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Marriott/Vistana overlay

dioxide45

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I am a bit surprised by your position that they may offer a better deal to the resale voluntary resorts, I would have thought it may be the other way around.
I would expect the voluntary resale owners to likely have to pay a higher enrollment fee, just like resale Marriott owners had to pay. But it will add a lot more flexibility to what they own compared to someone with SOs.
 

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I would expect the voluntary resale owners to likely have to pay a higher enrollment fee, just like resale Marriott owners had to pay. But it will add a lot more flexibility to what they own compared to someone with SOs.
Now I understand, thank you for the clarification
 

Tucsonadventurer

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I don't expect them to require one to turn over their deeds in order to enroll. If they offer some type of enrollment, it will be like they did with the Marriott DC program. You don't sign over your deeds and you just elect points from one year to the next. I would expect an enrollment offer to be very attractive to those that own voluntary resale resorts. Perhaps not as much for those that own Mandatory or direct developer purchases.
Why do you think they will differentiate between mandatory and voluntary with resale. I hope you are correct but I am expecting that Marriott will charge more for any resale units as they seem to dislike resale or at least discourage them.
 

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Why do you think they will differentiate between mandatory and voluntary with resale. I hope you are correct but I am expecting that Marriott will charge more for any resale units as they seem to dislike resale or at least discourage them.
I suspect mandatory resales will pay the same higher enrollment fees too.
 

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I just hope the fee will be capped say after a second week and not multiplied by the total number of weeks owned
 

dioxide45

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I just hope the fee will be capped say after a second week and not multiplied by the total number of weeks owned
That is how they did it for Marriott owners enrolling back in 2010. I suspect if they just integrate the programs, that is how they will do it.
 

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I just hope the fee will be capped say after a second week and not multiplied by the total number of weeks owned

Quick! Go out and buy a few more...


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MVC needs Vistana owners to enroll their weeks in the DC if they want to integrate the systems. It especially needs weeks in the locations where MVC has no presence or not a strong one: WSJ, Kierland, Princeville, etc. The issue is how to incentivize the owners of those weeks to enroll and ultimately, to relinquish their weeks for points.

One must start with the realization that not all 148100 or 81000 StarOption properties were created equal (which has nothing to do with whether the properties are mandatory or voluntary). Some properties are just better or just more popular -- and the number of DC points that will be required to reserve them will reflect that. For example, a one bedroom platinum plus Kierland unit (81000 SO's) rents for about $2,350; a two bedroom at SVV Bella (also 81000 SO's) rents for less. There is no internal reason for these two properties to remain equivalent in DC points; MVC gets to do a "re-do" on setting values in the process.

Here at TUG, we have taught each other how to arbitrage these kinds of discrepancies; we buy the SVV Bella unit and use it to reserve Princeville or Maui. MVC cannot stop these internal StarOption exchanges except by buying up all of the inventory, persuading owners to turn in deeds for FlexOptions, or by offering Princeville and Maui owners enough DC points so that if they elect points they can reserve at twelve months instead of the eight month SO window and in the process wipe out their availability for SO exchanges..

I foresee MVC offering enrollment on terms similar to what it did in 2010. Each property and each season will be offered a certain number of DC points which will be set on new criteria (rental value, MF's, scarcity value, etc.) and will hew closer to rental values rather than the current number of StarOptions.
 

Ken555

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MVC needs Vistana owners to enroll their weeks in the DC if they want to integrate the systems. It especially needs weeks in the locations where MVC has no presence or not a strong one: WSJ, Kierland, Princeville, etc. The issue is how to incentivize the owners of those weeks to enroll and ultimately, to relinquish their weeks for points.

One must start with the realization that not all 148100 or 81000 StarOption properties were created equal (which has nothing to do with whether the properties are mandatory or voluntary). Some properties are just better or just more popular -- and the number of DC points that will be required to reserve them will reflect that. For example, a one bedroom platinum plus Kierland unit (81000 SO's) rents for about $2,350; a two bedroom at SVV Bella (also 81000 SO's) rents for less. There is no internal reason for these two properties to remain equivalent in DC points; MVC gets to do a "re-do" on setting values in the process.

Here at TUG, we have taught each other how to arbitrage these kinds of discrepancies; we buy the SVV Bella unit and use it to reserve Princeville or Maui. MVC cannot stop these internal StarOption exchanges except by buying up all of the inventory, persuading owners to turn in deeds for FlexOptions, or by offering Princeville and Maui owners enough DC points so that if they elect points they can reserve at twelve months instead of the eight month SO window and in the process wipe out their availability for SO exchanges..

