Marriott / Vistana / Westin merger

[Mowogo]

What did your parents “upgrade” from?

I think most owners never gave up their highly desired units for flex ownerships. That inventory would still remain in the VSN. Places like WSJ and HRA are currently not in any flex program. I wonder if they are holding their inventory for those resorts for a combined product?

I think the VSN will operate just fine for a few years. I suspect once a combined product rolls out people will want the ability to book both brands and it may turn more people onto giving back what they own to “upgrade”, if that’s something they would have to do.

They had two voluntary weeks at Vistana Resort, all bought developer, and it was done as trade in and now only have Sheraton Flex. I think you undersell the attachment most owners have to their specific resort outside of Hawaii and TUG. And honestly, for how they use their timeshare, Flex is a good product and is improving their timeshare experience being able to book a 2 bedroom with multiple view options for Christmas at Sheraton Steamboat Springs. Next year will likely be Christmas in Kauai when before they were primarily in Florida and exchanging for points (which still have value if you take advantage of certain ways to game Bonvoy).

 

[remowidget]

Has anyone ever actually gotten any benefit from Gold elite Bonvoy status? Other than a few bonus points? I have never been upgraded - not even after I became permanent Titanium status. I finally got some suite nights so I'll have to see if I can actually use those.

Gold is pretty worthless these days. Not that platinum or titanium are great. We have gotten upgrades with all three, but Gold was back when it was SPG. We have never gotten many upgrades, but we tend to stay in cheaper hotels that don't have many suites.

Suite nights haven't been great for us either.

SPG owned a lot of properties, whereas Marriott tends not to own properties. They just own customers. So, benefits and upgrades are up to the franchisee hotels and how they are willing or not to follow the rules. From what I've read in places like the points guy, it is relatively common for suites to be available but not for upgrades.

Of course, this is all hotel talk and off the topic of this thread.

 

[dioxide45]

Gold Bonvoy today is the equivalent to the old Marriott Rewards Silver
Platinum Bonvoy today is more equivalent to the old Marriott Rewards Gold.

 

[CPNY]

They had two voluntary weeks at Vistana Resort, all bought developer, and it was done as trade in and now only have Sheraton Flex. I think you undersell the attachment most owners have to their specific resort outside of Hawaii and TUG. And honestly, for how they use their timeshare, Flex is a good product and is improving their timeshare experience being able to book a 2 bedroom with multiple view options for Christmas at Sheraton Steamboat Springs. Next year will likely be Christmas in Kauai when before they were primarily in Florida and exchanging for points (which still have value if you take advantage of certain ways to game Bonvoy).

Sheraton resorts are usually pretty easy to get at 8 months. Westin on the other hand is not always the case. In the case of your parents, owning In flex is a better option than owning in SVR. Unless of course they had to pay tens of thousands more to “upgrade”.

exchanging for bonvoy points is a terrible conversion and one they should avoid in nearly all cases.

 

[remowidget]

Marriott vacation club and Marriott hotels are two separate companies with reciprocal agreements. Currently, Marriott Vacation Club and Vistana are two separate companies. If MVC and Vistana are merged into one company, they can probably do whatever they want. If not, it seems like they would be doing more of a trade program of some kind.

In Vistana, we have two classes of owners with one trading system. Marriott is different. While they have two classes of owners like Vistana, only points owners can trade. If Marriott week owners want to trade into another property, they must do so through Interval international. It has always been this way.

It seems to me that unless they are going to merge and make big changes, they will be limited to combining with the most restrictive rules, or be hit with class action law suits. While I think MVC points can be used anytime up to a year, vistana has the 8 month home resort ownership period(even with points). I personally think that any changes will only affect trading at 8 months. Beause of this 8 month window in Vistanas system, I think any changes between the two systems will only occurr at the 8 month window. I think they will somehow combine points values and make MVC and Vistana open to cross trades at 8 months. I can see where salesman would say this is a better deal for MVC owners. MVC owners would have access to all of Vistana availability at 8 months, whereas Vistana would only have access to MVC points availability. Also, it seems that the most popular resorts in MVC are more likely to be mostly sold out because any MVC owner can book them at a year.

I don't think that salesman know what is really going to happen, or it would leak. I think they are given a script of what they are supposed to reveal and they infer stuff from that.

