Gift of time

[floyddl]

Clemson Fan, It might be better to share that info discreetly rather than posting on the board for all. That kind of defeats the purpose of the system that Marriott is using.

[Edited to delete quoted link - for consistency with edit to above post. Dave M, BBS Administrator]

 

[seatrout]

last year calender also have and extra week too. I did not recieve the email last year but recieved it this year. Did anyone have the same experience. ??Next time this would happen again is in 2010 from my calender so we should enjoy it.

Also the AC expired 1 years from the date of deposit. I am waiting till August to deposit so that I could use the AC for some summer week.

 

[Clemson Fan]

Clemson Fan, It might be better to share that info discreetly rather than posting on the board for all. That kind of defeats the purpose of the system that Marriott is using.

I'd rather just share it with the TUG community who have shared many loopholes with me that I've benefited from.

Besides, it's not my fault Marriott hasn't put something in place to ensure that only qualified MVCI owners can get these weeks. That defeats the purpose of the system that Marriott is using much more than me just sharing the website. I wonder how many non-MVCI owners that may work for MVCI have taken advantage of this? At least on this BB, the vast majority of readers are MVCI owners.

 

[GaryDouglas]

I Wouldn't have included the link. Dave, what do you think?

 

[ann824]

It says on the Marriott website after you reserve, that it is for MVCI owners and reservations of non-owners will be cancelled.

 

[GaryDouglas]

I think we're talking about Marriotters that can now step out of turn...

 

[calgal]

I bought a week at Ocean Point (12/31-1/6) that I plan to deposit and exchange. If I do as seatrout plans, and save the deposit until August so that I can use the AC next summer, will the week have lost trading power vs. depositing it now? Will they still be offering ACs?

Second question, with so many Marriott owners purchasing wk 53s for trading purposes, will that weaken the trade power of these otherwise premium weeks?

 

[floyddl]

Last year they put it on the MVCI web site for anyone after they worked thru the order. But you had to call to get it. The link is now there for anyone to use whether they are entitled to it or not. You can spin it how you like but it is not right. If you want to share with someone via email that's fine but.......

 

[seatrout]

I bought a week at Ocean Point (12/31-1/6) that I plan to deposit and exchange. If I do as seatrout plans, and save the deposit until August so that I can use the AC next summer, will the week have lost trading power vs. depositing it now? Will they still be offering ACs?

Second question, with so many Marriott owners purchasing wk 53s for trading purposes, will that weaken the trade power of these otherwise premium weeks?

I talk to the II rep. and according to him so long as we deposit greater than 60 days out, the is no loss in trading power.
I believe that an earlier request will overpower a later request. Thus unless you have a request in mind, the deposit can wait. For me, I bought 3 of those OP week and already have all my vacation for this year planned. Thus getting back 3 AC that expire in April would be a waste.

These week are premium week to the general public so I don't see how we would significantly weaken the power. After released by the general Marriott pool I think outside II will swap them up. I also purchase other week and plan to use them as well.

 

[Clemson Fan]

If you want to share with someone via email that's fine but.......

So, it’s OK for me to share it through e-mail with somebody who’s not “entitled” to it, but it’s not OK for me to share it on a BB read almost exclusively by MVCI owners? If this loophole truly exists, then I could theoretically share this website through e-mail with my parents and siblings who are not MVCI owners and they could book these weeks and it would be OK as long as it’s done discretely?

It’s an open website no matter how you want to spin it. If MVCI was so concerned with fairly distributing these weeks as some people are here, then they easily could’ve password protected it requiring one to use the same user name and password they do to get on their online accounts. There’s a multitude of ways MVCI could’ve chosen to ensure these weeks were being booked by only the people who met their criteria. If they chose not to, then I’m not going to worry about it.

 

[GaryDouglas]

As I get older and older, things like this become simpler and simpler, more back and white. If I see people break into line ahead of me at the movie theather, it's easy to see that it is just plain wrong. It's hard to rationalize your way out of that.

Marriott will possibly correct this the next year there is a "Gift of Time" (2010?). In the mean time it's the honor system. I saw a flaw in the system, but I didn't take advantage of it. Maybe I should have kept my laptop shut...:ignore:

 

[camachinist]

A couple of points: (Dave can correct me, if I'm wrong)

Marriott owners comprise a tiny fraction of TUG members, and an even smaller fraction of those who read this bulletin board.

