRobin (Jan 30, 2015)

DeniseM said:


> No one knows - we don't have anything official yet.  This is all SPECULATION.



Never stopped us before...

Buy where you want to go - and the view you want
Think I'll keep mine the same, thanks anyway...


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## sjsharkie (Jan 30, 2015)

SMHarman said:


> ROFR is not a problem they just hoover them up on eBay at $1 a piece.



Uhh, I think you misread my post.  I clearly said this was a problem if they were to extend to other properties.

Good luck hoovering up WKV at $1 piece.  All you will get will be silver weeks at best.

-ryan


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## DeniseM (Jan 30, 2015)

Speculation is very entertaining - just don't want anyone to get the idea that we KNOW WHAT WE ARE TALKING ABOUT!


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## SueDonJ (Jan 30, 2015)

DeniseM said:


> Speculation is very entertaining - just don't want anyone to get the idea that we KNOW WHAT WE ARE TALKING ABOUT!



We had a Speculation thread on the Marriott board that ran almost 3,000 posts before they introduced Points, then dozens of threads immediately after.  You guys have some catching up to do.


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## GregT (Jan 30, 2015)

SueDonJ said:


> We had a Speculation thread on the Marriott board that ran almost 3,000 posts before they introduced Points, then dozens of threads immediately after.  You guys have some catching up to do.



I remember those days....the speculation thread was fun.  The reality thread was not so fun.


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## Sea Six (Jan 30, 2015)

cubigbird said:


> Otherwise know as: "we'd rather not expand and offer new resort inventory.  Instead, we'd rather churn the accounts of existing owners and oversell the existing resorts."
> 
> In a sense inventory could be unlimited then // How high can you pile sand??
> 
> ...



Overselling is my concern as well.  More people with more StarOptions will make it harder to trade into ALL Starwood properties, not just these 5.


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## VacationForever (Jan 30, 2015)

I don't find paying huge dollars worthwhile for the privilege of reserving at 12-month mark at these 5 resorts.  It costs about $48K for $148K SOs.  You can pick up SBP, SDO, SVR and SVV for cheap (don't know much about Jensen Beach) on eBay. Let's just say I don't get...


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## YYJMSP (Jan 30, 2015)

blondietink said:


> So ...... if I elect to keep my SVV as is and not put it in the trust, who gets priority when making a reservation using my Star Options?  The people whose units are in the trust, or my SO's?  Right now we never travel during peak season, but you never know.  I also don't see us staying at any of the resorts being put in the trust other than what we own.



I would assume that effectively there would be two classes of SO's, those against units in the trust, and those against units not in the trust.  You'd be competing against the others in the same class for those units, not across classes.  If they allow cross class bookings with SOs, they'd have to make sure that the same number of SOs are done in both directions to keep the inventory even -- so you can only use your trust SOs to something outside the trust if someone used their non-trust SOs to get to something in the trust...


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## alexadeparis (Jan 30, 2015)

blondietink said:


> So ...... if I elect to keep my SVV as is and not put it in the trust, who gets priority when making a reservation using my Star Options?  The people whose units are in the trust, or my SO's?  Right now we never travel during peak season, but you never know.  I also don't see us staying at any of the resorts being put in the trust other than what we own.




Here's my guess and it is PURE SPECULATION AKA W.A.G. (Wild Ass Guess) based on what happened with Marriott Destination Points and Wyndham Club Access Points. 

There will most likely be two pools of inventory for those trust resorts, 1) from straight-up weeks owners (those with staroptions and those without) that bought before the trust (or those resales) that will never convert 2) trust owners that "upgrade" (and then in the process those former holdings will be resold in trust form). 

When you reserve your straight-up week you will get inventory only from the weeks side, even if you are reserving with your staroptions derived from that week. If you reserve from the trust side, you can only book what's in the trust inventory, with no crossover between the two. Very similar to the way the Wyndham system works, if you have old style points, you only have Advanced Reservation Priority (ARP) at your home resort, but points are good anywhere in open booking within weeks inventory; with the newer Trust points in Wyndham, you get ARP from a whole list, but those different pools of points are not combinable to get ARP or open booking in the trust inventory from the old style points.


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## suzannesimon (Jan 30, 2015)

Does anyone have any idea why they wouldn't adjust the points received for the various seasons?  It seems odd to me that you can get a New Year's week for the same amount of points as an October week.


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## jw0 (Jan 30, 2015)

Given starwood's history I understand why everyone is skeptical
But what if this is a good thing?
I know at my resort (sbp) there still are a lot of delinquent (non-mf-paying) owners.  If this program is more appealing than single-timeshare ownership, and results in more happy, dues-paying owners, I'm all for it.
I know, that's a big if.
-J


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## DeniseM (Jan 30, 2015)

It may be a good thing if:

-It sells off the foreclosed/non-paying inventory and stabilizes MF's.
-It doesn't interfere with the usage of current owners.

I own two of these resorts, so I'm interested to see how it turns out.


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## blondietink (Jan 30, 2015)

SueDonJ said:


> We had a Speculation thread on the Marriott board that ran almost 3,000 posts before they introduced Points, then dozens of threads immediately after.  You guys have some catching up to do.



So lets get going!  Only 2900+ posts to go.


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## dr.debs (Jan 31, 2015)

I remember when the Marriot program rolled out. As I am a resale owner it was pricy to join, and the points were significantly devalued, so the points for my week could not book a week at my home resort, or any other similarly graded resort. Call me a cynic, but isn't it a good bet that any "new" system will devalue our weeks?


