Abound! The combined Marriott/Vistana integrated exchange program now has a name.

[jabberwocky]

They are really only restricted in that they can book a select number of resorts at 12 months. If one decides to deposit into Abound, they get to pick from a lot more resorts. That election of Club Points comes at a cost though. As you mention, you may not get as much time at the resorts you want to go to. Some people will do the comparison to see if it makes sense. Some may be okay with less time in order to go to that other resort and will elect. Others may not do that and will book their home resort or use StarOptions at 8-months. Some will just blindly elect points every year. Many different variables at play here,

But they are no more restricted than when I purchased WFlex. If it makes sense and there is a particular place I want to visit that isn’t in Vistana I will elect, but I don’t think I would do so every year.

I just find it amusing for people to dump on a system they have no experience with.

 

[dougp26364]

I’m titanium and I have yet to see any benefit. 2 of the last 4 Marriott stays I wasn’t even “thanked” for being a bonvoy member…. I’ve asked for extra towels, no extra towels. I’ve asked for specific room locations (away from elevators and ice machines) and I’m placed across from the elevator or Ice machine. Marriott hotels is terrible and their loyalty program on the hotel and vacation club side are not worth it. Hilton does a much better job at honoring their members. I guess that’s why it’s called Hilton honors.

BonVoy status, even titanium or ambassador, means almost nothing when staying at a timeshare. What matters is ownership level within the MVC system, Owner, Select, Executive, Presidential or Chairman.

We’ve been titanium for a few years now. I’ve had good luck with our hotel stays. We were even upgraded to a suite when we stayed at the SFO airport Westin a few months ago. I have noticed that not all Marriott hotels are equal. Marriott seems to have a fare number of franchised hotels that do their own thing. The Springhill Suites at Fort Meyers follows your experience of poor customer service. It got low grades from us when we reviewed it and we’ll never stay at that location again. We were treated well at the Sheraton Plaza hotel in Kansas City and had a decent experience with the Residence Inn on The Plaza in Kansas City. We also had a very good experience at the Springhill Suites in Bozeman, MT and a reasonable stay at the Townplace Suites in Hays, KS.

 

[CPNY]

BonVoy status, even titanium or ambassador, means almost nothing when staying at a timeshare. What matters is ownership level within the MVC system, Owner, Select, Executive, Presidential or Chairman.

We’ve been titanium for a few years now. It’s great at the hotels. It doesn’t matter s9 much at the timeshares. We do get a BonVoy points bonus so long as we have our BonVoy # on the reservation. Otherwise we’ve seen no benefit to being titanium BonVoy members

I’m not talking about staying at timeshares…. I’m talking about staying at hotels. 2 of my last 4 hotel stays I was never even thanked and 4 of my last 4 stays, my simple room requests (not upgrade request) were ignored. Speaking of upgrades…. I’ve received one in the last 10 stays and I was upgraded to a room SMALLER than the room I booked. Again, everything I’m mentioning is at the hotels.

I stayed at a Hilton as a regular non elite guest and had impeccable service. I even requested a few things and they were honored no problem. I felt valued as a Hilton guest without status than I do as a titanium bonvoy member. The only great thing about titanium is the 4pm checkout. Honestly, even then, I could just book an extra night when I need a late checkout which I do often

 

[dougp26364]

@CPNY,
I edited my post once I realized you were talking hotels and not timeshares. Sorry for my assumption that you were talking timeshare on a thread about the Abound change.

I’m not sure what the hotel side has to do with the Abound change or why it’s pertinent to the timeshare side discussion.

 

[californiagirl]

After reading this thread and looking at the Vistana destinations, I think the only benefits to existing DP club members either enrolled or purchased are the resorts in Mexico and Harborside in the Bahamas. Otherwise MVC has resorts in the same or similar locations.

 

[CPNY]

@CPNY,
I edited my post once I realized you were talking hotels and not timeshares. Sorry for my assumption that you were talking timeshare on a thread about the Abound change.

I’m not sure what the hotel side has to do with the Abound change or why it’s pertinent to the timeshare side discussion.

I was just responding to someone who brought up the bonvoy program that’s all.

 

[timsi]

Vistana Elite Flex owners have every incentive to deposit into Abound. Turning the relatively restricted flex points into full flexibility points that cross all brands is actually a reasonable trade, especially if you happen to have reservations that are booked for the true low dates in the granular charts.

The Vistana owners bought Vistana for a reason, they like the resorts and the locations. If you look at the beach locations for example, Vistana has a very large percentage of resorts oceanfront (11 out of 23!). Many think that the Vistana studios are much better than Marriott.... and I can go on.

