Some of the early comments after my original post speculated there was more to the story and I should just accept the situation.
Admittedly I was pretty heated after my call with Marriott the other day and agree with some comments that I likely shouldn’t have gotten upset as I did. I also stand by my position of wanting to exit Marriott ownership. This decision is not based on an isolated incident, but rather IMHO, a deterioration of what I was once very happy to own.
Over the years I have loved my ownership less and less. When Marriott first rolled out the Destination Club, I didn’t think twice and immediately dropped the couple thousand. After all, I didn’t want to “miss out on everything Marriott was going to offer in the future.” After enrolling and seeing that I couldn’t convert my week to points to cover a low season week at my home resort, I was immediately turned off. As an owner at Westin Kaanapali, if I were to elect StarOptions instead of using the week, I get the fully 148,100, there is zero skim. A year or so later, my wife and I were at Newport Coast and offered an explorer package. Somewhat hesitant knowing we were not interested in buying trust points, we signed up for the package to see what changes would occur over the next year, and had (if memory serves me correctly) twelve months to use the package. Within about six weeks we had decided on a week, made the reservation, and paid the balance. Approximately two months later, we learned that we were having our first child. I called Marriott to see if we could cancel or extend the package past the twelve months. I was immediately told no, we were not allowed to cancel nor extend the date beyond the twelve months. Not wanting to take a young infant to Newport, we let the week go and forfeited the money. Last year we were at Ko Olina and decided to attended an owner’s update, curious what changes might be coming with the MVCI/Vistana merger. The salesperson could not have been any nicer until I asked the following question. If someone purchased a developer week at Westin Kaanapali, for say $40k, and would want the option to access Marriott properties post merger, how would one go about doing that? His answer as very simple and quick, they'd have to buy a minimum of 1000 points. I then asked about Marriott owners being able to access Vistana properties, I was again told that they'd have to buy a 1000 points. I forget what the exact per price point was at this point, but want to say it would have been ~$15k all in for the 1000 points. Being owners in both systems, I had no interest in adding points, which immediately rubbed him the wrong way. He then became very aggressive in front of my wife an daughter, and tried to convince me on how we would be missing out on everything in the future.
I have loved the vacations we’ve had at Marriott and Vistana properties over the years. We have seen more and done more by 40 than I would have guessed we'd do in a lifetime. Having spent between $150k-$200k on purchasing deeded weeks and maintenance fees over the years, do I feel that Marriott could/should have done more given the situation? Absolutely. I know MVCI is a business, and ultimately what matters most is the bottom line. With that said, Yes. I am relatively certain there’s plenty of inventory that Marriott holds in the trust for Ko Olina, and while I was not asking for another week at Ko Olina next year, I though it would have been nice for them to offer if there is sufficient inventory. What I really would have been happy with is the non-restricted certificate to use in Interval International, as I do believe they have the authority to override this. Between my four different II accounts, I am sitting on 10 accommodation certificates. My guess is this one from Marriott will not have strong trading power, and is all but worthless. My frustration is not over the lost week in Hawaii, or the costs that will be lost with it, but ultimately the lack of customer service. I am tired of the the lies at owner updates, fed up with the never ending money grab of trying to devalue weeks owners and force them into either selling their weeks or buying trust points. I would hope if you had a strong and loyal customer base, you would want to do what you could to retain and protect that. I don't feel that is the case with Marriott any longer, and it actually is counterproductive to their long term strategy.