 

[Hoppyness]

I just completed a sale presentation at a Marriott timeshare resort. I was told the merger will only benefit Marriott owners. I was told that if you are a Marriott owner you will have the ability to transfer / trade into Westin / Vistana properties. But it will not let Westin / Vistana book Marriott properties. “Because MARRIOTT bought Westin /Vistana” “We ( Marriott) own them” ( Westin / Vistana) They we’re displaying a whole video on the NEW properties ( Westin’s) Does anyone have any information regarding how they think the merger might play out. They said it might take place by the end of the year. Thanks

We just completed an öwners "update"at our Vistana resort. Very close to update of Feb 2020 which came 2 months after we purchased at Westin in Cancun. At that time we were told US gov had issued a severe warning on travel to all of Mexico(not!) This time they said we "can't even give away properies in Mexico. Marriott isn't investing in Mexico be cause the government could shut them down at any moment.." despite the fact that Mexico iremains the #1 international destination for North American travelers. Said we needed to buy flex becuse at some time, not sure when,we would not be able to trade Westin Mexico for other Marriott or Vistana prop. unless we buy flex. We didn't bite. Then were told our booking would be so difficult if we didn't buy flex that we would have to go during undesirable times like hurricane season.. So Summer+Beach Vacations= Hurricane Season on the east coast of the USA and the Caribbean, Right ? Happens to be the most popular times to visit. We didn't buy with the gol of trading. We bought with thre goal of VISITING. II is for trading. Royal Resorts pushes a similar package with their new affiliation with Wyndham. Seems to me that younger people arent interested in time shares, so the marketing has to evolve.

 

[boraxo]

This is a complete line of bull but not surprising given the source (a timeshare salesperson). We got fed similar nonsense by the Welk sales team last month (Welk was acquired by Hyatt). Nobody really knows how the new system will absorb the old one. It is like airline mergers you can't predict how the points will transfer but generally you have more options than you did before. I expect that will be the case here too.

Of course they are trying to convert every fixed week unit to points but we all know that can be a very bad deal depending on what you currently own. My parents are happy with their fixed weeks in Palm Springs and as Clarence Thomas likes to say "they ain't evolving. I suspect my inlaws who own Starwood aka Vistana feel the same way.

 

[vistana101]

Gold Bonvoy today is the equivalent to the old Marriott Rewards Silver
Platinum Bonvoy today is more equivalent to the old SPG Gold.

I think you mean Platinum Bonvoy is closer to the old Marriott* Gold level? SPG Gold didn't offer lounge access or breakfast and had minimal upgrade benefits.

 

[dioxide45]

I think you mean Platinum Bonvoy is closer to the old Marriott* Gold level? SPG Gold didn't offer lounge access or breakfast and had minimal upgrade benefits.

Yes, I was. I updated my post.

 

[RunCat]

I think you mean Platinum Bonvoy is closer to the old Marriott* Gold level? SPG Gold didn't offer lounge access or breakfast and had minimal upgrade benefits.

With SPG Gold, I was given access to the Lounge Level a number of times; albeit, I also asked.

 

[farinc]

I just completed a sale presentation at a Marriott timeshare resort. I was told the merger will only benefit Marriott owners. I was told that if you are a Marriott owner you will have the ability to transfer / trade into Westin / Vistana properties. But it will not let Westin / Vistana book Marriott properties. “Because MARRIOTT bought Westin /Vistana” “We ( Marriott) own them” ( Westin / Vistana) They we’re displaying a whole video on the NEW properties ( Westin’s) Does anyone have any information regarding how they think the merger might play out. They said it might take place by the end of the year. Thanks

Confused. I thought weston and sheraton were originally SPG and SPG was bought by Marriott some years ago?

 

[CPNY]

Confused. I thought weston and sheraton were originally SPG and SPG was bought by Marriott some years ago?

Westin and Sheraton hotels were formally Starwood. Starwood also had its own vacation club, the Starwood Vacation Club. The vacation club was spun off into its own company some time ago, to be renamed Vistana Signature Experiences. Marriott hotels company also spun off its vacation club Into a separate company called MVC. Both vacation clubs continued to license the hotel brand names.

Vistana was purchased by interval leisure group which also owned Hyatt vacation club. So ILG owned VSE, Interval international and HRC.

