# Went to a "Welk" Owner's Update -- I mean "World of Hyatt"



## Guitarmom (May 19, 2022)

Thought I'd pop in and let you know about my recent Owner's Update at The Welk in Escondido (San Diego County).

For once, we had a very nice sales person; we'll call her Sally. She really didn't hard sell us at all, for which we were grateful. She sat and talked with us for over an hour without even knowing how many Platinum Points we own. Now how can you sell effectively when you don't know who your customer is?

Here's how that first hour went:
Sally explained the new structure for the old Welk group. Marriott Vacations Worldwide is an umbrella corporations with many mini umbrellas underneath: Royal Caribbean, St. Regis, etc.
One of these mini umbrellas is the Hyatt Residency Club.
One of the mini-mini umbrellas under HRC is the Hyatt Vacation Club.
Welk is now under the Hyatt Vacation Club umbrella.
Within each club, there are "Original" level properties and there are "Luxury" level properties.
Originals within Welk are San Diego, Palm Springs, and Branson.
Luxury properties within Welk are Cabo, North Star and the Four Season properties.
All of Welk is really classed as "White Label" or lower scale properties.

Coming in January 2023, Hyatt Hotels will be available to Hyatt Vacation Club owners. And we will want more points for that. Remember, Sally had still not asked what level of membership we are!

We explained that since we are caring for an elderly mother, we are not traveling at all. We had to stress over and over that we are not traveling AT ALL. Sally seemed to translate this into "only traveling on the weekends." So we'd need more points to be able to use those Hyatt Hotels beginning next January.

Around the end of the first hour, we told Sally that we are Priority IV Platinum owners. She went back to the office area to look at our account. When she returned, she was pleased to tell us that we had an old offer pending from two visits before (when we'd actually upgraded, so how could there be a pending offer?). She spent a bit of time explaining how much better Priority III would be (ooh, one extra month of booking time), and then went to get that pending offer.

Here it is. To upgrade from our current 780,000 Platinum Points:
$27,405 to go to 960,000 points (still Priority IV)
$34,104 to go to 1,020,000 points (Priority III)
$53,592 to go to 1,260,000 points (also Priority III).

When we said that we're very comfortable at our current level, she switched tactics and started asking how we can possibly split our membership amongst our heirs. Rather morbid, eh? I didn't want to say, "I'll sell our points resale before we die." There was no one around us that could have benefitted from hearing that, so why stir up a hornet's nest? By now we were standing up, so the end was in sight. We collected our $150 Visa card and said good-bye.

So, really no new news. Another example of being promised all sorts of new information and finding out it's just another sales pitch. I'm grateful for the $150. If you're wondering whether you'll learn anything at a current Owner's Update, you won't. It's up to you to decide if $150 is worth your time.

And I'm left with one burning question that I forgot to ask: Do we still have an II membership, and how do we access it?


----------



## ScoopKona (May 20, 2022)

Ugh. That's ridiculous. You could buy the least expensive resale deeded Hyatt Bronze week and be in better shape for accessing the Hyatt system.

There is nothing they're selling for $30-50K that is worth buying. It would be better to have two maintenance fees and be able to play in both systems, if that's the goal.

The sad part is that it would be fairly easy to add Welk to the existing HRC program. But they're so gung-ho selling points to current owners, that isn't going to happen.

Assign each week at each resort a Hyatt color-coded season. Done. I'll bet Kal and I could knock that out in a matter of weeks. Owners in Branson might not like their point value. But even for them I think it would be better than what's happening now.


----------



## Kal (May 20, 2022)

ScoopLV said:


> Ugh. That's ridiculous. You could buy the least expensive resale deeded Hyatt Bronze week and be in better shape for accessing the Hyatt system.
> 
> There is nothing they're selling for $30-50K that is worth buying. It would be better to have two maintenance fees and be able to play in both systems, if that's the goal.
> 
> ...


My bet is Hyatt fears at the thought of telling Welk's week owners the HRC equivalent point value for their weeks.  Then too, they are afraid to tell the Welk points people what it would cost to join the HPP.  So they just kick the can down the road and let Interval be the method.  We need to guess how the Palm Springs, Branson and Escondido resorts would score.   Then too, who pays the price to bring Welk resorts up to the "Hyatt Quality Level".  Stand back and watch all the hand-wringing.


----------



## VacationForever (May 20, 2022)

@Guitarmom I am confused by your post.  Royal Caribbean and Four Seasons are not owned by Marriott Vacations Worldwide.


----------



## Mongoose (May 20, 2022)

Kal said:


> My bet is Hyatt fears at the thought of telling Welk's week owners the HRC equivalent point value for their weeks.  Then too, they are afraid to tell the Welk points people what it would cost to join the HPP.  So they just kick the can down the road and let Interval be the method.  We need to guess how the Palm Springs, Branson and Escondido resorts would score.   Then too, who pays the price to bring Welk resorts up to the "Hyatt Quality Level".  Stand back and watch all the hand-wringing.


What’s interesting is that on the Hyatt.com site they show the Welk resorts, however they are not listed as Hyatt vacation club or Hyatt brands.  They certainly don’t meet the brand standards.  Maybe we will get some new info once the are updated are reflagged.


----------



## Guitarmom (May 21, 2022)

VacationForever said:


> @Guitarmom I am confused by your post.  Royal Caribbean and Four Seasons are not owned by Marriott Vacations Worldwide.


@VacationForever--
Forgive me! The rep, "Sally," spoke quickly and just wrote down initials. I, in turn, misinterpreted her initials in my notes. Looking at MVW, I think she must have said Ritz-Carlton for the "RC." She did say "Four Seasons" as an example of a Luxury property within Welk, specifically the Four Seasons Residence Club Aviara in Carlsbad.