I foresee MVC offering enrollment on terms similar to what it did in 2010. Each property and each season will be offered a certain number of DC points which will be set on new criteria (rental value, MF's, scarcity value, etc.) and will hew closer to rental values rather than the current number of StarOptions.

Yes, I understand this perspective. Similarly, since I can use my WKV to get an equal number of nights in Hawaii there’s absolutely no way I would exchange that capability to effectively get less in future, and pay for the privilege. In other words, it works both ways...


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Quick! Go out and buy a few more...

Yeah, and make them SDO true platinum units worth 148100 StarOptions -- if you think there will be a direct StarOption to DC point conversion (which I do not).

This makes me wonder by what date MVC will require ownership to have been established before being invited into the program. MVC has stuck with the 6/10/2010 date consistently -- if you didn't own before then, you cannot enroll except for an exorbitant price. Is it still possible to buy something not expensive on resale but likely to be awarded lots of DC points (think: Princeville)?
 
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vacationtime1

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Yes, I understand this perspective. Similarly, since I can use my WKV to get an equal number of nights in Hawaii there’s absolutely no way I would exchange that capability to effectively get less in future, and pay for the privilege. In other words, it works both ways...

I agree completely. And Kierland is an especially tough one for the integrators because it is mandatory, comes with lots of StarOptions, has low MF's, and rents well (at least Platinum + season does). Unless MVC succeeds in sucking up enough of the Hawaii weeks via enrollment and point election such that we cannot do those StarOption exchanges any more.
 

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Quick! Go out and buy a few more...


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I am actually closing on a week right now but we bought it for other reasons. If they limit the resale weeks enrollment up to the official ILG purchase date (September 1st 2018?) we may not be able to enroll it at all which would suck but we knew it may be one of the scenarios before we bought it.
 

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is it me or we are talking about the enrollment as if it was a fait accompli? Where do I have to sign for the enrollment lol?
 

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One must start with the realization that not all 148100 or 81000 StarOption properties were created equal (which has nothing to do with whether the properties are mandatory or voluntary). Some properties are just better or just more popular -- and the number of DC points that will be required to reserve them will reflect that. For example, a one bedroom platinum plus Kierland unit (81000 SO's) rents for about $2,350; a two bedroom at SVV Bella (also 81000 SO's) rents for less. There is no internal reason for these two properties to remain equivalent in DC points; MVC gets to do a "re-do" on setting values in the process..
this is a very possible scenario. At the same time, a lot of owners bought from the developer with the expectation of exchanging internally into one resort or another based on a points chart.. If they feel that their points get devalued overnight they may consider it a breach of contract. This would virtually create too many unhappy owners and too few winners. IMO the only way to avoid that scenario is a set number of StarOptions per MVC point. Nobody can say they are not happy with that since this is what they signed into when they bought and this is the system they have used for many, many years.
 
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Tucsonadventurer

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MVC needs Vistana owners to enroll their weeks in the DC if they want to integrate the systems. It especially needs weeks in the locations where MVC has no presence or not a strong one: WSJ, Kierland, Princeville, etc. The issue is how to incentivize the owners of those weeks to enroll and ultimately, to relinquish their weeks for points.

One must start with the realization that not all 148100 or 81000 StarOption properties were created equal (which has nothing to do with whether the properties are mandatory or voluntary). Some properties are just better or just more popular -- and the number of DC points that will be required to reserve them will reflect that. For example, a one bedroom platinum plus Kierland unit (81000 SO's) rents for about $2,350; a two bedroom at SVV Bella (also 81000 SO's) rents for less. There is no internal reason for these two properties to remain equivalent in DC points; MVC gets to do a "re-do" on setting values in the process.

Here at TUG, we have taught each other how to arbitrage these kinds of discrepancies; we buy the SVV Bella unit and use it to reserve Princeville or Maui. MVC cannot stop these internal StarOption exchanges except by buying up all of the inventory, persuading owners to turn in deeds for FlexOptions, or by offering Princeville and Maui owners enough DC points so that if they elect points they can reserve at twelve months instead of the eight month SO window and in the process wipe out their availability for SO exchanges..

