Interesting Sales presentation - Vacation club is worthless, it’s all about Bonvoy points.

[dougp26364]

Many years ago this was the presentation for owners who felt they owned all the timeshare they could use. Buy a week just to trade for Marriott Rewards points and become a Marriott Millionaire by the time you retire. Then you can use all of those accurate points and never pay for airfare or a hotel room again.

All these years later, imagine paying $2,000 year to get somewhere between 90,000 and 125,000 BonVoy points. Better yet, imagine that you’ve locked yourself into this scenario with no other choice but to pay the MF and exchange for BonVoy points because you really didn’t need that extra week. Let’s not forget that, back in the early 2000’s you’d have paid around $20,000 up front for the privilege.

The deal hasn’t become any better as it’s aged. According the The Points Guy each BonVoy Point is worth approx 0.008 cents per point. That figure hasn’t gone up as time has passed. It’s gone down instead. I’m pretty sure someone will do the math and that math will reflect the magnitude of this bad deal.

I haven’t thought about trading for Marriott Rewards/BonVoy points since 2002. That was the one and only time we’ve ever traded a deeded week for points. It seems to me trading Abound Points for BonVoy points is an even worse deal than it was in 2002. In 2002, the MF’s on that deeded week were somewhere around $800. Today the same week has MF’s over $3,000 but the points are still 125,000. This new points deal will age in the exact same bad way.

 

[dougp26364]

No mention by the sales guy of the new MVC/Management Company “asks” of owners and/or their guests, like, strip the beds? I can’t believe the sales guy left that out, as a new feature/benefit of MVC ownership.

MVC can take their food stamps, and shove them; our vacation time is much more valuable that MVC’s food stamps, in exchange for our time.

The latest offer we’ve received was a $275 Visa card. If you can get at least that much 4X per year, that $1,100/year off your MF’s if you look at it that way. That’s a little better than food stamps and a decent hack to help offset the yearly MF’s

 

[jme]

In my mind, ANY transaction that converts what you own to Bonvoy Points is a huge loss of value.
Always has been, always will be.
That fact is neatly hidden under the cloak of "convenience, flexibility, and a NEW WORLD of expanded opportunities", which are the angles they push.

The ONLY real advantage and value of Bonvoy Points is when you accumulate them by purchasing "necessary stuff" with the credit card,
doing presentations, and whatever clever method you can otherwise pursue.
Earn them and use them......they do offer decent benefits!
My wife and I are doing a 3-night getaway this weekend in a nearby city that we love, staying in a wonderful Westin Hotel.........beautiful.
One free night certificate and two nights using Bonvoy Points. Upgrading to a suite using Nightly Upgrade Awards.
Free breakfasts and more.

Trading Abound points for Bonvoy points??? a scary-bad plan.
We simply accumulate points but never trade for them....too costly.

 

[Dean]

In my mind, ANY transaction that converts what you own to Bonvoy Points is a huge loss of value.
Always has been, always will be.
That fact is neatly hidden under the cloak of "convenience, flexibility, and a NEW WORLD of expanded opportunities", which are the angles they push.

The ONLY real advantage and value of Bonvoy Points is when you accumulate them by purchasing "necessary stuff" with the credit card,
doing presentations, and whatever clever method you can otherwise pursue.
Earn them and use them......they do offer decent benefits!
My wife and I are doing a 3-night getaway this weekend in a nearby city that we love, staying in a wonderful Westin Hotel.........beautiful.
One free night certificate and two nights using Bonvoy Points. Upgrading to a suite using Nightly Upgrade Awards.
Free breakfasts and more.

Trading Abound points for Bonvoy points??? a scary-bad plan.
We simply accumulate points but never trade for them....too costly.

Even 20-25 years ago, when the numbers were far more favorable than they are now, it was my opinion that it was a poor choice. I know some here disagreed at the time. It's only gotten worse from there.

 

[dioxide45]

The only thing that made conversion to Bonvoy points someone reasonable was when Marriott Rewards/Bonvoy still offered the travel packages where you could get a 5 or 7 night stay along with air miles. These were especially good if using them for travel to and in Europe. Once Marriott killed off the travel packages, they killed off any last hope of potential value from converting your timeshare week to Bonvoy points.

