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Making boneheaded decisions is far different than committing fraud.
All companies big and small make bad decisions sometimes - in my years in corporate marketing I witnessed many. But if Starwood/VSE were manipulating inventory as some here suggest, that is basically fraud and is illegal. I don't believe that most major companies willfully and frequently try to commit fraud. Does it happen from time to time - of course - that's why you occasionally see executives go to jail. But I believe most companies try to act ethically and in the best interest of their shareholders. Committing fraud is neither. My philosophy is if something can be explained by a logical, honest explanation or by an illegal conspiracy theory, the logical, honest explanation is most likely more accurate.
The Vistana system is pretty simple so there should be no mistake (presumably honest). But isn't their secrecy the one inviting for the conspiracy theories? Would it not make more sense for them to say what actually happened when it happens? Sorry, it is just hard for me to see how the ones reporting the problem are the problem. The reality is that in the absence of official credible explanations people will come with their own theories.
The Vistana system is pretty simple so there should be no mistake (presumably honest). But isn't their secrecy the one inviting for the conspiracy theories? Would it not make more sense for them to say what actually happened when it happens? Sorry, it is just hard for me to see how the ones reporting the problem are the problem. The reality is that in the absence of official credible explanations people will come with their own theories.
A lack of transparency is the root of most of the concern in all the years I’ve owned, IMHO. They must know this, so the continued lack of transparency, with the notable exception of very few situations, is an on-going issue which can only lead to more speculation of a negative nature about their motives for certain decisions.
Respected? Let’s not confuse Starwood hotels and SVN...
I respected Starwood management, and I had some respect for the separate SVN management but I never had much respect for Interval. Hopefully Marriott will clear up some of this, but I’m not holding my breath.
The Vistana system is pretty simple so there should be no mistake (presumably honest). But isn't their secrecy the one inviting for the conspiracy theories? Would it not make more sense for them to say what actually happened when it happens? Sorry, it is just hard for me to see how the ones reporting the problem are the problem. The reality is that in the absence of official credible explanations people will come with their own theories.
A lack of transparency is the root of most of the concern in all the years I’ve owned, IMHO. They must know this, so the continued lack of transparency, with the notable exception of very few situations, is an on-going issue which can only lead to more speculation of a negative nature about their motives for certain decisions.
I agree that lack of transparency is what creates all of these questions, but pretty much all of the major timeshare companies - Vistana, Marriott, Hilton, Diamond, and others - make their inventory management processes very opaque. The reality is only a small minority of owners would probably be interested in understanding what goes on inside those processes and probably even fewer would even understand those processes. While most active TUGgers would love to see inside those "black boxes" ( I know I would), we are a very small minority of all timeshare owners. I would also love to know how airlines allocate their seats between fare classes, frequent flyer seats, etc. or how the Marriott/Westin/Hilton hotels allocate their various rates and free rooms. But in all of those cases, those systems and processes are part of their corporate intellectual property which they feel is proprietary. I'm sure VSE, Marriott Vacation Club, and HGVC all feel the same way about their inventory management processes.
I agree that lack of transparency is what creates all of these questions, but pretty much all of the major timeshare companies - Vistana, Marriott, Hilton, Diamond, and others - make their inventory management processes very opaque. The reality is only a small minority of owners would probably be interested in understanding what goes on inside those processes and probably even fewer would even understand those processes. While most active TUGgers would love to see inside those "black boxes" ( I know I would), we are a very small minority of all timeshare owners. I would also love to know how airlines allocate their seats between fare classes, frequent flyer seats, etc. or how the Marriott/Westin/Hilton hotels allocate their various rates and free rooms. But in all of those cases, those systems and processes are part of their corporate intellectual property which they feel is proprietary. I'm sure VSE, Marriott Vacation Club, and HGVC all feel the same way about their inventory management processes.
I agree that lack of transparency is what creates all of these questions, but pretty much all of the major timeshare companies - Vistana, Marriott, Hilton, Diamond, and others - make their inventory management processes very opaque. The reality is only a small minority of owners would probably be interested in understanding what goes on inside those processes and probably even fewer would even understand those processes. While most active TUGgers would love to see inside those "black boxes" ( I know I would), we are a very small minority of all timeshare owners. I would also love to know how airlines allocate their seats between fare classes, frequent flyer seats, etc. or how the Marriott/Westin/Hilton hotels allocate their various rates and free rooms. But in all of those cases, those systems and processes are part of their corporate intellectual property which they feel is proprietary. I'm sure VSE, Marriott Vacation Club, and HGVC all feel the same way about their inventory management processes.
The major difference with the airlines, hotels etc is that this is a prepaid service so there must be some accountability. With an airline if you do not like the price, travel time etc you can just buy from the competition. Not the case here.