Every person who didn't receive an e-mail and books one of these intervals removes it from availability for someone who did receive the e-mail, under the current setup. This is very different than a e-mail point/miles promo, where no other party receives a negative result (perhaps except the promotion grantor) if we all share targeted e-mails.

By posting and then defending the position of wide disemmination, the poster most assuredly won't find themselves included in private e-mail round-robins, since their position on such matters is now widely known.

I received my notification from Marriott regarding this very early on the morning of April 28 (about 2 am PDT) and this is my first post regarding my notification. I wasn't going to ( and didn't) post about the existence of it, much less the method by which to attain it. I trust Marriott sent myself and other owners so targeted notice for its own reasons, and I'll bet there were others notified before myself.

Glad to see a lot of folks got some great deals. I also noticed no one had any council regarding points earning on this rate. I guess it's too late now

Pat

 

[Clemson Fan]

As I get older and older, things like this become simpler and simpler, more back and white. If I see people break into line ahead of me at the movie theather, it's easy to see that it is just plain wrong. It's hard to rationalize your way out of that.

Marriott will possibly correct this the next year there is a "Gift of Time" (2010?). In the mean time it's the honor system. I saw a flaw in the system, but I didn't take advantage of it. Maybe I should have kept my laptop shut...:ignore:

Gary,

I agree with you to either call it black or white. I happenned to call it a way you didn't agree with.

I don't like this in-between argument though that it's OK to share it amongst "non-qualified" owners through e-mail, but not here on a Marriott BB.

I'm actually surprised how many people have taken exception to this.

 

[Clemson Fan]

By posting and then defending the position of wide disemmination, the poster most assuredly won't find themselves included in private e-mail round-robins, since their position on such matters is now widely known.

I can't remember ever being part of an e-mail round robin before that provided useful information, so this "punishment" shouldn't hurt.

I shared information with people I don't really know which gets hammerred. I'm really dissapointed a lot of folks have taken such a negative position on this as I've found this BB as a great place for information in the past. Maybe that's all changing.

 

[Clemson Fan]

Marriott owners comprise a tiny fraction of TUG members, and an even smaller fraction of those who read this bulletin board.

I'd bet that 90% of the regulars who read this Marriott BB on TUG (not the TUG BB in general) are MVCI owners. Then, of the ones who aren't owners, they are probably either, Marriott employees, brokers, or newbies thinking very strongly about buying into MVCI.

 

[Clemson Fan]

[Edited to delete link to a website not intended for public dissemination. Dave M, BBS Administrator]

Dave M,

Did I break a TUG rule? Is TUG now considered the "public"? I'm actually rather disappointed in that decision as I feel you're favoring other people's opinion only more than mine.

 

[Shorty]

Hey Clem,

I own two Hawaii Marriotts (Ko Olina). I have not received any email from Marriott. Do I not own enough for them acknowledge me? Since I gave not received a message, and everyone is choosing to talk very cryptically about this, I have no idea what everyone is talking about.

 

[lovearuba]

I'm one of those who tried the link, however Marriott does have a control in place to prevent my account number from using it so no real harm was done. Thought I would share that to stop this debate. If I could get in, I wouldn't book it any way. I don't think its that great an offer. Have a great day

 

[camachinist]

Signed in under my MIL's account, which assuredly is not an owner of our timeshares, I can get to the "complete reservation" screen, which has her personal information on it. Since the reservation is charged upon completion, I'm not going to complete it, but it seems that any security measures would be evident before getting to this point. I tried this for a couple of resorts, not just where we own. It would seem that, if Marriott was controlling this from the back end, offline, it would surely make a lot more work for them. Perhaps it already has

For Shorty, this discussion is about the intervals that MVCI resorts reserve for themselves (check your governing documents for more info) and which they offer for a very reasonable price periodically to some owners. We have never been notified before and own two developer intervals at NCV. I have no idea what criteria they use but would assume that the "most loyal" owners are notified first, and then so on and so forth. FWIW, after MVCI changed their web site, I found the e-mail listing in our account to be mangled and it took a number of attempts to get it to list correctly. During that time, we didn't receive any e-mail from MVCI. Just something to check, as well as the spam/bulk box of your e-mail client.

For general consumption, as someone who operates his own forum (unrelated to travel or timesharing) I can definitely say (from my own logs) that a very tiny fraction of people (about 8-10%) who are members actually post and and these posters are an even smaller fraction of the much larger audience which reads and are not members.

