Abound contest

[Moparman42]

that helps, but it doesn't appear I can combine these with my vistana staroptions. I own in Hawaii and almost always go there. I just won 500 of them and when they show up, was wondering if there was any value to me at all.

 

[Eric B]

that helps, but it doesn't appear I can combine these with my vistana staroptions. I own in Hawaii and almost always go there. I just won 500 of them and when they show up, was wondering if there was any value to me at all.

Might help where there are collocated resorts (e.g., someplace like Orlando where you can move from a Sheraton to a Marriott). I think they did it this way because they’re incentivizing the use of Abound. I guess you could use them to book back into Vistana via Abound, but that’s inefficient.

 

[dioxide45]

Might help where there are collocated resorts (e.g., someplace like Orlando where you can move from a Sheraton to a Marriott). I think they did it this way because they’re incentivizing the use of Abound. I guess you could use them to book back into Vistana via Abound, but that’s inefficient.

I don't think you need colocated resorts. The PlusPoints can be used to book a Vistana resort through Abound. They could be used to take a day or more on the end of an existing reservation. Subject to availability of course. I don't know why it is necessarily inefficient to book back into Vistana with the points. They were free...

 

[timsi]

I don't think you need colocated resorts. The PlusPoints can be used to book a Vistana resort through Abound. They could be used to take a day or more on the end of an existing reservation. Subject to availability of course. I don't know why it is necessarily inefficient to book back into Vistana with the points. They were free...

They are free but it is inefficient if you only have enough Staroptions for say 7 1/2 nights and enough Abound points for 1 1/2 nights. Instead of adding two nights, the points will add just a night and now you have to worry about linking reservations etc. Everything so far has been to promote Abound and, I would say, the Marriott owners since everything plays at their regular pool. .

 

[Eric B]

Won another 500 PlusPoints this morning, making it 1,000 and a bit more useful. Kind of makes up for the annoyance of having to establish 3 different accounts on the Vistana website, particularly since I didn't get stuck with extra Club Dues because of that....

 

[Mulege]

Anyone else having trouble with the contest? I cannot log on since yesterday. I keep getting an invalid email domain error.

Me too. Says I entered a bad email domain but my email is same one I registered under.

 

[CPNY]

Won another 500 PlusPoints this morning, making it 1,000 and a bit more useful. Kind of makes up for the annoyance of having to establish 3 different accounts on the Vistana website, particularly since I didn't get stuck with extra Club Dues because of that....

I’m just getting junk sweepstakes entries

 

[CalGalTraveler]

Me too :-(

 

[dioxide45]

Me too. Says I entered a bad email domain but my email is same one I registered under.

You need to make sure you are logged into your account before you click the link. There is nothing to register for to participate in the contest.

 

[dioxide45]

I’m just getting junk sweepstakes entries

Yeah, that is pretty much all I have received the last few days. I also noticed that in the past sweepstakes entries were named "VSE Sweepstake Entry" or "MVC Sweepstakes Entry" depending on whose site I was on at the time. Recently I have just seen them labeled as "Sweepstakes Entry". Not sure if that means anything or not.

 

[dsmrp]

Me too :-(

I’m just getting junk sweepstakes entries

Ditto...I'm playing on my husband's account too.

 

[iowaguy09]

Ditto...I'm playing on my husband's account too.

Same on both of my accounts; 1, 2, or 3 entries won.

 

[ceebs]

By the way, the official rules say prizes will be reported on W2 or 1099.

So that 2-year Platinum Interval membership that they value at $278, may actually cost you ~$100

The grand prize 1-week resort certificate valued at $5000, would result in a pretty big tax bill. Make sure to use it on some expensive resort!

I tried to read through the rules and thought I understood that if you win a big prize like one valued at around $5000, they add some money to your prize to pay the taxes. Not sure of this however.

 

[CPNY]

It seems that everyone but @Eric B is receiving sweepstakes entries…. What gives? How are you cheating Eric? Haha

 

[dioxide45]

I tried to read through the rules and thought I understood that if you win a big prize like one valued at around $5000, they add some money to your prize to pay the taxes. Not sure of this however.

It seems the big prize could be worth up to $10K as you get both the MF paid and a stay certificate values up to $5K. It does mention them grossing up to cover taxes.

 

[dioxide45]

It seems that everyone but @Eric B is receiving sweepstakes entries…. What gives? How are you cheating Eric? Haha

Did he get the list of dates/times of wins? Sounds kinda like the McDonald's Monopoly game.

 

[CPNY]

Did he get the list of dates/times of wins? Sounds kinda like the McDonald's Monopoly game.