Let's not try to make the VSN booking system more complex that it is or should be. You have basket of beans. At 12 months owners can start picking them. At 8 months, a second group of owners gets to pick what is left in the basket.
Here's another way that Starwood/Vistana changed the rules to make it easier for them to manipulate the inventory to their advantage:
A few years ago they stopped letting owners make a reservation for the dates of their choice, and deposit it with II or RCI. Now, you just get a generic credit when you make a deposit. So you cannot reserve a high demand week and get the trading value of that week - instead you get a generic credit.
Of the major hotel-affiliated timeshares - HGVC, MVC, and VSE - I think Marriott is the only one which allows owners to deposit a specific high demand week. I know HGVC owners can't, we just spend our points in the RCI portal and the specific inventory gets deposited by HGVC. I bet MVC wishes they had structured their program more like HGVC or VSE where they could determine what gets deposited. Personally, I would rather it be done the HGVC/VSE way, as that should result in more of the high demand weeks being available for owner occupancy vs trade. Doing it that way also facilitates bulk banking and blended trading power, and can result in better trade results for all owners versus just those few who can grab the top weeks. I know the way old, fixed traditional timeshares worked the owner had a right to a specific week and thus had the right do do with it as they please. But in the more flexible world of floating time and points, I think it makes more sense to give greater deference to the general rights of the ownership as a whole to book the most popular weeks for their own use rather than allowing those to go to exchange.
And Vistana doesn't have to give II or RCI the week you deposit either - if you deposit an ocean front or ocean view week - they can keep it, put it in their rental pool, and rent it, and give the exchange company any old week.
I could also easily take the counter side of this also. Since neither RCI nor II give an owner any greater trade power credit for view or guarantee exchangers any specific view, why should any timeshare company allow the better views to go to the exchange companies? If I were running any of these companies I wouldn't want to give my best views to an exchange company. I can get a lot more rental revenue from that ocean front week than a garden view week, so why waste that by giving it to RCI or II if they don't give my owners any more trading power credit for that OF week?
There are issues in Marriott as well - like the issues at Maui Ocean Club and the Marriotts in Aruba where multi-week owners will book up the top weeks and then rent them through Redweek, making it tough for owners who actually want to use the week we bought to book prime weeks. In my view, this is a worse outcome than the ones being discussed here. When external renters can book Maui Ocean Club easier than an owner, the system is not as owner-centric as it should be. So, no system is perfect.
Let's not try to make the VSN booking system more complex that it is or should be. You have basket of beans. At 12 months owners can start picking them. At 8 months, a second group of owners gets to pick what is left in the basket.
Using you basket analogy, in addition to your basket of beans, there is also another smaller basket of beans that neither group of owners can pick from. That basket has identical beans, but it is still controlled by the farmer that planted them. That farmer can sell those beans to anyone he wants to, but sometimes (rarely) he might decide to throw a few of his beans into your basket if your basket is starting to run low on beans and there are still owners who want some.
Using you basket analogy, in addition to your basket of beans, there is also another smaller basket of beans that neither group of owners can pick from. That basket has identical beans, but it is still controlled by the farmer that planted them. That farmer can sell those beans to anyone he wants to, but sometimes he might decide to throw a few of his beans into your basket if your basket is starting to run low on beans and there are still owners who want some.
How generous of the farmer to add beans to the owners basket! The reality is that the best we can hope for is for the farmer to leave the owners basket alone.
I guess there is also a third basket of beans in addition to the owners basket and the farmer's basket -- beans that the owners have said they don't want, so the farmer is allowed to go into the owners' basket and pick out some of those beans to put in that third basket which goes to members of the bean exchange cooperative who are looking for those same beans.
If there is credible evidence that the farmer is cheating, then the owners can bring legal action against the farmer or law enforcement can charge him with a crime. Simply not understanding what the farmer is doing, however, is not evidence of wrongdoing.
If there is credible evidence that the farmer is cheating, then the owners can bring legal action against the farmer or law enforcement can charge him with a crime. Simply not understanding what the farmer is doing, however, is not evidence of wrongdoing.
Ah, but if we understand the stated rules but find inconsistent behavior, similar to what Denise mentioned, which is not adequately explained, then a lawsuit is the only remedy? This is just another example of why a lack of transparency encourages negative and critical opinions about the management.
There are issues in Marriott as well - like the issues at Maui Ocean Club and the Marriotts in Aruba where multi-week owners will book up the top weeks and then rent them through Redweek, making it tough for owners who actually want to use the week we bought to book prime weeks. In my view, this is a worse outcome than the ones being discussed here. When external renters can book Maui Ocean Club easier than an owner, the system is not as owner-centric as it should be. So, no system is perfect.
This would drive me crazy. I'm not much of a fan of the 13 month booking window for multi-week owners. In this respect I think Vistana's/old Starwood 12 month rule for all owners is more egalitarian.