Marriott hotels bought Starwood hotels and created bonvoy. Bonvoy continues to have a licensing agreement with the vacation club resorts.

Marriott vacation club purchased ILG and are now Marriott Vacations Worldwide. So Bonvoy owns the hotels and MVW owns thevacation club resorts and products. Hope I got that right.

 

[JIMinNC]

I posted this on the Marriott forum, but thought it would be relevant too this thread as well.

There was some updated information on the integration of the Marriott/Sheraton/Westin Vacation Clubs during Marriott Vacations Worldwide's July 29 Second Quarter 2021 earnings conference call. Here is what CEO Steve Weisz said:

Steve Weisz: We continue to expand the use of technology to lower our back‐office cost and improve our associates experience by leveraging artificial intelligence to augment and automate many of our high volume internal transactional processes. And we're making good progress on the technology needed to link our Marriott, Westin, and Sheraton products into a single points‐based offering in early 2022.

Later in the call, one of the investment analysts asked a follow-up question on this point:

Ben Chaiken: You also mentioned the single platform kind of bringing all the brands under one umbrella. This seems like a, you know, another very interesting kind of tailwind, as well. It is too early to talk about some of the top line benefits? It seems like—I don't want to necessarily steer the conversation, but it seems like this could benefit, you know, close rate, price and just the consumer value proposition overall. So, I'm just hoping to get your perspective there.

Steve Weisz: You've touched on several, that are not only logical, but somewhat obvious, and this is again— this is three of the four brands. It would not include Hyatt, by virtue of our license agreement and everything else, but the Sheraton, Westin, and Marriott brands into a single platform, and we believe that, it does increase the customer value proposition. We believe that it should help improve close rates. and then ergo, you'd like to think that it has a nice impact on things like VPG. but, you know, again, we're talking about rollout early next year. We are very pleased with the progress we're making on all the bits and pieces behind the scenes that we have to put in place in order to get this thing together. But, between what we would think logically, as well as some customer research we've done, we think this will resonate very well with not only our existing owners but, new owners, as well.

So, not any new details, but it seems like confirmation that we may have some news coming early in 2022.

 

[jwalke11]

They had two voluntary weeks at Vistana Resort, all bought developer, and it was done as trade in and now only have Sheraton Flex. I think you undersell the attachment most owners have to their specific resort outside of Hawaii and TUG. And honestly, for how they use their timeshare, Flex is a good product and is improving their timeshare experience being able to book a 2 bedroom with multiple view options for Christmas at Sheraton Steamboat Springs. Next year will likely be Christmas in Kauai when before they were primarily in Florida and exchanging for points (which still have value if you take advantage of certain ways to game Bonvoy).

curious as to how you "game Bonvoy" is there a thread for this?

 

[Mowogo]

curious as to how you "game Bonvoy" is there a thread for this?

That is the topic of a bunch of blogs and websites focusing on maximizing miles and points. Look for The Points Guy, Boarding Area, Inside Flyer, and FlyerTalk


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[WorldTraveler1972]

Just attended an owner's presentation. It's all been finalized how it will be handled.

The 2 programs will stay totally separate, however all of the unsold weeks of vistana will be added to the DC trust. Thus, once the unsold vistana inventory is put into the DC trust for DC points owners to use their is a limited amount of vistana weeks in the DC trust. For example, if 80% of all vistana weeks are held by owners, and 20% are currently unsold, then those 20% will go into the trust. This is exactly the same way it was in 2010 for all of Marriott Vacation Club properties pre destination club points. In 2010 when the destination club program came out, all of the unsold Marriott weeks at that time were put into the trust. Then as Marriott build new Marriott Vacation Club properties, all of the new properties were added to the trust and there were no deeded weeks for the new properties added after 2010. Marriott was forced to offer people with deeded weeks a cheap way to get into the DC program. So at that time, they made a one time offer where for $595 per deeded week you could have the option every year to exchange your week for DC points, however in doing so you were forced to pay the annual $215 DC fees in perpetuity or lose the ability to have the annual choice of using your deeded fixed/ floating week or trading them for DC points. Since you continued to retain ownership of your deeded week, you would only pay your individual resort maintenance fees and not have anything to do with DC point owners who would have to pay a maintenance fee per destination club point. A lot of people with deeded weeks of MVC properties in 2010 decided against paying the extra one time fee of $595 and the annual perpetual fee of $215 and kept their week. The reason why everyone did not take advantage of that option is it was a bad deal (unless you opted every year to take the DC points and only use them on stays during Sunday - Friday). For people who paid the $595 one time fee and the annual perpetual fee of $215 to be able to annually choose to trade their week for DC points would be ripped off because they were given the lowest weekly point total during their week's season. So essentially you would get the lowest weekly DC point total during your season (i.e. platinum) in exchange for relinquishing use of your week for that year. So let's say platinum season has a week or two during it that have high demand (myrtle beach Marriott during 4th of July week). If you opted for DC points that year, you would get 3000 points because that is the lowest point total for a week during platinum season. Now, if let's say instead you wanted to use your week instead of trading for DC points and book the week of the 4th of July. You would end up with the week of the 4th of july. Now if someone wanted to use DC points to book the 4th of July, it would cost them 6000 DC points for the same size unit that you would only get 3000 DC points if you chose that option in any year.