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## cubigbird (Jan 31, 2015)

dr.debs said:


> I remember when the Marriot program rolled out. As I am a resale owner it was pricy to join, and the points were significantly devalued, so the points for my week could not book a week at my home resort, or any other similarly graded resort. Call me a cynic, but isn't it a good bet that any "new" system will devalue our weeks?



That would be a great way to chase away your existing owners and bite the hand that feeds you.  That's why I like to own deeded fixed weeks at destinations we typically like to go to.  With this "new system" my usage can't effectively be taken away from me via a points devaluation.  I still have my week.


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## clsmit (Jan 31, 2015)

*Another Speculation Option*

The Hubby and I were discussing this program and our speculation is this: you can't fundamentally change the system without HOA approval, but SVN can change what they do whenever they want. So, what is probably happening is that you get a deeded week someplace but you have 12 month privileges at any of the locations through SVN. This would be the easiest to implement from an IT perspective, and we all know how important that is.

This approach is also consistent with the themes we have heard for the past year at our owners' updates -- that it doesn't matter where you own -- options are fungible.

The other theme is that converting options to points for hotels is how you really want to use your options, but that's another thread.


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## dsmrp (Feb 1, 2015)

This has been a very interesting thread.
I'm a little surprised to see SDO included in the group of 5 resorts.

My conjecture question about the Starwood's new trust marketing strategy is whether Starwood will later change their policy and dollar minimums for re-qualifying units into SVN.  Based on trust buy-in price OP gave, of about 33 cent/star option, a 1bdrm 44000 options buy in would cost about $14.5 K.
Am I understanding that correctly? In comparison, re-qualifying at current $20K minimum is much more cost effective for a 2bdrm and larger unit, and give many more star options.  We re'qualed last year at a cost of about 13 cents/star option, less than half as much as the purported trust price.

The trust strategy, also helps Starwood's desire to reduce the # of units deposited into II.


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## LisaRex (Feb 1, 2015)

This isn't surprising.  I've been suspecting that Starwood would follow Marriott's lead by selling points v. deeds.  

I think the main reason that they are doing this is to skirt consumer protection laws that prohibit them from charging high season owners more MFs than low season owners, or OF owners more than IV owners, for obvious reasons. Wear and tear is the same whether you use a villa in October or June, whether it's IV or OV. 

Since the economy tanked and they quit building new resorts, timeshare developers have been struggling to make a profit.  According to the model, they were supposed to (and did!) make huge profits during the initial sales phase of their new resorts.  Once that resort sold out, and they pocketed the premiums paid for people who wanted to get a "discounted" vacation in future years, the resort was to be passed over to the HOA, where it was to enter its "maintenance, non-profit" phase. (Did you know that Starwood HOAs are non-profit? Laughable but true, unless you truly believe that it costs $10k per month to maintain a 2 bdrm at WKORV, in which case I have some swamp land to sell you in Florida.) 

Of course, that model blew up when the economy tanked. Since the developer had no new resorts to profit from, they had to turn to the only thing that they had control over, which was the HOAs.  (How can they do this?  Since they handpick who runs for the HOA, it's easy for them to rubber stamp anything put in front of their face, including hugely inflated contracts for housekeeping, landscaping, management services -- which with a little digging MAY reveal that they are actually Starwood owned subsidiaries... No matter who actually owns them, I can guarantee you that the HOAs are not acting in the interests of the OWNERS by accepting competitive bids or researching more cost effective alternatives.  Their board meetings last maybe an hour, and there is no evidence that they do anything but approve what has been proposed to them.) Presumably, that has worked well for them...

Except for resorts with true "seasons."  They learned that they can't realistically raise MFs higher than the going rental rate for the lowest season at any given resort. Why? Because low season owners would simply bail.  I mean, would you pay $2500 a week in MFs for a 2 bdrm at SBP in early November when you could rent it outright (often from Starwood itself) for $1200 a week?  No!

So what does a developer who has maxxed out its MFs at a resort do to profit, when they are legally prohibited from charging different MFs to seasonal and upgraded-view owners and they can't realistically raise them above low season rental rates?  They institute a points system!  Now they can charge x points for low season, x + y for mid-season, x + y + z for high season, not to mention extra points for view upgrades, and or "pool view" vs "parking lot" view.  It's a creative way to squeeze more juice out of the lemon.  Consumers are happy because they haven't paid the huge buy-in fee that deeded owners (who expect MFs to be stable) have paid, and the developer is happy because selling points is a lot easier than selling deeded weeks in silver season.


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## cubigbird (Feb 1, 2015)

LisaRex said:


> This isn't surprising.  I've been suspecting that Starwood would follow Marriott's lead by selling points v. deeds.
> 
> I think the main reason that they are doing this is to skirt consumer protection laws that prohibit them from charging high season owners more MFs than low season owners, or OF owners more than IV owners, for obvious reasons. Wear and tear is the same whether you use a villa in October or June, whether it's IV or OV.
> 
> ...



How will this change for those of us that own deeded fixed weeks and the Staroptions for those weeks?  We bought our fixed weeks for a reason - because we actually use them for THAT week (school breaks, Christmas etc...)  Also as mentioned in a prior post, I wonder how this will affect the requalifying option.  Surely *Wood would want to receive that revenue by still doing that.  I wonder if the spend requirement will subsequently go up.

This is just the nail in the coffin for those that are hoping for an expansion and new resort destinations to go online.