While we didn't use our week to convert to points for these, we actually still have a bunch of United miles from a travel package conversion through Bonvoy. Though we did have to use a bunch for a recent emergency flight.

 

[DanCali]

There are several reasons why this was a bed option that has only gotten exponentially worse over time

1) MFs have approximately doubled in the past ~15 years while the number of Bonvoy points per week or Club Point remained the same.

2) The value of the Bonvoy points themselves has greatly depreciated over time, whether due to hotel category inflation, dynamic free night pricing, or elimination travel packages

So these effects compound on top of each other where the cost of electing something increases while the value of what you are getting decreases at the same time.

Lastly, there's the fact that the initial rate of Bonvoy points per week was never very generous to begin with on the Marriott side. This is evident from comparing to Vistana weeks which got the "standard" 3:1 Staroption/Bonvoy conversion rate after the Marriott/Starwood merger, for example:

• Harborside 3BR Platinum gets 310K Bonvoy points
• Harborside 2BR LO Platinum gets 281K Bonvoy points
• Sheraton Steamboat 3BR Platinum ski season gets 266K Bonvoy points
• Westin Princeville 2BR LO Platinum gets 259K Bonvoy points
• Westin Kaanapali North/South 2BR LO Platinum gets 240K Bonvoy points
• Westin Kierland and Desert Willow (in AZ/CA desert) 2BR LO Platinum get 216K Bonvoy points
• Lagunamar 2BR LO Platinum gets 216K Bonvoy points

I suspect these numbers make the Bonvoy numbers of legacy Marriott weeks look abysmal. For example, NCV Platinum 2BR gets 110K points. I don't know the value of a Marriott Hawaii week (eg MOC) is in Bonvoy points, but I doubt it's much higher than NCV's?

 

[dioxide45]

There are several reasons why this was a bed option that has only gotten exponentially worse over time

1) MFs have approximately doubled in the past ~15 years while the number of Bonvoy points per week or Club Point remained the same.

2) The value of the Bonvoy points themselves has greatly depreciated over time, whether due to hotel category inflation, dynamic free night pricing, or elimination travel packages

So these effects compound on top of each other where the cost of electing something increases while the value of what you are getting decreases at the same time.

Lastly, there's the fact that the initial rate of Bonvoy points per week was never very generous to begin with on the Marriott side. This is evident from comparing to Vistana weeks which got the "standard" 3:1 Staroption/Bonvoy conversion rate after the Marriott/Starwood merger, for example:

• Harborside 3BR Platinum gets 310K Bonvoy points
• Harborside 2BR LO Platinum gets 281K Bonvoy points
• Sheraton Steamboat 3BR Platinum ski season gets 266K Bonvoy points
• Westin Princeville 2BR LO Platinum gets 259K Bonvoy points
• Westin Kaanapali North/South 2BR LO Platinum gets 240K Bonvoy points
• Westin Kierland and Desert Willow (in AZ/CA desert) 2BR LO Platinum get 216K Bonvoy points
• Lagunamar 2BR LO Platinum gets 216K Bonvoy points

I suspect these numbers make the Bonvoy numbers of legacy Marriott weeks look abysmal. For example, NCV Platinum 2BR gets 110K points. I don't know the value of a Marriott Hawaii week (eg MOC) is in Bonvoy points, but I doubt it's much higher than NCV's?

Didn't MVC increase the number of points for a number of resorts last year? I thought NCV was one of those as it looks like it went up to 165K.

[2024] MVCI Increased Exchange Bonvoy Points for Weeks [MERGED]

Seems like a pretty good acknowledgement of the way Marriott devalued Bonvoy points right in front of us. Now Marriott Vacation Club comes to us and want our weeks for points. So long Bonvoy, I've moved on to better programs and I'm not coming back. Could it be that they will give us more...

tugbbs.com

 

[DanCali]

Didn't MVC increase the number of points for a number of resorts last year? I thought NCV was one of those as it looks like it went up to 165K.

[2024] MVCI Increased Exchange Bonvoy Points for Weeks [MERGED]

Seems like a pretty good acknowledgement of the way Marriott devalued Bonvoy points right in front of us. Now Marriott Vacation Club comes to us and want our weeks for points. So long Bonvoy, I've moved on to better programs and I'm not coming back. Could it be that they will give us more...

tugbbs.com

I actually was not aware of this! I guess that's one thing they never even told me about in the "owner updates"...

