Marriott Abound

[CalGalTraveler]

@SueDonJ You are correct. We need to see what Abound ultimately looks like but if Vistana owners don't speak up not it may be too late for them to change direction.

There is a business saying, "Tell me how they are measured and I will tell you how they will act." MVCs business model is enriched when they sell their points system and sell new services. Renting out prime weeks on Marriott.com is also a source of revenue. Deeds are becoming like resale to them. An annoyance they would rather eliminate if they could.

Why do you think they came up with Abound in the first place? Does anyone honestly believe this is because they are trying to serve their owners? It is all about making more money.

It is not hard to prove that they have been using their house advantage already to profit on Marriott.com. OF owners need to monitor and watch for listings and capture screenshots. We could create a private TUG thread to capture this data. As stated earlier, HOA reservation records can be supoenaed by owners to determine if Abound fits within the 1:50 random odds.

Here is exhibit 1, July 4 WKORV Deluxe OF 1 bdrm:

Marriott Abound

You can, but the "Owner" level has to pay a 10% point premium to book 7+ nights at 13 months. Select can book 7+ nights without the premium and Executive and above can book 1+ nights at 13 months. I did not know about the 10% point premium!! Thx

tugbbs.com

 

[divenski]

One to one is not always the case. How do you explain ePlus upgrades, where II earns an upgrade fee from a larger or more luxurious unit that is not equivalent? That's not 1:1. And what happens to the owner that deposited the upgraded 2 bdrm unit? Musical chairs - someone must lose out.

It's not musical chairs as depositing a higher end 2-brdm unit into II has always been a higher risk situation. Except for the rare 3-bdrm units, you can't upgrade the room size and you always lose the view preference. Situations like this are one reason why some people complained about II and like the DP system. It really works well for 2-bdrm units that don't have a lockoff, eg MVC Waiohai, where a one unit week can possibly be stretched to 1-2 weeks of smaller units. Arguably, the main losers were traders who relished the idea of routinely trading up.

 

[CalGalTraveler]

An e-plus upgrade is still one unit for one unit and once the unit goes into exchange it’s no longer a candidate for home resort priority. Like for like is what you are talking about, and that is not the same as what the discussion of home resort priority is or how it works. Yes exchanging Carries risks by getting a smaller unit, or worse resort quality or worse season, but that’s baked into the exchange cake and has been going on long before abound or even VSN.

Agree. Why should Abound be any different if it is an exchange? It should not be like for like.

 

[Eric B]

Can we get to 100 pages on this one before the Abound rules are released? It might take some work, but maybe....

 

[SueDonJ]

@SueDonJ You are correct. We need to see what Abound ultimately looks like but if Vistana owners don't speak up not it may be too late for them to change direction.

There is a business saying, "Tell me how they are measured and I will tell you how they will act." MVCs business model is enriched when they sell their points system and sell new services. Renting out prime weeks on Marriott.com is also a source of revenue. Deeds are becoming like resale to them. An annoyance they would rather eliminate if they could.

Why do you think they came up with Abound in the first place? Does anyone honestly believe this is because they are trying to serve their owners? It is all about making more money. Vistana owners are crabs boiling in an MVC money pot.

It is not hard to prove that they have been using their house advantage already to profit on Marriott.com. OF owners need to monitor and watch for listings and capture screenshots. We could create a private TUG thread to capture this data. As stated earlier, HOA reservation records can be supoenaed by owners to determine if Abound fits within the 1:50 random odds.

Here is exhibit 1, July 4 WKORV Deluxe OF 1 bdrm:

Marriott Abound

You can, but the "Owner" level has to pay a 10% point premium to book 7+ nights at 13 months. Select can book 7+ nights without the premium and Executive and above can book 1+ nights at 13 months. I did not know about the 10% point premium!! Thx

tugbbs.com

I have no problem at all with affected owners hashing out the legalities of their ownerships on TUG (and as you can tell, no problem at all with non-owners offering their opinions and knowledge to help direct those owners constructively. ) But I don't think there's any chance at all of a private TUG thread solving your intended purpose because there are Marriott eyes all over TUG. They used to be easily recognized (like this: MVCI Customer Advocate) but they never regularly participated and none of the easily-recognized have been noticed around here for a good long time. BUT there are other Marriott employees/reps sanctioned by corporate who are still regularly reading, and I know this because a few have outed themselves to me. I would guess that all of the other big timeshare players would have their eyes on TUG, too - like Denise has said, TUG is a working focus group for them.

