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[ 2017 ] New Westin Flex

Helios

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gdstuart

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Are you saying that now pre 12/17 can be enrolled by simply electing and without buying points?
Yes. As long as you bought from the developer or from Marriott Resale, which I did.
 

vistana101

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I mean, didn't they pretty much have this with the original SVN that most of us belong to?
All the resorts belong to the original VSN and depending on your home interval, your MFs could vary widely for the same number of SOS. If you want a better 12 mo reservation you buy the better resort, if you don't care, you buy SVV for better buy in price.

That's true. I guess Vistana was relatively innovative in creating that system of a home resort and internal points trading right off the bat.

These new programs give Vistana a great opportunity to create more inventory to sell with existing resorts/units, but I just wonder if they could have made it a bit simpler from the start, as now you have several different programs and purchasing methods for a single timeshare company.
 

dioxide45

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As long as your Marriott week was purchased prior to Dec. 2017, you can exercise this conversion.

Yes. As long as you bought from the developer or from Marriott Resale, which I did.
So the rule hasn't changed. The purchased prior to date is not December 2017, it is June 2010. As long as one purchased an external resale week prior to June 2010 or purchased a true developer week (not a Marriott Resales week) you can enroll the week in the Destinations Club program. Not necessarily sure why December 2017 was mentioned as that date really has no relevance on if you can enroll or not. Marriott has been offering some deals lately where people can enroll for varying fees or often for free with a presentation or Encore Package purchase.
 

Helios

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So the rule hasn't changed. The purchased prior to date is not December 2017, it is June 2010. As long as one purchased an external resale week prior to June 2010 or purchased a true developer week (not a Marriott Resales week) you can enroll the week in the Destinations Club program. Not necessarily sure why December 2017 was mentioned as that date really has no relevance on if you can enroll or not. Marriott has been offering some deals lately where people can enroll for varying fees or often for free with a presentation or Encore Package purchase.
Just checked, rule has not changed...too bad...I actually got excited to potentially enroll my post 2010 resale KoOlina 2BROV.:mad:
 

Anne&Jim

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Ok, so we just exited our owner update while staying on an Explorer package at the Westin Riverfront. Here’s the scoop:

There are 6 properties included in Westin Flex: WKOR, WKORN, WPR, WMH, WDW, WRF.

Yes, they are planning on building a new Westin Flex building on the opposite side of the WRF hotel from the current villas, but they don’t yet have all the approvals, so it will be a while before they can break ground. Until then, the Westin Flex program will only have access to the units they have been able to gather (they would not say how many, but there are only 36 total, so the chance of getting a ski week in Flex will probably be difficult.)

As for the other properties, they would not say how much of the total Flex pool was at any resort, nor what seasons, only that they were required by Florida law to have “all seasons available.” You can read between the lines that means they have units in the summer in Palm Desert, which no one in their right mind would think were as valuable as Hawaii or even Colorado. In fact, I asked them outright, “why would I trade a week on Hawaii for the chance to get Hawaii, or more likely, summer in Palm Springs since we all know that’s probably what you have the most of.” Our sales person was pretty direct and basically said he saw my point. I thought it was interesting that they latched on to one of our Hawaii weeks as the unit they encouraged us to “upgrade”. When I asked him why not upgrade our Christmas week at WMH instead (we would not have done that either) he said, “oh, you don’t want to do that — you got too good a price on that week!” In other words, they aren’t interested in our WMH week — they probably have more of those than anything else.

Here’s what surprised me. They only keep the deeded and the flex units separate between the 8-12 month reservation window. After 8 months, they all go into a pool together, along with Nanea and every other property. So if you don’t use your owner 8-12 month window, any flex owner as well as all deeded owners share the same chance of booking. I guess that’s no different from what happens today, but it was good to hear it straight from the developer.

They are offering an owner “discount” of something less than 10% of a cost they recently made up for this program, so hard to know if it’s worth anything at all: $51,835 for 148,100 WF options, or $61,845 for 176,700 WF options.

