- Joined
- Mar 10, 2007
- Messages
- 6,792
- Reaction score
- 317
- Location
- 'burbs of Cincinnati, OH
- Resorts Owned
- Used to own: WKORV-N; SVV - Bella
*I think it would be a major mistake for Starwood to market the availability of reserving OF Villas with Staroptions, because the demand would FAR exceed the supply, to the point of fraud.
Who cares if demand exceeds supply? If there's no supply, then they can't offer it up for exchange. That is no different than the current inventory issue exchangers (and owners) experience now in trying to get HRA, WKORV and WSJ in the summer. Besides, no inventory is actually a really good thing for Starwood because if exchangers are continually frustrated by not being able to get the exchange of their choice, then that gives them added incentive to buy there.
And I don't understand your fraud comment. For every deeded OF owner, there is one OF week available. Only if an OF owner surrenders their home resort week (by exchanging into another resort or failing to pay their MFs) is their week available for SVN exchangers. No OF conversion, no OF inventory to grab. There's no chance for fraud here... unless Starwood sold more deeds than they have weeks. And that would impact home resort owners more than exchangers.
If they allowed OF exchanges, the only difference is that the unit would cost more SOs. Once again, this is a GOOD thing for Starwood because currently they are upgrading exchangers to OF for free (see Hypnotic's thread). It gives incentive for current 148,100 single week owners to either buy another unit (good for Starwood) or to bank their SOs...which means another $99 banking fee in Starwood's pocket, plus opportunity for Starwood to "hoover" the days/weeks associated with those banked points.
Speaking of hovering weeks, SVO would still have a HUGE advantage in this game because at WKORV, the entire year is platinum plus season. So if an OF owner surrenders their week, they can simply throw fall and early winter weeks into the pool. Having OF available might encourage more exchangers to actually travel in low season, which would spread out the demand more. PLUS they are squeezing more SOs out of owner, to guarantee an OF unit, that they might have assigned for "free" in prior years.