As for who came up with Abound in the first place it's simply a renaming of the Destination Club. Many rightly suspect that the DC was developed by Marriott to counteract the reality of low-demand Weeks intervals not selling and thus dragging their business down, and for that purpose its design and implementation has been ingenious! Who wouldn't expect Marriott to protect and further its own business interests?! The thing is, though, it's been a very welcome change for many, many owners including me. Don and I bought Marriott because we wanted to vacation regularly at SurfWatch and Barony Beach Club but we wanted occasional exchanges, too. The Disney timeshare (DVC) model was to me always the ideal model, i.e. a points-based product that allowed for internal exchanges in which you choose the resort, the check-in day/date, the number of nights, and the size and view of the unit, and II hadn't EVER given me all of those variables with exchanges. As far as I'm concerned, knowing full well that Marriott's business interest will always be a priority for them and their shareholders, Marriott's DC was the perfect marriage of what I owned and what I wanted.

As for changing the direction of Vistana's integration into the DC, I think that unless you can prove with a lawsuit that Marriott is flagrantly violating your ownership rights, the ship has long sailed for you to stop Marriott at this late date. If they've already announced the Abound name and are already using printed materials in their sales presentations, I'd guess that they've already received the approvals and authorizations that they need to push forward. I expect that as soon as they've worked out the IT issues that are obviously plaguing them, you'll see an abrupt change to your owner's website and you'll find the legal documents there. One of those will be the Enrollment Agreement that you and every other Vistana owner will have to sign in order to participate, and by signing it you'll all be agreeing to the terms and conditions of the program. Scour that thing and every other legal thing they make available - because that's where you'll find any first inklings of your ownership rights being violated! (And believe me, we Marriott owners did exactly that and couldn't find anything nefarious despite all of your same concerns being raised when we were facing the same substantial change in 2010.)

I do wish all of you very good luck in learning about what's being put on the table, and I hope that more of you rather than fewer find real usage value in it.

 

[CalGalTraveler]

I do not think you understand. According to the resort rules :

"Home Resort Float Period means the period during which all Network Members owning VOIs at a particular Home
Resort have the exclusive right to compete to reserve the use of Vacation Periods within their Season and Unit type
at their Home Resort"
It clearly mentions you have to own those VOI, not to get them through some novel and contorted transfer of rights through an exchange (like Abound, VSN or any other).

The words "Members owning at a particular Home Resort have the exclusive right to compete to reserve." This is really important legal language.

How does transferring a unit to an exchange like Abound make MVC or any other entity an owner (of a deed) with an exclusive right to compete to reserve? If it is an exclusive right doesn't that mean excluding others and only that right belongs to the owner?

 

[Eric B]

Another possible interpretation is that someone booking a stay with AC/DC points is not actually "reserving a week" at any particular home resort, but instead making an exchange into an availability that was reserved by either an owner who had the exclusive right to book it or by the Network Operator using to its powers to book availability for bulk deposits in anticipation of owner usage. IMHO it's to early to tell due to the lack of the actual provisions that will govern Abound.

 

[CalGalTraveler]

As for changing the direction of Vistana's integration into the DC, I think that unless you can prove with a lawsuit that Marriott is flagrantly violating your ownership rights, the ship has long sailed for you to stop Marriott at this late date. If they've already announced the Abound name and are already using printed materials in their sales presentations, I'd guess that they've already received the approvals and authorizations that they need to push forward. I expect that as soon as they've worked out the IT issues that are obviously plaguing them, you'll see an abrupt change to your owner's website and you'll find the legal documents there. One of those will be the Enrollment Agreement that you and every other Vistana owner will have to sign in order to participate, and by signing it you'll all be agreeing to the terms and conditions of the program. Scour that thing and every other legal thing they make available - because that's where you'll find any first inklings of your ownership rights being violated! (And believe me, we Marriott owners did exactly that and couldn't find anything nefarious despite all of your same concerns being raised when we were facing the same substantial change in 2010.)

