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[ 2017 ] New Westin Flex

YYJMSP

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It sounds like it will slowly over time become harder to book weeks with deeded weeks because they will migrate over to Flex and deeded week inventory will decline. I can see that being and angle for sales. “Don’t like availability, here buy points.”

should be a wash, as the number of deeded owners will decrease at the same rates as deeded inventory decreases, and number of flex owners will increase at the same rate as flex inventory increases.

the problem for single-season resorts will be a potential imbalance for high demand weeks between the two inventories, as what's to prevent VSE from saying those high demand bookings weren't first filled by flex reservations vs deeded reservations, as there us no real way to keep the exact inventories separate, as they all float equally...
 

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I think a key reason for this program is "to kill the resale market". Instead of building units, the developer gobbles up all the resales and has a viable vehicle to dispose of them at a good profit. (Developer selling FLEX is much easier than selling deeded units). The profit pays for the sales office and commissions but the real benefit is that it removes the resale market. WKORV OV resales are approx. $15,000 and WPORV resales are less. Remove these and you own the business again.
 

Tucsonadventurer

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Will it be that marketable? It seems like the MFs are always significantly higher with the flex programs.
 

dioxide45

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I think a key reason for this program is "to kill the resale market". Instead of building units, the developer gobbles up all the resales and has a viable vehicle to dispose of them at a good profit. (Developer selling FLEX is much easier than selling deeded units). The profit pays for the sales office and commissions but the real benefit is that it removes the resale market. WKORV OV resales are approx. $15,000 and WPORV resales are less. Remove these and you own the business again.
Good point. They can pull in mandatory weeks from the resale market and put them in to a voluntary flex system. The only problem that Vistana has here is that they don't have ROFR on many of their properties. So this would probably only work at WKORV N/S.
 

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Down the road, a long time from now, what happens when they run out of points to sell? They can only sell points for deeds that are deposited into the trust and can’t sell more points than weeks. I’m sure they will be selling points way faster than new inventory coming online.
 

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Down the road, a long time from now, what happens when they run out of points to sell? They can only sell points for deeds that are deposited into the trust and can’t sell more points than weeks. I’m sure they will be selling points way faster than new inventory coming online.
They will have to start building new resorts to bring online to feed the sales. They can't feed sales from ROFR and foreclosures alone. They won't have any other options except to bring new properties online or complete others that are unfinished (SVV).
 

cubigbird

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Can VSE amend the docs to include a ROFR in all the resorts that don’t have it?? Historically they have sold weeks (and points) much much faster than new inventory has come online. They can’t sell more points in Flex than what deeds are deposited. Eventually they will run into the same issue and have to somehow flip again?
 

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There don't have to be an equal number of weeks in the pool of the "good" resorts. So, they will just buy resales on the open market or take back from owners who no longer want the weeks of the crappy resorts/seasons. They then have flex weeks to sell but you don't know that they are made from weeks that you don't want. So every thing balances until you go to make a reservation and the resorts or time periods or views are not available. For example. They buy up all the summer weeks at WMH and sell flex weeks to you thinking you are going to get into Hawaii. In the meantime you are paying maintenance fees to support the summer months at WMH. Or maybe they go on the open market and buy up all the Island View at WKORV. You make reservations but you look at the parking lots. The Goal for Vistana is to get you to pay maintenance fees for weeks no one wants and to kill the resale market (raise prices) so you will be glad to buy deeded view time units.
 

VacationForever

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I think someone mentioned on this board recently that they managed to deedback to Vistana. That is another way to add inventory to their flex programs.
 

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I think someone mentioned on this board recently that they managed to deedback to Vistana. That is another way to add inventory to their flex programs.

Yes I was going to mention that, but then thought, maybe we're giving Vistana the free benefit of our owners' perspective in this discussion?? Sure they have loads of people and lawyers to consult, but they're coming at it from their business sales side of things :shrug:
 

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Can VSE amend the docs to include a ROFR in all the resorts that don’t have it?? Historically they have sold weeks (and points) much much faster than new inventory has come online. They can’t sell more points in Flex than what deeds are deposited. Eventually they will run into the same issue and have to somehow flip again?
I was going to ask this. If they add ROFR to Flex then they create an endless loop of inventory only controlled by people selling their units and them excercising ROFR.
 