The incentives I am referring to do not relate to specific Marriott resorts or their number but to the ability to exchange in Abound at 12 months, a right that the Vistana owners do not have through the internal VSN exchanges. This was created artificially by Marriott and, as far as I can tell, against the Vistana rules. I am very curious what will happen in reality. A lot of Marriott owners (and sales people) claimed that they would be able to book Vistana in Abound at 13 months. It appears that is not going to happen and probable due to the same Vistana rules I was talking about. I do not see how they can take those rules into consideration at 13 months but start to ignore them at 12.

 

[Red elephant]

Abound is essentially an exchange system/company. Abound can't reserve what an owner doesn't give them. Technically VSN isn't competing with Abound for the same inventory. Abound is limited to only book the number of "weeks" that have been deposited into Abound.

This is what I was made to understand by central sales.

 

[dougp26364]

After reading this thread and looking at the Vistana destinations, I think the only benefits to existing DP club members either enrolled or purchased are the resorts in Mexico and Harborside in the Bahamas. Otherwise MVC has resorts in the same or similar locations.

There’s at least one resort we prefer to Marriott, and that’s the Westin Kierland in Scottsdale. Better resort, better location IMHO. It’s the only Westin we’ve had the privilege to spend time in. I’m pretty sure we’ll look at others where both Marriott and Westin are in the same location.

Sheraton has some locations within drivable distance in Colorado that will work for us. Honestly, Marriott doesn’t have a lot of options that are attractive to us in Colorado.

 

[Red elephant]

I do not think that is true. If Abound gets more of the better weeks of the high season (say more Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Presidents etc), more Vistana owners will be tempted to deposit in Abound when they exchange and that will create a problem for VSN. We have no way of knowing what happens behind the curtain. Even if that does not happen, the fact that you can book at 12 months is a big incentive to deposit in Abound and that lowers the availability in VSN. Abound is direct competition to VSN, 100%. Do not forget that Marriott has an economic incentive to favor Abound, because of the skim, and allowing Abound to book Vistana at 12 months should show us right from the start the side they are on.

The people who loose with this I think is the 8 month booking in VSN as availability will shrink.

 

[timsi]

The people who loose with this I think is the 8 month booking in VSN as availability will shrink.

Marriott will decide how many weeks will be available at 12 months in each bucket and any week in Abound will be one less week in the home reservations bucket. The best weeks at the best resorts will be harder and harder to book. It is not just VSN that will be affected.

 

[dioxide45]

The people who loose with this I think is the 8 month booking in VSN as availability will shrink.

I think we may see availability go down for certain resorts (Hawaii) where lots of Club Points are offered for electing Club Points. Overall though, as availability goes down so does the number of people competing for that remaining inventory. Once a week is deposited into Abound, that week, along with its StarOptions, can no longer be used to reserve in VSN.

 

[CalGalTraveler]

In addition to VSN 8 month, deeded owners at desirable locations will also lose if Abound enrolled week trades are available to Abound traders at 12 months. There will be extra weeks that the deeded owners cannot access because those enrolled week have been artificially blocked by MVC and made available in Abound to non-deeded owners (e.g. what if there is an extra week during whale week. Why can't a deeded owner have access to that since they have deeded access rights to inventory at 12 months for weeks 1 - 50?)

Abound Points breakage and inevitable lockoffs by Abound to 1 bedroom and studios will make fewer weeks available as well.

Abound is a trading system and owners who deposit their enrolled week surrender their rights to the best week and views at their resort and become a trading class similar to II. Those priority rights should not transfer to the trading system because MVC is not guaranteeing that those enrolled traders have priority rights to best view and weeks at other resorts (which they do not). i.e. there is no 1:1 trade of week, view and location rights therefore you cannot argue that Abound has rights to artificially block inventory from existing deeded owners and offer that to non-owners; there has been no like-kind priority offered in trade. The week surrendered by the owner to trade non-owners should fall to the back of the line in week and view priority because those rights were lost in the trade.

If Abound allows enrolled week trading at 12 months that is a huge mistake and a raises potential for a lawsuit from Vistana deeded weeks owners whose access rights to deeded weeks will be limited if MVC artificially manipulates the inventory and offers any enrolled weeks in trade that would be demanded by deeded owner such as an event week or priority view.

NOTE: I am referring to enrolled weeks trades not trust week trades which is a different animal.

 

[dougp26364]

The people who loose with this I think is the 8 month booking in VSN as availability will shrink.

Maybe, maybe not.

The only way those weeks make it into Abound is if owners elect to convert them to points, and at that point they also have access to the 12 month window.

Overall Marriott has done a good job of managing inventory so that’s there’s as little disruption as possible. There will be some, but my bet is it will be less than what’s speculated.

