I love all the speculation presented as a "done deal" as well.
So you are okay with synergistic, LOL.
I am not sure exactly what speculation you are referring to, but it seems that a combined program is pretty much a done deal and Abound will be the exchange program mechanism that supports it. Of course the devil is in the details and there is still a lot we don't know there, but speculating is fun and I don't really see any of it being presented as a "done deal".
I am not trying to reign in the fun, just making a joke.
I win!
If they have all of this excess inventory then why do they continue to exercise ROFR? In theory they're paying the maintenance fees on that inventory so there's a holding cost to it (though I'm sure they get some back on rentals, etc.).
I suspect much of their unsold inventory isn't in Marriott. They didn't break down the inventory by bucket, but it seems a lot came with the Welk acquisition. They are probably also sitting on a bunch of foreign MVC inventory (Bali, Costa Rica, Surfers Paradise). They can't sell any of that as DC Trust Points. It would be good to know how many unsold DC Trust Points they are sitting on.
I think @dioxide45 nailed it, but in addition to what he said, ROFR is also the cheapest way to acquire inventory and lowers their average cost of vacation interests sold, which in turn expands their development margin, which is one of the metrics Wall Street looks at in valuing the company. So they have said in the past they have a ROFR target to generate the inventory mix that fits their desired ratio
I think what you say will be true for all resale purchases after Abound has been officially rolled out, but it wouldn't come as a surprise at all if at the official introduction all existing Vistana ownerships - direct-purchases and external-resale purchases - are given the option to enroll all previous purchases (similar to the Destination Club rollout back in 2010 with every Week that was sold prior to 6/20/10 being eligible for enrollment.)
Been Marriott Vacation member since 1999 and the website, for a company like Marriott, has always infuriated me. Hopefully, they will hire some good Web developers.
That is the biggest unanswered question about enrollment qualifications. Will they or won't they "grandfather" like they did in 2010. The only different today is that they are mentioning free enrollment, no incremental cost outside of the Club Fee. Will they want to give resale owners free enrollment? We shall see.
We theorized then that for them, with such limited inventory seeding the DC Trust that could be manipulated through the Exchange Company, success would be furthered by existing Weeks being allowed to be deposited into the Exchange Company. It's much more robust now than it was then but obviously not with Vistana inventory, so isn't the question whether there is as much of an initial need to push Vistana inventory into it?
Overflowing and overwhelming for their IT system.
The only comment I have is that I'm long-past your first bullet and thinking it's a foregone conclusion that for those of us Marriott Weeks owners who are already enrolled, the only changes we're facing are a Destinations-to-Abound name change and the reality that Vistana properties will be available to us when those eligible owners start to play in the same sandbox.
To add to what I posted just above, here is a slide from yesterday's presentation on how they view repurchases (ROFR):
View attachment 58249
Of course! Who DOESN'T want to be synergistic?
I seem to recall a January 2022 date reported from sales update mtgs on some postings. Perhaps that will be the cutoff for Vistana resale weeks purchases for enrolling in Abound club, analogous to June 2010 for DC. Of course any offered enrollment would require a fee.