Ah, but if we understand the stated rules but find inconsistent behavior, similar to what Denise mentioned, which is not adequately explained, then a lawsuit is the only remedy? This is just another example of why a lack of transparency encourages negative and critical opinions about the management.
In most situations like that, I think the answer is, unfortunately, yes. In situations where companies feel they need to protect their intellectual property, you can always ask nicely, but if they are ultimately not as forthcoming as you would like, then usually some sort of class action is the typical next step.
That's actually how RCI was forced to create their current TPU system. There was suspicion, never proven, they they were engaging in monkey business with the whole trading power concept. A class action was successful in forcing them to create a system that offered a bit more transparency into the whole issue of trading power.
This would drive me crazy. I'm not much of a fan of the 13 month booking window for multi-week owners. In this respect I think Vistana's/old Starwood 12 month rule for all owners is more egalitarian.
I guess there is also a third basket of beans in addition to the owners basket and the farmer's basket -- beans that the owners have said they don't want, so the farmer is allowed to go into the owners' basket and pick out some of those beans to put in that third basket which goes to members of the bean exchange cooperative who are looking for those same beans.
In most situations like that, I think the answer is, unfortunately, yes. In situations where companies feel they need to protect their intellectual property, you can always ask nicely, but if they are ultimately not as forthcoming as you would like, then usually some sort of class action is the typical next step.
I hate lawsuits, but agree it might be needed at some point should sufficient numbers be convinced something fishy is going on. For myself, as stated earlier, I’m not inclined to do much of anything other than stay aware of the issue and hope for the best. I’ve been able to get the time I need so don’t have much to complain about, but the issues and experiences mentioned by others are concerning.
That's actually how RCI was forced to create their current TPU system. There was suspicion, never proven, they they were engaging in monkey business with the whole trading power concept. A class action was successful in forcing them to create a system that offered a bit more transparency into the whole issue of trading power.
I did not know this (I know quite little about RCI though for the last few years I’ve been considering depositing one of my SDOs there to try it out). Thanks for the posting this info for reference.
In most situations like that, I think the answer is, unfortunately, yes. In situations where companies feel they need to protect their intellectual property, you can always ask nicely, but if they are ultimately not as forthcoming as you would like, then usually some sort of class action is the typical next step.
That's actually how RCI was forced to create their current TPU system. There was suspicion, never proven, they they were engaging in monkey business with the whole trading power concept. A class action was successful in forcing them to create a system that offered a bit more transparency into the whole issue of trading power.
There are issues in Marriott as well - like the issues at Maui Ocean Club and the Marriotts in Aruba where multi-week owners will book up the top weeks and then rent them through Redweek, making it tough for owners who actually want to use the week we bought to book prime weeks. In my view, this is a worse outcome than the ones being discussed here. When external renters can book Maui Ocean Club easier than an owner, the system is not as owner-centric as it should be. So, no system is perfect.
I would really like to see the timeshare rental business have more restrictions by the timeshare companies against purely commercial use. It does not seem right that people who are booking rooms for purely commercial reasons take the Owner inventory and lock others out at 13 months. I think it is fine to rent out weeks and points you can’t use, and it is fine to make a profit on that. I just would hate to try to book at 12 months and not get what I want because timeshare “commercial owners” are taking all the good weeks at 13 months. I don’t believe this was the intention of Marriott when they originally designed the program. Some of the timeshare companies have clauses that you can’t book rooms for purely commercial use. I know Disney has this in their contract and I think the MVC DC Points program may have this clause as well. I’d need to double check that. My goal is buy to use and I would only rent out if we can’t use it some years. But if I ever got to the point where we were no longer using what we own, I would probably consider selling rather than deal with the extra work and hassle of renting our timeshares out. I wonder how many owners actually buy weeks solely as a commercial business. I have read on TUG that it is a hard business to run and make a profit because the margins are generally small per unit.
I'm guessing this isn't possible due to existing T&Cs, but is any chance that the 13 month "rule" could apply to new sales under a combined system? I know it's a long long ways off, but my biggest concern is that a combined multi brand system would somehow diminish my existing home booking window.
I am with you on most points you make, i feel the same about renting. Yet, from a legal standpoint they cannot and should not try to change the rules, it would create a big mess.
No. The third bean basket is a metaphor for II exchanges. That obviously exists well before two months. As Denise noted earlier, Vistana can choose which weeks to deposit into II rather than the owner choosing, so using the bean metaphor, they are picking which beans to put in the third basket.)
See section 6: What Does the Settlement Provide?; subsection (2)
(2) Second, the settlement requires RCI to make several disclosures regarding its operation of the Weeks Exchange Program. For example, if the settlement is approved, RCI will make a tool available on its website that allows members to estimate trading power of a proposed deposit and to see the available inventory for which the member is eligible to exchange at that moment.
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