Any success on combining accounts recently?

[magicjourney]

The transfer of my two resale purchases finally went through. Called a couple of times, but Vistana refuses to merge memberships. Before I set up another two online accounts, just want to check if anyone got lucky recently to combine resale contracts with previous ones? So now you have to create one separate account for each resale? What a hassle! That's a genius way to prevent people buying resale! Another question, do I need to pay membership fee for each account? or they will waive the fee on other accounts?

 

[DanCali]

The transfer of my two resale purchases finally went through. Called a couple of times, but Vistana refuses to merge memberships. Before I set up another two online accounts, just want to check if anyone got lucky recently to combine resale contracts with previous ones? So now you have to create one separate account for each resale? What a hassle! That's a genius way to prevent people buying resale! Another question, do I need to pay membership fee for each account? or they will waive the fee on other accounts?

Do they say you need a separate account for each new resale? Or just a new account for post-August resales?

 

[tsltsltsl]

I have close to 20 units and only 2 were bought through the developer (westin). They all reside in one account and work just fine. having said that, I have not bought a resale in a few years and I am in the process of doing that right now. I would like to know why on earth they would even want separate accounts for their own sake and definitely the member fee is an issue. What reason did they give for not merging the accounts. what changed? I am eager to hear if anyone else has recent experience with this. Also, was there an issue when the resale went thru such that they placed the new unit into a new account from the start instead of making sure it was added to your existing membership. This hypothesis is based on the premise that "merging" is not do-able, but adding from the start might be.

 

[magicjourney]

Do they say you need a separate account for each new resale? Or just a new account for post-August resales?

The former, coz each contract was assigned a different membership and they can't merge membership due to ongoing system update - That's what I was told.

 

[echino]

Vistana certainly can merge the accounts now, but chooses not to. I don't know the reasons, but I guess it's to discourage resales, create difficulty using StarOptions from separate accounts without combining, and collect extra membership fees. If your new week is voluntary and not in VSN, you would not pay any fees. But if it's mandatory / in VSN, you will pay $170 for each new week, because Vistana refuses to merge them.

 

[daviator]

I called the number listed in the sticky for dual-trained agents today, and got a delightful lady who linked my Vistana and (newly transferred to me) MVC accounts in about 15 minutes.

Now that’s not exactly the same as a merger I guess, so maybe it doesn’t help, but it feels as if those accounts have been merged functionally.

The agent was super happy that all my ownerships were titled exactly the same way, she said that almost never is the case, and it causes all kinds of problems on their end.

 

[tsltsltsl]

This thread sort of freaked me out because I am actively closing on several units. (Westin KOR, KORN, Westin Flex, and SDO). I just called the center to ask this questions based on the thread. Moses, the rep I spoke to was pretty emphatic that adding a new unit to an existing account was not an issue and that the closing company should just use one of your contract numbers when submitting the paperwork. this is exactly how I have done it in the past. Perhaps there are other extenuating circumstances in the issue above and to be clear, I am not trying to merge accounts but rather add a new unit to an existing account. Also, all my units are vistana (not marriott) and also they have been both mandatory and voluntary units. The only "two account" issue I am aware of is when you try to use these units with Interval. Interval WILL make you set up two INTERVAL accounts (one for mandatory units/SVN) and one for the others. this has been true since the start. Also, the only time I have had issues is when the names were not spelled exactly the same and correctly. that can be a Deed issues, etc and gets messy but is really up to you to get right.

 

[daviator]

I wonder if part of the problem with account mergers is that people often don’t title the deeds exactly alike. If one deed has a middle initial, or a different co-owner, or a middle name instead of an initial, or whatever….if it’s even a little bit different than the other deeds, it creates a problem that apparently makes it difficult to put them in the same account.

 

[CPNY]

Vistana certainly can merge the accounts now, but chooses not to. I don't know the reasons, but I guess it's to discourage resales, create difficulty using StarOptions from separate accounts without combining, and collect extra membership fees. If your new week is voluntary and not in VSN, you would not pay any fees. But if it's mandatory / in VSN, you will pay $170 for each new week, because Vistana refuses to merge them.

Marriott refuses to merge them…. Vistana never had an issue merging accounts. I’ve purchased resales this past year and each time my member number was listed with handwritten instructions to add the new membership to the existing account on the Vistana External transfer form. I was told by owner services that this is a new Marriott procedure.

 

[CPNY]

I wonder if part of the problem with account mergers is that people often don’t title the deeds exactly alike. If one deed has a middle initial, or a different co-owner, or a middle name instead of an initial, or whatever….if it’s even a little bit different than the other deeds, it creates a problem that apparently makes it difficult to put them in the same account.

All of my deeds are titled exactly the same. They still refused to do it .

 

[echino]

This was a couple of weeks ago:

Nothing to do with properties being deeded slightly differently, etc.

 

[DanCali]

It's not just the SVN fees, which I assume you can argue about and get waived. It's the ability to combine Staroptions from various weeks that goes away - like using banked SOs from one week along with current SO from another o book a larger unit or a longer stay. This is a serious flaw.

