Ft Lauderdale/BeachPlace Towers Abound Points blocked by month?

[ljmiii]

I looked to see if there might be availability for BeachPlace Towers in April 2025 to extend a stay and saw something I've never seen before - the entire month is blocked out for Abound Point requests.

It might be that the month is completely booked...but that seems unlikely since Thursday May 1st shows availability for studios, 1BRs, and 2BRs. And almost every day in May shows some availability. Has anyone ever seen this (or something similar) before?

 

[pedro47]

One reason maybe, because April is a heavy month for cruises in Fort Lauderdale and Port Canaveral for all the cruises lines..

 

[DanCali]

I looked to see if there might be availability for BeachPlace Towers in April 2025 to extend a stay and saw something I've never seen before - the entire month is blocked out for Abound Point requests.

It might be that the month is completely booked...but that seems unlikely since Thursday May 1st shows availability for studios, 1BRs, and 2BRs. And almost every day in May shows some availability. Has anyone ever seen this (or something similar) before?

It's wide open in April 2025 for any unit size. Just restricted to 7+ night stays....

Welcome to Marriott Vacation Club, where they promise you awesome flexibility with 1+ night bookings and do whatever they want whenever they want.

It's been going on for a while, but getting worse with resorts becoming more brazen with these restrictions.

DC/Abound Inventory "Hidden" Restrictions? [MERGED]

As far as I know the only official restriction on booking is minimum 3-nights at Ritz St. Thomas. In another thread which is now closed to further replies I raised the possibility of there being (possibly abound) unofficial artificial restrictions on booking in Abound (pun intended). The...

tugbbs.com

 

[DanCali]

Not sure if you still feel the same like you wrote in another recent thread... What good is having the inventory if you can't really access it, even if you've invested a lot to get to Chairman level?

.... But systems where everyone can trade for points do have better points inventory than ones that don't.

 

[pedro47]

It's wide open in April 2025 for any unit size. Just restricted to 7+ night stays....

Welcome to Marriott Vacation Club, where they promise you awesome flexibility with 1+ night bookings and do whatever they want whenever they want.

It's been going on for a while, but getting worse with resorts becoming more brazen with these restrictions.

DC/Abound Inventory "Hidden" Restrictions? [MERGED]

As far as I know the only official restriction on booking is minimum 3-nights at Ritz St. Thomas. In another thread which is now closed to further replies I raised the possibility of there being (possibly abound) unofficial artificial restrictions on booking in Abound (pun intended). The...

tugbbs.com

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The average cruiser will need only two or a three consecutive nights stay. Primarily they will need a Thursday's to Saturday’s night stay.

A one night stay in a hotel in Fort Lauderdale is now over $350 per night.

I can understand Beach Place Towers renting the one bedroom unit to cruisers during the Month of April. April is a very high demand month for hotels in the Fort Lauderdale area.

We normally would book Thursdays and Fridays nights. When we are sailing out on Saturday’s from Fort Lauderdale.

 

[DanCali]

The average cruiser will need only two or a three nights stay. Primarily they will need a Thursday's , Friday, Saturday, Sundays or Mondays nights.

We normally would book Thursdays and Fridays nights. When we are sailing out on Saturday’s from Fort Lauderdale.

I totally get that. We've also done 1-3 nights stays before and after cruises.

But my point is that the inventory is there. If you can book 7 nights, which is wide open, you can (theoretically) also book 1,2,3,4,5 or 6 nights.

But they don't let you do it...

 

[pedro47]

I totally get that. We've also done 1-3 nights stays before and after cruises.

But my point is that the inventory is there. If you can book 7 nights, which is wide open, you can (theoretically) also book 1,2,3,4,5 or 6 nights.

But they don't let you do it...

IMHO, Marriott’s Vacation Club are now looking at high demand months for cruising, major sporting events and ever major holiday.

 

[ljmiii]

Not sure if you still feel the same like you wrote in another recent thread... What good is having the inventory if you can't really access it, even if you've invested a lot to get to Chairman level?