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## VacationForever (Feb 1, 2015)

cubigbird said:


> How will this change for those of us that own deeded fixed weeks and the Staroptions for those weeks?  We bought our fixed weeks for a reason - because we actually use them for THAT week (school breaks, Christmas etc...)  Also as mentioned in a prior post, I wonder how this will affect the requalifying option.  Surely *Wood would want to receive that revenue by still doing that.  I wonder if the spend requirement will subsequently go up.
> 
> This is just the nail in the coffin for those that are hoping for an expansion and new resort destinations to go online.



If Starwood follows the Marriott model, you can requal a resale week bought from Starwood by buying a matching number of points from their trust.  Ebay weeks will not be able to be requal'ed into Starwood SVN system for full rights.


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## DeniseM (Feb 1, 2015)

By "Ebay weeks" - do you mean "voluntary resales"?  

Since you can already requalify a voluntary resale NOW with a developer purchase, I'm not sure why you wouldn't be able to in the future.


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## tschwa2 (Feb 1, 2015)

cubigbird said:


> How will this change for those of us that own deeded fixed weeks and the Staroptions for those weeks?  We bought our fixed weeks for a reason - because we actually use them for THAT week (school breaks, Christmas etc...)  Also as mentioned in a prior post, I wonder how this will affect the requalifying option.  Surely *Wood would want to receive that revenue by still doing that.  I wonder if the spend requirement will subsequently go up.
> 
> This is just the nail in the coffin for those that are hoping for an expansion and new resort destinations to go online.



I don't agree that this means no new expansion ever.  Starwood isn't going to build anything with a fair amount of unsold inventory. And that is where they are at now. If the trust is a way to sell less desirable unsold inventory then it could be a good thing.  Hopefully they will at least go the way of Wyndham and Hilton that may not be building new resorts from the ground up but will take over failed full ownership options that are already built and manage the resorts and sell unsold inventory as part of the network.


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## cubigbird (Feb 1, 2015)

sptung said:


> If Starwood follows the Marriott model, you can requal a resale week bought from Starwood by buying a matching number of points from their trust.  Ebay weeks will not be able to be requal'ed into Starwood SVN system for full rights.



I don't see the value then of a retro if that would be the case.  Why would I pay [a premium] to Starwood for "points?"  With that "purchase" I would then give up my guaranteed availability of my deeded fixed week and get less than guaranteed availability and now have points for a booking on an "availability" basis.  Another way of putting it - I'd be paying them to essentially downgrade.  Others can chime in but I feel a deeded fixed week is of higher value than a "points week."

I'd rather keep what I have, use Starwood-to-Starwood preference in II if I need flexability and keep the " buy in" dollars in my pocket.


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## cubigbird (Feb 1, 2015)

sptung said:


> If Starwood follows the Marriott model, you can requal a resale week bought from Starwood by buying a matching number of points from their trust.  Ebay weeks will not be able to be requal'ed into Starwood SVN system for full rights.



It wouldn't matter where you bought your week from?  A voluntary week is a voluntary week, no?


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## cubigbird (Feb 1, 2015)

tschwa2 said:


> I don't agree that this means no new expansion ever.  Starwood isn't going to build anything with a fair amount of unsold inventory. And that is where they are at now. If the trust is a way to sell less desirable unsold inventory then it could be a good thing.  Hopefully they will at least go the way of Wyndham and Hilton that may not be building new resorts from the ground up but will take over failed full ownership options that are already built and manage the resorts and sell unsold inventory as part of the network.



If that's the case I wouln't mind seeing Sheraton Hacienda Del Mar and Westin DBC St. Maarten be bought and make it into SVN.


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## tschwa2 (Feb 1, 2015)

Retro-ing does not mean you are giving up anything with your current unit.  It just means that you are eligible to use it in SVN with SO's at 8 months.  Up until the 8 month mark your home resort reservation would be the same as it would be outside of SVN.  Retro-ing a mandatory resort means you have the same options you had before but now can convert your unit to starpoints and the SO's you have are eligible to be counted toward elite levels. Those perks would also be available when retroing a voluntary unit.  

You are confusing retro-ing with converting your week into deeded trust points.  At this point I wouldn't assume that would be a requirement.


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## tschwa2 (Feb 1, 2015)

cubigbird said:


> If that's the case I wouln't mind seeing Sheraton Hacienda Del Mar and Westin DBC St. Maarten be bought and make it into SVN.



I don't know if either of those properties are looking for someone to take them over.


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## cubigbird (Feb 1, 2015)

tschwa2 said:


> Retro-ing does not mean you are giving up anything with your current unit.  It just means that you are eligible to use it in SVN with SO's at 8 months.  Up until the 8 month mark your home resort reservation would be the same as it would be outside of SVN.  Retro-ing a mandatory resort means you have the same options you had before but now can convert your unit to starpoints and the SO's you have are eligible to be counted toward elite levels. Those perks would also be available when retroing a voluntary unit.
> 
> You are confusing retro-ing with converting your week into deeded trust points.  At this point I wouldn't assume that would be a requirement.



If they are selling the resort as trust points I would assume that would mean any retro would have to be into trust points and giving up that fixed week.


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## tschwa2 (Feb 1, 2015)

cubigbird said:


> If they are selling the resort as trust points I would assume that would mean any retro would have to be into trust points and giving up that fixed week.



I would think the new purchase would be in points from the trust if you are purchasing at a resort selling the trust points but I doubt they would take what you have and put it in the trust.  That would be more of an equity "upgrade" .  More like trading in a 1 br for a 2 br not a retro.  A retro doesn't take back what you have and change it into something else, it just allows it to be enrolled in SVN and makes it eligible for VIP and SP's along with the new purchase.