The same way it works for people with deeded Marriott weeks now did not opt for the one time fee of $595 and the annual perpetual fee of $215 is exactly how it will work with vistana weeks. There will be no trading staroptions for DC points. MVC at the resorts/ owners updates is trying to push now a one time only offer where you can purchase a MINIMUM of 1000 DC points totalling over $15k plus all of the escrow and paperwork fees in order to give you a "hybrid" account. Thus you purchase 1000 DC points and pay the annual $215 fee and they will allow you to trade your use of your deeded week that year for the lowest weekly point total during your season. They are also saying that the 1000 points you buy plus the DC point value of the weeks you can opt to exchange will go towards status (i.e. chairman's status). The status is based upon the total of what they would give you for opting to trade your deeded use week for points.. Now they are not claiming you need to opt each year to use your deeded weeks in order to use them for status, just that all of your Marriott and vistana weeks point values will go towards status. In addition, they said in 2022 before everything is announced they will be increasing the amount of DC points you will need for status levels (at least a 20% increase), however anyone who has a certain status level at the end of 2021 will retain that level even though the points requirement went up.

They also said that you must purchase the 1000 DC points from a mvc sales center in order to be able to have the annual option to trade any of your Marriott or vistana deeded weeks into DC points. They said that you can't go and buy resale points on the open market or have DC points gifted to you by a direct relative. None of those ways will count towards the 1000 point minimum of DC points.

I have 1 Marriott grand Chateau resale deeded week, 2 resale Sheraton Broadway Weeks, and 6 resale Sheratin Vistana Villages (Bella & Key West mandatory VSN) weeks. If I paid the $15k for 1000 points I could become chairman's level in the DC program overnight. But it's still not worth it because the DC points that I could get in exchange for trading my deeded weeks useage in any year would be so devalued unless I choose the worst week of any season that I wanted to use my DC points for.

Keep your weeks and don't buy 1000 DC points to get into the DC program.. If we all do that, maybe they will offer the same type of deal they did in 2010 with only a $595 per week buy in. Otherwise they will not have enough inventory of unsold vistana weeks to satisfy the DC point owners.

If you wanted access to the DC point program, for the same $15k it would cost you to buy 1000 points from them, you could just buy 3000 DC points on the resale market which are selling for $2 per point and pay Marriott the $3 per point registration fee. Then at least when you no longer want to use the DC point system anymore you could sell the 3000 points on the resale market for $6k. At least that way you would only loose $9k (the $3 per point registration fee). If you buy 1000 points directly from MVC, you would loose $13k.(Purchase 1000 points for $15k and later sell them for the going price of $2 per point.

 

[iowaguy09]

Just attended an owner's presentation. It's all been finalized how it will be handled.