 

[dioxide45]

I remember in the early days of DC there was speculation that Marriott would book up all the high demand weeks for DC reservations and block out all those high demand weeks for weeks based reservations at 13 or 12 months. The thing is though that many point owners don't want to travel during those high demand times when points are a premium. So there isn't necessarily an incentive for Marriott to steal all the great weeks for DC reservations and leave the crumbs. DC point users like crumbs too.

 

[Mowogo]

The Vistana owners bought Vistana for a reason, they like the resorts and the locations. If you look at the beach locations for example, Vistana has a very large percentage of resorts oceanfront (11 out of 23!). Many think that the Vistana studios are much better than Marriott.... and I can go on.

Many Vistana owners bought because they were convinced at a sales presentation that Vistana was good enough. We need to remember that TUG is in NO WAY representative of the average owner. Yes, the studios are better but remember that many flex owners bought into flexibility Not understanding the weeds of how the flex product was created and funded. Now instead of having just your trust, you have access to almost every resort in Vistana plus Marriott. If the matching of elite statuses goes as reported for existing Vistana elites, you are now talking a flex product that has access to everything at 13 months for Marriott and 12 months for Vistana can make for some compelling leverage since you are already on the flex train. Add in that owners updates are going to be pushing the new options hard, there could be quite a bit of Vistana inventory available at 12 months.

 

[JIMinNC]

In addition to VSN 8 month, deeded owners at desirable locations will also lose if Abound enrolled week trades are available to Abound traders at 12 months. There will be extra weeks that the deeded owners cannot access because those enrolled week have been artificially blocked by MVC and made available in Abound to non-deeded owners (e.g. what if there is an extra week during whale week. Why can't a deeded owner have access to that since they have deeded access rights to inventory at 12 months for weeks 1 - 50?)

Abound Points breakage and inevitable lockoffs by Abound to 1 bedroom and studios will make fewer weeks available as well.

Abound is a trading system and owners who deposit their enrolled week surrender their rights to the best week and views at their resort and become a trading class similar to II. Those priority rights should not transfer to the trading system because MVC is not guaranteeing that those enrolled traders have priority rights to best view and weeks at other resorts (which they do not). i.e. there is no 1:1 trade of week, view and location rights therefore you cannot argue that Abound has rights to artificially block inventory from existing deeded owners and offer that to non-owners; there has been no like-kind priority offered in trade. The week surrendered by the owner to trade non-owners should fall to the back of the line in week and view priority because those rights were lost in the trade.

If Abound allows enrolled week trading at 12 months that is a huge mistake and a raises potential for a lawsuit from Vistana deeded weeks owners whose access rights to deeded weeks will be limited if MVC artificially manipulates the inventory and offers any enrolled weeks in trade that would be demanded by deeded owner such as an event week or priority view.

NOTE: I am referring to enrolled weeks trades not trust week trades which is a different animal.

I'm not sure I understand how a Vistana owner choosing to elect their deeded week for Abound Points is any different than if they had decided instead to deposit their deeded week in II. I admittedly am not all that familiar with the VSN program, but they seem the same to me.

1) Vistana week owner decides at 12 months to deposit their week to II to trade to a location Vistana has no locations. The program manager thus has to take a week from their season/view/size and give that to II and, in turn, the owner gets trade currency in II. That week is no longer available to other Vistana deeded week owners, but is is bookable by other II owners outside of Vistana as soon as it hits the II exchange system.

2) Vistana week owner decides at 12 months to elect their week for Abound ClubPoints to book a MVC location. The program manager thus has to take a week from their season/view/size and give that to the Abound Exchange and, in turn, the owner gets an allocation of Abound ClubPoints to spend. That week is no longer available to other deeded week owners, but is is bookable by other Abound members outside of Vistana as soon as it hits the Abound Exchange.

To me, these seem basically the same. In both cases, the week is no longer available to other owners prior to 8 months. What nuance am I missing?

 

[Dean]

After reading this thread and looking at the Vistana destinations, I think the only benefits to existing DP club members either enrolled or purchased are the resorts in Mexico and Harborside in the Bahamas. Otherwise MVC has resorts in the same or similar locations.

And Harbourside is one of the 2 resorts not currently included. IMO it's an OK resort with a good but not great location. For me personally it wouldn't' add much and the MX resorts would add nothing, same is true for St. Johns for us but I know not for others.

 

[CalGalTraveler]

I'm not sure I understand how a Vistana owner choosing to elect their deeded week for Abound Points is any different than if they had decided instead to deposit their deeded week in II. I admittedly am not all that familiar with the VSN program, but they seem the same to me.

1) Vistana week owner decides at 12 months to deposit their week to II to trade to a location Vistana has no locations. The program manager thus has to take a week from their season/view/size and give that to II and, in turn, the owner gets trade currency in II. That week is no longer available to other Vistana deeded week owners, but is is bookable by other II owners outside of Vistana as soon as it hits the II exchange system.