Yes, I do feel the same. Avoiding breakage and dealing with MVC's overvaluing (or undervaluing) weekend stays continues to benefit owners.

But I didn't think to check length of stay for this reservation because I had previously booked a couple 1 night stays. And as @DanCali noted, 7 night stays show up as available in April. Curious.

 

[ljmiii]

Yes, I do feel the same. Avoiding breakage and dealing with MVC's overvaluing (or undervaluing) weekend stays continues to benefit owners.

To clarify, what I would prefer is for MVC to take a page from DVC's book and reallocate point costs every year - sometimes aggressively. That's how DVC dealt with their 'no one books on the weekends' and 'there is never any availability the first two weeks of December' problems (among others). (Note that the number of points needed for a given unit over the year remains constant...just the number of points of a given night and sometimes the overall season schedule have changed).

And perhaps take a page from HGVC's book and only allow one and two night point reservations at City Collection resorts. But I'm more ambivalent about that because MVC doesn't have a 30 day Open Season cash reservation window only availability to owners.

At base, the somewhat random minimum night restrictions resorts have been adding are there to compensate for deficiencies in MVC's existing system. Fixing the system would be a much better solution.

 

[DanCali]

Yes, I do feel the same. Avoiding breakage and dealing with MVC's overvaluing (or undervaluing) weekend stays continues to benefit owners.

But I didn't think to check length of stay for this reservation because I had previously booked a couple 1 night stays. And as @DanCali noted, 7 night stays show up as available in April. Curious.

There is nothing preventing them from reallocating points between weekdays and weekends to even out demand, as long as the total remains the same.

Breakage is a feature in any points system. In fact in a points system like Disney, I suspect 7+ night stays are a small minority of bookings (we frequently go for 1-3 nights). If MVC want to prevent breakage with minimum stay requirements they are certainly not being transparent about it. Clearly you were misled here since there was no message alerting you to a restriction in place and you thought it was sold out. I suspect the reason for that is that greater transparency would lead to a big outcry from many owners who thought they can book 1+nights and realized they were sold nonsense for the short bookings they might actually care about.

 

[ljmiii]

There is nothing preventing them from reallocating points between weekdays and weekends to even out demand, as long as the total remains the same.

I completely agree...except that they don't (our posts crossed in the night).

 

[gln60]

We go to BeachPlace Towers every January to celebrate my wife’s birthday…when I was looking for 7 night stay there was only availability for a studio or 2BR unit…I was looking for a 1 BR…So I decided to place a request using a 1 BR unit on II in May…it took 9 days to get a match..it was for a 2 BR unit..I gladly paid the $99 fee..the cost of going through II for the 2BR exchange was about $1,050..as opposed to $2700..using Abound Points..when I checked yesterday there was only studio availability for less than 7 nights In January 2025.

 

[ljmiii]

We go to BeachPlace Towers every January to celebrate my wife’s birthda…I was looking for a 1 BR…

There is definitely something weird going on with BeachPlace's inventory. When I booked the studio short stays I have in April just shy of 12 months in advance I could have any day I wanted for a studio but none for a 1BR. Which seemed a bit weird but I made my ressies, put in waitlists for a 1BR, and didn't think any more of it.

Until today when I thought I should go look again and saw the month blocked out (and didn't think to try a 7 night stay).

 

[TheTimeTraveler]

There is definitely something weird going on with BeachPlace's inventory. When I booked the studio short stays I have in April just shy of 12 months in advance I could have any day I wanted for a studio but none for a 1BR. Which seemed a bit weird but I made my ressies, put in waitlists for a 1BR, and didn't think any more of it.

Until today when I thought I should go look again and saw the month blocked out (and didn't think to try a 7 night stay).

Always smart whenever you see something you think you want to just go ahead and book it. You can always cancel it later if need be.

I'm going somewhere next year but unsure of the exact dates. I have plenty of excess points so I booked two different reservations. I will cancel one of them when I can figure out which dates we actually prefer to utilize.












.