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## VacationForever (Feb 1, 2015)

cubigbird said:


> It wouldn't matter where you bought your week from?  A voluntary week is a voluntary week, no?



Marriott does not allow resales bought outside of their resales department to be eligible for enrollment into the Destination Club by buying matching trust points. If you buy a week from their resales dept, that week can be enrolled into DC by buying matching trust points.


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## LisaRex (Feb 2, 2015)

cubigbird said:


> How will this change for those of us that own deeded fixed weeks and the Staroptions for those weeks?  We bought our fixed weeks for a reason - because we actually use them for THAT week (school breaks, Christmas etc...)



It won't change your ownership at all.  Starwood cannot change what is written in your contract. Fixed week owners have contracts that say that they, exclusively, have use of a villa of x size during x week at x resort.  As long as you follow the rules, and confirm by the date you're supposed to confirm, you will enjoy use of that villa for as long as you choose to (and as long as you pay MFs). 

Starwood cannot just create points out of thin air because there are so many villas to go around.  They have to acquire inventory first, and use those weeks as a basis for their points system.


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## czar (Feb 2, 2015)

According to the direct sales person with whom I've worked in the past, this is called the Flex program.  It is deeded into a trust, straight points product, no week's, the same thing as WSJ CV.


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## dsmrp (Feb 2, 2015)

sptung said:


> Marriott does not allow resales bought outside of their resales department to be eligible for enrollment into the Destination Club by buying matching trust points. If you buy a week from their resales dept, that week can be enrolled into DC by buying matching trust points.





DeniseM said:


> By "Ebay weeks" - do you mean "voluntary resales"?
> 
> Since you can already requalify a voluntary resale NOW with a developer purchase, I'm not sure why you wouldn't be able to in the future.



I hadn't considered Starwood might require a voluntary resale to be re-qualified by only buying into the trust, IF you were interested in making a developer purchase at any 5 resorts in the trust.  This is conjecture, but at SVV, SVR and SBP, which are the lower priced resorts, one couldn't buy then a regular timeshare unit to re-qualify, say an SDO 2bdrm platinum unit ?
But you could re-qualify buying a developer week at a mandatory resort.
Which all means more money for Starwood.

What this all comes down to is supply and demand,  and who controls (Starwood) how reservations are made. 
Playing devil's advocate:  IF the trust strategy eventually changed to allow trust owners to make 12 month reservations at ALL of the resorts, then probably more and more owners will buy into the trust, for the "privilege" or opportunity to make reservations ahead of the non-trust SVN owners.  Maybe SVN will morph into the trust.  
I agree with several others; it's a pure marketing strategy, 
Starwood is not creating net new capital assets. 
Which all means more money for Starwood.

A few months ago, I read in more detail my SVN contract, and believe I saw specified, that membership in SVN was for a 5 year time period.  I didn't think much at the time, but will go back and re-read it.
I wonder if the 5 year time period will be a factor moving forward ??
How long has SVN been in existence?
Your thoughts?


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## DeniseM (Feb 2, 2015)

> A few months ago, I read in more detail my SVN contract, and believe I saw specified, that membership in SVN was for a 5 year time period.



I don't think this is correct - SVN membership lasts as long as you own a mandatory deed. Or until Starwood eliminates the SVN.


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## dsmrp (Feb 2, 2015)

oh btw, cugigbird,  I have a fixed SVR week in SVN, and I still retain the right to reserve my fixed week.  It's actually sort of pre-reserved for me until I release it.  If I make an online star options reservation, the system warns me I won't be able to use my 201x fixed week.


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## dsmrp (Feb 2, 2015)

DeniseM said:


> I don't think this is correct - SVN membership lasts as long as you own a mandatory deed. Or until Starwood eliminates the SVN.



I have a voluntary deed.  I need to back and check my contract


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## DeniseM (Feb 2, 2015)

dsmrp said:


> I have a voluntary deed.  I need to back and check my contract



Either way, I have never heard of a Starwood deed that was for 5 years, and I also own a fixed week at SVR.


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## VacationForever (Feb 2, 2015)

There are wordings in that the owner can opt out of SVN (the internal trading system).  I think opting out after 5 years is where the wordings came from.


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## DeniseM (Feb 2, 2015)

sptung said:


> There are wordings in that the owner can opt out of SVN (the internal trading system).  I think opting out after 5 years is where the wordings came from.



On a voluntary deed?


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## cubigbird (Feb 2, 2015)

dsmrp said:


> oh btw, cugigbird,  I have a fixed SVR week in SVN, and I still retain the right to reserve my fixed week.  It's actually sort of pre-reserved for me until I release it.  If I make an online star options reservation, the system warns me I won't be able to use my 201x fixed week.



My SVR week is a voluntary resale week so I have no SOs.  I hope to retro it someday and bring it into SVN.  I have no intention of giving up my right to my fixed week.  I'm sure they'll try to get me to upgrade into said trust.  If rather retro and keep what I have.


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## VacationForever (Feb 2, 2015)

DeniseM said:


> On a voluntary deed?



Developer purchased voluntary week.  Don't know if them SVN language is the same on a mandatory week.


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## YYJMSP (Feb 2, 2015)

DeniseM said:


> I don't think this is correct - SVN membership lasts as long as you own a mandatory deed. Or until Starwood eliminates the SVN.



