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Anybody booked 51/52 at Lagunamar?

BLUE AYES

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I really wanted to be in WLR for Christmas/New Year’s. So by year three or four, I purchased a week 51. About two years later, I put myself on a waitlist for a week 52 and about six months later they notified me that they had one available. ( both done with trade-ins )
 

DannyTS

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I suspect that it is not only about the extra rental revenue Vistana is getting from those weeks. It is also the fact that they bring very qualified prospects to them. Somebody who pays top dollars to travel those weeks (not only accommodation but the plane tickets can be expensive too) is probably more interesting in their eyes than someone who travels off season. Families, high income, ripe to be sold a timeshare. Am I wrong about this?
 

byeloe

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This is very interesting. I am not sure you read this in another thread, last week somebody at Lagunamar was offered to book week 52 of 2019 if she was going to buy the Explorer package.
Yes that was my wife and I, it was for a One Bedroom unit and 210000 points, around $2600 US.
Not sure it was a good deal as we were staying in a wk 52 studio that we rented on Redweek for $850. And I have no idea what 210000 points are worth. Do you think it is a good deal? My wife is still there and we might buy the package if it has value, since I just booked our airfare for Dec 28 2019
 

DannyTS

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Yes that was my wife and I, it was for a One Bedroom unit and 210000 points, around $2600 US.
Not sure it was a good deal as we were staying in a wk 52 studio that we rented on Redweek for $850. And I have no idea what 210000 points are worth. Do you think it is a good deal? My wife is still there and we might buy the package if it has value, since I just booked our airfare for Dec 28 2019

This site evaluates them at 0.9/point. I think the value you extract depends how you use the points.
https://thepointsguy.com/guide/monthly-valuations/

Even at $0.6 They would be worth $1260 so you would pay $1240 for a 1 bedroom week 52 which is a great price. I think the price you rented at was exceptionally good. I am not sure if it was a super last minute or to the contrary you booked well in advance or the person did not know the value, or maybe you just rented from your best friend!
I also do not know how much you value the extra space. We travel with 2 kids and a studio, even if it is a decent size at WLR, is tight for us; a 1 bdr is much more comfortable. If it is just you and your wife you may feel you do not need the extra space, at least you do not want to pay any extra for it.

What is troubling though is that the developer has enough 52 weeks available that it can give them at this price.
 

Markus

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The other 2 possibilities for the developper to select weeks 51 and 52 is related to owner exchanges. When an owner uses II for an exchange, Vistana can decide which week it assigns, so in theory, it can take one of these two weeks. Same also goes for when an owner exchanges for hotel points, Vistana can decide which week it takes. Patently unfair and perhaps contra to the agreement with owners, but who knows for sure. I just know that I was on the site at midnight for 6 nights, at midnight, and no inventory came up whatsoever. Not even for week 52, as you would think that a week 51 reservation rolling off would become available at week 52. Very disapointing to say the least.

Markus
 

byeloe

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I am not sure if it was a super last minute or to the contrary you booked well in advance or the person did not know the value, or maybe you just rented from your best friend!
I also do not know how much you value the extra space. We travel with 2 kids and a studio, even if it is a decent size at WLR, is tight for us; a 1 bdr is much more comfortable. If it is just you and your wife you may feel you do not need the extra space, at least you do not want to pay any extra for it.

What is troubling though is that the developer has enough 52 weeks available that it can give them at this price

we booked well in advance and I was surprised by the price. I monitored the price all year and did see one for $700 but most were $1000 and up.
It is only my wife and I so the studio is fine.
I wasn't sure I should trust the closer when he said that he could book us a week 52. We met some people who booked their week at the 8 month mark which also surprised me
 

DannyTS

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I wasn't sure I should trust the closer when he said that he could book us a week 52.

If you want it i would not worry about booking, you can ask them to book at the same time. You can cancel if anything goes wrong. I see what you are saying about the size though. The 1 bedroom is almost double, but if you do not need it, you do not need it.
 

DannyTS

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The other 2 possibilities for the developper to select weeks 51 and 52 is related to owner exchanges.

Markus

There are several ways the developer has access to 51 and 52. But when the window opens at 12 months everyone should have the same chances of booking whether you are a regular owner or Vistana. Am I wrong about this? I have never seen in any documentation that there are classes of owners and that Vistana has more rights than you when it comes to booking. Yes, they have the power to abuse the system but that is another story.

Just imagine the booking was done by an independent 3rd party. Based on what rules would they allow Vistana to book at 12 months all the 51 and 52 weeks that are not event weeks?
If Vistana owns 5% of the inventory let's say, they should block 5% of those weeks not more.
 