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There is many things they can do to acquire more points to sell or force people to convert or deed back
  • Increase the number of SO at many weeks/seasons/resorts.
  • Promote some weeks from lower season to an higher season like they did recently at some Hyatt resorts.
  • Add an hefty fee per SO attached to weeks like DRI do for enrolled weeks in THE Club (when the fee is too high to own then people deed back their weeks for a fee).
  • Remove the II 3 Weeks priority VSE to VSE exchange or remove the II VSE to VSE exchange like Hyatt do for weeks with attached SO.
  • Skim the number of SO for weeks owners like Marriott's do for enrolled weeks.
  • Add other kind of fees or increase existing fees for weeks owners.
  • Increase pressure and lies during presentation like many brands do to convince people to switch to Westin Flex.
  • Create a deed back program like DRI did ($250 to pay to DRI per contract to deed back if no loan/due to pay).
With their different flex programs, it looks like they follow DRI with their collections or SVC.
10 years ago, the DRI Hawaii collection was owning 11.9% at KBC (Maui) and 4.5% at P@P.
Now, the DRI Hawaii collection owns 54.9% at KBC and 58.7% at P@P.
If DRI was able to do it then there is no reason why ILG would not able to do it too.
 

dioxide45

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There is many things they can do to acquire more points to sell or force people to convert or deed back
  • Increase the number of SO at many weeks/seasons/resorts.
  • Promote some weeks from lower season to an higher season like they did recently at some Hyatt resorts.
  • Add an hefty fee per SO attached to weeks like DRI do for enrolled weeks in THE Club (when the fee is too high to own then people deed back their weeks for a fee).
  • Remove the II 3 Weeks priority VSE to VSE exchange or remove the II VSE to VSE exchange like Hyatt do for weeks with attached SO.
  • Skim the number of SO for weeks owners like Marriott's do for enrolled weeks.
  • Add other kind of fees or increase existing fees for weeks owners.
  • Increase pressure and lies during presentation like many brands do to convince people to switch to Westin Flex.
  • Create a deed back program like DRI did ($250 to pay to DRI per contract to deed back if no loan/due to pay).
With their different flex programs, it looks like they follow DRI with their collections or SVC.
10 years ago, the DRI Hawaii collection was owning 11.9% at KBC (Maui) and 4.5% at P@P.
Now, the DRI Hawaii collection owns 54.9% at KBC and 58.7% at P@P.
If DRI was able to do it then there is no reason why ILG would not able to do it too.
The problem with the first two are that once these are set,it is not easy to change the amounts. FOr the second one. The weeks in a season are part of the underlying condominium documents. Changes to these not only require a super majority to change but also a large number of votes just to reach a quorum. Even with the developer voting, chances of reaching the quorum or super majority are slim.

The first item is easier to change, they have done it before for Ocean Front weeks in Hawaii and at the Westin in St John. The only issue however is once they deed weeks to the trust at a set number of points and sell points against them, changing the number of SOs for any week that has weeks conveyed is not easy. Marriott has had their system for seven years and have yet to change the number of points associated with base weeks conveyed to the trust. I would say it is near impossible if not illegal to make this kind of change, once their is inventory in a trust where they have sold points against. They likely can't legally manufacture new points out of a trust to sell more.
 

bizaro86

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The problem with the first two are that once these are set,it is not easy to change the amounts. FOr the second one. The weeks in a season are part of the underlying condominium documents. Changes to these not only require a super majority to change but also a large number of votes just to reach a quorum. Even with the developer voting, chances of reaching the quorum or super majority are slim.

The first item is easier to change, they have done it before for Ocean Front weeks in Hawaii and at the Westin in St John. The only issue however is once they deed weeks to the trust at a set number of points and sell points against them, changing the number of SOs for any week that has weeks conveyed is not easy. Marriott has had their system for seven years and have yet to change the number of points associated with base weeks conveyed to the trust. I would say it is near impossible if not illegal to make this kind of change, once their is inventory in a trust where they have sold points against. They likely can't legally manufacture new points out of a trust to sell more.

I think it's possible that if they changed the number of points owned by the trust, they may have to change the number of points held by each trust owner. My understanding is that these are land trusts, where you own a specific fraction. If the size of the pie changes, and your fraction remains the same, they hold adjust your piece (up or down). I doubt they'd be very interested in doing that for many reasons (complexity, lawsuits, etc).
 