Or until the property leaves SVN.


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## YYJMSP (Feb 2, 2015)

sptung said:


> There are wordings in that the owner can opt out of SVN (the internal trading system).  I think opting out after 5 years is where the wordings came from.



Really?  The only clause I could find basically says you don't have to use SVN, but nowhere did I see anything about opting out...


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## VacationForever (Feb 2, 2015)

YYJMSP said:


> Really?  The only clause I could find basically says you don't have to use SVN, but nowhere did I see anything about opting out...


I do/did have the SVN paperwork that stated that.  I don't know if I can still find them.


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## YYJMSP (Feb 2, 2015)

sptung said:


> Developer purchased voluntary week.  Don't know if them SVN language is the same on a mandatory week.



The SVN docs I have for my mandatory units is a tiny bit different than those for the voluntary units, but substantially the same content.  

The voluntary version has wording to deal with mandatory, voluntary, and requalified.  The mandatory version doesn't address voluntary/requalified.

I didn't see anything about a 5 year membership or way to opt-out.


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## VacationForever (Feb 2, 2015)

YYJMSP said:


> The SVN docs I have for my mandatory units is a tiny bit different than those for the voluntary units, but substantially the same content.
> 
> The voluntary version has wording to deal with mandatory, voluntary, and requalified.  The mandatory version doesn't address voluntary/requalified.
> 
> I didn't see anything about a 5 year membership or way to opt-out.



Mine definitely allows an opt-out.


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## JudyS (Feb 16, 2015)

I also attended an "Owner's Update" at the Sheraton Vistana recently. It was on January 28th. I was all eager to post about the new Flex program on TUG, but right after I left I found out my cat had died while I was at the update. (I recently posted about my cat in the TUG Lounge.) I was upset and didn't get around to posting about this until now. I forgot some of what was at the presentation, but here is some information I am confident about. 

1) The formal name of the new program is the "Sheraton Flex Vacation Plan." (I actually have this name on a page I tore out from a big glossy brochure they gave us. The rest of the brochure was pretty useless and it was heavy, so I threw it away. It was mostly pictures of beaches and Disney World and other local attractions, with no real information.)  

2) The five resorts included are as stated earlier on this thread.

3) If the old StarOptions system keeps the existing system of different number of StarOptions required for different systems, then the new "Flex" StarOptions will have seasons, too. Our salesperson (I can't even remember if it was a man or woman!) kept emphasizing that this new program would be "just like" the existing StarOptions system, "except now instead of having one home resort, you'll have five, and you'll be able to book at any of the five at 12 months out." (The salesperson neglected to mention how combining inventory pools from multiple resorts can make it hard to book desirable resorts, of course. I discuss this further down in this post.) 

4) The salesperson tried to get my husband and me to "retro" our existing three Starwood fixed/floating week ownerships in exchange for the new Flex StarOptions system. (We don't own any StarOptions currently. We own one fixed/floating week per year at SVR, plus two small fixed/floating one-bedrooms per year at the original phase of SBP. These are all peak season weeks and all purchased resale.) Starwood wanted $20,000 new money. I don't remember the exact number of Flex StarOptions they were offering; it was somewhere around 150,000. They were  going to also somehow give us credit for another timeshare we owned to get us to 3* Elite level. They never told us what the new MF would be, but they offered to give us free MFs for 2015, and also let us keep our three existing 2015 reservations. My impression was that we would actually be permanently turning in our deeds to them and losing any booking privileges our existing deeds provide, but I'm not sure about that.  

5) The salesperson said that existing StarOption owners at the five Sheratons in the program would "probably have the chance to convert to the new Flex program for a fee." 

6) The salesperson said Flex StarOptions owners and existing StarOptions owners would all be booking from the same inventory pool, although I'm not sure he/she really knew about that. 

7) The salesperson also said that Starwood was starting some sort of new points system with II where owners of StarOptions could deposit StarOptions and get "change" back if they traded down to a smaller or lower-season unit. I actually have no idea how StarOptions currently work with II, so I don't know how this differs from the current system. 

Here are some impressions I have:

It is probably no longer possible to "retro" a deed at any of the five Sheratons in the the Flex program and get the old, "non-Flex" StarOptions. Instead, Starwood seems to only offer the new Flex StarOptions for people who want to retro weeks at these five resorts.

I know that most Tuggers are savvy enough to buy high season weeks, not low season weeks. Since the new Flex program seems to combine together deeds from high season weeks and low season weeks, I would expect the annual fee per Flex StarOption to be considerably higher than what most Tuggers have been paying per StarOption at these five resorts.

I expect that this new system will have very low availability for peak demand resorts/times. I don't know about the other resorts, but there is maybe an 8-week period that is truly peak season at Myrtle Beach. It's hard enough to book summer at Myrtle Beach now, with something like 20 weeks in the Gold Plus season at the original phase of SBP. With the new system, ownerships based on all times of the year and all five resorts can compete for those eight weeks a year at Myrtle Beach. 

I see the new Flex system as having two big advantages to Starwood. 1) They can take excess inventory from low demand times and locations (fall in Orlando, say) and sell it by featuring high demand times and locations, even though they won't have nearly enough inventory at those high demand times and locations to satisfy all the requests. 2) They can charge existing StarPoints owners to convert to this new Flex program.  

I see this new Flex system as having *no *advantages to me as an owner of peak weeks. Turn in my summer weeks at Myrtle Beach and pay $20,000 for the right to compete with untold thousands of owners for a summer week? No, thank you.