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BLUE AYES

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They can’t legally block more than they own. I think the problem is that either prior to the 12 months or at the 12 month mark they are pulling their “5%”. Additionally, they might not be releasing all the week 51s and week 52’s in anticipation of II exchanges it or point exchanges.
 

DannyTS

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They can’t legally block more than they own. I think the problem is that either prior to the 12 months or at the 12 month mark they are pulling their “5%”. Additionally, they might not be releasing all the week 51s and week 52’s in anticipation of II exchanges it or point exchanges.
It is not that they block more weeks that they own. They block more than they own proportional to the ownership.

I gave the example above: 290 2 bedroom lockout condos (or 290 studios and 290 1 bdr) , 31 platinum weeks = 8990 2 bedroom platinum plus contracts. If they own 5% of that it means they own 449 contracts. Let's say there are only 70 condos that should be available for regular platinum plus owners (that do not own fixed 51 of 52). Vistana can take them all!

But Vistana controls way more than 5% IMO. According to the Jan 2018 Manual Meeting presentation, the 2017 occupancy rate was 91%, 30% of the occupancy renters.
The delinquency rate is about 1% so with that alone they control about 90 platinum weeks. So between the people who deposit to use Staroptions, the contracts that are in delinquency and the weeks they own straight , they have no problem in blocking 70 condos for any week of the year. But are we in agreement that if they control say 15 % of the inventory they should only block 15% of the 51 and 52 weeks condos (again say 70 condos) or about 10 condos leaving 60 for regular owners? According to Tuggers, there has been nothing available at 12 months for the last 3-4 years.

I will make an analogy, whether appropriate or not. Say you lived in a building with shared laundry and the rules are that the usage is proportional to the ownership. Somebody owns 30% of the building and has the keys of the laundry room. They could block all evenings and weekends leaving the others doing the laundry at night or when most people are at work during the week. Would you find that fair or normal? This is the same situation. This is not that Vistana takes more than it owns as a total number of weeks, it is that it seems they cherry pick the best weeks and leave little to none of those weeks to others.

upload_2019-1-13_10-7-22.png
 
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DannyTS

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By the way, does anyone know how the 91% occupancy rate compares with other resorts? I also own at SVV Bella but they do not publish this number... i guess nothing to brag about.
 

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I own Fixed Week 52 at WLR. When I bought it several years back, they told me that 51/52 are reserved weeks and aren't bookable through the normal 8/12 month windows. I've never gone through the legal docs though. I've tried a few times at the 12 month window exactly for an extra room with no luck.

Sent from my ONEPLUS A5010 using Tapatalk
 

DannyTS

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I own Fixed Week 52 at WLR. When I bought it several years back, they told me that 51/52 are reserved weeks and aren't bookable through the normal 8/12 month windows. I've never gone through the legal docs though. I've tried a few times at the 12 month window exactly for an extra room with no luck.

Sent from my ONEPLUS A5010 using Tapatalk
All evidence shows that 3-4 years ago Vistana made the decision to restrict the platinum plus owners from booking 51 and 52 despite the points chart, despite that they have confirmed access with every estoppel they have sent and despite the governing documents clearly stating that 50% of the phase one should be open to platinum plus owners.

1) Westin Lagunamar Points chart
upload_2019-1-13_21-13-44.png


2) estoppel

upload_2019-1-13_21-25-58.png


3) Westin Lagunamar governing documents

12.3. Vacation Ownership Interest types.
(a) The following Vacation Ownership Interests may be assigned to a
Membership:
Weekly designations may be Ultra Premium, Fixed, Float or Event. Currently the only Event
Weeks designated are Christmas Week and New Year’s Week. These weeks shall be designated
on the Vacation Calendar. For Phase One Vacation Units, no more than 50% of the Vacation
Ownership Interests in each Vacation Week shall be designated as Ultra Premium, Fixed,
or Event.
For Phase Two, Three and Four Vacation Units, the Vacation Weeks including
Christmas and New Year’s Day will be sold exclusively as Event Weeks. No more than 50%
of the Vacation Ownership Interests in any other Vacation Week shall be designated as
Ultra Premium, Fixed or Event. In addition, no more than 50% of the Vacation Ownership
Interests in Phase One, Two, Three or Four will be sold with a Fixed Unit designation.
(A) Vacation Ownership Interests with a Floating Week
Designation shall be assigned to a Season. The Equity Membership Certificate for a Vacation
Ownership Interest that has a floating Vacation Period will designate the “Season” for which the
floating use rights apply. The Founding Member has reserved the right to designate other or
additional Seasons for additional Vacation Units. Currently, the seasons for the Vacation Units
are:
(I) Platinum Plus: Vacation Weeks: 5-17, 24-35, 44-47,
51 & 52.
(II) Gold Plus: Vacation Weeks: 1-4, 18-23, 36-43, 48-
50.
 
