Hyatt Vacation Club coming into Abound?

[alexadeparis]

We attended a presentation today and the rep said they would be unavailing a new app through which Abound owners would be able to directly access Hyatt units. Of course no details were provided other than saying it could be later this year. Take it for what it is.

As a Hyatt owner in addition to Abound, if something like this is available I would hope the availability would be later than what Hyatt owners have access to. Hyatt owners can book their owned unit, or part of it, from 12 months to 6 months. At 6 months the owner can use their allotted points to reserve whatever is available in the system. Perhaps Abound owners could access available units at 4 or 5 months.

it will be interesting to see what if anything comes of this.

PARTIALLY correct. If you give up home use, you can book any available unit at that time up through the date of usage. So as an example, I released my April 12,2025 week at Bonita Springs when it opened and was able to get that same date for Hacienda Del Mar. So you can book up to 12 months out, subject to what is available. Clearly someone at HDM released their week because i placed a waitlist request at 3pm and i had a confirmation in my email by midnight. Waiting until 6 months for club use will severely limit what you can get.

So if i were a gambling woman, I would guess that the Marriott availability would begin at the 6 month mark, when you automatically lose your week if you don't confirm.

But again, best practice if you know you won't use your home week is to release immediately and reserve club use immediately or at least start the waitlist requests

 

[Hindsite]

But MVC now has properties which do not exist as deeded weeks and thus cannot be added to the trust, and in fact are not part of the trust so far as I know. MVC dumps inventory into the exchange program so that people can book these properties but it isn’t clear what the mechanism is for paying their costs, or at least it isn’t clear to me.

MVC has always had properties that don't exist as deeded weeks and still sells those RTU weeks, and will keep doing so as the Club Points Land Trust is limited to only being able to hold US inventory permanently.

They've had the process (whatever it is) for adding non-deeded inventory into the Destinations Club (now Abound) inventory since launch in 2010. I doubt that has changed to any substantive level, though I'm sure they have adjusted it and will continue to to do so. I'm sure there are historical threads somewhere on TUG where these mechanism and the mechanisms for adding elected deeded inventory has been discussed if you want to search.

As far as I have been able to identify, maint fees are paid by whoever owns the weeks, whether that is MVC or an individual owner who elects. Were there other "costs" that you expect to be covered?

 

[alexadeparis]

I wouldn’t hazard a guess on anything involving IT that involves MVW, or the Marriott hotel company for that matter.

My understanding is that Marriott’s underlying reservations system is written in COBOL, a computer language that was dying 40 years ago, and runs on ancient mainframes. If true, that probably explains a lot.

Yikes on bikes. They need to make an investment in bringing this at least into the correct century!

 

[Hindsite]

So if i were a gambling woman, I would guess that the Marriott availability would begin at the 6 month mark, when you automatically lose your week if you don't confirm.

But again, best practice if you know you won't use your home week is to release immediately and reserve club use immediately or at least start the waitlist requests

For the Sheraton and Westin availability in Abound, availability is "no earlier than 12 months" even though there are home reservation periods that last until 8 months prior. Abound users don't get access to the Sheraton or Westin reservation systems, elected inventory is moved from the Sheraton or Westin inventory to the Abound exchange, from where it can be booked. It could get moved for at 12 months or much later, depending on what has been booked, elected or what the inventory models are predicting will be demanded on both sides.
I don't believe there is ever a date where unbooked inventory is wholesale moved across the Abound from any of the various reservation systems across the brands, and I can't see that as being a popular or necessary move to make.
...and then there's II and how that is used, which is different for Sheraton and Westin from MVC and Hyatt is different too.

 

[willfly13]

So I know this has been discussed before, but at my owner update this week, the sales guy, who was being generally truthful on everything else, swore up and down that the Hyatt timeshare properties were going to come into Abound in the third or fourth quarter of this year. He acknowledged that it was complicated because of the branding issues and the separate Hyatt frequent guest program which those owners (I assume) participate in.

I basically said “that would be great but I’m not holding my breath” but also agreed that MVC probably didn’t buy the Hyatt business without some plan to integrate it to the extent they are able to do so.

No idea how much truth there is to this, he agreed that there had not been any announcement and so the timing was not set in stone. But of course he had all the Hyatt properties up on the screen and was making a firm claim that we would soon have access.

So I throw it out there for what it’s worth, claims from sales people often not being worth much.

I heard the same thing this week, with no promises about any timeline.

 

[RunCat]

I heard the same thing this week, with no promises about any timeline.

BTW, heading up to Northstar next week. If we go on tour, we will see if this comes up in conversation.

 

[ljmiii]

My understanding is that Marriott’s underlying reservations system is written in COBOL, a computer language that was dying 40 years ago, and runs on ancient mainframes…

Newer than FORTRAN and at this point it runs on all sorts of hardware. But its inherent slowness and the lack of programmers capable of maintaining COBOL can’t be denied…