CLOSED: Thread Dedicated to the Upcoming/Anticipated Integration of Vistana & Marriott Ownerships (Marriott Link + Vistana Discussion)

[RC51Tofuman]

We just had our owner update today. I am trying to catch-up on this thread for the last 5 pages of this thread.

They told us Aug 8 is when the merger happens. We declined to take up on their offer that was given to us today. We kept the paper with all the chicken scratch of the Sales Pitch.

We are current owners of 1 bedroom Westin Flex at Nanea as 1 of the Home properties.

They made the pitch of us upgrading to 2 bedroom, purchasing all 6 certificates (never to be offered again), 13 month window booking, bump from executive (which means nothing in new program) to platinum, plus bonus options deposited in our bank.

I am at the pool right now with Wife and 5 year old and can't think of the further details ....but it's all on paper back at the hotel room.

Is purchasing a resale still the better way to go in this soon New environment????


Update from earlier Post
Upgrade to 163,000 (2bedroom)
Platinum for life
104,000 bonus options
58,000 options
1x offer to purchase 6 coupons
Cost to us would be
$24,325 + 895 escrow
New maintenance fee $3423



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[kozykritter]

Some may find this interesting. Aboundbymarriott.com and Aboundbymarriottvacations.com are both registered to a firm that protects corporate brands online, the same company that marriottvacationclub.com is registered to. Most likely Marriott hired them to stop people from putting up fake websites using the new name or stealing the domains away from them outright. What I find most interesting is these sites were registered September 1st and October 20th of 2021 so Marriott must have already had the Abound name picked out almost a year ago. Putting either of the Abound domains into a browser has led me to a blank page rather than a message that the domain was not found. Interesting still!

 

[robertk2012]

Some may find this interesting. Aboundbymarriott.com and Aboundbymarriottvacations.com are both registered to a firm that protects corporate brands online. Most likely Marriott hired them to stop people from putting up fake websites using the new name or stealing the domains away from them outright. What I find most interesting is these sites were registered September 1st and October 20th of 2021 so Marriott must have already had the Abound name picked out almost a year ago.

I would hope so

 

[VacationForever]

Some may find this interesting. Aboundbymarriott.com and Aboundbymarriottvacations.com are both registered to a firm that protects corporate brands online, the same company that marriottvacationclub.com is registered to. Most likely Marriott hired them to stop people from putting up fake websites using the new name or stealing the domains away from them outright. What I find most interesting is these sites were registered September 1st and October 20th of 2021 so Marriott must have already had the Abound name picked out almost a year ago. Putting either of the abound domains into a browser has led me to a blank page rather than a message that the domain was not found. Interesting still!

Good sleuth work!

 

[dioxide45]

Some may find this interesting. Aboundbymarriott.com and Aboundbymarriottvacations.com are both registered to a firm that protects corporate brands online, the same company that marriottvacationclub.com is registered to. Most likely Marriott hired them to stop people from putting up fake websites using the new name or stealing the domains away from them outright. What I find most interesting is these sites were registered September 1st and October 20th of 2021 so Marriott must have already had the Abound name picked out almost a year ago. Putting either of the Abound domains into a browser has led me to a blank page rather than a message that the domain was not found. Interesting still!

I beleive they filed for the trademark sometime back in October. So I would expect they buy the domains before doing that in order to protect the domain names and not have to pay big bucks to buy them. THis is quite common and buying domains is very cheap.

 

[Eric B]

I [believe] they filed for the trademark sometime back in October.

They file for the service marks on September 1, 2021.

Trademark Search

tmsearch.uspto.gov

Trademark Search

tmsearch.uspto.gov

 

[dioxide45]

They file for the service marks on September 1, 2021.

Trademark Search

tmsearch.uspto.gov

Trademark Search

tmsearch.uspto.gov

I was close...

 

[Eric B]

I was close...

Good enough for horseshoes, hand grenades and special weapons....