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I don't know if Vistana is similar to DVC, but a few years ago DVC adjusted how many points needed per day while keeping the amount needed per week the same. Too many people were just staying on cheaper point days (Sunday through Thursday) and not staying in on the higher point per night Friday and Saturday. Many people were upset at the change because they had only purchased enough points to stay Monday through Thursday and with the change they did not have enough points for a five day stay.
 

dioxide45

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I think it's possible that if they changed the number of points owned by the trust, they may have to change the number of points held by each trust owner. My understanding is that these are land trusts, where you own a specific fraction. If the size of the pie changes, and your fraction remains the same, they hold adjust your piece (up or down). I doubt they'd be very interested in doing that for many reasons (complexity, lawsuits, etc).
The problem is that the number of points is deeded. SO each person is deeded x number of points. It would be very difficult and costly to change the number of deeded points. I suspect once the trust is setup and the conveyances recorded, changing the number of points for the underlying inventory is not an option.

I don't know if Vistana is similar to DVC, but a few years ago DVC adjusted how many points needed per day while keeping the amount needed per week the same. Too many people were just staying on cheaper point days (Sunday through Thursday) and not staying in on the higher point per night Friday and Saturday. Many people were upset at the change because they had only purchased enough points to stay Monday through Thursday and with the change they did not have enough points for a five day stay.
Marriott has done something similar with Ko'Olina in Hawaii. They increased the number of points for the 1BR and studio portions of the lockoff 2BR, but they kept the 2BR point requirements the same. So they didn't change the points allocated to the underlying inventory. It isn't good for those that may have bought just enough trust points for a stay in a 1BR unit.
 

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The problem is that the number of points is deeded. SO each person is deeded x number of points. It would be very difficult and costly to change the number of deeded points. I suspect once the trust is setup and the conveyances recorded, changing the number of points for the underlying inventory is not an option.

Starwood (former name for Vistana) did make an adjustment once for Sheraton Vistana Resort Cascade and Lakes phases. I own a 2BR L/O week at the Lakes phase and when SOs were first assigned, it was 81K SO for the week. They then increased it to 90K a few years later, followed by bumping it up to 95.7K. SOs were not deeded for this resort as Starwood bought over the resort from Vistana and then later introduced SVN a couple of years later.
 

dioxide45

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Starwood (former name for Vistana) did make an adjustment once for Sheraton Vistana Resort Cascade and Lakes phases. I own a 2BR L/O week at the Lakes phase and when SOs were first assigned, it was 81K SO for the week. They then increased it to 90K a few years later, followed by bumping it up to 95.7K. SOs were not deeded for this resort as Starwood bought over the resort from Vistana and then later introduced SVN a couple of years later.
True, but now that SVR is deeded to the trust at x number of points per week and each of those deeds from the trust to owners has x number of points allocated to them, they really can't change it now. In the past, SOs were never deeded and strictly part of the VSN where Vistana could change them on a whim. I doubt we will be seeing much more of that now that they have these flex trusts setup.
 
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In the Marriott system, an owner can enroll their week in the point system, and them redeem their week (temporarily) and receive the points assigned to that week. This is not a permanent election, and each year the owner can decide whether to use their week, deposit it into Interval, or redeem it for points.

It sounds like for Sheraton Flex at least, that owners have made a permanent decision to trade their week and receive Flex Points instead. It would be preferable if Starwood were allowing the Westin owners the same option that Marriott gives its owners. This could particularly benefit the resale purchaser of a voluntary resort, who then would have access to a point system.

I don't expect much difference for the week owner, who will still compete for the prime reservations, only to find at 2 minutes after the hour, that the weeks are all gone. I think Starwood will need to become more aggressive where it can ROFR and also in introducing a voluntary buy-back program.

Since I am a StarOptions user, I will be curious to see how the available inventory is impacted and I can argue either way about potential impact. Time will tell...

Best,

Greg
 

dioxide45

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It sounds like for Sheraton Flex at least, that owners have made a permanent decision to trade their week and receive Flex Points instead. It would be preferable if Starwood were allowing the Westin owners the same option that Marriott gives its owners. This could particularly benefit the resale purchaser of a voluntary resort, who then would have access to a point system.
Greg, With Vistana, the only real owners that would benefit with enrollment would be voluntary resale owners. Everyone else is already enrolled with VSN. So there really is no reason for Vistana to offer any kind of enrollment just like there isn't really an reason for Marriott to offer post 6/2010 resale owners enrollment.

Vistana Voluntary = Marriott Post 6/2010 Resale.

They seem to really only allow them in to their programs with large direct purchases.
 