 

[ConejoRed]

Received an email from Title services yesterday that our WKORV transfer was complete. We had included the current Vistana membership number on the transfer form and when I checked our online Vistana account it was included along with our WSJ ownership so it can be done. Was a bit worried yesterday as it showed VSN: No and no Options, but both are there today. Both are mandatory units so don’t know if that is a factor. They might also have realized very recently that it is probably easier to do it correctly up front vs. trying to fix it later so we got lucky and they set it up correctly under our existing account. A previous post seemed to indicate that for the sake of speed, they were just setting everything up as new accounts recently.

 

[HankW]

This was a couple of weeks ago:

View attachment 73214

Nothing to do with properties being deeded slightly differently, etc.

I was told that to pay my maintenance fees, I must create a new VSN account, and it is my responsibility to do so, even though VSN/MVC has not sent any communication on this terrible patching job they are doing to use and pay your points. I also asked if this is also the case on the MVC side. I was told no, MVC contracts can be added to an account with no issue; it is a VSN-only process. I sure hope the VSN/MVC leadership is telling the IT team that this is unacceptable and to find a way to fix this as soon as possible. Now, I can see my total staroptions balances, but I wonder what would happen when I try to schedule 12 months outs and want to use these new staroptions. They will likely tell me I must create a new VSN account to prepay MF and use the points. This is getting more and more ugly by the minute. I and 30 days out to make my 12 months out reservation using these points.

 

[byeloe]

We had included the current Vistana membership number

Where do I find my VSN membership number?

 

[ConejoRed]

I requested it from Owner Services, but apparently you can find it in the URL when using the link to Abound (?) as well.

 

[Red elephant]

I requested it from Owner Services, but apparently you can find it in the URL when using the link to Abound (?) as well.

Is that the Marriott ownership number? I did not think VSN had membership numbers just contract numbers.

 

[ConejoRed]

It is a Vistana membership number (13 digits) not a Marriott number. It is not on the website anywhere (confirmed by owner services). I just sent a Contact Us question to Owner Services and they sent it to me.

 

[Red elephant]

It is a Vistana membership number (13 digits) not a Marriott number. It is not on the website anywhere (confirmed by owner services). I just sent a Contact Us question to Owner Services and they sent it to me.

I called and got the membership number. The rep said the resale department is supposed to look that up as part of the transfer process but apparently they are not. Seems like this is a new thing with Abound that we as owners don’t know about. Shame!!

 

[rickandcindy23]

I have had constant battles, but suddenly everything is working better.

 

[sponger76]

So after months of calls and emails where I kept being told they could not merge my newly acquired resale VOIs with my original retail account, I logged in this morning and all of a sudden they are combined. The two 'extra' login accounts I had to create are empty and my original login now has all of my stuff in one place. No notification, just noticed it by logging in to check my accounts.

 

[ShadowTS]

We purchased a resale stand-alone EOYE 1 Bedroom WKROV in October 2022 off Redweek with the intent to just use it every other year. The deed was recorded in December and the entire process finished in mid-February of this year. We already owned a WSJ mandatory week, so this was our second mandatory week but it was purchased post 8/8. As part of the transfer process we included our Vistana membership number and Vistana added it to our existing account without any issues (Redweek full-service did keep on top of it and made sure they were aware of our current Vistana number etc). Since we are planning on using the week in 2024 we didn't take any notice other than that it was in our account o.k. (and it looked like the WKORV was not eligible for Abound right after the transfer as expected).

Well, I noticed that our status with Marriott was recently upgraded to Platinum. So I went back to our Vistana account and now see that the post 8/8 resale WKORV has been added to Abound and our Abound status is now Select (previously was just "Owner" status). I can convert the WKORV to Abound points (haven't done that as plan to use the week). So... don't know if this is the first example of a post-8/8 mandatory week being made Abound eligible? In case this is an error on their part, I am using a different Tug account to post this as Marriott could probably figure out who we are when using our longstanding TUG account. We purchased the WKORV week from someone who did originally buy the week from the developer so don't know if that could be a factor as it would have already been in Abound when the transfer process started.

 

[dioxide45]

I don't think it is Abound eligible, but others have posted how post 8/8 resale weeks counted toward the Owner Benefit Level, but couldn't elect for Abound Club Points. So it seems resale Vistana Mandatory VSN weeks could help plump up OBL moving forward. There is only one Owner Benefit Level system now as the old 3*, 4* and 5* is gone.

You should be able to check and see if it can elect for Club Points by clicking on that option from the Dashboard.

 

[ShadowTS]

You should be able to check and see if it can elect for Club Points by clicking on that option from the Dashboard.

It gives me the option to convert....

Didn't want to go any further though as planning on using the week. Its a bad setup if it doesn't stop you until you click the Once your VOI(s) have been elected check mark and finish so I assume this would go through.....

 

[LahainaMoon]

We purchased a resale stand-alone EOYE 1 Bedroom WKROV in October 2022 off Redweek with the intent to just use it every other week.

I would LOVE to go to Maui every other week .