It's a little better I guess after all that devaluation, but I'm not sure if the goal was to compensate for devaluation (in which case, why didn't it go up for Westins?) or maybe bring things closer to the Vistana resorts?

Regardless of the goal - MM1 at 202K and MKO at 165K are still well below WKORV and WPORV even after these adjustments. I suspect that's also the case for DSV and MCV relative to places like WDW and WKV.

 

[n42]

I stayed at Marriott hotels for nearly 100 nights last year. I've found that 20,000 points are worth about $100 nowadays.

 

[ljmiii]

In my mind, ANY transaction that converts what you own to Bonvoy Points is a huge loss of value....

Why? All you can do with a week is trade it for Bonvoy Points, elect into Abound Points, rent it out, or use it.

I own a GV 1BR week that yields 100,000 Bonvoy Points (every other year) or 1700 Abound Points. The Bonvoy Points are worth at least $1000 to me and while the cost of the the Abound Points is easily determined their value to me fluctuates depending on how many I have. I could rent the week out for around $1400...but even if everything worked out and I found a renter for the week I picked I net less than $1000 after fees and taxes. And you'd have to pay me to stay at GV again. Or at least there is no way I'd ever put up with the annoyances of GV when I could instead stay at Lakeshore or any of the Palms.

So every other year I decide if I need the Bonvoy or Abound Points more. And in all the years I've owned the GV week it was only in 2024 that I opted for the Abound Points as 'post-COVID' travel ate through all my Abound Point reserves.

I stayed at Marriott hotels for nearly 100 nights last year. I've found that 20,000 points are worth about $100 nowadays.

I don't understand why people 'give away' their Bonvoy points for half a cent each.

I go through the high 100s of thousands of Bonvoy Points every year and never accept a redemption value of less than a penny a point. My last two reservations (both of which were made after the latest devaluation) were in South Beach for 1.57 cents per point and in Kyoto for a whopping 2.00 cents per point. I do admit that 'holding the line' for a penny a point has become more difficult after the devaluation...but depending on travel trends and currency valuations it could quite quickly become easy again.

All that said (and to wrap my reply back to OP's post), I completely agree that buying Abound Trust points directly from MVC to convert them into Bonvoy Points is one of the stupidest things I've heard. Except perhaps for all of the other nonsense I've heard/read from MVC salesreps. Most notably their 'generous' offer to take back my Maui week and give them another $20K or so that I could own yet more Abound Trust Points.

 

[n42]

I don't understand why people 'give away' their Bonvoy points for half a cent each.

If I need to stay in downtown LA for an event, and I have the choice between spending $500 at the Hotel Per La, or using 100k points for the same room...I would prefer to keep my $500.

 

[goodbadugly]

We have both developer but also resale weeks and also resale points (just a small amount that got us to executive.)

Main sales guy was nice enough but pitch was all about Bonvoy points.
He brought up the booking Villas and how for just 20k points you could book a house in Hawaii, much better than using them at hotels. Talking about the bold per night cost vs the total cost.
The pitch - Bonvoy points are better than Abound points since they never expire. So his suggestion was to buy more points and then every year convert them to Bonvoy points.
So when you retire you have millions of Bonvoy points.
And MVCI was going to announce changes that would allow you convert more of your abound points to Bonvoy points.
Then suggest we buy 1500 points.
Just weird that the whole time the pitch was MVCI was worthless except to get Bonvoy points. And the only reason they were building new resort was to get points so people could convert them.
Didn’t really say no, just never really said yes. Then the manager came in (i.e. The Closer)
He was really pushy. Did the, can’t believe you don’t want to buy now on this once in a life time price/bonus.
Then said - are you really throwing away your chance and forever be stuck without this great option since Marriott will never offer you another chance.
I just let him talk and it seemed as if he was having my side of the conversation based on what he expected me to say,
Said that if I was thinking I could just buy resale, Marriott was really pushing to get more points and that ROFR was going to be around $10 then you would have to pay the fee, so his would be cheaper.
At least he didn’t try the your resale points are useless. He did mention how expensive our resale week was since we have to pay all those fees to lock off and trade,
I guess I had just tuned out his obnoxious push but my wife said he really turned her off. I never argued with him just politely said not now. He seemed very thrown off by me not arguing with him.
Original guy came back, he was nice and took us to get the receipt for the 400 points.