I've also had the good fortune (or misfortune perhaps) of finding and posting deals (hotel error rates mostly) on FlyerTalk, and am used to these ethical debates. I now share my finds privately as a result, and am part of one "underground" on that forum (there are many). I assume the same exists here on TUG, though I haven't had much exposure. As Dave once explained to me when I was new here, this is a community, and I needed to pay attention to and respect the community's sensibilities in my postings, even if my personal philosophy differed. Sometime's it's hard

Well, given the timestamp of this posting, I guess the cat's out of the bag as to when mileage runners do their work Happy hunting!

Pat

 

[Clemson Fan]

Hey Clem,

I own two Hawaii Marriotts (Ko Olina). I have not received any email from Marriott. Do I not own enough for them acknowledge me? Since I gave not received a message, and everyone is choosing to talk very cryptically about this, I have no idea what everyone is talking about.

Hey Shorty,

I own two Marriott's also and did get the message I think on Friday. I don't know why you didn't get it. I'm not in the habit of sending personal e-mails to strangers, but I'll post the website later today on http://www.timeshareforums.com. I still have to register there and I don't have time to do it right now.

I used to be a strict TUGger, but now that I got censored for no clear reason, I'll go ahead and give them a try. I appreciate Pat's post, but I still don't feel I have broken any of TUG's rules. I posted a non affiliated website (or did I?), that was not vulgar or self serving in any way. I guess other people's opinions here count more than mine. Oh well, c'est la vie.

 

[lovearuba]

Clemson is right, nothing was done wrong, there's no restrictions from posting the link she sent. Marriott should have their own controls and I still believe they do. Like I said I tried it and on a number of not that great resorts, used my marriott number and it said to remove the discount code which I was not very comfortable with. If I used the discount code there was no availability so I have to assume Marriott wants your number and if you don't have a valid one (by their guidelines for this special) then you cant bypass the control. I would be interested in hearing from anyone who could actually book and did not receive the email.

 

[camachinist]

I'm not in the habit of sending personal e-mails to strangers, but I'll post the website later today on http://www.timeshareforums.com. I still have to register there and I don't have time to do it right now.

Enjoy TSF! I'm on pretty good terms with the Marriott forum moderator over there

If I used the discount code there was no availability so I have to assume Marriott wants your number and if you don't have a valid one (by their guidelines for this special) then you cant bypass the control. I would be interested in hearing from anyone who could actually book and did not receive the email.

As I posted prior, I did this using (logged into) another account I control (for convenience) but is in the name of a relative (my wife's mother) who has no relationship with MVCI whatsoever. Not only was there availability, I was one click away from purchase at both our resort and a couple in Florida. The purchase page came up with her name, address, phone # and MRP#. I have no explanation for this or your experience. Marriott can be mysterious at times...

Pat

 

[MOXJO7282]

Re: Marriott points for Gift of Time purchase

I don't think this has been asked, but if I bought the gift of time with my new Marriott Visa, am I going to get 5 X Marriott points?

Regards
Joe

 

[Clemson Fan]

Enjoy TSF! I'm on pretty good terms with the Marriott forum moderator over there

Pat,

I had to LOL and just noticed that. Like I stated before, I've never really spent any significant time off of TUG.

I understand respecting the communities sensibilities and I don't think I've ever been rude or vulgar to anybody here. I posted that website to help out fellow TUGgers who I've never met before. There was no personal gain in it for me at all.

I still don't understand why this has been censored here on TUG as I'm not sure I broke any TUG rule? It's like TUG has taken the stance to protect MVCI and certain MVCI owners who have differrent opinions than mine rather than just protecting TUGgers in general. IMO, that greatly limits our ability to have any trully open discussions about MVCI.

 

[ann824]

Enjoy TSF! I'm on pretty good terms with the Marriott forum moderator over there



As I posted prior, I did this using (logged into) another account I control (for convenience) but is in the name of a relative (my wife's mother) who has no relationship with MVCI whatsoever. Not only was there availability, I was one click away from purchase at both our resort and a couple in Florida. The purchase page came up with her name, address, phone # and MRP#. I have no explanation for this or your experience. Marriott can be mysterious at times...

Pat

Once you purchase the confirmation page clearly states that the offer is for MVCI owners and that all other confirmations will be cancelled. It would be interesting to see if anyone has tried it and Marriott has cancelled it.