Good News: Bucket List is history!

[SueDonJ]

To keep things straight in my own mind, I refer to the two different types of points as "Legacy Points" and "Trust Points". ...

I confuse myself unless I think in terms that Marriott defined, so an Owner of an enrolled Week is a DC Exchange Member, while an Owner of purchased Points is a DC Trust Member. The different types of DC Points are Trust Points and Weeks or Legacy Points. DC inventory is separated into Trust and Converted-Weeks intervals, and those play together in the DC Exchange Company.

Regarding incentives: My understanding is that Marriott is still offering the 800 bonus points for legacy week enrollments, plus one or more AC weeks depending on the number of years remaining with your current Interval Membership. Do I have that correct? ...

Yes.

 

[GregT]

IF this is true, it is only an administrative change in how Marriott manages the exchange pool. Before anyone gets too excited, remember that administrative changes can also be "undone". What a day giveth, a day can taketh away as well.

GBlotter, I agree that this is a decision they've made, versus a structural design of the program (which would have been preferable). However, I believe once the decision is made -- as more time passes, it will be more difficult to broadly undo this decision. And if a decent percentage of points purchasers are legacy point owners, then this decision benefits those owners and the decision will hopefully remain in force.

The OP said that he's been told by a Senior VOA that, "... Marriott has now officially done away with the "bucket program" and points are points regardless of their origin ..." That cannot be technically or functionally true unless one thing can happen - that a single-night stay can be booked with a combination of Trust and Legacy Points. That one thing can't happen unless the governing docs for the DC have been extensively amended, and we haven't seen any evidence of that. The reps who are saying it need to 'put up or shut up' because they're not contributing anything of value to the program.

Sue, I agree with you -- I too am skeptical that you can ever combine the two points into a single-night stay -- which would be the true elimination of the buckets. But I am happy with the early availability of the Trust inventory because it makes the inventory reservations more predictable, which is useful to me.

As far as the skim disappearing, forget it.

Concur -- I can't imagine Marriott not skimming, although it would be great for the ownership base. They've already taken the black eye on it and people like me have stopped bitching about it (although I still think is a shoddy way to treat your customers), so I think skimming is permanent.

The good news is that Marriott's recent moves have trended to the positive:

1) Introduction of Ritz Carlton properties to DClub
2) Earlier availability of Trust Inventory, blurring the distinction between Trust Points and Legacy Points
3) 20% Discount on Points Reservations within 14 days for Premier Plus and 7 days for Premier
4) No fee increase yet for the DClub (which won't stay $199 forever)

And --- most valuable to me --- they are still letting us transfer points between owners. Hopefully they continue doing things that are for the benefit of the ownership.

Interestingly, Points #1 - #3 should be prominent components of Marriott's sales pitch, when selling to Legacy Owners.

Best,

Greg

 

[SueDonJ]

GBlotter, I agree that this is a decision they've made, versus a structural design of the program (which would have been preferable). However, I believe once the decision is made -- as more time passes, it will be more difficult to broadly undo this decision. And if a decent percentage of points purchasers are legacy point owners, then this decision benefits those owners and the decision will hopefully remain in force. ...

Why isn't the availability of more advance inventory of what is assumed to be Trust intervals, "a structural design of the program?" Advance inventory can be made available by any number of Member or Marriott transactions; the most visible and probably most easily-understood would be a Trust Member borrowing Points from one Use Year into the preceding Use Year to reserve Exchange Company or DC Collection intervals. Given that the system has been up and running for some time now, this seems like it could just be the natural progression.

I don't understand the conviction that this isn't natural progression, that it's only possible for us to be seeing these availability results because Marriott made a material change to how they manage inventory. Frankly, the conviction makes me uncomfortable because if it's true that this is not a natural progression, IMO the odds of the DC's failure just increased. I don't expect that the natural progression of the system will always favor the Exchange Members' ability to reserve Trust inventory. But I do expect that the design of the system must allow the inventory to mingle without requiring manipulation.

 

[SueDonJ]

... And --- most valuable to me --- they are still letting us transfer points between owners. Hopefully they continue doing things that are for the benefit of the ownership. ...

Agree, that's a very nice option and I'm glad Marriott allows it. I'm just wondering how long it will take for Marriott to go the same route that Disney has, and begin limiting the number of annual transfers in/out of a Member's account. The DVC folks speculated that their change happened when private Points rentals began negatively affecting DVC's rental pool, and/or when enough Members lodged complaints about the super-renters making too many of the prime intervals available to non-Owners.

 

[GregT]

Why isn't the availability of more advance inventory of what is assumed to be Trust intervals, "a structural design of the program?" Advance inventory can be made available by any number of Member or Marriott transactions; the most visible and probably most easily-understood would be a Trust Member borrowing Points from one Use Year into the preceding Use Year to reserve Exchange Company or DC Collection intervals. Given that the system has been up and running for some time now, this seems like it could just be the natural progression.

I don't understand the conviction that this isn't natural progression, that it's only possible for us to be seeing these availability results because Marriott made a material change to how they manage inventory. Frankly, the conviction makes me uncomfortable because if it's true that this is not a natural progression, IMO the odds of the DC's failure just increased. I don't expect that the natural progression of the system will always favor the Exchange Members' ability to reserve Trust inventory. But I do expect that the design of the system must allow the inventory to mingle without requiring manipulation.

I view this as a decision, versus the structural design of the system.

It would have been a structural design of the system if they published/announced something that stated that [12.5] months before check-in date, all weeks that are held in the Trust (and all legacy weeks that have been redeemed for points by Legacy Week owners and whatever else is in there) will be available to all points users, irrespective of legacy or Trust Points designation.

This would be similar to HGVC, which says that 9 months out, anyone with points at any property can book a reservation (subject to availability). This allows us to expect what is going to happen.

But, we have no such formal guidance on the loading of inventory for Marriott -- we are guessing at what and when they've put it in there.

The weeks look like they are available earlier than before, which is good -- but absent formal guidance on what they are doing (and confirmation that this is what they intended), we're still guessing -- and it could change tomorrow.

We will see what happens...

All the best,

Greg