The 2 programs will stay totally separate, however all of the unsold weeks of vistana will be added to the DC trust. Thus, once the unsold vistana inventory is put into the DC trust for DC points owners to use their is a limited amount of vistana weeks in the DC trust. For example, if 80% of all vistana weeks are held by owners, and 20% are currently unsold, then those 20% will go into the trust. This is exactly the same way it was in 2010 for all of Marriott Vacation Club properties pre destination club points. In 2010 when the destination club program came out, all of the unsold Marriott weeks at that time were put into the trust. Then as Marriott build new Marriott Vacation Club properties, all of the new properties were added to the trust and there were no deeded weeks for the new properties added after 2010. Marriott was forced to offer people with deeded weeks a cheap way to get into the DC program. So at that time, they made a one time offer where for $595 per deeded week you could have the option every year to exchange your week for DC points, however in doing so you were forced to pay the annual $215 DC fees in perpetuity or lose the ability to have the annual choice of using your deeded fixed/ floating week or trading them for DC points. Since you continued to retain ownership of your deeded week, you would only pay your individual resort maintenance fees and not have anything to do with DC point owners who would have to pay a maintenance fee per destination club point. A lot of people with deeded weeks of MVC properties in 2010 decided against paying the extra one time fee of $595 and the annual perpetual fee of $215 and kept their week. The reason why everyone did not take advantage of that option is it was a bad deal (unless you opted every year to take the DC points and only use them on stays during Sunday - Friday). For people who paid the $595 one time fee and the annual perpetual fee of $215 to be able to annually choose to trade their week for DC points would be ripped off because they were given the lowest weekly point total during their week's season. So essentially you would get the lowest weekly DC point total during your season (i.e. platinum) in exchange for relinquishing use of your week for that year. So let's say platinum season has a week or two during it that have high demand (myrtle beach Marriott during 4th of July week). If you opted for DC points that year, you would get 3000 points because that is the lowest point total for a week during platinum season. Now, if let's say instead you wanted to use your week instead of trading for DC points and book the week of the 4th of July. You would end up with the week of the 4th of july. Now if someone wanted to use DC points to book the 4th of July, it would cost them 6000 DC points for the same size unit that you would only get 3000 DC points if you chose that option in any year.

The same way it works for people with deeded Marriott weeks now did not opt for the one time fee of $595 and the annual perpetual fee of $215 is exactly how it will work with vistana weeks. There will be no trading staroptions for DC points. MVC at the resorts/ owners updates is trying to push now a one time only offer where you can purchase a MINIMUM of 1000 DC points totalling over $15k plus all of the escrow and paperwork fees in order to give you a "hybrid" account. Thus you purchase 1000 DC points and pay the annual $215 fee and they will allow you to trade your use of your deeded week that year for the lowest weekly point total during your season. They are also saying that the 1000 points you buy plus the DC point value of the weeks you can opt to exchange will go towards status (i.e. chairman's status). The status is based upon the total of what they would give you for opting to trade your deeded use week for points.. Now they are not claiming you need to opt each year to use your deeded weeks in order to use them for status, just that all of your Marriott and vistana weeks point values will go towards status. In addition, they said in 2022 before everything is announced they will be increasing the amount of DC points you will need for status levels (at least a 20% increase), however anyone who has a certain status level at the end of 2021 will retain that level even though the points requirement went up.

They also said that you must purchase the 1000 DC points from a mvc sales center in order to be able to have the annual option to trade any of your Marriott or vistana deeded weeks into DC points. They said that you can't go and buy resale points on the open market or have DC points gifted to you by a direct relative. None of those ways will count towards the 1000 point minimum of DC points.

I have 1 Marriott grand Chateau resale deeded week, 2 resale Sheraton Broadway Weeks, and 6 resale Sheratin Vistana Villages (Bella & Key West mandatory VSN) weeks. If I paid the $15k for 1000 points I could become chairman's level in the DC program overnight. But it's still not worth it because the DC points that I could get in exchange for trading my deeded weeks useage in any year would be so devalued unless I choose the worst week of any season that I wanted to use my DC points for.

Keep your weeks and don't buy 1000 DC points to get into the DC program.. If we all do that, maybe they will offer the same type of deal they did in 2010 with only a $595 per week buy in. Otherwise they will not have enough inventory of unsold vistana weeks to satisfy the DC point owners.

If you wanted access to the DC point program, for the same $15k it would cost you to buy 1000 points from them, you could just buy 3000 DC points on the resale market which are selling for $2 per point and pay Marriott the $3 per point registration fee. Then at least when you no longer want to use the DC point system anymore you could sell the 3000 points on the resale market for $6k. At least that way you would only loose $9k (the $3 per point registration fee). If you buy 1000 points directly from MVC, you would loose $13k.(Purchase 1000 points for $15k and later sell them for the going price of $2 per point.

What about Westin Flex owners?

 

[Mowogo]

What about Westin Flex owners?