I used to love the McDonald’s monopoly game!! I was a paper boy at the time that was out. Everyone on the route gave me their free game pieces. I sadly never won…..if I did, I would be able to afford Abound points purchased directly from Marriott lol

 

[dioxide45]

I used to love the McDonald’s monopoly game!! I was a paper boy at the time that was out. Everyone on the route gave me their free game pieces. I sadly never won…..if I did, I would be able to afford Abound points purchased directly from Marriott lol

You didn't win because the game was rigged.

 

[CPNY]

I got one entry and logged in on my mothers account and got her 3 entries.

 

[Eric B]

It seems that everyone but @Eric B is receiving sweepstakes entries…. What gives? How are you cheating Eric? Haha

Did he get the list of dates/times of wins? Sounds kinda like the McDonald's Monopoly game.

My working theory - I'm a farmer and get up early in the morning, have my coffee, and log on to read my email, etc., unless I have to go in to work at my real job. One of the "etc.," things now is doing the silly Abound contest. On days that I don't go in to work, I've won 500 PlusPoints.

As @dioxide45 hints at, the first person to log on after the date/time randomly set for a prize wins that prize as an instant win. If no one else has logged onto Vistana for several hours and done the Abound contest, there are a lot more randomly set date/times that are covered by the date/time I log in. The prize I've won twice is being awarded 996 times over 12 weeks, which is 84 days or about 2016 hours. If the date/times for the awards are randomly spread in a uniform distribution, there would be one about every two hours. The same analysis is true for the 1,000 Bonvoy point prize, won by @dioxide45 per this post by the way, @CPNY. The other prizes listed have fewer occurrences, being awarded 120 or 240 times each, so would only show up about every 17 or 34 hours. In a way, that outcome makes sense as the PlusPoints are for use only in Abound, which is what they are trying to get people to use, and giving those away will drive usage. The other prizes are a bit more tangentially related - an Abound towel is the closest to an advertising memento, while the Bonvoy points and the Shutterfly book are more travel related than Abound related.

Anyway, back to my theory - if I log on to Vistana and run through the contest at a time in the morning when no one has been on in several hours because it isn't a Tuesday and there are no highly desirable dates for traveling 6, 8, 10, 12, or 13 months out (covering all the options for VSN and Abound), I am more likely to instantly win a prize than if I log on to Vistana in the afternoon. The prize I win will probably be either the 500 PlusPoint one or the 1,000 Bonvoy point one because there are a lot more of them. The rules indicate that "Odds of winning an Instant Win Game prize depend on the number of Instant Win prizes available divided by the number of eligible Instant Win Game plays." As is true with a lot of things in the timeshare world, that is true to a certain extent if looked at from a macro perspective, for the player in an individual instance, the odds of winning an Instant Win Game prize that is randomly distributed by time is influenced a bit more strongly by how many other players are entering around the same time as they are.

I was hoping to test my theory this morning as it's still a bit too dark to go out and feed the critters, but the Vistana site is just giving me an HTTP error 500, which is no where as good as giving me the 500 PlusPoints.

 

[Naniac]

My working theory - I'm a farmer and get up early in the morning, have my coffee, and log on to read my email, etc., unless I have to go in to work at my real job. One of the "etc.," things now is doing the silly Abound contest. On days that I don't go in to work, I've won 500 PlusPoints.

As @dioxide45 hints at, the first person to log on after the date/time randomly set for a prize wins that prize as an instant win. If no one else has logged onto Vistana for several hours and done the Abound contest, there are a lot more randomly set date/times that are covered by the date/time I log in. The prize I've won twice is being awarded 996 times over 12 weeks, which is 84 days or about 2016 hours. If the date/times for the awards are randomly spread in a uniform distribution, there would be one about every two hours. The same analysis is true for the 1,000 Bonvoy point prize, won by @dioxide45 per this post by the way, @CPNY. The other prizes listed have fewer occurrences, being awarded 120 or 240 times each, so would only show up about every 17 or 34 hours. In a way, that outcome makes sense as the PlusPoints are for use only in Abound, which is what they are trying to get people to use, and giving those away will drive usage. The other prizes are a bit more tangentially related - an Abound towel is the closest to an advertising memento, while the Bonvoy points and the Shutterfly book are more travel related than Abound related.

Anyway, back to my theory - if I log on to Vistana and run through the contest at a time in the morning when no one has been on in several hours because it isn't a Tuesday and there are no highly desirable dates for traveling 6, 8, 10, 12, or 13 months out (covering all the options for VSN and Abound), I am more likely to instantly win a prize than if I log on to Vistana in the afternoon. The prize I win will probably be either the 500 PlusPoint one or the 1,000 Bonvoy point one because there are a lot more of them. The rules indicate that "Odds of winning an Instant Win Game prize depend on the number of Instant Win prizes available divided by the number of eligible Instant Win Game plays." As is true with a lot of things in the timeshare world, that is true to a certain extent if looked at from a macro perspective, for the player in an individual instance, the odds of winning an Instant Win Game prize that is randomly distributed by time is influenced a bit more strongly by how many other players are entering around the same time as they are.

