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Marriott/Vistana overlay

dioxide45

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So they getting the same number of StarOptions. Why is this not controversial NOW?
I think that is the problem with some of the imbalance in the Vistana system. When Marriott rolled out DC, they fixed many of the imbalances with how they allocated DC points. Thus why they have such a convoluted DC points chart for making reservations. When Marriott initially allocated points to a week, it was said it was based loosely on the last sales price of a week at that resort in that season divided by ten. If they go that same route, it is doubtful that a 148,100 at WKORVN last sold for the same price as a SDO 148,100 week.
 

TravelTime

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Here's an interesting idea. I am hoping MVC will allow us to enroll a MVC week with a Vistana week. Not sure I am willing to pay much extra though.
 

Ken555

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I think that is the problem with some of the imbalance in the Vistana system. When Marriott rolled out DC, they fixed many of the imbalances with how they allocated DC points. Thus why they have such a convoluted DC points chart for making reservations. When Marriott initially allocated points to a week, it was said it was based loosely on the last sales price of a week at that resort in that season divided by ten. If they go that same route, it is doubtful that a 148,100 at WKORVN last sold for the same price as a SDO 148,100 week.

The only reason they were able to sell WKV and other resorts for the price that they did, even though it may have been less than the price of a week at WKORV, was because it had the ability to exchange internally for WKORV and other resorts without losing nights. I’m not sure why anyone thinks they should adjust this in favor of Hawaii weeks now, unless they own Hawaii...


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ocdb8r

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I think that is the problem with some of the imbalance in the Vistana system. When Marriott rolled out DC, they fixed many of the imbalances with how they allocated DC points. Thus why they have such a convoluted DC points chart for making reservations. When Marriott initially allocated points to a week, it was said it was based loosely on the last sales price of a week at that resort in that season divided by ten. If they go that same route, it is doubtful that a 148,100 at WKORVN last sold for the same price as a SDO 148,100 week.

That's the thing - they didn't "fix" anything. There was no existing internal trading system to "fix"; the only existing Marriott trading was all based on II (which was designed to deal with resorts from many different developers and was also opaque at best). And, of course, those with Caribbean Marriott's would argue they actually created many imbalances with the new system. Bottom line, when the Marriott DC rolled out there was no existing weighting of resorts and seasons as there already is with SVN. It's also interesting to note that SVN has had the ability to adjust Options assigned to weeks for some time and has made very few (small) adjustments and in fact made the conscious decision to adjust how SDO was sold (they certainly could have continued to sell SDO as 1-52 with an overall blended SVN rate, but chose not to and instead bifurcated seasons and assigned 148k points to the platinum season).

All of the above is compounded by the other fact that not only have these values been ingrained in SVN (which effectively serves as an overlay itself to the true "weeks" system people originally deeded into) but are also now ingrained in the Flex programs where people are buying nothing but points.

Again, I'm not implying that Marriott doesn't have the technical ability to value Vistana resorts in the DC however they want (after all, they completely control the DC). However, the more the deviate from the existing values, the more difficult they make their own lives (both administratively as well as from a customer satisfaction and sales perspective).

If I were Marriott, I'd look at the Vistana portfolio collectively and realize that the risk taken by creating a close to fixed rate for SVN options to translate to DC points is much lower than overly engineering the numbers. What's the worst that could happen:

  • Certain resorts end up (slightly) over-valued on DC points compared to their Marriott counterparts (main contenders likely to be SDO, SVV, SVR perhaps SBP) - but this could be mitigated by arguing all these resorts have units that split into two 1-beds, justifying the points premium.

  • Certain resorts end up (slightly) under-valued on DC points compared to their Marriott counterparts (the biggest risk here is in Hawaii as given how Marriott seemingly shortchanged all their Caribbean resorts, I don't think Harborside or St. John would end up far out of step with the other Marriott resorts in the Caribbean) - I think this could be mitigated by explaining an overall blended rate was devised looking at the SVN portfolio as a whole and intimating that you'd rarely ever trade OUT of your WKORV/Nanea unit to trade back IN to a Marriott Hawaii unit.
Nether of these is ideal, but I think they avoid a whole slew of other problems an overly engineered assignment of DC points presents.
 