My guess based on that update combined with the common thread is that Flex owners are going to be offered the cheap option to enroll that MVC had to offer to get people to enroll. Makes for an easy way to get more inventory at VSN resorts because they need to appear more integrated than they have been for future owners due to the integration of the brands in Bonvoy.

 

[WorldTraveler1972]

No. From what I heard they are not offering anybody cheap buy in. Just trying to push $15k purchase of 1000 points and they are saying that post final announcement the minimum will go from requiring you to purchase 1000 points to having to purchase 2000 points.

 

[WorldTraveler1972]

No. From what I heard they are not offering anybody cheap buy in. Just trying to push $15k purchase of 1000 points and they are saying that post final announcement the minimum will go from requiring you to purchase 1000 points to having to purchase 2000 points.

One of the main reasons why they will not allow cheap buy In now is that it does not make them any money. They do not want to make the vistana weeks more valuable. I was let into a secret that MVC is actively purchasing all of the dirt cheap weeks on the resale market and trying to get people to give their Marriott and vistana weeks back to Marriott. That is how you get more inventory on the cheap or for free. They do not want to create a way for someone to buy a dirt cheap week (or even get one for free on timesharenation.com where they are giving away vistana weeks and are doing all of the escrow paperwork for free) and then be able to use the DC point system. Even those people who paid the $595 back in 2010 the ability to use the DC points program ends with the owners death or gift or sale of the week. Thus, the next owner does not have the ability to re-enroll the week into the DC point program..

 

[andysnovel]

Lei’s wait for the official announcement , none of this makes any sense to me, I am a vistana owner of direct purchase of flex and resale purchase—Bella—-there has to more to this from my Vistana perspective. There is plenty of money to be made from conversion fees, thousands of Vistana owners paying ‘X’ amount of dollars, their has to be incentives here to buy in to the program.

 

[dioxide45]

Just attended an owner's presentation. It's all been finalized how it will be handled.

Oh! Well nothing more to talk about now. We know ALL the details. The salesperson said so LOL

 

[WorldTraveler1972]

Think, if mvc takes all of the unsold weeks that vistana has, they don't really need you unless they are making a substantial amount of money. Right now they are selling a DC point for $15. As soon as your right of recession ends, typically you can only get $2 a point on the resale market. The purchaser of the point pays you $2 per point and pays Marriott $3 per point registration fee. That is how you make money. Not by letting everybody in the back door. Doing that would make the DC points totally worthless as why would someone pay $6k in registration fees (2000 points x $3 registration fee) for not even enough points to get you a 2 bedroom unit at the worst Marriott resort during the worst season.

Think exclusivity and flexibility. That is what the DC program offers. They will think of any potential loopholes and make sure you pay through the nose one way or another. There is no free lunch or heavily discounted lunch. If you think so, I got a bridge in Brooklyn I can sell you for cheap.

By law, the vistana contracts cannot be changed unless 100% of all owners agree to do so.

 

[ocdb8r]

Think, if mvc takes all of the unsold weeks that vistana has, they don't really need you unless they are making a substantial amount of money.

Except that there are virtually no "unsold weeks" as Vistana has for some time been placing any weeks it owned into the various trusts it started (e.g. the Westin Flex, Sheraton Flex and Aventuras). You can't just dump the unsold points inventory into DC. As usual, this is just salesperson SPIN on the new program.

Of course, I have no doubt they're working on some way to externally market it as a single system for sale....however, what is actually interesting for most members of this community are the actual behind the scenes details a) to address fears of existing owners being marginalized in some way; and b) so we can learn the best ways to ACTUALLY maximize our ownerships.

Oh! Well nothing more to talk about now. We know ALL the details. The salesperson said so LOL

EXACTLY!

One of the main reasons why they will not allow cheap buy In now is that it does not make them any money.

It makes them a ton of money. It's virtually PURE PROFIT as it costs them nothing to charge an "enrollment" fee.

I was let into a secret that MVC is actively purchasing all of the dirt cheap weeks on the resale market and trying to get people to give their Marriott and vistana weeks back to Marriott.

This same lie was used by salespeople before the DP was launched...the weeks MVC/Vistana gets back are a drop in the bucket compared to what they need to make a full system actually work (look at Hyatt as a good example of a point system launched with no incentive for existing owners to participate....total failure). Aside from this simply not being enough, weeks of value aren't dumped for free and you can't have a successful system comprised of a surplus of bronze and silver weeks.