I foresee MVC offering enrollment on terms similar to what it did in 2010. Each property and each season will be offered a certain number of DC points which will be set on new criteria (rental value, MF's, scarcity value, etc.) and will hew closer to rental values rather than the current number of StarOptions.
Our Westin sales manager thought they would do baby steps and make changes gradually to lessen alienating their acquired owners. He predicted that assigning points to our Westin and Hyatt resorts would come down the road.
 

dioxide45

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this is a very possible scenario. At the same time, a lot of owners bought from the developer with the expectation of exchanging internally into one resort or another based on a points chart.. If they feel that their points get devalued overnight they may consider it a breach of contract. This would virtually create too many unhappy owners and too few winners. IMO the only way to avoid that scenario is a set number of StarOptions per MVC point. Nobody can say they are not happy with that since this is what they signed into when they bought and this is the system they have used for many, many years.
I don't expect them to remove the ability to use StarOptions to exchange between Vistana resorts. So owners won't lose that ability. However, if they want to go between the two systems, then the new conversion factor, likely with a skim, comes in to play. I would expect @vacationtime1 scenario over a set SO/DC point conversion, except in the situation of Home or FlexOptions.
 

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I don't expect them to remove the ability to use StarOptions to exchange between Vistana resorts. So owners won't lose that ability. However, if they want to go between the two systems, then the new conversion factor, likely with a skim, comes in to play. I would expect @vacationtime1 scenario over a set SO/DC point conversion, except in the situation of Home or FlexOptions.
If they give relatively more MVC points to say resorts A, B, C, the owners of those resorts will deposit mostly in MVC because they will perceive more value in that system for them. If that is the case, the availability with SO's will vanish at those 3 resorts. If somebody bought a certain resort from the developer with the intend to use the SO's at those 3 resorts he'd be out of luck completely. De facto, his SO's would become useless for him even if he can still theoretically use VSN.

But again, this may very well happen and I do not see any scenario where there will be no losers and only winners. The Lagunamar reps warned me that the VSN availability there will vanish once the 2 systems will be integrated. Their point was that it would happen because MVC does not have any Mexican resorts and because of the relative higher number of MVC owners. Of course, this suited their narrative very well since they were selling Westin Aventuras.
 
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GregT

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If they give relatively more MVC points to say resorts A, B, C, the owners of those resorts will deposit mostly in MVC because they will perceive more value in that system for them. If that is the case, the availability with SO's will vanish at those 3 resorts. If somebody bought a certain resort from the developer with the intend to use the SO's at those 3 resorts he'd be out of luck completely. De facto, his SO's would become useless for him even if he can still theoretically use VSN.

But again, this may very well happen and I do not see any scenario where there will be no losers and only winners. The Lagunamar reps warned me that the VSN availability there will vanish once the 2 systems will be integrated. Their point was that it would happen because MVC does not have any Mexican resorts and because of the relative higher number of MVC owners. Of course, this suited their narrative very well since they were selling Westin Aventuras.
This was a fear when Marriott offered point premiums to the Hawaii properties and didn't fully value the Caribbean properties. However, people have been able to still II trade (our only alternative since we didnt have StarOptions) into Hawaii properties -- it's uptrades that have been most effected (IMO). I still believe StarOptions trading will be successful because there are a number of owners who don't want to hear anything from Marriott about the new system -- they are very close-minded. Therefore, I still be able to expect to use StarOptions to access WPORV. It will be interesting to see.

Marriott cares alot about not disenfranchising existing owners -- they don't want to take anything away. Different Customer Advocacy representatives have used that exact word multiple times (and I've had alot of conversations with them). So I expect StarOptions to stay, II preference to remain intact, and new options to be available (that people will have to pay for). I expect there will be a skim element, because Marriott does want those Starwood owners to buy Trust Points.

We will see -- interesting stuff.

Best,

Greg
 

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All of the documentation makes it clear that Vistana can change the terms of VSN/VSE or even eliminate it, but I definitely agree with the others that it would be stupid for MVC to do either because many owners would feel disenfranchised. That said, subtly changing the game by siphoning off inventory or making trading more difficult is nothing new.

Remember the good old days of major bulk banks? Remember when we could reserve a good week, deposit it into Interval, and get good trades? Remember when there were no upgrade fees trading a one bedroom (or sometimes a studio) into a two bedroom?

I am actually looking forward to the integration of the two systems, but I have no illusions that although there will be more places into which I can do internal trades, the possibilities for arbitrage will be diminished.
 

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Hate the skim and dropped Marriott when they did it. I would sell my star options and buy hgvc before I would agree to the join MVC with a skim unlesss they gave me enough dvc points to book Hawaii with my WKV.
 

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...glad to see this thread finally turning to the interesting discussion.

I agree with most of the discussion on an overlay thus far - Marriott has an enormous amount of flexibility to design whatever sort of overlay they'd like and given history, there's a high probability they'll design something to their advantage (skim, revaluation of property values...etc).

