It was a Vistana letter, but signed by the general manager at Lagunamar.
Just wait until everyone goes and tries to book with all those excess points. The issue is that no one is foreseeing the problem right now.
I wonder whether Wyndham's breakage rate is more sensitive to underlying economic circumstances than some others. If it is, and the next few years play out the way I suspect they will in terms of the underlying economy, then allowing people more liberty to bank forward may not be such a burden on the system.
Perhaps a lot comes down to internal system utilization? Does Marriott and Vistana have higher internal usage within their points systems than Wyndham does? Perhaps they have more breakage and thus more slack available in their system. I don't know that the ability to exchange in RCI really matters. WIth a deposit, inventory must go with it. RCI isn't going to take a March, April or May 2020 week for deposit. That means that the same inventory that is available to owners later this year and next would need to go to RCI for anyone wanting to deposit in RCI.
I do not know if anyone deposits Vistana in RCI. I enrolled one of my units, the TPU is terrible compared to what I can get in Interval for the same week. In the end I bought a great RCI points contract (Regal Vistas at Massanutten, 178,000 points EY, 1030 MF) in order to really have access to RCI as well.
IMO restricted SOs are a lot better than depositing in RCI. I am not sure mentioning a bad option is an option at all. We do not even know how many Vistana owners are RCI members, and it is not popular for a reason.
You have a valid point and you were trying to help. But one can only be even less happy if the options presented are worse than the status quo.
It would be interesting to know how this compares to the policies of developers with a bad reputation - Westgate, DRI.
One thing MVW can do is allow the inventory owned by them to be used up and let it expire during these coming months rather than forcing the inventory from individual owners to expire (indirectly by restricting use). Instead of renting the units they own for the next few years, they can make them available to individual owners to add slack to the system. Since a large % of sales come from existing owners, this would generate goodwill amongst their customers and could be in their long term interest.
Hawaii is going to be very interesting to watch as they are so dependent on tourism. This is from their tourism authority:
by the way, shouldn't resorts see a break in local taxes? Why would empty hotels continue to pay the same rates as before?
DRI, often much maligned, gave us all our points back...with no restrictions. I have used them already to book the almost identical stay for next May.
No...worse, not better. They cancelled us and gave us our points back for use through 2021...but with only a 60-day window for using them.
It seems that they could. After Westin St John was closed for hurricane damage, not only did we get full Staroptions (points) back, but they were extended for 2 years. And then our maintenance fees dropped by about 50%. Fortunately, our HOA had us fully insured, so we were not hit with and assessment for repairs.
I was referring to the property taxes, not the maintenance fees. I am not familiar to how they are calculated but Florida has a "real estate tax". Those taxes are actually high on a per condo basis when you multiply the tax per week with 52.. I think Hawaii has a significantly higher tax.
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