DannyTS

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I think that is the problem with some of the imbalance in the Vistana system. When Marriott rolled out DC, they fixed many of the imbalances with how they allocated DC points. Thus why they have such a convoluted DC points chart for making reservations. When Marriott initially allocated points to a week, it was said it was based loosely on the last sales price of a week at that resort in that season divided by ten. If they go that same route, it is doubtful that a 148,100 at WKORVN last sold for the same price as a SDO 148,100 week.
right, but as @ocdb8r points out, there was no internal points exchange network in MVC at that time so they had to come up with a system. But in Vistana's case, people bought taking into consideration the existing points chart and that includes of course both the SDO and the WKORVN owners.
 

DavidnRobin

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They have adjusted SOs in the past.
WSJ-VGV (twice) and WKORV/N OF


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DannyTS

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They have adjusted SOs in the past.
WSJ-VGV (twice) and WKORV/N OF


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If I counted correctly, there are currently 71 unique seasons/resorts on the Staroptions chart. So we have 3 changes in the last 10-15 years, this is actually telling something about how careful they have been to NOT change the chart.
 

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So, after my last post I thought I'd have a more in depth look at the Marriott DC points charts to see if I could eyeball how things might work out. My takeaways:

1) What a complete disastrous mess is the DC chart!?!? I remember looking into all of this when MVC first switched over, but it's been a long time. I can't believe the complexity. I applaud that it boils weeks down to much closer to their true value, but there must be SOME value in simplicity. I have no idea how they "sell" to a completely novice buyer looking at DC points for the first time...the complexity would immediately turn me off and have me out the door in a minute. My biggest takeaway is that despite some imbalances, I'd take the SVN system any day.

2) The pain points for some sort of set exchange rate between SVN and DC points are pretty much as predicted. An average rate applied across all SVN resorts results in Hawaii and Ski weeks undervalued compared to their Marriott counterparts, the deserts (both Arizona and CA) overvalued compared to their Marriott counterparts and Orlando and the Caribbean about on par with their Marriott counterparts. There's no comparison in Mexico for Marriott, so no big issue there. This is all with a big "approximately" caveat as Marriott DC has SO MANY more variations in season and even between resorts in the same area. (Side note - SBP is actually somewhat shortchanged as not a single week there is valued at 148,100 StarOptions while Marriott does give relatively good value to their Myrtle Beach resort). As mentioned, I think Marriott can (and should) overvalue the SVN desert resorts over their Marriott DC counterparts given the lock-off into two 1-beds...but not by much. I would not be speculatively buying any of these resorts with the hope of retro-ing them into a DC program.

3) Not to argue against myself, but I have to acknowledge that Marriott has got quite a lot invested in a much more nuanced (contrived) system and that's likely to provide some counterbalance to any "anchoring" we as existing SVN owners might have. It's clear to me the required DC points to trade back IN to our own resorts will look nothing like the simplicity of SVN. This doesn't preclude Marriott from offering a set exchange rate for StarOptions into DC Points (after all, between skim and the re-setting of seasons, there was quite a bit of variance between what Marriott gave weeks owners and what the asked back from them in the DC system for the same week - trading back into your own resort never made any sense).

4) The DC points system is likely to benefit/appeal to me as someone who doesn't need to travel in TRUE peak season but prefers the shoulders of peak season. The real pain is in peak seasons because SVN defined "Platinum Plus" seasons are relatively large. In the more nuanced DC system, if I stick to shoulder peak (which are still Platinum Plus in most cases in SVN) even if we take a hit in value for DC points, I can probably still get a week in most locations. And lets be honest, how many of us were successfully trading in to "event" weeks anyhow? It's even gotten fairly hard to get into the Hawaii resorts for most of the summer with StarOptions. For some people, this could open up interesting options. As usual, those needing to travel during school holidays and other true peak seasons are going to suffer the most. I reiterate though - despite the fact a DC points type system might work for me (and even benefit me), I think I'd take the simplicity of SVN any day...
 
