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.