HOWEVER, there are a few differences compared to when they designed the DC program that I think we should all keep in mind:

1) When they designed the DC program there was no existing internal trading program so they largely had carte blanche in how they designed things. While internal trading via II existed, the trade values and exchange ability was always very opaque. While Marriott has a decent amount of latitude incorporating SVN units, I think there will be a greater deal of mental anchoring to values that makes it much more difficult for them to deviate substantially from SVN values if they really want substantial uptake.

2) I haven't heard any discussion about what we think MVC will sell in the future as it relates to SVN inventory. I'm not interested enough to dig into the legal documents, but all of the current FLEX programs have been equally predicated on the existing SVN options chart. This creates two problems for Marriott:

a) none of the FLEX program owners own actual weeks so the only way to overlay them into the DC is to establish some sort of fixed conversion ratio; given (I think) every SVN resort has SOME inventory in one of the three FLEX trusts, I don't see how they could make that conversion ratio different for fixed week owners vs. FLEX points owners (I don't mean technically, I mean more feasibly...it would create such a complicated contrived system that they'd be shooting themselves in the foot operationally while also alienating many SVN owners).

b) I can't imagine MVC's end goal isn't to create a single portfolio that they can sell as far and wide as possible. In other words, I imagine they'll want to get rid of the various FLEX programs and fold future inventory into the DC. That again says to me they've got to create some sort of fixed conversion ratio from FLEX to DC to enable this shift. Otherwise they're not going to get easy access to the FLEX inventory that hasn't yet been sold.

None of this precludes Marriott from introducing some sort of "skim" which simply becomes a sort of "entrance fee" for utilizing the flexibility of the DC overlay, but I do think it makes it very difficult for Marriott to drastically change values of weeks within existing seasons and relative SVN values.
 

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2) I haven't heard any discussion about what we think MVC will sell in the future as it relates to SVN inventory. I'm not interested enough to dig into the legal documents, but all of the current FLEX programs have been equally predicated on the existing SVN options chart. This creates two problems for Marriott:

a) none of the FLEX program owners own actual weeks so the only way to overlay them into the DC is to establish some sort of fixed conversion ratio; given (I think) every SVN resort has SOME inventory in one of the three FLEX trusts, I don't see how they could make that conversion ratio different for fixed week owners vs. FLEX points owners (I don't mean technically, I mean more feasibly...it would create such a complicated contrived system that they'd be shooting themselves in the foot operationally while also alienating many SVN owners).

b) I can't imagine MVC's end goal isn't to create a single portfolio that they can sell as far and wide as possible. In other words, I imagine they'll want to get rid of the various FLEX programs and fold future inventory into the DC. That again says to me they've got to create some sort of fixed conversion ratio from FLEX to DC to enable this shift. Otherwise they're not going to get easy access to the FLEX inventory that hasn't yet been sold.

to add to your excellent comment, say somebody owns SDO platinum 148100 SO's and a Flex contract with 148100 Flex Options. it is hard for me to see how they will assign a different number of DC points to these two contracts. I can also see a lot of upset owners who were pushed to give back their old deeds for flex "upgrades" only to see not that their old weeks might be assigned a higher number of points than the upgraded ownership.
 

dioxide45

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to add to your excellent comment, say somebody owns SDO platinum 148100 SO's and a Flex contract with 148100 Flex Options. it is hard for me to see how they will assign a different number of DC points to these two contracts. I can also see a lot of upset owners who were pushed to give back their old deeds for flex "upgrades" only to see not that their old weeks might be assigned a higher number of points than the upgraded ownership.
Buy should that 148,000 SDO get the same number of points as the WKORV 148,100 SO week?
 

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Buy should that 148,000 SDO get the same number of points as the WKORV 148,100 SO week?
So they getting the same number of StarOptions. Why is this not controversial NOW?
 
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This thread has gone into mayhem. I am supportive as well as critical of all timeshares including Disney, Marriott, and Vistana, and I own them all. There are pros and cons to each one and there are also specific stays that can be good, bad or neutral. That does not cause me to categorically say any are better or worse, except when subjectively evaluating a certain personal experience based on a specific stay. I have been judgmental of them all but only for a specific instance in time. I will stay at any of them repeatedly and even Westin Lagunamar (LOL inside joke). I recognize we cannot have black and white thinking with timeshares or much else in life. At one point I hated all things Marriott until they updated my Presidential status after my upgrade last year. Now I love Marriott and MVC again. I love both points program and weeks programs for different reasons and I own both. I would love to see Tuggers able to share options and experiences without insulting other people. Perhaps we should include disclaimers on our opinions and communicate in a collaborative way so our comments are not offensive to our fellow Tuggers. I think this will be good for me since my comments have often been taken the wrong way.
 
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