This is really important to know! Were unenrolled MOC OF owners required to sign these documents to use the website? They are not participating in DP. What about the 40% that don't participate in DP? As a resale owner we may not be offered to enroll but will need access to the website to reserve our deeded ownership. They cannot block access to our deed reservations and force us to sign away our owner rights.

Not too late. They have not published the rules and we have not signed anything. We already have our OF reservation in the system for 2023 and our next res is not until 2024. So we do not have to sign anything right away. Just need to make MF payments and we can call or mail those in if needed until our lawyer can review.

My fear is that the fine print will be embedded in this new system and too many owners will be dazzled by "free enrollment" that they won't understand the implications of the owner rights they are signing away.

Caveat Emptor.

 

[SueDonJ]

This is really important to know! Did unenrolled MOC OF owners have to sign these documents? They are not participating in DP.

Not too late. They have not published the rules and we have not signed anything. We already have our OF reservation in the system for 2023 and our next res is not until 2024. So we do not have to sign anything right away. Just need to make MF payments and we can call or mail those in if needed until our lawyer can review.

No. When the DC was introduced to us Marriott Weeks owners it was an opt-in with eligibility rules and it required us to sign the Enrollment Agreement that stipulates the t&c's. It still works that way for Marriott owners - if you want in then you go through the enrollment process, if not, you don't. I expect the same will be true of Vistana's integration.

There was one concerning thing in the original documents that we noticed immediately - one of the enrollment t&c's was that owners would not vote against the interests of the DC during any of the annual voting actions that came before them. We'd never found evidence (not for lack of trying) that it was formally legally challenged but it was discussed at great length as a red flag in the early days. Eventually after a year or so (long after it had been the topic of dissent) that stipulation disappeared from the t&c's with no explanation from Marriott. (And notably, none of that first year's Annual Meeting packages, released in Nov/Dec following the DC implementation that prior Jun, contained language stipulating that agreement t&c.)

What I mean by "it's too late" is, it's too late for a TUG discussion to stop Marriott from pushing forward with Vistana owners' integration in Abound. Of course it's not too late at all for any Vistana owners to decide whether or not to participate, and if it gives you any comfort the same is still true for Marriott owners. When the DC was introduced to us we were charged a one-time Enrollment Fee and the only deadline we faced in the enrollment process was that the initial Enrollment Fee could change. It doesn't appear that Vistana owners will be charged that fee, so I'd guess that enrollment will remain available to you on the same eligibility terms for as long as you own the intervals that are eligible at the outset.

It's a very good idea to have your lawyer review whatever documents become available.

 

[timsi]

This is really important to know! Did unenrolled MOC OF owners have to sign these documents? They are not participating in DP.

Not too late. They have not published the rules and we have not signed anything. We already have our OF reservation in the system for 2023 and our next res is not until 2024. So we do not have to sign anything right away. Just need to make MF payments and we can call or mail those in if needed until our lawyer can review.

Regardless how many people sign the Abound agreement, there will be more than enough people who will not be members (resale owners) so Marriott will not be off the hook . It would also be extreme IMO to use that as an opportunity to try to change rules that are VSN or resort specific, it would infuriate and wake up more people and I am not even sure it would stand if it does not go through the proper procedures.

 

[CalGalTraveler]

@SueDonJ Thank you. That is very sound advice and it is great to know how DP enrollment worked in the past. I suspect that once the documents are available, this thread will easily jump past 100 pages as everyone evaluates for red flags.

We own OF and will continue to use our ownership. I suspect most WKORV & N OF owners are like me - why pay a premium to buy and MF if you are not going to use it? There may be off years when we cannot use, but it would be a much better value to rent it out and then use the cash to rent elsewhere rather than risk a devaluation of not getting the exact unit, view or week we want with DP/Abound.

So even if OF owners enroll, the actual deposits could be small. The biggest fear as I demonstrated earlier is that it doesn't take many OF owners opting to deposit and MVC electing for prime week reservations to disrupt existing owner availability when you already have 50 weeks of deeded OF owners vieing for 20 or so prime summer and whale weeks. I don't mind if deeded owners use SOs because it doesn't impact our ability to access prime weeks - it makes it easier. This is why Abound is worrying.