2) Vistana week owner decides at 12 months to elect their week for Abound ClubPoints to book a MVC location. The program manager thus has to take a week from their season/view/size and give that to the Abound Exchange and, in turn, the owner gets an allocation of Abound ClubPoints to spend. That week is no longer available to other deeded week owners, but is is bookable by other Abound members outside of Vistana as soon as it hits the Abound Exchange.

To me, these seem basically the same. What nuance am I missing?

a) Breakage by many more mid-week Abound stays who will want to conserve points at this expensive resort or extend MOC. Reducing ownership stay weeks.

b) More Lockoffs (II & Abound) cutting into 2 bdrm ownership week pools.

c) II doesn't get the best priority weeks and views. Typically the leftovers. What does a Chairman/Titanium/Intergalactic Elite get in terms of priority in Abound? Especially when Vistana Elites now merge? In WKORV the priority for view is 1) Timestamp 2) Vistana Elite owner 3) Regular owner timestamp if both the same 3) VSN, II others... (not sure of the order)

 

[Mroze]

Yes, I am referring to points on the marriott side. I am purchasing to enroll Vistana VOI's.

This is the best I have seen offered by Marriott.

All of the offers made to me entailed spending a minimum of over $30K to enroll anything.
Will be attending a presentation on Tuesday at Mountainside and will ask what are their current offers.

Someone just posted here that they were asked to purchase 2500-DCP for $32K to enroll their deeded week.

 

[MikeM132]

It is still separate inventy. For every week that is deposited into Abound, that is another chunk of StarOptions that won't be competing for VSN inventory. The skim is not in the favor of depositing into Abound. You lose a little when you elect Abound Club Points.

Indeed. Plus, a week is always a week. The number of points per week is subject to change. Remember when your 115,000 Marriott Rewards Points for your week got you a nice hotel stay? Now it's 3 nights in a Courtyard.

 

[JIMinNC]

a) Breakage by many more mid-week Abound stays who will want to conserve points at this expensive resort or extend MOC. Reducing ownership stay weeks.

b) More Lockoffs (II & Abound) cutting into 2 bdrm ownership week pools.

c) II doesn't get the best priority weeks and views. Typically the leftovers. What does a Chairman/Titanium/Intergalactic Elite get in terms of priority in Abound? Especially when Vistana Elites now merge? In WKORV the priority for view is 1) Timestamp 2) Vistana Elite owner 3) Regular owner timestamp if both the same 3) VSN, II others... (not sure of the order)

a) But if a week is broken once it's in Abound, that just limits what other Abound members can do. Only one week is taken from the Vistana owner bucket regardless of whether it is booked as a full week or broken after it gets into the Abound Exchange. The breakage, if it happens, is a negative for Abound members but the Vistana owners are not harmed by that breakage.

b) In the MVC Exchange lockoffs are irrelevant. If you own an enrolled 2BR lockoff, you must deposit the entire 2BR. I assume it will be the same in Abound.

c) In the MVC DC, and I assume in Abound, you book the view you want. If you want OF you spend more points. View is not based on ownership or elite level. The only thing owner status might impact is specific unit assignment within your view category at check-in. In MVC, that process varies by resort, but is discussed in depth in this thread https://tugbbs.com/forums/threads/villa-assignment-by-ownership-type-observations.339998/

You are correct that the Abound program manager will have the discretion to choose which specific weeks they deposit into the Abound Exchange, just as they have discretion to decide which specific weeks they give to II, or that go into the rental pool when someone converts to Bonvoy points. They could certainly abuse that privilege if they were so inclined and put all the best weeks into Abound, but they haven't seemed to be abusing that power in the 12 years of the Destination Club. Every piece of inside intelligence I've ever read here on TUG has indicated that they put great effort into allocating inventory fairly between the various inventory buckets.

 

[Bodie]

I am going to be optimistic and assume that they have been spending all there time on the new website and that is the reason they haven’t fixed anything on old one

Talked to a MVC rep, today. Poor thing, there have been a lot of very angry people calling. She said that corporate told them that the new properties are being integrated into the system and the website should be fixed by end of July. That doesn't exactly answer why the site can't accommodate that which is there but, oh well. She did mention that the Vistana, etc purchases would have "restrictions", whatever that means. Nothing good for us, I'm sure. Anyway, remember these reps can only impart info that the company gives them. It's clear MVC is doing a lousy job providing them with the tools they need and they are taking a lot of abuse.

 

[sfcolliejr]

We are at Desert Willows this week, until June 26th. We will go to an owner update on Friday. Will post any new information that they have after.

 

[The Colorado Kid]

We are at Desert Willows this week, until June 26th. We will go to an owner update on Friday. Will post any new information that they have after.

What are they offering for the meeting incentive if you don't mind sharing?