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CalGalTraveler

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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.

Has MVC ever differentiated enrollment offers en masse based on resale vs. dev purchase?
 

CalGalTraveler

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Points value - no (not that I recall). Cost to enroll - yes (this is standard).

Thanks for clarifying.

If the cost to enroll is large for resale, this may be a showstopper for us. Although I would like to have fluid access to MVC and the ability to rent points (which is a great benefit. Thanks @GregT for pointing out.) it is not a must have for us as a WKORV-N OF owner. Similar to @Ken555 we don't trade our property much and could continue to use SOs, II or rent it out for cash in the rare occasion we would exchange.

We would more likely buy a resale trader with lower MF and then enroll that property and rent points when needed. The MVC system doesn't win in that case because our Maui OF will not be available to the points system - only the trader and this will be a low end property.
 

CalGalTraveler

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Hmm an alternative approach? If we enroll our WKORVN but choose to use it instead of depositing for points can we still rent MVC points from others for an additional stay in the MVC system because we have an enrolled account (even if 0 in it) from deposits?

If so, I might be willing to pay more to enroll to add this flexibility because it would cost less than buying and paying MF on a trader.
 
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GregT

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Hmm an alternative approach? If we enroll our WKORVN but choose to use it instead of depositing for points can we still rent MVC points from others for an additional stay in the MVC system because we have an enrolled account (even if 0 in it) from deposits?

If so, I might be willing to pay more to enroll to add this flexibility because it would cost less than buying and paying MF on a trader.
CalGal,

Yes you can enroll your week but never actually redeem it for points, and then simply rent what is needed. I rarely redeem my MOC 3BR because it is more valuable as a rental then as a points generator. But I like to rent points from others and do so frequently to give myself new options.

I will be very curious to see what gets introduced. Perhaps it will be a simple fixed ratio of StarOptions for DC points, and then offer “specials” for certain SVN properties that are particularly attractive, something like 50% more points to redeem it for the first year (and then make that promotion permanent if they buy points). They will want people to play with points because it is their experience that once people try points, they stay with points (and buy more).

Interesting - all my speculation of course.

Best,

Greg
 
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jjking42

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Sounds like I should hold off on getting a SVV week for more star options and look for someplace I am willing to stay every year.
 

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Marriott could just give all StarOptions same value as now (for enrollment in DC) BUT "differentiate" via ELITE STATUS.
What a sales tool that would be.....
Higher ELITE levels get to book earlier.
So, without elite booking is still at 8 months.
Highest levels book at 13, 12, 10 etc.
 

ocdb8r

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Thanks for clarifying.

If the cost to enroll is large for resale, this may be a showstopper for us. Although I would like to have fluid access to MVC and the ability to rent points (which is a great benefit. Thanks @GregT for pointing out.) it is not a must have for us as a WKORV-N OF owner. Similar to @Ken555 we don't trade our property much and could continue to use SOs, II or rent it out for cash in the rare occasion we would exchange.

Depends on what you mean by "large". I'm sure someone from the Marriott boards could clarify, but if I remember correctly the cost for resale to enroll was approx $3k while it was only $500-600 for those who purchased their weeks from the developer. The kicker was this was just for the first week you enroll, all additional weeks could be added for a marginal additional cost.

We would more likely buy a resale trader with lower MF and then enroll that property and rent points when needed. The MVC system doesn't win in that case because our Maui OF will not be available to the points system - only the trader and this will be a low end property.

Unlikely an option. If past practice holds, Marriott only allowed resale weeks purchased (about a week) prior to announcement of the program (explicitly to prevent this type of behavior). They subsequently opened the enrollment window for resale owners a few years later for a short period (but again, it was open only to those who owned weeks prior to the announcement of the re-opening).

Marriott could just give all StarOptions same value as now (for enrollment in DC) BUT "differentiate" via ELITE STATUS.
What a sales tool that would be.....
Higher ELITE levels get to book earlier.
So, without elite booking is still at 8 months.
Highest levels book at 13, 12, 10 etc.