 

[dsmrp]

...
As a resale owner we may not be offered to enroll but will need access to the website to reserve our deeded ownership. They cannot block access to our deed reservations and force us to sign away our owner rights.

Marriott has said they will retain the VSN system for those that do not want to participate in Abound. Except for all the IT problems, I haven't seen anything that would prevent owners from making VSN or home resort reservations. I sincerely hope the reservation problems this spring was an anomaly, and a result of very very poor implementation of IT backend changes needed to prep & transition to future Abound platform.

 

[SueDonJ]

We own OF and will continue to use our ownership. I suspect most WKORV & N OF owners are like me - why pay a premium to buy and MF if you are not going to use it? ...

I'm not sure I understand this comment about MF's but want to be clear about one other thing:

The only Destination Club members who pay MF's based on DC Points are the Trust Members who purchase DC Points. Those of us who enrolled our Weeks to be able to exchange via the DC Exchange Company (or use any of the other Points-based offers for which we're eligible,) pay the same MF's for our Weeks as every non-enrolled owner does. My ownership consists of Weeks at SurfWatch and Barony Beach Club which I have chosen to enroll; the only MF's I pay are those assessed to every like Weeks Owners at those resorts, enrolled or not.

Until now an initial one-time Enrollment Fee has been charged to Marriott Weeks Owners, with certain sales-related actions resulting in that fee being waived. It doesn't appear that Vistana owners will be charged an Enrollment Fee (and some of us are very interested to see if the EF for Marriott Weeks will disappear going forward. I think it's only fair that it should.)

The only fee differential between enrolled and unenrolled like Marriott Weeks is, ongoing participation in the DC/Abound requires an annual Club Dues fee. Regardless of whether an owner elects to exchange an enrolled Week for Points or not, that fee is payable every year. Non-payment of the Club Dues fee will result in Marriott un-enrolling those Weeks, and re-enrollment will be subject to the eligibility terms in effect at the time of re-enrollment. (Think of this like the fee that II charges to be an individual member.)

 

[DavidnRobin]

CalGirl meant the high MFs paid - along with buying OF at a premium.
I feel the same way - I don’t see a lot of WKORV OF owners opting for DC points or SOs.
As written- WKORV OF VOIs are limited (1800 per 50 weeks), and not complicated by Flex.
Other than direct Ownership by Vistana/Marriott (~10% of VOIs the last I saw), and the low potential of WKORV OF Owners of exchanging out of their ownership at 12-8 months (HomeResort period).

Where are these phantom WKORV OF weeks coming from that can be taken by others?

Granted - they can grab the desired weeks, but they can’t legally take more than they have control of (as described above).

I personally don’t think they would risk that type of exposure.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[SueDonJ]

CalGirl meant the high MFs paid - along with buying OF at a premium.
I feel the same way - I don’t see a lot of WKORV OF owners opting for DC points or SOs.
As written- WKORV OF VOIs are limited (1800 per 50 weeks), and not complicated by Flex.
Other than direct Ownership by Vistana/Marriott (~10% of VOIs the last I saw), and the low potential of WKORV OF Owners of exchanging out of their ownership at 12-8 months (HomeResort period).

Where are these phantom WKORV OF weeks coming from that can be taken by others?

Granted - they can grab the desired weeks, but they can’t legally take more than they have control of (as described above).

I personally don’t think they would risk that type of exposure.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Ah, I get it now about the view premium and MF's. The same is what owners of the highest-demand Weeks in Marriott might say, except that those are the enrolled Weeks that get the highest allocations of elected Points. Granted, that means nothing if your intended usage is home resort usage (in which case Abound might add nothing.) But again using my ownership as the example, we bought SurfWatch 3BR non-lock-off units with a view premium and their high MF's primarily for in-season home resort usage but also for occasional high-value exchange bait in II. The problem (for which my sales rep prepared me) is that because very few 3BR non-lock-offs exist in the timeshare world and get deposited into II, I NEVER got what I considered a like-for-like exchange via II. My Weeks had enough trade power to pull the highest-demand 2BR or smaller units, sure, but that was a size devaluation, and exchanging via II means giving up the view certainty. So for my purposes, the DC exchange can give me what II always gave me PLUS the added value of choosing the view and having a surplus of DC Points left over if I choose to exchange into a 2BR or smaller unit.