Bottom line is a) they DO in fact need existing Vistana owners to participate in some way as there are large swaths of valuable weeks only in our hands (most of Lagunamar, Harborside, Kaanapali South and North and most everything sold in the mainland US); and b) it makes no sense to completely marginalize the existing Vistana customer base by making their ownerships less useful...as a group we're much more valuable as potential upsale prospects (just as the existing MVC owners were when DP was launched). Now, I'm not delusional; MVC is not quite in the same position as it was when it launched DP (with very low inventory in a trust) so it may not be as "generous" with a super low buy-in offer for existing Vistana owners, but I have no doubt that will make some sort of "attractive" offer to get our participation.

 

[SueDonJ]

Just attended an owner's presentation. It's all been finalized how it will be handled.

It may be "all finalized" internally but the usual caution applies: Until an official announcement is made, NOTHING that a salesperson says should be relied upon to justify ANY purchase. Prior to Marriott announcing and implementing its Destination Club on 6/20/10, we Marriott owners were subjected to years of speculation and warnings in presentations given by the sales staff, and not one of those single presentations turned out to be 100% true or false. Even after, for the first couple of years we were still learning and processing by trial-and-error in many cases.

The only caveat I would mention here is that on the day the DC was announced for Marriott owners, direct sales of US Weeks were immediately suspended and the official eligibility terms of existing sold Weeks to participate in the DC did not extend to any Weeks purchased after that day (Bundle Packages and special sales incentives that counter the official eligibility terms came much later.) I'm not saying this to entice anybody to go out and buy Weeks with the expectation that they'll be able to play in the DC sandbox if/after a Vistana-DC integration is announced, but only to caution that if you're expecting an announcement and then an opportunity to buy Weeks (resale or direct) that will conform to the eligibility terms, that probably will not be an option for quite some time.

... The 2 programs will stay totally separate, however all of the unsold weeks of vistana will be added to the DC trust. Thus, once the unsold vistana inventory is put into the DC trust for DC points owners to use their is a limited amount of vistana weeks in the DC trust. For example, if 80% of all vistana weeks are held by owners, and 20% are currently unsold, then those 20% will go into the trust. This is exactly the same way it was in 2010 for all of Marriott Vacation Club properties pre destination club points. In 2010 when the destination club program came out, all of the unsold Marriott weeks at that time were put into the trust. Then as Marriott build new Marriott Vacation Club properties, all of the new properties were added to the trust and there were no deeded weeks for the new properties added after 2010. Marriott was forced to offer people with deeded weeks a cheap way to get into the DC program. So at that time, they made a one time offer where for $595 per deeded week you could have the option every year to exchange your week for DC points, however in doing so you were forced to pay the annual $215 DC fees in perpetuity or lose the ability to have the annual choice of using your deeded fixed/ floating week or trading them for DC points. Since you continued to retain ownership of your deeded week, you would only pay your individual resort maintenance fees and not have anything to do with DC point owners who would have to pay a maintenance fee per destination club point. A lot of people with deeded weeks of MVC properties in 2010 decided against paying the extra one time fee of $595 and the annual perpetual fee of $215 and kept their week. The reason why everyone did not take advantage of that option is it was a bad deal (unless you opted every year to take the DC points and only use them on stays during Sunday - Friday). For people who paid the $595 one time fee and the annual perpetual fee of $215 to be able to annually choose to trade their week for DC points would be ripped off because they were given the lowest weekly point total during their week's season. So essentially you would get the lowest weekly DC point total during your season (i.e. platinum) in exchange for relinquishing use of your week for that year. So let's say platinum season has a week or two during it that have high demand (myrtle beach Marriott during 4th of July week). If you opted for DC points that year, you would get 3000 points because that is the lowest point total for a week during platinum season. Now, if let's say instead you wanted to use your week instead of trading for DC points and book the week of the 4th of July. You would end up with the week of the 4th of july. Now if someone wanted to use DC points to book the 4th of July, it would cost them 6000 DC points for the same size unit that you would only get 3000 DC points if you chose that option in any year.