 

[kozykritter]

They file for the service marks on September 1, 2021.

Trademark Search

tmsearch.uspto.gov

Trademark Search

tmsearch.uspto.gov

Interesting. That is the same day they registered aboundbymarriottvacations.com which makes me think that that might be the web address they use. They registered aboundbymarriott.com 7 weeks later, probably when somebody in a meeting said hey what if someone forgets to put the vacations after marriott and ends up on some nefarious website instead They will probably forward it as a redirect to the actual site.

 

[daviator]

They told us Aug 8 is when the merger happens. We declined to take up on their offer that was given to us today. We kept the paper with all the chicken scratch of the Sales Pitch.

I really wish everyone, including MVC, would stop calling it a "merger." The only merger that is happening, happened years ago, when MVC bought and merged with Vistana.

The programs are not merging; the new Abound program is really just the old DP program applied as an overlay on top of Vistana's network. Maybe it will feel like a merger to those who assign their ownership usage to Abound every year, but for many/most of us, that will not be a very prudent thing to do. Unless you want to use your ownership to stay in the lower-standard Marriott-branded properties, not much changes except for the elite program.

 

[dioxide45]

It looks like someone else might have registered marriottabound.com though.

 

[kozykritter]

It looks like someone else might have registered marriottabound.com though.

The plot thickens...cue sinister music.

 

[remowidget]

Vistana.com is completely down. HTTP ERROR 500. It's surprising there isn't an update page or something.

 

[iowaguy09]

I got a screen with nothing but the message that was popping up for the last few days with the Vistana logo at the top.

 

[dioxide45]

This is what I see;

 

[EnglishmanAbroad]

Vistana.com is completely down. HTTP ERROR 500. It's surprising there isn't an update page or something.

They advertised for the last week or so that it would be down for 15 hours today from 12:30am EST

 

[remowidget]

This is what I see;
View attachment 61416

I'm getting that now.

 

[samcar1]

cant wait to see it at 4pm... probably no difference. lol

 

[cubigbird]

This is what I see;
View attachment 61416

And loss of radio transmission between Apollo astronauts and mission control for Earth re-entry was only approximately 1 minute vs MVC down for 15 hours…..Just saying…..

 

[samcar1]

maybe we will be surprised. Stranger things have happened

 

[jabberwocky]

And loss of radio transmission between Apollo astronauts and mission control for Earth re-entry was only approximately 1 minute vs MVC down for 15 hours…..Just saying…..

And the sad part is this isn’t rocket science!

 

[dioxide45]

I wonder if they aren't doing a full database migration today. Depending on the volume of data, that can take a long time. Especially if they are migrating historical records. After data is migrated, they would then have to validate it all moved as expected and connect existing front end connectors to the new Db. We may not see a front end change to the website this go around, but we shall see.

 

[alexadeparis]

I wonder if they aren't doing a full database migration today. Depending on the volume of data, that can take a long time. Especially if they are migrating historical records. After data is migrated, they would then have to validate it all moved as expected and connect existing front end connectors to the new Db. We may not see a front end change to the website this go around, but we shall see.

I'm not in IT but aren't these huge changes usually done overnight and/or weekends? Why would they choose a workday and a Monday at that?

 

[samcar1]

because people do not work anymore. especially on weekends. Welcome to 2022.

 

[dioxide45]

I'm not in IT but aren't these huge changes usually done overnight and/or weekends? Why would they choose a workday and a Monday at that?

They usually would be, I suspect though that MVC looked at website demand and found this timeframe to perhaps be the lowest volume. I think only the 13 month booking window for weeks for the first week of September opens today and that is call in only. Saturday and Sunday probably have a lot of people searching for availability as they use weekends to plan vacations. Other days of the week potentially have either 12 month weeks inventory release and Tuesday and Friday have inventory releases for points reservations. There really is no good time to do this and with a 15 hour window, it is going to hit US business hours at some point.