I also don't think that Marriott will risk the type of blatant exposure that some here are expecting. It's going to be interesting learning about what they are doing, though!

 

[nuwermj]

The words "Members owning at a particular Home Resort have the exclusive right to compete to reserve." This is really important legal language.

How does transferring a unit to an exchange like Abound make MVC or any other entity an owner (of a deed) with an exclusive right to compete to reserve? If it is an exclusive right doesn't that mean excluding others and only that right belongs to the owner?

An owner has the right to "assign" (a legal concept) all or some of their property rights. When a Vistana owner deposits their week into Abound, they assign their ownership rights to Abound.

I think a problem with this long discussion is related to the question: when will Abound exercise it's assigned right to reserve time at a resort. If Abound waits and makes that reservation only when one of its members requests it, I don't see how the rule quoted above is violated. Vistana members remain free to reserve the time after the week is deposit.

 

[Eric B]

An owner has the right to "assign" (a legal concept) all or some of their property rights. When a Vistana owner deposits their week into Abound, they assign their ownership rights to Abound.

I think a problem with this long discussion is related to the question: when will Abound exercise it's assigned right to reserve time at a resort. If Abound waits and makes that reservation only when one of its members requests it, I don't see how the rule quoted above is violated. Vistana members remain free to reserve the time after the week is deposit.

The way I see it is pretty much in alignment with that thought. Floating week owners get a blended value for the season when depositing in II and are purported to get a similar blended value when electing AC/DC points. That only works if what is made available to Abound is representative of that blended value — weighting Abound availability to prime weeks would skew the values high. Weighting the availability to non-prime weeks will also skew the values and might contribute in part to the “skim” that I’ve read about in the DC because the skew would be lower. Makes me wonder if there would be no “skim” in a system where all ownerships are enrolled — there isn’t a skim in the other point systems I own in.

 

[timsi]

An owner has the right to "assign" (a legal concept) all or some of their property rights.

That is a rather novel concept in timesharing. If that's the legal basis, I assume an owner could also transmit all the rights when selling to another owner. Both would violate some internal rules but who cares, what is good for the goose is also good for the gander.

 

[kozykritter]

Can we get to 100 pages on this one before the Abound rules are released? It might take some work, but maybe....

I think there's a good chance because this thread killed of the Merger Speculation thread where all the action was....no posts since Friday. Jabberwocky, I'd like to revise my page guess on that thread down from 106

 

[alexadeparis]

That is a rather novel concept in timesharing. If that's the legal basis, I assume an owner could also transmit all the rights when selling to another owner. Both would violate some internal rules but who cares, what is good for the goose is also good for the gander.

The owner can assign all the rights they actually HAVE, (not the ones you WISH existed) as governed by the rules they are bound to by the terms of the owners assoc agreement. It’s clear you don’t understand the basic concept that has been explained to you now several times by several people. If you own a unit you can reserve a unit. The part you don’t seem to comprehend is that when other owners do the same, and reserve their week, it reduces the pool for you to reserve from NO MATTER WHAT method is used as I explained a few pages ago. Take a deep breath and realize you might actually be wrong in your thinking. I think you are misunderstanding the context of what ‘exclusive’ means. It doesn’t mean that NO units can be placed in exchange BY THE OWNER requesting the exchange until the check in date is 8 months or less. It just means that if you own a unit you will be able to reserve ONE at the 12 to 8 month mark. It may not be the desired week but there will be ONE available for your use. The other units that owners have reserved or exchanged are GONE from that pool already but your ONE (as an extreme example) is still in the pool, all the way down to a pool of one, if you were the LAST person to reserve, you would have only that ONE unit option. In real life, this never happens and a small but measurable amount of inventory makes it to the VSN pool.

This new option changes literally nothing that was going on previously, except that instead of units being diverted to II a lot will be diverted to Abound Instead. It doesn’t change your right to reserve your unit. Will it possibly mean less to VSN? Over time probably, but we don’t know yet if resale is excluded, if it is, a huge chunk of people won’t be eligible. 12 years on, 40% of MVC legacy owners remain unenrolled, so again it’s too early to say, but I think after about 5 years the novelty of exchange into abound may wear off, especially if the knowledge of the MVC skim gets to the non tuggers. I still expect to find VSN inventory Without major problems, but then I am flexible with dates.