So, it’s substantially more expensive than the weeks we already own, and probably more than buying a deeded property for the options, based on what I’ve seen on TUG.
 

Anne&Jim

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One more thing I forgot to mention. They confirmed that zero ocean front villas in Hawaii are in the Westin Flex program, nor “event weeks”. They are reselling those as deeded weeks for a premium price.
 

GregT

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Here’s what surprised me. They only keep the deeded and the flex units separate between the 8-12 month reservation window. After 8 months, they all go into a pool together, along with Nanea and every other property. So if you don’t use your owner 8-12 month window, any flex owner as well as all deeded owners share the same chance of booking. I guess that’s no different from what happens today, but it was good to hear it straight from the developer.

They are offering an owner “discount” of something less than 10% of a cost they recently made up for this program, so hard to know if it’s worth anything at all: $51,835 for 148,100 WF options, or $61,845 for 176,700 WF options.

Interesting indeed. I still have difficulty figuring out if this is going to impact the way we use our StarOptions today. So they are selling mandatory StarOptions effectively and we will compete with those owners at the 8 month mark.

I prefer that to the worst case where they would provide some preference to the WF Owner at 8 months out, but that would disenfranchise existing owners.

Interesting stuff. Thanks for posting!

Best,

Greg
 

Anne&Jim

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The Ridge at Tahoe (annual)
I think it can’t help but increase the pressure at the 8 month mark. Instead of having summer WMH and WDW owners without enough points to compete for Hawaii, those new WF owners will be trading 1:1 for Hawaii and elsewhere.
 

DavidnRobin

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I think that for those that reserve exactly at 8 months - this will not be an issue. Of course there will be increase in competition for location. From my experience with VSE Owners (non-Tuggers) - most do not plan far enough ahead (important aspect of VSE Ownership).
 

dioxide45

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Here’s what surprised me. They only keep the deeded and the flex units separate between the 8-12 month reservation window. After 8 months, they all go into a pool together, along with Nanea and every other property. So if you don’t use your owner 8-12 month window, any flex owner as well as all deeded owners share the same chance of booking. I guess that’s no different from what happens today, but it was good to hear it straight from the developer.
What about the resale voluntary flex owners? I would suspect that they may have to hold back some inventory for them after the eight month mark since they don't have access to SO reservations?
 

bizaro86

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What about the resale voluntary flex owners? I would suspect that they may have to hold back some inventory for them after the eight month mark since they don't have access to SO reservations?

I suspect there will be lots of California summer inventory left for any resale owners who don't book soon enough...
 

cubigbird

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I still think the Westin Flex price is crazy and won't have many takers.

I agree and think that the upfront pricing is a huge turnoff. I guess this is the result of what happens when you have to repackage what’s already expensive - WMH and WDW weeks. At what point do people catch on and it ultimately hurts sales?? Unfortunately there will be a lot of sugar in the meetings. Hopefully this doesn’t breed much harder sales.....
 

dioxide45

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I still think the Westin Flex price is crazy and won't have many takers.

Seems like they are able to sell lots of Sheraton Flex, and this will have the "Hawaii access at 12 months" to upsell to existing owners.

I agree and think that the upfront pricing is a huge turnoff. I guess this is the result of what happens when you have to repackage what’s already expensive - WMH and WDW weeks. At what points do people catch on and it ultimately hurts sales. Unfortunately there will be a lot of sugar in the meetings. Hopefully this doesn’t breed much harder sales.....

It really is no different than Marriott's DC program. When it first came out it was much more expensive than buying weeks. MFs were also much higher. Just the same. Marriott hasn't had issue selling their points and their stock price is soaring. I suspect that Vistana will have similar experiences selling their flex products.
 

VacationForever

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It really is no different than Marriott's DC program. When it first came out it was much more expensive than buying weeks. MFs were also much higher. Just the same. Marriott hasn't had issue selling their points and their stock price is soaring. I suspect that Vistana will have similar experiences selling their flex products.
Maybe I am putting my blinders on but it feels that Marriott has a better value proposition than Vistana. As you know I did not balk at buying from Marriott directly but have a real issue with the Westin Flex price.
 