Pretty painless but just weird that the pitch is Time Shares are a waste of money and Bonvoy are the thing.
Of course the first rule of frequent traveler programs is never expect them to hold value. Even if the conversion worked financially, buying points now to use 10 years from now is a bad plan. I didn’t challenge, just let them talk.

During the talk about how useless Abound points are, he did pitch the events (dinners, concerts etc…) you could buy with points. We didn’t really show any interest so he quickly moved on to mentioning Adventure travel with Abound points and how great the company was. Then when back to how Bonvoy are the real value,

I did ask about the new resorts and he mentioned that permitting issues were delaying Charleston/Savanah, not sure if that was true or not but there was no pitch around it, I had just asked about any new resorts during the opening get to know you portion where I get info I want to know.
Other thing he mentioned was changes coming to improve reservation website so easier to see availability.

Took the full 90, but partly my fault as we did talk a lot about places to visit and hockey at the start.

The scary part is they would be proposing this type of a scam if people didn't buy it!

 

[dioxide45]

I suspect the Bonvoy usage patterns for a business traveler who amasses hundreds of thousands of points for free off their employers reimbursement of travel costs is far different than someone who earns them through different redemption methods like credit card spend or paid cash hotel stays.

There is a reason that Bonvoy offers the ability to use points to buy electronics and merchandise at a terrible value.

 

[dougp26364]

I stayed at Marriott hotels for nearly 100 nights last year. I've found that 20,000 points are worth about $100 nowadays.

Thats a value of 0.005 cents per point, which has been what I’ve seen as the approx value. I was surprised when The Points Guy’s website said 0.008 cents, but thought maybe that website knew something I didn’t . I guess I know now why o don’t really follow that site.

 

[n42]

The scary part is they would be proposing this type of a scam if people didn't buy it!

Salesmen appealing to emotion is fine...it becomes a scam once they start lying and misrepresenting what they are selling.

Suggesting that somebody accumulate millions of Bonvoy points for retirement is iffy. Certainly it's terrible financial advice.

 

[dougp26364]

Why? All you can do with a week is trade it for Bonvoy Points, elect into Abound Points, rent it out, or use it.

I own a GV 1BR week that yields 100,000 Bonvoy Points (every other year) or 1700 Abound Points. The Bonvoy Points are worth at least $1000 to me and while the cost of the the Abound Points is easily determined their value to me fluctuates depending on how many I have. I could rent the week out for around $1400...but even if everything worked out and I found a renter for the week I picked I net less than $1000 after fees and taxes. And you'd have to pay me to stay at GV again. Or at least there is no way I'd ever put up with the annoyances of GV when I could instead stay at Lakeshore or any of the Palms.

So every other year I decide if I need the Bonvoy or Abound Points more. And in all the years I've owned the GV week it was only in 2024 that I opted for the Abound Points as 'post-COVID' travel ate through all my Abound Point reserves.


I don't understand why people 'give away' their Bonvoy points for half a cent each.

I go through the high 100s of thousands of Bonvoy Points every year and never accept a redemption value of less than a penny a point. My last two reservations (both of which were made after the latest devaluation) were in South Beach for 1.57 cents per point and in Kyoto for a whopping 2.00 cents per point. I do admit that 'holding the line' for a penny a point has become more difficult after the devaluation...but depending on travel trends and currency valuations it could quite quickly become easy again.

All that said (and to wrap my reply back to OP's post), I completely agree that buying Abound Trust points directly from MVC to convert them into Bonvoy Points is one of the stupidest things I've heard. Except perhaps for all of the other nonsense I've heard/read from MVC salesreps. Most notably their 'generous' offer to take back my Maui week and give them another $20K or so that I could own yet more Abound Trust Points.

I find I really have to work at it to get much above that 0.005 cents per point mark……but my travel needs for hotels is limited. Most of the time it’s looking at airport hotels to spend the night for an early morning flight.