Also, if it is really true that owners of existing StarOptions and owners of Flex StarOptions will be booking from the same inventory, that is bad news for anyone who bought high-season StarOptions at any of these five resorts. I was interested in maybe buying some resale SVV StarOptions, but I'm going to wait and see how this all shakes out.


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## LisaRex (Feb 16, 2015)

Thanks for the information, JudyS.  I'm so sorry about your cat.


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## SMHarman (Feb 16, 2015)

Judy. Perhaps this will also mean that SVO stop dropping so much SBP into RCI.


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## Julian926 (Feb 16, 2015)

JudyS said:


> 7) The salesperson also said that Starwood was starting some sort of new points system with II where owners of StarOptions could deposit StarOptions and get "change" back if they traded down to a smaller or lower-season unit. I actually have no idea how StarOptions currently work with II, so I don't know how this differs from the current system.



I really like this part.  I would've never considered exchanging in II with a 2br that my wife and I would just use.  We bought SVV-Bella with the option to split up vacations using star options.   

This would open up more vacation options through II


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## cubigbird (Feb 16, 2015)

JudyS said:


> I also attended an "Owner's Update" at the Sheraton Vistana recently. It was on January 28th. I was all eager to post about the new Flex program on TUG, but right after I left I found out my cat had died while I was at the update. (I recently posted about my cat in the TUG Lounge.) I was upset and didn't get around to posting about this until now. I forgot some of what was at the presentation, but here is some information I am confident about.
> 
> 1) The formal name of the new program is the "Sheraton Flex Vacation Plan." (I actually have this name on a page I tore out from a big glossy brochure they gave us. The rest of the brochure was pretty useless and it was heavy, so I threw it away. It was mostly pictures of beaches and Disney World and other local attractions, with no real information.)
> 
> ...



Ditto.  My SVR is a fixed week 27 - high season that usually falls over July 4th.  There's no advantage to retroing into the FLEX program.  I'd be giving up my guaranteed availability for the option to compete with everyone else for that same week.  Like stated above - no thanks!!  Granted it is voluntary and I also have no Staroptions but I am not afraid of exchanging in II.  That I am flexible with, but given we occasionally use our fixed week at the home resort, I'd rather not give that up, especially for $20,000.


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## alexadeparis (Feb 16, 2015)

I would be excited about the "Staroptions as II currency" rollout if the remaining Staroptions are usable in the SVN program. This is the way it currently works with Shell points and it's great. I can get two full weeks out of it that way (or more) because it costs only 3500 points for a one bedroom in High season. I have 7550, which gets me usually a one bedroom in Shell Hawaii club, so I can stretch if needed with II. 

It, of course, will depend on what those values will be, but I have a feeling that this "Staroptions as II currency" will have to roll out to ALL SVN Staroption owners, not just Flex. If the values are any good, it may make some of the higher MF mandatory resorts (WKORV, WSJ, HRA) more tolerable to purchase if several weeks can be stretched out of the MF on the years you don't want to use it.


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## sjsharkie (Feb 16, 2015)

alexadeparis said:


> I would be excited about the "Staroptions as II currency" rollout if the remaining Staroptions are usable in the SVN program. This is the way it currently works with Shell points and it's great. I can get two full weeks out of it that way (or more) because it costs only 3500 points for a one bedroom in High season. I have 7550, which gets me usually a one bedroom in Shell Hawaii club, so I can stretch if needed with II.
> 
> It, of course, will depend on what those values will be, but I have a feeling that this "Staroptions as II currency" will have to roll out to ALL SVN Staroption owners, not just Flex. If the values are any good, it may make some of the higher MF mandatory resorts (WKORV, WSJ, HRA) more tolerable to purchase if several weeks can be stretched out of the MF on the years you don't want to use it.



I can't see this happening.  The difference is that you don't have an underlying week for Shell points -- it is a points only system.  Current SVN members have points tied to a particular week.  So if I trade part of my WKV week, what does II get in return? -- a partial week?  IMHO, this might become an accounting nightmare to track.

Maybe, for the flex points system members this will happen since they may not have an underlying deed for the week, but I can't see it happening for SVN as it currently stands.

-ryan


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## tschwa2 (Feb 16, 2015)

There are several systems that have deeded owners and points owners that exchange through II or (RCI  for that matter) where points owners use a fixed grid- a 1 br in high season cost x number of points and so on.  Deeded owners just deposit their weeks.  DRI has club members that use points and some deeded week owners that exchange through II. Marriott obviously has trust owners that use a grid for exchanges and deeded week owners who use II (both enrolled and unenrolled) use their deeded weeks.  

I can see that they may change SVN members who exchange through II into a Options as currency grid (without charging a fee to convert to anything).  If they change it that way for those SVN members it will probably be a mandatory change.  It may work at well for owners of platinum and maybe even gold plus weeks but I see gold and below SVN owners being skrewed.  They already have limited options in SVN but could always deposit 1 br or larger units in II and get an upgrade in size or season.


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## tschwa2 (Feb 16, 2015)

> So if I trade part of my WKV week, what does II get in return? -- a partial week? IMHO, this might become an accounting nightmare to track.



I don't think this would be a problem.  II and Starwood already have a back room deal and when you say, you are depositing a week in a particular size unit you are getting an average trading value for your season and behind the scenes Starwood decides what to deposits.  You could get 3 low season small bedrooms and Starwood might deposit one high season large one bedroom.

So that isn't the problem.  They just aren't going to convert you into any SVN type points system without requiring a substantial fee to do so.