I was hoping to test my theory this morning as it's still a bit too dark to go out and feed the critters, but the Vistana site is just giving me an HTTP error 500, which is no where as good as giving me the 500 PlusPoints.

I’m not able to login either.

 

[CPNY]

My working theory - I'm a farmer and get up early in the morning, have my coffee, and log on to read my email, etc., unless I have to go in to work at my real job. One of the "etc.," things now is doing the silly Abound contest. On days that I don't go in to work, I've won 500 PlusPoints.

As @dioxide45 hints at, the first person to log on after the date/time randomly set for a prize wins that prize as an instant win. If no one else has logged onto Vistana for several hours and done the Abound contest, there are a lot more randomly set date/times that are covered by the date/time I log in. The prize I've won twice is being awarded 996 times over 12 weeks, which is 84 days or about 2016 hours. If the date/times for the awards are randomly spread in a uniform distribution, there would be one about every two hours. The same analysis is true for the 1,000 Bonvoy point prize, won by @dioxide45 per this post by the way, @CPNY. The other prizes listed have fewer occurrences, being awarded 120 or 240 times each, so would only show up about every 17 or 34 hours. In a way, that outcome makes sense as the PlusPoints are for use only in Abound, which is what they are trying to get people to use, and giving those away will drive usage. The other prizes are a bit more tangentially related - an Abound towel is the closest to an advertising memento, while the Bonvoy points and the Shutterfly book are more travel related than Abound related.

Anyway, back to my theory - if I log on to Vistana and run through the contest at a time in the morning when no one has been on in several hours because it isn't a Tuesday and there are no highly desirable dates for traveling 6, 8, 10, 12, or 13 months out (covering all the options for VSN and Abound), I am more likely to instantly win a prize than if I log on to Vistana in the afternoon. The prize I win will probably be either the 500 PlusPoint one or the 1,000 Bonvoy point one because there are a lot more of them. The rules indicate that "Odds of winning an Instant Win Game prize depend on the number of Instant Win prizes available divided by the number of eligible Instant Win Game plays." As is true with a lot of things in the timeshare world, that is true to a certain extent if looked at from a macro perspective, for the player in an individual instance, the odds of winning an Instant Win Game prize that is randomly distributed by time is influenced a bit more strongly by how many other players are entering around the same time as they are.

I was hoping to test my theory this morning as it's still a bit too dark to go out and feed the critters, but the Vistana site is just giving me an HTTP error 500, which is no where as good as giving me the 500 PlusPoints.

And this is why I will listen to everything you say around here lol.

 

[buzglyd]

I was getting the blank screen and finally was able to log in long enough to get THREE ENTRIES! Then the page crashed again and I can no longer log in.

 

[Eric B]

I was getting the blank screen and finally was able to log in long enough to get THREE ENTRIES! Then the page crashed again and I can no longer log in.

According to the rules of the Abound contest, "[t]he number of entries into the then-current Weekly Sweepstakes and into the Grand Prize Sweepstakes that an entrant who is not a potential winner of an Instant Win Game Prize will receive for playing an Instant Win Game will vary by day, with one (1) Weekly Sweepstakes entry and one (1) Grand Prize Sweepstakes entry received on Tuesdays and Thursdays, two (2) Weekly Sweepstakes entries and two (2) Grand Prize Sweepstakes entries received on Mondays, Fridays and Sundays, and three (3) Weekly Sweepstakes entries and three (3) Grand Prize Sweepstakes entries received on Wednesdays and Saturdays (each day begins at 12:00 a.m. ET)." Since it's Sunday, you should have only received two entries. Seems to indicate that they might have some IT issues; go figure!

 

[CPNY]

According to the rules of the Abound contest, "[t]he number of entries into the then-current Weekly Sweepstakes and into the Grand Prize Sweepstakes that an entrant who is not a potential winner of an Instant Win Game Prize will receive for playing an Instant Win Game will vary by day, with one (1) Weekly Sweepstakes entry and one (1) Grand Prize Sweepstakes entry received on Tuesdays and Thursdays, two (2) Weekly Sweepstakes entries and two (2) Grand Prize Sweepstakes entries received on Mondays, Fridays and Sundays, and three (3) Weekly Sweepstakes entries and three (3) Grand Prize Sweepstakes entries received on Wednesdays and Saturdays (each day begins at 12:00 a.m. ET)." Since it's Sunday, you should have only received two entries. Seems to indicate that they might have some IT issues; go figure!

Interesting. I haven’t really read on up the contest, i just keep playing it. I thought sweepstakes entries, were for the grand prize. Didn’t realize there were weekly sweepstakes. Even the contest is confusing….. oh Marriott.