I understand all this, BUT they are waiving all cancellation penalties for "transient" guests. The holding account is a "penalty" in MVC's terms. As a policy matter, why treat a transient guest better than an exchange guest? Neither own at the resort in question but only the exchange guest incurs a penalty. Owners at an impacted resort assume the risks of their ownership so that is a different situation.
"Transient" guests paying cash aren't members of a club and there's no mechanism by which any Marriott entity can keep their payments in a holding account with guaranteed future usage.
Members of the Destination Club assume similar risks to those assumed by Weeks Owners by virtue of the signed membership contracts. Marriott isn't constrained by a requirement that every member in good standing must be able to book their individually-desired intervals via the Exchange Company, only that members must be able to book available intervals. Pages 18 and 19 of the
Exchange Procedures doc make clear that Marriott
cannot be held liable for accommodations that can't be used due to one-off events out of their control, and, that Marriott has the right
but not the responsibility to amend the t&c's in the members' favor for such events. And on Page 24, the mechanism for dealing with such events/cancellations is specifically defined for this exact purpose: "
Holding Account means an account established for purposes of depositing Exchange Points that are restored to a Program Member after the cancellation or modification of a confirmed reservation."
Like I said, if current conditions/cancellations in Maui continue beyond a period during which affected members can get reasonable usage out of the points used for cancelled reservations, then I'd expect them to extend expiration dates similarly to how they did it as COVID progressed. But they and we can't know today what this situation will look like beyond a few months at the most, and only they know if the Exchange Company has enough usable inventory to absorb however many points have been affected. If this is a relatively short-term problem and they know they have enough inventory (whether or not it's the same as the intervals which have been cancelled) parked in the EC to cover the affected points through the end of this year, then I don't believe they should allow a situation where affected members are given rights to future Use Years - especially if doing so puts MVW in jeopardy of being charged with inventory mismanagement.
You disagree somewhat, and I understand that. But we can't have it both ways. When Marriott amends the t&c's as they're allowed and we benefit by it, like with COVID and the generous cancellation terms that they eventually implemented as the situation continued to affect more and more reservations, we love them. But when they stick with the t&c's and it hurts us, like what happened following hurricanes in Hilton Head and Florida, in the early COVID days and now what's happening in these early days of Maui fire cancellations, we're thinking they're the devil - and someone is bound to start a rally cry for a class action suit. I guess it's human nature but honestly I just want to know that what they're doing is contractually allowed - whether it hurts me (as the HHI hurricanes did) or helps me (with 6 or 7 COVID Maui cancellations that I was able to eventually rebook the affected points during the extended usage period.)
