I have been thinking and saying for years that one of Marriott's goals is to introduce more intentional complexity into an already-complex system and make it harder, or at least more complex, to use. A more complex system results in more owners who either do not use it effectively, do not use it at all, or walk away, each of which benefits MVW. They rent out the unreserved weeks and nights (for big bucks, in many cases) and when owners default on their ownerships, the HOAs (i.e. owners, *not* MVW) take the financial hit on any unpaid maintenance fees) and MVW gets a shiny new ownership back into their portfolio, at minimal cost, to resell at full price again.
I think they want to create lots of complicated ways to use our ownerships, so that they can always respond to confused owners with “you should have done x, you could have done y, you should buy more and then you could do z.” But all the while they are happy if many owners throw up their hands and leave their time unreserved.
Now maybe I’m just overly cynical. Obviously MVW does not want empty rooms, because they also profit from guests spending money on site. But they are pretty good at monetizing those empty rooms and filling them, and I suspect they will get even better at that in the future.
All of this is yet another good reason to be here on TUG, as few participants here will be baffled and unable to effectively use what they own. But from what I see in groups on Facebook, for example, MANY owners are confused about the existing Vistana system and throwing another layer on top is just going to confuse them more.