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## dsmrp (Feb 16, 2015)

JudyS said:


> 1) The formal name of the new program is the "Sheraton Flex Vacation Plan." (I actually have this name on a page I tore out from a big glossy brochure they gave us. The rest of the brochure was pretty useless and it was heavy, so I threw it away. It was mostly pictures of beaches and Disney World and other local attractions, with no real information.)
> 2) The five resorts included are as stated earlier on this thread.


 
Hmm, they're branding with "Sheraton".  So the Westin hotel properties forecast to be converted to timeshare, may not be part of this flex plan??



JudyS said:


> 3) If the old StarOptions system keeps the existing system of different number of StarOptions required for different systems, then the new "Flex" StarOptions will have seasons, too. Our salesperson (I can't even remember if it was a man or woman!) kept emphasizing that this new program would be "just like" the existing StarOptions system, "except now instead of having one home resort, you'll have five, and you'll be able to book at any of the five at 12 months out." (The salesperson neglected to mention how combining inventory pools from multiple resorts can make it hard to book desirable resorts, of course. I discuss this further down in this post.)



Salesperson obfuscating "just like" so potential buyer interprets to mean "same", while new flex system will be really 'similar' to the existing Staroptions system.




JudyS said:


> 5) The salesperson said that existing StarOption owners at the five Sheratons in the program would "probably have the chance to convert to the new Flex program for a fee."
> ...
> It is probably no longer possible to "retro" a deed at any of the five Sheratons in the the Flex program and get the old, "non-Flex" StarOptions. Instead, Starwood seems to only offer the new Flex StarOptions for people who want to retro weeks at these five resorts.



It's an inevitable conclusion they would stop the retro-ing into the original non-flex Staroptions system.  I just thought based on some other comments about a May roll-out that there might be a little cushion of time before Starwood stopped the retro-ing into the original staroptions system.

I am a little concerned how Starwood will handle the SVN owners at the voluntary locations; the majority of which I think were retros, e.g. SDO plat units.  Undoubtedly there will be a fee to convert to flex system, but magnitude TBD.
I finally did go back and find my SVN agreement at voluntary SVR property, signed last year.  The 5 year time period which I commented about earlier is from the Term sub-section:

"Term.  Unless otherwise terminated as provided in this Agreement, this Agreement shall become effective on the date it is executed by SVN Operator and shall have a term of five (5) years.  This Agreement shall automatically be renewed for successive terms of five (5) years unless either party notifies the other in writing of its election to terminate at least ninety (90) days prior to the expiration of the initial term or any successive renewal term. ...."

It's the "either party" notification  part that worries me.  In best or worse case (depending upon how you look at it), I have 4 more years to use existing SVN staroptions system before Starwood can terminate the agreement.  If best alternative is the new flex program, hope Starwood would grandfather us into it for nominal fee.

Oh and another clause in the SVN agreement under Owner Acknowledgements:
" The terms and conditions of the SVN Rules are subject to change by SVN Operator in its sole discretion without Owner's consent, including all SVN fees, benefits, and reservation priorities and procedures".


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## YYJMSP (Feb 17, 2015)

dsmrp said:


> Hmm, they're branding with "Sheraton".  So the Westin hotel properties forecast to be converted to timeshare, may not be part of this flex plan??



Probably just means that they'll have one (or more) separate flex plans that contain one or more Westin properties.

That would let them price points differently for combinations of "like" properties.


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## sjsharkie (Feb 17, 2015)

tschwa2 said:


> There are several systems that have deeded owners and points owners that exchange through II or (RCI  for that matter) where points owners use a fixed grid- a 1 br in high season cost x number of points and so on.  Deeded owners just deposit their weeks.  DRI has club members that use points and some deeded week owners that exchange through II. Marriott obviously has trust owners that use a grid for exchanges and deeded week owners who use II (both enrolled and unenrolled) use their deeded weeks.



I'm well aware that there are systems with weeks and points -- but neither DRI nor Marriott allow you to flip between both which is what the other poster suggested.  Take Marriott -- you either own trust points and use the grid or you own the underlying week and trade that -- you can't own a week there and decide to use points derived from that week AFAIK.  Besides the post I was responding to used Shell as the example which is solely points based and not a reasonable comparison.[/QUOTE]



tschwa2 said:


> I can see that they may change SVN members who exchange through II into a Options as currency grid (without charging a fee to convert to anything).  If they change it that way for those SVN members it will probably be a mandatory change.  It may work at well for owners of platinum and maybe even gold plus weeks but I see gold and below SVN owners being skrewed.  They already have limited options in SVN but could always deposit 1 br or larger units in II and get an upgrade in size or season.



Possible, but I doubt it.  Again, why would II want to do that when they can just get the entire week for free as it stands currently.

-ryan


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## sjsharkie (Feb 17, 2015)

tschwa2 said:


> I don't think this would be a problem.  II and Starwood already have a back room deal and when you say, you are depositing a week in a particular size unit you are getting an average trading value for your season and behind the scenes Starwood decides what to deposits.  You could get 3 low season small bedrooms and Starwood might deposit one high season large one bedroom.
> 
> So that isn't the problem.  They just aren't going to convert you into any SVN type points system without requiring a substantial fee to do so.



What you write is conjecture.  We don't know what II gets in return in the contract -- I believe they still get a one for one deal.  One trade = one deposit anytime within that season.  But again, nothing is published to state what Starwood deposits when you give II your week -- we only know that we receive the average trading value of our week.