This is already part of the existing DC Program. See here: https://www.marriottvacationclub.com/common/cms/mvcau/pdfs/benefits-at-a-glance-chart-US.pdf.
 

Tucsonadventurer

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Depends on what you mean by "large". I'm sure someone from the Marriott boards could clarify, but if I remember correctly the cost for resale to enroll was approx $3k while it was only $500-600 for those who purchased their weeks from the developer. The kicker was this was just for the first week you enroll, all additional weeks could be added for a marginal additional cost.



Unlikely an option. If past practice holds, Marriott only allowed resale weeks purchased (about a week) prior to announcement of the program (explicitly to prevent this type of behavior). They subsequently opened the enrollment window for resale owners a few years later for a short period (but again, it was open only to those who owned weeks prior to the announcement of the re-opening).



This is already part of the existing DC Program. See here: https://www.marriottvacationclub.com/common/cms/mvcau/pdfs/benefits-at-a-glance-chart-US.pdf.
So in the past did the $3,000 just enroll your week or did it include points with a Maintenance fee. Was there a yearly fee to enroll your weeks?
 

ocdb8r

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So in the past did the $3,000 just enroll your week or did it include points with a Maintenance fee. Was there a yearly fee to enroll your weeks?

This was purely to enroll your weeks. On top of that there is then a yearly "membership fee" (just like the SVN fee) to maintain access to the program (and you must pay it every year, even if you don't elect DC points...failure to pay boots your week from the DC system permanently until you re-enroll). It didn't "include" points so to speak, similar to SVN you would receive points if/when you elect to turn it in to the DC system (which you could choose on a yearly basis, similar to SVN).


Now here's an interesting wrinkle I hadn't thought of before. The one difference is with SVN, enrolled weeks are automatically turned into StarOptions at the 8-month mark if you don't make a reservation at your home resort. What is going to happen to weeks enrolled in BOTH the DC and SVN? If at 8 months they automatically flip into SVN (as they do now) that's going to pose a difficulty for getting Vistana inventory into the DC. If they change this (watch this space...SOMEthing will happen here) there's going to be a decrease in SVN inventory. Continuing to run both programs side-by-side, independently, is going to create a problem in the long term. Marriott will find some way to make SVN inventory fungible with DC inventory (which circles back to my original thought that they'll have to come up with some sort of clear/fixed conversion rate).
 

SteelerGal

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This was purely to enroll your weeks. On top of that there is then a yearly "membership fee" (just like the SVN fee) to maintain access to the program (and you must pay it every year, even if you don't elect DC points...failure to pay boots your week from the DC system permanently until you re-enroll). It didn't "include" points so to speak, similar to SVN you would receive points if/when you elect to turn it in to the DC system (which you could choose on a yearly basis, similar to SVN).


Now here's an interesting wrinkle I hadn't thought of before. The one difference is with SVN, enrolled weeks are automatically turned into StarOptions at the 8-month mark if you don't make a reservation at your home resort. What is going to happen to weeks enrolled in BOTH the DC and SVN? If at 8 months they automatically flip into SVN (as they do now) that's going to pose a difficulty for getting Vistana inventory into the DC. If they change this (watch this space...SOMEthing will happen here) there's going to be a decrease in SVN inventory. Continuing to run both programs side-by-side, independently, is going to create a problem in the long term. Marriott will find some way to make SVN inventory fungible with DC inventory (which circles back to my original thought that they'll have to come up with some sort of clear/fixed conversion rate).
I was wondering the same because Mandatory SVN already has Club Fees w/ the 8mo switch. How will enrolling mandatory into DC become a benefit? I can understand non mandatory but I wouldn’t enroll my WKV where I already have a System to Trade.
I have read the MVC Board regarding DC and it’s very thorough. After just reading should I enroll my weeks, I could only see my enrolling non mandatory resales at this point. Of course it will be more fees.
 

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I agree that a fixed conversion rate would be the simplest. But it presents the problem that it will attract few Hawaii/Carribean owners, and lots of SDO/SVR/SVV etc owners.