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cubigbird

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Do we know how much of this inventory has been deposited into the Aventuras program? It’s possible that some folks who owned fixed weeks 51 or 52 got sold into trading in to that program? Is there a way to view what weeks have been deposited in to that program? Being Mexico RTU I imagine it’s harder as there is no county recording like there is in the US.
 

cubigbird

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I own Fixed Week 52 at WLR. When I bought it several years back, they told me that 51/52 are reserved weeks and aren't bookable through the normal 8/12 month windows. I've never gone through the legal docs though. I've tried a few times at the 12 month window exactly for an extra room with no luck.

Sent from my ONEPLUS A5010 using Tapatalk

Yes and No. I own fixed week 51 and it automatically books. All I have to do is show up and check in. If I want to change it I have to cancel it and rebook something else. As stated before not all of WLR is event week. However, given 12 month reservations privileges, I haven’t even been able to change the check in / move the week block even 1 day forward or backwards as inventory is always shown unavailable. I used to be able to do that in past years. Somehow inventory is being claimed if an owner can’t do anything 12 months out.
 

tschwa2

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It is also possible that Vistana has no idea the system is doing this and if that is the case you will have a heck of a time convincing them that the system is not releasing the proper number of units into availability at 12 months.

There was a glitch with a specific size unit that was not dropping into owner availability at 12 months for summer weeks at SBP for 2 years. I know at least a couple of Tuggers complained the first year and we reluctantly accepted the canned response about sought after weeks and the difficulty in booking. When it happened the second year I wrote several times including multiple weeks in a row begging them to have someone in IT look to make sure that something was actually being released and I also asked how many units of this type were being released. I never got a response to that one but someone actually did eventually ask their IT department to check and it was an error on their part. Your situation is harder because it is only 2 weeks and I had screenshots and experience with week after week. Also this was a voluntary resort (SBP) with many resale non SVN owners and we had to prepay MF in order to book and I knew there was no way there were so many owners prepaying and staying up to midnight to book at exactly 12 months every single week for both summer of 2017 and summer 2018. Even if WLR required prepayment, I could imagine enough platinum plus owners prepaying and staying up to try to get those weeks.
 

DannyTS

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It is also possible that Vistana has no idea the system is doing this and if that is the case you will have a heck of a time convincing them that the system is not releasing the proper number of units into availability at 12 months.
.

This was my first thought except that the sales department at Lagunamar thinks that platinum owners do not have access to 51-52. This appears to be the consequence of a management decision rather than and error hidden in the code of the booking system that nobody knows about. Is there a contact person at Vistana for TUG members, a similar position to Mark DelCampo for Interval?
 
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DannyTS

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does anyone know if they sold any Lagunamar Oceanside contracts that are fixed for 51 or 52? If they did not, I am thinking that there is a much higher chance for an Oceanside owner to book Christmas and New Year. An event week owner would only access the oceanview inventory, leaving all Oceanside units (51,52) available to those that own oceanside.
 
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dioxide45

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does anyone know if they sold any Lagunamar Oceanside contracts that are fixed for 51 or 52? If they did not, I am thinking that there is a much higher chance of an Oceanside owner to book Christmas and New Year. An event week owner would only access the oceanview inventory, leaving all Oceanside units (51,52) available to those that own oceanside.
I am pretty sure that 50% of the units in phase 1 (or was it two?) were sold as event weeks. So I would suspect that would be true for ocean side as well as ocean view. IIRC @suzannesimon bought a week (or maybe it was two) that ended up being event weeks 51/52 and perhaps even ended up being oceanside.
 

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I have read all the posts/comments regarding Lagunamar and nobody ever mentioned owning an oceanside event week.
 

BLUE AYES

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When I purchased my weeks 51/52 event weeks, buildings 1 and 9/Oceanside were available for an additional fee. I believe it was $10,000 additional for only Oceanside and $10,000 for only an event week and 18,000 if both options.
 

DannyTS

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When I purchased my weeks 51/52 event weeks, buildings 1 and 9/Oceanside were available for an additional fee. I believe it was $10,000 additional for only Oceanside and $10,000 for only an event week and 18,000 if both options.
wow, so those would be extremely rare, just 42 two bdr units out of about 15,000.
 
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