Marriott Abound

[dioxide45]

Yes, but don't they have a set of requirements such as two units at the same resort, Have a certain ownership level, etc., etc.

13 month bookings is based on ownership level in Abound. It will be the same for VSN or MVC owners. Not all VSN owners will have 13 month booking in Abound either.

 

[DavidnRobin]

Saw this on Facebook (shocked, it's rare anything useful appears on FB, especially before TUG). Was also just shared on the Marriott boards but haven't seen it here yet so:
View attachment 58342

Seems to confirm some important speculation points: Most VSN inventory won't be available to Abound unless elected for points. 12 month availability (not 13 but not 8).

Much wording has hinted they won't hit July 1 but at least they're saying August in official communications and not just "end of summer" "third quarter" "soon" or other vague/later timeframes. With potential for continued communication before then now that we're seeing actual information, however minor, from corporate.

I see this as fairly positive and in line with expectations/hopes/speculation so far.

I saw this on FB as well. Not sure why Chris didn’t post here.

This whole scare of booking at 13 months at VSN resorts is a red herring (object is sell more based on misinformation).
They can’t book what they don’t own, and not more than what they own. They only book what they own or turned in by Owners, but Owners can’t turn in before 12 months.

The real risk is what happens at 8 months.


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[remowidget]

13 month bookings is based on ownership level in Abound. It will be the same for VSN or MVC owners. Not all VSN owners will have 13 month booking in Abound either.

According to the Marriott benefits at a glance pdf, all Destination point owners can book at 13 months.

https://www.marriottvacationsworldwide.com/common/cms/mvc/pdfs/owners/Owner-Benefit-Level.pdf

 

[CalGalTraveler]

DP can book starting at 13 months but perhaps is it like II trading inventory that may not be dropped into the system until later?

 

[Red elephant]

Am I the only one to see this 12 month reservation window as a red flag and an intrusion on our rights as deeded owners for access to our home deeds? First it was Flex, but Flex was small and did not include high-demand WKORV and WKORVN oceanfronts. Flex 12 month was a slippery slope however Flex owned a few deeds in the trust and limited to those weeks.

Abound appears to include OF weeks that owners enroll and trade and bring on the MVC owners en mass. However, the difference is that the weeks go into separate inventory that deeded owners cannot access and have no control over the allocation of that inventory. So if there is an extra July 4 or whale week in Abound inventory, deeded owners cannot access that extra week but traders who do not own at this property and pay a fraction of the expensive maintenance fees can get access over owners to this week at 12 months. This is wrong.

Remember, these properties are not owned by DP but traded by deeded owners. Enrolled owner associated weeks should be in the 8 month window like all other traders and available to all deeded owners at 12 months before Abound traders can have access to the week.

For reference, HGVC does not run their program this way. (And as you know, SVN didn't historically before FLEX.) A home week is a home week. Owners get between 12 - 9 months to book. Only when the home week is not booked can others trade into the deeded resort. Same goes for the owners if they trade to other resorts or want a different unit in the same resort, they must wait until 9 months. They are very careful that weeks deposited into RCI are not the best rooms and not the best weeks to avoid lawsuits from owners.

I would like to someone who is legally-minded to review the resort by-laws to understand how traders who do not own can get access to owner priority weeks. Abound 12 month trading may be in violation of the by-laws if there is not an underlying deed owner attached to that 12 month reservation.

I am so confused. Trying to follow this discussion. If you enroll your week in Abound then it is available at 13 months to be booked with Abound points. How does that infringe on week deeded rights?
The only thing I see happening is that 8 month staroptions booking will be reduced. But most high demand resorts are not available that much anyway because their owners use it or rent it out.

 

[Red elephant]

I saw this on FB as well. Not sure why Chris didn’t post here.

This whole scare of booking at 13 months at VSN resorts is a red herring (object is sell more based on misinformation).
They can’t book what they don’t own, and not more than what they own. They only book what they own or turned in by Owners, but Owners can’t turn in before 12 months.