The same way it works for people with deeded Marriott weeks now did not opt for the one time fee of $595 and the annual perpetual fee of $215 is exactly how it will work with vistana weeks. There will be no trading staroptions for DC points. MVC at the resorts/ owners updates is trying to push now a one time only offer where you can purchase a MINIMUM of 1000 DC points totalling over $15k plus all of the escrow and paperwork fees in order to give you a "hybrid" account. Thus you purchase 1000 DC points and pay the annual $215 fee and they will allow you to trade your use of your deeded week that year for the lowest weekly point total during your season. They are also saying that the 1000 points you buy plus the DC point value of the weeks you can opt to exchange will go towards status (i.e. chairman's status). The status is based upon the total of what they would give you for opting to trade your deeded use week for points.. Now they are not claiming you need to opt each year to use your deeded weeks in order to use them for status, just that all of your Marriott and vistana weeks point values will go towards status. In addition, they said in 2022 before everything is announced they will be increasing the amount of DC points you will need for status levels (at least a 20% increase), however anyone who has a certain status level at the end of 2021 will retain that level even though the points requirement went up.

They also said that you must purchase the 1000 DC points from a mvc sales center in order to be able to have the annual option to trade any of your Marriott or vistana deeded weeks into DC points. They said that you can't go and buy resale points on the open market or have DC points gifted to you by a direct relative. None of those ways will count towards the 1000 point minimum of DC points.

I have 1 Marriott grand Chateau resale deeded week, 2 resale Sheraton Broadway Weeks, and 6 resale Sheratin Vistana Villages (Bella & Key West mandatory VSN) weeks. If I paid the $15k for 1000 points I could become chairman's level in the DC program overnight. But it's still not worth it because the DC points that I could get in exchange for trading my deeded weeks useage in any year would be so devalued unless I choose the worst week of any season that I wanted to use my DC points for.

Keep your weeks and don't buy 1000 DC points to get into the DC program.. If we all do that, maybe they will offer the same type of deal they did in 2010 with only a $595 per week buy in. Otherwise they will not have enough inventory of unsold vistana weeks to satisfy the DC point owners.

If you wanted access to the DC point program, for the same $15k it would cost you to buy 1000 points from them, you could just buy 3000 DC points on the resale market which are selling for $2 per point and pay Marriott the $3 per point registration fee. Then at least when you no longer want to use the DC point system anymore you could sell the 3000 points on the resale market for $6k. At least that way you would only loose $9k (the $3 per point registration fee). If you buy 1000 points directly from MVC, you would loose $13k.(Purchase 1000 points for $15k and later sell them for the going price of $2 per point.

One of the main reasons why they will not allow cheap buy In now is that it does not make them any money. They do not want to make the vistana weeks more valuable. I was let into a secret that MVC is actively purchasing all of the dirt cheap weeks on the resale market and trying to get people to give their Marriott and vistana weeks back to Marriott. That is how you get more inventory on the cheap or for free. They do not want to create a way for someone to buy a dirt cheap week (or even get one for free on timesharenation.com where they are giving away vistana weeks and are doing all of the escrow paperwork for free) and then be able to use the DC point system. Even those people who paid the $595 back in 2010 the ability to use the DC points program ends with the owners death or gift or sale of the week. Thus, the next owner does not have the ability to re-enroll the week into the DC point program..

There are so many "facts" here about the Marriott/DC integration - at its inception and continuing through today - that are simply wrong. Granted, they're technical things related to eligibility, pricing, Club Dues, seeding the DC Trust, etc ... but it would be a waste of time to refute them now because there has been no official announcement of a Vistana/DC integration. Many of us Marriott owners have posted here and there in the Vistana forum to try to explain aspects of the DC to give you food for thought, though I don't believe that any of us have said that we know definitively what you may be facing. If you're interested in the technical correctness of how the Marriott/DC integration works you can check out the sticky thread in the Marriott forum: FAQ - MVC DESTINATIONS Points Program, but again with the caution that there's no way to know right now that it's what's ahead for Vistana owners, so the FAQ might only make sense if/after an official announcement is made.

I keep using "if" in reference to a Vistana/DC integration. I do believe one is coming and I am always up for speculation threads, but my expectations aren't any more or less legitimate than anybody else's. So buckle up and if it happens, be thankful that you'll have the benefit of Marriott owners' experience and knowledge to help you figure it out. Good luck!