The Hawaii owners are probably a better bet (on average) to buy trust points at retail, so they will want to get those people enrolled and using points, which means it needs to be worth their while. However, of they give Maui owners enough DC points to be worthwhile and then apply a fixed ratio, they'll be giving out way to many points to the lower end properties, which will end up being over supplied in the trust.
 

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Let's also not forget that SDO has 3 seasons and only 22 platinum weeks. Regardless of the conversion, Hawaii owners will collectively end up with a lot more points since all the weeks are platinum
 

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Let's also not forget that SDO has 3 seasons and only 22 platinum weeks. Regardless of the conversion, Hawaii owners will collectively end up with a lot more points since all the weeks are platinum

The problem works both ways though. If they give a resort "too many" points, they will end up with too much supply of that resort.

However, it also will mean that not many people trade into it, reducing demand as well and leaving the trust chronically over supplied with the resorts that are over-pointed.

There are some things they could do to balance, like put over supplied resorts into II and take out deposits for resorts they are short on, but I doubt they want the DC permanently out of balance.
 

dioxide45

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Let's look at this from a numbers standpoint.

Consider all of the following;
  • As a Vistana owner who could enroll their week in some type of overlay you would still have the following options; Stay at your Home Resort in your owned season and unit type. This could not be devalued.
  • For Sheraton Flex, Westin Flex, Nanea and certain WSJ owners, use your HomeOptions to book in to your home resort using those Options. This would not be devalued.
  • Use StarOptions to book a stay within the existing VSN network of properties at eight months out. That means if you own a Plat Plus WKV, you would still be able to use those 148,100 StarOptions to go and stay in a 148,100 SO week at WKORV. This would not be devalued.
With those above options, you would not be losing anything. If you chose not to enroll, you would still have tomorrow what you have today. If you do enroll you would simply add the following additional option;
  • Elect to receive a set amount of Vacation Club points to be able to reserve across the entire system of Marriott and Vistana resorts. You may do better or worse with this method depending on how many DC points they allocate and how much it costs to book at a resort for your intended stay.
Now for the numbers example;
Both SDO true Platinum Plus and WKORVN Platinum Plus (non-OF) weeks are worth 148,100 StarOptions. If we look at how many DC points Marriott assigned to Maui Ocean Club Napili and Lahaina Towers Ocean View, it is 6,625 DC points. It costs between 6,650 and 8,025 to reserve a 2BR OV unit there. At Shadow Ridge Enclaves 2BR Deluxe they offer 3,375 DC points when an owner elects points for their week. A 2BR Deluxe unit at Shadow Ridge costs between 2,725 and 4,500 DC points to book a week.

Herein lies the problem. If they were to offer 6,625 points for both SDO Platinum Plus and WKORVN Platinum Plus, they would be offering way more points than it would take to book a week at SDO, creating a large imbalance at SDO. Why would an SDO ever book their home resort week when they could elect DC points and get almost two weeks for the price of one? It could also cause inventory constriction at Shadow Ridge or the other Marriott Palm Desert resorts because of the lower point requirements for a platinum week there. Now they could offer DC points for both SDO and WKORVN closer to the amount they currently offer for Shadow Ridge Enclaves (3,375), but then you end up with owners at WKORVN never wanting to elect for DC points because it would create a huge skim and the value in VSN is so much better.

The same could be said between SDO true Platinum Plus vs Kierland Villas Platinum Plus. I would expect WKV to be a higher ranked value when it comes to DC point allocations. With so much geographical overlap between the two systems. They will need to assign points to the Vistana properties on the DC points chart in line the existing Marriott properties in the same areas. I would expect a small premium on the Vistana properties because the Sheraton units tend to be two 1BR units instead of a studio and a 1BR at most Marriott resorts. The Westin units are also better appointed with a better kitchenette and in room laundry in the studios. However, I wouldn't expect this to cost much more than a 10% premium at most.

Using the Shadow Ridge Enclaves 2BR Deluxe is the best example example since it consists of a small 1BR and a large 1BR. So I would expect the DC point chart for SDO to look very similar to Shadow Ridge Enclaves. So a week at SDO would probably cost between 2,725 and 4,500 DC points.