 

[gln60]

There is definitely something weird going on with BeachPlace's inventory. When I booked the studio short stays I have in April just shy of 12 months in advance I could have any day I wanted for a studio but none for a 1BR. Which seemed a bit weird but I made my ressies, put in waitlists for a 1BR, and didn't think any more of it.

Until today when I thought I should go look again and saw the month blocked out (and didn't think to try a 7 night stay).

Last January we were at BeachPlace on a Encore Package in a 2BR 2BA Villa..We were able to book 3 more nights in a 2BR using Abound Points that didnt become available until late October 2023.

 

[chriskre]

They are putting inventory on vacatia.com now.
My resort in Hollywood is too.
It's annoying because I used to be able to rent my weekend and use the week and now I have to do an all or none thing because of this agreement with vacatia.com
When looking at the site I noticed quite a few timeshares using it including BeachPlace.
Wyndham is on there along with a few independents.
According to my local TS manager it's saving our resort allowing people to book one night and getting the revenue up on the foreclosed units along with owners who want to "share" in the revenue. My unit is one of the few 2 bedrooom 2-1/2 bath ocean front units so I'm not interested in "sharing" in the revenue with the no view pool units.
I'm glad the resort has found a way to move forward but it's frustrating for me. I used to get $250 a night and they'd take 30% and if it didn't rent which it usually did
then I'd just go use it. Now once I give them my week I can't take it back. Uhhhh, nope.

 

[Dean]

I looked to see if there might be availability for BeachPlace Towers in April 2025 to extend a stay and saw something I've never seen before - the entire month is blocked out for Abound Point requests.

It might be that the month is completely booked...but that seems unlikely since Thursday May 1st shows availability for studios, 1BRs, and 2BRs. And almost every day in May shows some availability. Has anyone ever seen this (or something similar) before?

Beachplace has been having minimum stays for a while now. A couple of years ago I noticed this and ended up discussing with corporate as a tag along to another separate issue. I was told that each resort has a corporate person assigned to them to monitor this issue and they are the ones that control this. I was told this is fluid and changes routinely depending on booking trends and that made it impossible to publish the info so members knew what was going on. At the time there were different LOS requirements depending on the week and weekend. For some times it was 4 days including the weekend, for others it was a full 7 and for other times it was only 2 days. I suggested that I was OK with minimum LOS requirements as long as members had a way to know which we don't unless we figure it out by playing with the reservation system. I'm told that other resorts have similar requirements including HHI and Newport Coast at times.

 

[gln60]

Strange that Ocean Pointe in Singer Island doesnt have the same restrictions as BPT.

 

[dioxide45]

I wonder if they have these same minimum stay restrictions on cash based stays booked through Marriott.com? Nah, I don't need to ask that question. I know the answer.

 

[jmhpsu93]

Conspiracy theory here...so they intentionally make it more difficult to reserve, then at 60 days they're allowed to absorb that inventory and rent through Marriott.com.

 

[ljmiii]

Beachplace has been having minimum stays for a while now....

What threw me was that this is the first time I've seen the minimum stay requirement imposed later as I had already made a couple of short stay April 2025 ressies at BeachPlace. I've seen a number of resorts that imposed them at the opening bell and then lifted them as the check in day moved closer (and of course the RCC St Thomas which helpfully tells you there is a minimum night stay requirement), but never previously seen this behavior. Live and learn.

 

[Dean]

What threw me was that this is the first time I've seen the minimum stay requirement imposed later as I had already made a couple of short stay April 2025 ressies at BeachPlace. I've seen a number of resorts that imposed them at the opening bell and then lifted them as the check in day moved closer (and of course the RCC St Thomas which helpfully tells you there is a minimum night stay requirement), but never previously seen this behavior. Live and learn.

For my direct experience I was able to reserve 2 days but not. one at BPT. Later I would have had to reserve 4 days to get the same night. I was able to shorten to one day by emailing MVC. On my conversation with corporate I was told that this would vary depending on how tightly they'd locked it down. I suspect we'll see more and more minimum stay requirements as we go along.