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Per Owners Update this past weekend:
1. No information out yet on Westin Flex.
2. Maintenance fees to be on par with Hawaii ($2,800).
3. No real reasons for current owners who participate in VSN to be in a Flex program......
 

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I was able to get some pricing information that I thought other readers might find useful...

148,100 SOs go for $51,835
176,700 SOs go for $61,845

Annual fees are $2,697 for the 148,100 SOs
For 176,700 SOs they were (i did not write down the exact number 3200-3200 per year).

The resorts are the two Westin's in CA (Desert Willow and Mission Hills)
The resort Colorado is Westin Riverfront
The resorts in Hawaii, WKORV, WKORV-N and Princeville. There is no oceanfront category bookable by home options (to us this is a deal killer).

Essentially, it's the same exact purchase price as the Aventuras (Mexico Flex), but the annual fees are much higher with the Westin Flex.

This could be attractive for someone who does not care about booking ocean front view categories at the two Maui properties.

Darius
 

cubigbird

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Wow that’s really maintenance fee expensive! At what point do people just stop buying??? My WSJ-SB MF is quite a bit cheaper than that and those SB Villas are oceanfront!!!
 

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I was able to get some pricing information that I thought other readers might find useful...

148,100 SOs go for $51,835
176,700 SOs go for $61,845

Annual fees are $2,697 for the 148,100 SOs
For 176,700 SOs they were (i did not write down the exact number 3200-3200 per year).

The resorts are the two Westin's in CA (Desert Willow and Mission Hills)
The resort Colorado is Westin Riverfront
The resorts in Hawaii, WKORV, WKORV-N and Princeville. There is no oceanfront category bookable by home options (to us this is a deal killer).

Essentially, it's the same exact purchase price as the Aventuras (Mexico Flex), but the annual fees are much higher with the Westin Flex.

This could be attractive for someone who does not care about booking ocean front view categories at the two Maui properties.

Darius

I don't know if this is a useful comparator, but someone willing to pay $51,000 could buy 4,250 Marriott points (assume $12/point). There are cheaper ways to do it, but that's a reasonable estimate.

For 4,250 Marriott points, the person could book:

6, almost 7, nights in a 1BR OV at Maui Ocean Club (original tower)
6, almost 7, nights in a 2BR MG at Ko Olina (Oahu)
6 nights in a 2BR at Waiohai (Kauai)
7, almost 8, nights in a 2BR at Shadow Ridge (Palm Desert)
6, almost 7, nights in a 1BR at Mountainside (Park City)

I think all this does is prove that Westin knows the pricing of the competition. But Westin benefits from a more simplistic underlying point structure, ensuring 7 nights in a 2BR for any of the Flex properties. I remain curious how Starwood is going to obtain the required inventory to support the underlying demand. They would be smart to allow owners (especially resale owners) to trade their weeks for Westin Flex points.

There must be an imbalance between the demand and the available deeded weeks that support the reservations. Interesting.

Best,

Greg
 

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I don't know if this is a useful comparator, but someone willing to pay $51,000 could buy 4,250 Marriott points (assume $12/point). There are cheaper ways to do it, but that's a reasonable estimate.

For 4,250 Marriott points, the person could book:

6, almost 7, nights in a 1BR OV at Maui Ocean Club (original tower)
6, almost 7, nights in a 2BR MG at Ko Olina (Oahu)
6 nights in a 2BR at Waiohai (Kauai)
7, almost 8, nights in a 2BR at Shadow Ridge (Palm Desert)
6, almost 7, nights in a 1BR at Mountainside (Park City)

I think all this does is prove that Westin knows the pricing of the competition. But Westin benefits from a more simplistic underlying point structure, ensuring 7 nights in a 2BR for any of the Flex properties. I remain curious how Starwood is going to obtain the required inventory to support the underlying demand. They would be smart to allow owners (especially resale owners) to trade their weeks for Westin Flex points.

There must be an imbalance between the demand and the available deeded weeks that support the reservations. Interesting.

Best,

Greg
... and I am thinking that for $61K of Westin Flex purchase of 176K SO, it is along way to go before a buyer hits 600K+ to get 5 star elite, where most want to get there to get SPG Platinum. Makes purchase of Marriott a much less expensive path to Marriott and SPG platinum. I think I spent a tad under 70K to get to Presidential level (Platinum) but I got a streak of luck(?) in getting my post-2010 purchases enrolled.
 
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