The real risk is what happens at 8 months.


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This is what I thought too.

 

[Red elephant]

DP can book starting at 13 months but perhaps is it like II trading inventory that may not be dropped into the system until later?

Yeah but they can only book what is available in Abound. An owner from Vistana has to enroll their week in Abound to make that available or else only unsold , ROFR units will be in there at 13 months.

 

[Red elephant]

13 month bookings is based on ownership level in Abound. It will be the same for VSN or MVC owners. Not all VSN owners will have 13 month booking in Abound either.

I believe if you enroll your week you can book at 13 months for 7 days no matter your elite level. Higher levels can book 1-7 days at 13 months .

 

[dioxide45]

I saw this on FB as well. Not sure why Chris didn’t post here.

I think it may have been posted in another group first and then shared in his group? I also think it was posted here on TUG before it was shared by Chris in the FB group.

 

[dioxide45]

I believe if you enroll your week you can book at 13 months for 7 days no matter your elite level. Higher levels can book 1-7 days at 13 months .

You can, but the "Owner" level has to pay a 10% point premium to book 7+ nights at 13 months. Select can book 7+ nights without the premium and Executive and above can book 1+ nights at 13 months.

 

[dioxide45]

This whole scare of booking at 13 months at VSN resorts is a red herring (object is sell more based on misinformation).
They can’t book what they don’t own, and not more than what they own. They only book what they own or turned in by Owners, but Owners can’t turn in before 12 months.

The real risk is what happens at 8 months.

Exactly. And also people need to keep in mind that there will be a disincentive to use Abound Club Points to book certain high demand periods. Being that those high demand periods will have very high point values. Say an OF WKORVN gets 8,300 points, well it might take 10,000 or more to actually book that same OF WKORVN in whale season.

 

[dioxide45]

I am so confused. Trying to follow this discussion. If you enroll your week in Abound then it is available at 13 months to be booked with Abound points. How does that infringe on week deeded rights?
The only thing I see happening is that 8 month staroptions booking will be reduced. But most high demand resorts are not available that much anyway because their owners use it or rent it out.

If you enroll your Vistana week in Abound and elect Club Points, then it will be available to other Abound members to make reservations at 12 months (not 13).

 

[timsi]

Am I the only one to see this 12 month reservation window as a red flag and an intrusion on our rights as deeded owners for access to our home deeds? First it was Flex, but Flex was small and did not include high-demand WKORV and WKORVN oceanfronts. Flex 12 month was a slippery slope however Flex owned a few deeds in the trust and limited to those weeks.

Abound appears to include OF weeks that owners enroll and trade and bring on the MVC owners en mass. However, the difference is that the weeks go into separate inventory that deeded owners cannot access and have no control over the allocation of that inventory. So if there is an extra July 4 or whale week in Abound inventory, deeded owners cannot access that extra week but traders who do not own at this property and pay a fraction of the expensive maintenance fees can get access over owners to this week at 12 months. This is wrong.

Remember, these properties are not owned by DP but traded by deeded owners. Enrolled owner associated weeks should be in the 8 month window like all other traders and available to all deeded owners at 12 months before Abound traders can have access to the week.

For reference, HGVC does not run their program this way. (And as you know, SVN didn't historically before FLEX.) A home week is a home week. Owners get between 12 - 9 months to book. Only when the home week is not booked can others trade into the deeded resort. Same goes for the owners if they trade to other resorts or want a different unit in the same resort, they must wait until 9 months. They are very careful that weeks deposited into RCI are not the best rooms and not the best weeks to avoid lawsuits from owners.

I would like to someone who is legally-minded to review the resort by-laws to understand how traders who do not own can get access to owner priority weeks. Abound 12 month trading may be in violation of the by-laws if there is not an underlying deed owner attached to that 12 month reservation.