 

[DavidnRobin]

They can assign what they ‘own’ (control) to Abound, but not what is used by Owners during Vistana HomeResort period (12-8 months) unless breaking their Legal obligation.

Not sure how this can be any clearer.

 

[Eric B]

The owner can assign all the rights they actually HAVE, (not the ones you WISH existed) as governed by the rules they are bound to by the terms of the owners assoc agreement. It’s clear you don’t understand the basic concept that has been explained to you now several times by several people. If you own a unit you can reserve a unit. The part you don’t seem to comprehend is that when other owners do the same, and reserve their week, it reduces the pool for you to reserve from NO MATTER WHAT method is used as I explained a few pages ago. Take a deep breath and realize you might actually be wrong in your thinking. I think you are misunderstanding the context of what ‘exclusive’ means. It doesn’t mean that NO units can be placed in exchange BY THE OWNER requesting the exchange until the check in date is 8 months or less. It just means that if you own a unit you will be able to reserve ONE at the 12 to 8 month mark. It may not be the desired week but there will be ONE available for your use. The other units that owners have reserved or exchanged are GONE from that pool already but your ONE (as an extreme example) is still in the pool, all the way down to a pool of one, if you were the LAST person to reserve, you would have only that ONE unit option. In real life, this never happens and a small but measurable amount of inventory makes it to the VSN pool.

This new option changes literally nothing that was going on previously, except that instead of units being diverted to II a lot will be diverted to Abound Instead. It doesn’t change your right to reserve your unit. Will it possibly mean less to VSN? Over time probably, but we don’t know yet if resale is excluded, if it is, a huge chunk of people won’t be eligible. 12 years on, 40% of MVC legacy owners remain unenrolled, so again it’s too early to say, but I think after about 5 years the novelty of exchange into abound may wear off, especially if the knowledge of the MVC skim gets to the non tuggers. I still expect to find VSN inventory Without major problems, but then I am flexible with dates.

To add a bit further to the discussion, my understanding is that Vistana used to let floating week owners book a week and deposit that week into II. That method was changed over the years to alleviate the issue of floating week owners booking desirable weeks and depositing them in II because they have a higher value for use as exchange weeks. The reason it was changed and the Network Operator began booking for bulk deposits in anticipation of owners desires to exchange was very likely to fix that - the result is that any deposits from resorts that are floating week resorts are ones that are reserved and made by the Network Operator on behalf of floating week owners - there is the possibility that a Lagunamar owner of a Christmas week could deposit the fixed week they own, but that would be the exception.

 

[dioxide45]

they ‘own’ (control)

The definition of this is what seems to be in question. What is it they own/control? Only weeks in the Abound/DC trust? Or is it also inventory that owners elect Abound Club Points for prior to or even at the 12 month mark?

 

[timsi]

Does anyone know if there were any conflicts between the rules of DC and the rules of the resorts at the time the exchange was created, ? If yes, how were those conflicts resolved?

At the time it was a lot simpler since they built on empty land. It was also potentially more attractive to the Marriott owners since there was nothing in place to compare to or potentially damage. But in the case of Vistana, many people were sold on the idea of an internal network and, if they won't find the inventory they are used to (and owners are already reporting problems) they will lose a lot of value in Abound vs VSN. I really feel for those that paid a lot of money to buy Sheraton flex retail with the idea to go to Hawaii, only to see a couple of years later that not only their MF are more expensive, but they also lost overnight 30 % in trading power.

 

[timsi]

As a potentially interesting aside, I just did an update in Lagunamar and wound up getting an Encore package that guarantees me the right to purchase Aventuras points at the current pricing for the next 18 months. It seems kind of interesting that they're giving that guarantee given the rumors from the sales folks that only AC/DC points will be sold once the new program is live. Given that and the potential for a recession starting soon or in progress, it makes me wonder how things are really going to work out for enrolling the unwashed.

I am curious, how does it work with these packages? Do they guarantee a price and the current bonuses you may have negotiated or it's just the price per point that is guaranteed? Do you have to go back to the resort to get the deal or you can do it over the phone from home anytime within the next 18 months?