I think it is an issue to track weeks deposited that aren't one for one -- and ensure that fair equity is being deposited for what was given up.  Is it possible to be done contractually -- sure, just as it is possible to require a one for one deposit each time a week is traded.

-ryan


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## sjsharkie (Feb 17, 2015)

dsmrp said:


> I finally did go back and find my SVN agreement at voluntary SVR property, signed last year.  The 5 year time period which I commented about earlier is from the Term sub-section:
> 
> "Term.  Unless otherwise terminated as provided in this Agreement, this Agreement shall become effective on the date it is executed by SVN Operator and shall have a term of five (5) years.  This Agreement shall automatically be renewed for successive terms of five (5) years unless either party notifies the other in writing of its election to terminate at least ninety (90) days prior to the expiration of the initial term or any successive renewal term. ...."
> 
> ...



It is well known that the SVN club rules can change at any time.  The last clause you quoted is the one that should worry you, not the 5-year clause in your voluntary agreement IMHO.

If Starwood chooses to make a change, they can do so without terminating the SVN program itself (which I doubt they will do).

-ryan


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## JudyS (Feb 17, 2015)

LisaRex said:


> Thanks for the information, JudyS.  I'm so sorry about your cat.


Thank you very much, Lisa!




SMHarman said:


> Judy. Perhaps this will also mean that SVO stop dropping so much SBP into RCI.


I wouldn't count on it, unfortunately. 

I posted on another thread on this board that I was having trouble getting a summer reservation for my fixed/floating SBP "shotgun" (1 bdrm standalone) week, with Starwood claiming that all weeks in Gold Plus season (even fall and early spring) were fully booked even though the year hadn't started yet. Starwood eventually offered me a good reservation, but in the future I will make sure to always book my underlying week (week 27) more than 12 months out. 

I suspect that a lot of SBP Gold Plus fixed/floating weeks are either being deposited into exchange companies, or are being made available to StarOptions owners. (I thought that SraOptions inventory was supposed to be separate from non-SVN inventory, but I don't know for sure.) 




alexadeparis said:


> ... I have a feeling that this "Staroptions as II currency" will have to roll out to ALL SVN Staroption owners, not just Flex....


That was the impression I got from the salesperson, yes. Of course, I can't be sure if that is really true. Timeshare salespeople often say, "Our whole system is going to points, better convert now or you'll be left out" as a way of persuading owners to pay thousands to convert to points. 




cubigbird said:


> Ditto.  My SVR is a fixed week 27 - high season that usually falls over July 4th.  There's no advantage to retroing into the FLEX program. ...


I also own at SVR, although it's fixed/floating and the underlying week is only so-so (week 15.) I have no interest in turning in my week for Flex StarOptions, given what I know so far.  I probably wouldn't do it even if the conversion were free, rather than costing $20,000, because I suspect my new MFs would be higher.


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## okwiater (Jun 19, 2015)

Just a data point for the Sheraton Flex program. There is absolutely no 3BR availability at SBP using HomeOptions for any date. The trust must not own any/enough of those deeds. Only 2BR units are available. When 3BR units show up in the search results, they are only reservable using StarOptions within the 8-month window. Fortunately I don't need the third bedroom but it may be disappointing for some.


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## YYJMSP (Jun 19, 2015)

Are the HomeOptions quantities the same as the StarOptions quantities to book a unit?

Yet another inventory bucket -- at this rate, it's going to end up like airlines with 15 different non-interchangeable versions of "economy" tickets...


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## okwiater (Jun 19, 2015)

YYJMSP said:


> Are the HomeOptions quantities the same as the StarOptions quantities to book a unit?



Yes, HomeOptions and StarOptions have the same value. The only functional difference is that HomeOptions are for booking within the 12-8 month window at the Sheraton Flex home resorts.


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## alohakevin (Jun 27, 2015)

DeniseM said:


> I don't think this is correct - SVN membership lasts as long as you own a mandatory deed. Or until Starwood eliminates the SVN.



Once they switch to "VSE" your mandatory week is no longer in the program that is the trust. Buy into or convert to new program (trust) or loose ability to resrerve any other resort and any other week other than deeded?


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## taffy19 (Jun 27, 2015)

They may copy what Marriott has done and it seems to work very well for the Legacy Week owners who enrolled (subscribed) in the new DC Club but you have the right to give it up in the beginning of each year but then you have lost this feature for good and may have to start all over again if you want it back, I believe.

Don't you hate these changes constantly in this industry?


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## lizap (Jun 27, 2015)

Still speculation.. 




alohakevin said:


> Once they switch to "VSE" your mandatory week is no longer in the program that is the trust. Buy into or convert to new program (trust) or loose ability to resrerve any other resort and any other week other than deeded?


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## okwiater (Jun 27, 2015)

alohakevin said:


> Once they switch to "VSE" your mandatory week is no longer in the program that is the trust. Buy into or convert to new program (trust) or loose ability to resrerve any other resort and any other week other than deeded?



It has nothing to do with the switch to VSE. But yes, the strategy is pretty clearly to marginalize/reduce inventory in the SVN and to focus on the trusts.


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## SMHarman (Jun 27, 2015)

okwiater said:


> It has nothing to do with the switch to VSE. But yes, the strategy is pretty clearly to marginalize/reduce inventory in the SVN and to focus on the trusts.


No it's not. The strategy is to improve the initial offering of Non-Platinum weeks. 

The New trusts add a twist between 12-9 months. SVN is still there at 8 months in.


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