 

[dougp26364]

Let’s say you purchase 1,500 Abound points at $17/point or $25,500 up front. You can then trade them for BonVoy points at a rate of 40:1, or 60,000 BonVoy points. Current MF’s, if I remember correctly are 0.81 cents per point, or $1,215 PLUS your Club Dues.

Currently I can purchase 100,000 BonVoy points for $1,250 AND receive 30,000 bonus points.

It’s easy to cut this presentation to ribbons. Maybe I will sit in on owners update hoping they present this exceptionally bad idea.

 

[CalGalTraveler]

Was just offered 400 Abound points or 40k bonvoy at WKORV. What can you get for 400 Abound outside of East Coast if that is all the points you have? (We are not converting our enrolled unit)

OTOH perhaps I misunderstood that these were 400 Staroptions since we are at Vistana? That would be more valuable because they can be combined with my other SOs.

 

[jwalk03]

If I need to stay in downtown LA for an event, and I have the choice between spending $500 at the Hotel Per La, or using 100k points for the same room...I would prefer to keep my $500.

You can certainly do better than that. I never redeem for less than a full penny per point. You are letting them rob you blind if you are only getting half a cent per point

 

[dioxide45]

Let’s say you purchase 1,500 Abound points at $17/point or $25,500 up front. You can then trade them for BonVoy points at a rate of 40:1, or 60,000 BonVoy points. Current MF’s, if I remember correctly are 0.81 cents per point, or $1,215 PLUS your Club Dues.

Currently I can purchase 100,000 BonVoy points for $1,250 AND receive 30,000 bonus points.

It’s easy to cut this presentation to ribbons. Maybe I will sit in on owners update hoping they present this exceptionally bad idea.

Another issue is that you can't even convert all your Abound Club Points to Bonvoy Points every year. Here is the breakdown. This makes conversion of Club Points to Bonvoy even worse. You then also have to find another use for the Club Points that you can't convert.

Owner & Select - Up to 50%
Executive & Presidential - Up to 65%
Chairman's Club - Up to 75%

 

[dioxide45]

We have two single night Bonvoy award stays coming up. One is about $0.006 per point and the other is about $0.009 per point. We mainly use our points to fill in single nights between timeshare stays. You can do much better if you can book five night stays since the fifth night is free when using points.

 

[n42]

You can certainly do better than that. I never redeem for less than a full penny per point. You are letting them rob you blind if you are only getting half a cent per point

If you are flexible, then you can get some decent "Point Savers" deals. But if I need a hotel in a specific location on a specific weekend, those deals aren't always available.

Also, point math often uses rack rate. Who pays rack rate?

 

[jwalk03]

If you are flexible, then you can get some decent "Point Savers" deals. But if I need a hotel in a specific location on a specific weekend, those deals aren't always available.

Also, point math often uses rack rate. Who pays rack rate?

I compare to the best rate available to me (AAA, Amex, etc.) and if the points don't come out to at least a full cent I pay the cash rate instead.

 

[ljmiii]

Was just offered 400 Abound points or 40k bonvoy at WKORV. What can you get for 400 Abound outside of East Coast if that is all the points you have? (We are not converting our enrolled unit)

I'd take the Bonvoy Points if I was in your situation. That said, 400 points can get you 2 nights in a 1BR in San Diego (completely worth it), 1 night in the SF Pulse (probably not worth it), or 2-3 nights in Palm Desert (I've never stayed in Palm Desert). It can also get you 2 nights in an OV Parlor at KBC on Kauai which is very nice.

Are you in a higher MVC Elite tier because of your Vistana ownership? If so (and if the "Last-Minute" discount applies to Bonus Points...which I don't know) you might do better to focus on reservations 1-60 days in advance because you would effectively have 571 points.

 

[dioxide45]

I compare to the best rate available to me (AAA, Amex, etc.) and if the points don't come out to at least a full cent I pay the cash rate instead.

I suppose it is different for everyone. The two stays we have coming up would cost close to $600 each. We opted to use the Bonvoy points since we are sitting on a small pile of them. Since we earn the points for free from either credit card spending or timeshare presentations we may not value them the same as people who only earn them through cash hotel reservations. Someone traveling on the company dime racking up hundreds of thousands or even a million points or more a year may value them even lower.