----------



## Guitarmom (May 21, 2022)

I'm just so tired of the check-in and concierge staffs telling me how much I'm going to learn at the so-called "Owners Updates" when they instead, 100% of the time, turn out to be sales pitches. Why is not OK to be happy with what you've got?!?!?


----------



## VacationForever (May 21, 2022)

Guitarmom said:


> @VacationForever--
> Forgive me! The rep, "Sally," spoke quickly and just wrote down initials. I, in turn, misinterpreted her initials in my notes. Looking at MVW, I think she must have said Ritz-Carlton for the "RC." She did say "Four Seasons" as an example of a Luxury property within Welk, specifically the Four Seasons Residence Club Aviara in Carlsbad.


Four Seasons Residence Club Aviara is not part of Welk.


----------



## Sapper (May 21, 2022)

VacationForever said:


> Four Seasons Residence Club Aviara is not part of Welk.


I thought Welk bought a small chunk of Four Seasons unit weeks and dumped them into some kind of collection. Might that have been what the sales rep was talking about?


----------



## steve1000 (May 21, 2022)

VacationForever said:


> Four Seasons Residence Club Aviara is not part of Welk.


As a Four Seasons Aviara ("FSA") owner I am aware that Welk purchased a sizable number of Four Seasons Aviara prime platinum summer season floating weeks resale on the aftermarket at low prices. This resulted in litigation between Welk and Four Seasons Aviara. I am not exactly certain of the details but I believe Welk attempted to book a large number of consecutive prime summer week reservations taking advantage of Four Seasons Aviara's 13 month booking window. I believe that Welk purchased the weeks so that it could secure a large number of prime summer reservations that it would make available to an upper tier level of Welk Vacation club owners. FSA management determined that Welk's actions/intentions would severely and detrimentally limit the availability of prime summer weeks available to its platinum owners (especially single week platinum owners). In order to protect their interests, the FSA Board established a maximum limit on the number of consecutive platinum weeks an owner could book utilizing the 13 month window. I do not know whether the litigation is continuing or whether a settlement or other resolution was reached.


----------



## VacationForever (May 21, 2022)

Welk bought a number of timeshare of other brands and made them available for Welk points booking. It is not the same as Welk owning or being affiliated with Four Seasons Aviara.


----------



## Mongoose (May 21, 2022)

VacationForever said:


> Four Seasons Residence Club Aviara is not part of Welk.





			https://thecollections.welkresorts.com/
		


it’s called the experiences collection.  Two four seasons location.  Not sure how many unit weeks they have. Love the concept.  Might explain why their MFs are so high.


----------



## Guitarmom (May 25, 2022)

Appreciate hearing all the ins and outs of locations like Four Seasons. It's so good to have TUGgers speaking the truth, since we don't hear it at "Owner's Updates."


----------



## PerryKing (May 25, 2022)

VacationForever said:


> @Guitarmom I am confused by your post.  Royal Caribbean and Four Seasons are not owned by Marriott Vacations Worldwide.


DITTO !!!  RCL and Four Seasons part of Marriott ??  NO WAY !!


----------



## RunCat (May 26, 2022)

steve1000 said:


> As a Four Seasons Aviara ("FSA") owner I am aware that Welk purchased a sizable number of Four Seasons Aviara prime platinum summer season floating weeks resale on the aftermarket at low prices. This resulted in litigation between Welk and Four Seasons Aviara. I am not exactly certain of the details but I believe Welk attempted to book a large number of consecutive prime summer week reservations taking advantage of Four Seasons Aviara's 13 month booking window. I believe that Welk purchased the weeks so that it could secure a large number of prime summer reservations that it would make available to an upper tier level of Welk Vacation club owners. FSA management determined that Welk's actions/intentions would severely and detrimentally limit the availability of prime summer weeks available to its platinum owners (especially single week platinum owners). In order to protect their interests, the FSA Board established a maximum limit on the number of consecutive platinum weeks an owner could book utilizing the 13 month window. I do not know whether the litigation is continuing or whether a settlement or other resolution was reached.



Based on the reservation options that used to be available on The Experience Collection website, none of the purchased weeks were during the high season summer months.  I also believe that Welk only purchased fixed weeks from the many resorts that were purchased.


----------



## RunCat (May 26, 2022)

Guitarmom said:


> I'm just so tired of the check-in and concierge staffs telling me how much I'm going to learn at the so-called "Owners Updates" when they instead, 100% of the time, turn out to be sales pitches. Why is not OK to be happy with what you've got?!?!?



FWIW, we go on these Owner Updates all the time. And they are ALWAYS a sales pitch to buy more.  (We've been so often to the ones in Breckenridge that the sales manager and some of the salespersons know us on a first-name basis.)  
We went to an OU in Cabo in February.  And in this case, the argument was that we would want more points. (We are P1 so he couldn't push the perks to upgrade).


----------



## steve1000 (May 26, 2022)

RunCat said:


> Based on the reservation options that used to be available on The Experience Collection website, none of the purchased weeks were during the high season summer months. I also believe that Welk only purchased fixed weeks from the many resorts that were purchased.


I am not familiar with either Welk or the Experience Collection so I don't know what weeks were acquired, made available or on what site. However, I believe Welk bought many summer platinum weeks at Four Seasons Aviara. I recall that several years ago I had been considering selling an Aviara floating platinum week and was told by a sales agent that I just missed an opportunity to sell my week to Welk as they had recently completed the acquisition of all the weeks they wanted.


----------