I simply don't see how it would be any more convoluted for Marriott to assign point values to individual Vistana weeks and keep that method consistent with their existing point assignments that they give all of their Marriott weeks as it would be to have something completely separate conversion factor for Vistana weeks where they base it on the number of StarOptions one gets for their week. What about voluntary owners that don't have StarOptions, perhaps they get an assigned a points value as if they did have StarOptions? Neither method of assigning point values is more or less convoluted than the other.

As to the Marriott DC chart being a disastrous mess, I do agree with that but that is how I would expect future Vistana weeks inside of an integrated DC system to work. The fact that we think it is a disastrous mess hasn't prevented many people from using and electing DC points from their Marriott weeks, so it must be working to some extent. I don't expect Marriott to deviate from that if they integrate the Vistana properties in to that chart. There is certainly value to be found in the points costs of those properties while there are also certain times of the year that it makes more sense to just use your week. That being if they fully integrate them. They would then likely assign point values in line with how they assigned them to Marriott weeks. Effectively rewriting the seasons for those that want to play in the new points program to move between the systems.

Of course, this is all speculation and no one is right or wrong in their speculation. Unless of course they have some kind of inside information they aren't admitting to. We are all really just guessing here. They may opt to not integrate the systems at all in the way many are suggesting. They may instead say # number of StarOptions are worth # number of DC points when booking six months in advance and you can only do this if you own developer purchased DC trust points or Vistana weeks or Home/FlexOptions.

Remember, that given all of this, I would not expect Marriott to take away any usage rights that anyone currently has today, so as I mentioned in the first part of this post, a Vistana owner could still use their owned week or use their Home/FlexOptions in their priority period of 12-8 months. They could also continue to use StarOptions at 8 months out if they wish. Or if they want, they can elect DC points and would be given a set amount of points to book using the point values on the DC point chart.

I think that it is foolhardy to expect that Marriott will somehow give someone who owns a 2BR SDO enough DC points to book a week in Hawaii in prime time, even if they have that ability today. They won't lose that ability because they could still use StarOptions if they so desire. So, people don't lose what they would already have today.
 

dioxide45

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I was wondering the same because Mandatory SVN already has Club Fees w/ the 8mo switch. How will enrolling mandatory into DC become a benefit? I can understand non mandatory but I wouldn’t enroll my WKV where I already have a System to Trade.
I have read the MVC Board regarding DC and it’s very thorough. After just reading should I enroll my weeks, I could only see my enrolling non mandatory resales at this point. Of course it will be more fees.
Mandatory could benefit with the ability to book Marriott properties outside the existing VSN network. Perhaps you want to go to Aruba. Badaboom, elect points with your WKV and book in to the Aruba Surf Club!
 
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dioxide45

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Now here's an interesting wrinkle I hadn't thought of before. The one difference is with SVN, enrolled weeks are automatically turned into StarOptions at the 8-month mark if you don't make a reservation at your home resort. What is going to happen to weeks enrolled in BOTH the DC and SVN? If at 8 months they automatically flip into SVN (as they do now) that's going to pose a difficulty for getting Vistana inventory into the DC. If they change this (watch this space...SOMEthing will happen here) there's going to be a decrease in SVN inventory. Continuing to run both programs side-by-side, independently, is going to create a problem in the long term. Marriott will find some way to make SVN inventory fungible with DC inventory (which circles back to my original thought that they'll have to come up with some sort of clear/fixed conversion rate).
Your week doesn't automatically flip to StarOptions in Vistana. You have to make a reservation inside of 8 months for it to be a StarOption reservation. I suspect what would happen is if in a given year you elect DC points, you give up all other rights to that week. You can't then book a home resort reservation or HomeOptions reservation and you would lose the ability to book with StarOptions. You would then have X number of DC points to use in the DC system utilizing the DC chart to make your reservation. I suspect your VSN fee would go away in favor of the higher DC annual fee. Currently as low as $205.
 
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