GregT

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It really is no different than Marriott's DC program. When it first came out it was much more expensive than buying weeks. MFs were also much higher. Just the same. Marriott hasn't had issue selling their points and their stock price is soaring. I suspect that Vistana will have similar experiences selling their flex products.

I generally agree with this, and remain puzzled where Vistana is going to get the inventory needed to satisfy demand.

Marriott did the brilliant thing of allowing existing owners to enroll and give up their rights to the critically needed weeks (and at a discount, no less).

I wonder how Vistana is going to satisfy the Flex Owner who wants to go to Hawaii - Maui first, then Kauai when Maui isn’t available.

The owners of the underlying weeks aren’t incentivized to give up their usage. They are already in (Direct or Mandatory) and they aren’t getting a premium of points to spend on the other properties to entice them to give up control (Marriott Hawaii owners got tons of points for their week) and the Westin portfolio has a limited number of properties. And why doesn’t it include all Westin properties (Kierland would be cool to add)?

It’s an odd system. I remain curious to see how it matures.

Best,

Greg
 
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VacationForever

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I generally agree with this, and remain puzzled where Vistana is going to get the inventory needed to satisfy demand.

Marriott did the brilliant thing of allowing existing owners to enroll and give up their rights to the critically needed weeks (and at a discount, no less).

I wonder how Vistana is going to satisfy the Flex Owner who wants to go to Hawaii - Maui first, then Kauai.

The owners of the underlying weeks aren’t incentivized to give up their usage. They are already in (Direct or Mandatory) and they aren’t getting a premium of points to spend on the other properties. And the portfolio has a limited number of properties.

It’s an odd system. I remain curious to see how it matures.

Best,

Greg
I think Vistana is getting inventory filled through ROFR.
 

bizaro86

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I generally agree with this, and remain puzzled where Vistana is going to get the inventory needed to satisfy demand.

Marriott did the brilliant thing of allowing existing owners to enroll and give up their rights to the critically needed weeks (and at a discount, no less).

I wonder how Vistana is going to satisfy the Flex Owner who wants to go to Hawaii - Maui first, then Kauai when Maui isn’t available.

The owners of the underlying weeks aren’t incentivized to give up their usage. They are already in (Direct or Mandatory) and they aren’t getting a premium of points to spend on the other properties to entice them to give up control (Marriott Hawaii owners got tons of points for their week) and the Westin portfolio has a limited number of properties. And why doesn’t it include all Westin properties (Kierland would be cool to add)?

It’s an odd system. I remain curious to see how it matures.

Best,

Greg
Vistana has the advantage of already having a point system in place. Because flex owners get access to everything available at 8 months, there is less of a need for them to have the trust "full" to start with. Thus, they probably concluded it was more lucrative to get less sign ups from existing owners at very high prices than to get most people to sign up at lower prices.
 

Bird01

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A sales agent told me that Westin Kierland Villas (WKV) is coming into the Flex Program. Anyone know anything about that. Also, can anyone confirm the annual fees for the 148,100 properties under Flex. I saw the one post earlier.
 

okwiater

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A sales agent told me that Westin Kierland Villas (WKV) is coming into the Flex Program. Anyone know anything about that. Also, can anyone confirm the annual fees for the 148,100 properties under Flex. I saw the one post earlier.

I’ve heard the same thing and would not be surprised to see it happen. However, it may not be Platinum Plus season.
 

cdirik

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We have recently gone through a sales pitch for Vistana Flex and Aventuras. We already own SO from Westin Desert Willow. We were first offered more SO through Flex program (as an add-on). As a follow up offer, they agreed to take back our current ownership and replace it with Flex or Aventuras. There is definitely a push by Vistana to sell more Flex and/or Aventuras. Details of the packages are very fuzzy and confusing.
 
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