You are 100% correct, any unit available at 12 months in any exchange system (internal or external) would infringe the rights of the owners at that resort who are supposed to have exclusive rights to compete for any unit at that resort for four full months. Additionally, it creates a competitive disadvantage for VSN so basically all Vistana owners will be affected if Marriott decides to break that rule.

 

[remowidget]

You are 100% correct, any unit available at 12 months in any exchange system (internal or external) would infringe the rights of the owners at that resort who are supposed to have exclusive rights to compete for any unit at that resort for four full months. Additionally, it creates a competitive disadvantage for VSN so basically all Vistana owners will be affected if Marriott decides to break that rule.

Owners only have exclusive rights for booking units in their pool of ownership, not all nights in the resort.

 

[dioxide45]

Owners only have exclusive rights for booking units in their pool of ownership, not all nights in the resort.

Exactly. People may opt to convert to Bonvoy points ahead of the use year or even for Vistana owned inventory. Vistana has just as much right to book those weeks they control inside the 21-8 month window.

 

[CalGalTraveler]

The problem is you cannot suddenly devise a new program to artificially limit the ownership pool when prime weeks and views are available via Abound to non-deeded owners during the Owner window. Yes, a week should be made available in Abound if that is what the enrolled owner wants to do - but why not available at 8 months after deeded owners have made their selections? This is how SVN and HGVC operate.

Otherwise what else can they cook up to limit and devalue the deeded owner pool? MVC is also infringing on the ownership access pool when Abound creates lock-offs and mid-week breakage. It is one thing when Flex was small. But what about the masses of MVC in Abound trades? When do deeded rights prevail?

And where is creating a trading system for non-owner priority at 12 months allowed for in the CC&Rs?

 

[JIMinNC]

Exactly. And also people need to keep in mind that there will be a disincentive to use Abound Club Points to book certain high demand periods. Being that those high demand periods will have very high point values. Say an OF WKORVN gets 8,300 points, well it might take 10,000 or more to actually book that same OF WKORVN in whale season.

I don't see where the skim is a disincentive to use Abound, if you want to go to a resort in Abound instead of your home resort. How does the theoretical 1,700 point skim used in your example have significant impact on whether the owner of the example OF WKORVN chooses to elect that week for Abound ClubPoints? If that owner wants to go to WKORVN, wouldn't they just opt to use their owned week? Wouldn't the only scenario that Abound point value is relevant be when that owner wanted to go somewhere other than WKORVN? In that case, the 10,000 cost of booking WKORVN is irrelevant to them, but what is relevant is the 8,300 ClubPoints they get to book elsewhere in the system. If the 8300 points they get allows them to go where they want to go (let's say Aruba), then that should be the only incentive they would seem to need. In fact, those high value weeks might come close to getting two weeks in Hilton Head in the spring or fall, so that becomes another incentive for owners of high value weeks to elect.

It's exactly like when we make the decision on what to do with our enrolled Waiohai and Maui Ocean Club weeks. We would only elect those for Points if we didn't want to go there in a given use year or maybe if we wanted to elect for points in order to book a 1BR in Lahaina/Napili towers in lieu of our 2BR in the original towers.

 

[timsi]

Owners only have exclusive rights for booking units in their pool of ownership, not all nights in the resort.

Your interpretation would also mean that we can start trading in VSN at 12 months, in the end both Abound and VSN are exchange platforms.

This is not how I read the governing documents : " Home Resort Float Period means the period during which all Network Members owning VOIs at a particular Home
Resort have the exclusive right to compete to reserve the use of Vacation Periods within their Season and Unit type at their Home Resort"

 

[DavidnRobin]

I think it may have been posted in another group first and then shared in his group? I also think it was posted here on TUG before it was shared by Chris in the FB group.

Must have missed it.

The amount of misinformation and lack of ownership knowledge on FB is amazing.

On the topic of usage as a WKORV owner (as a Majority of resort reservation desirability) - let’s put it this way…
Usage of a deeded week usage of my WKORV VOI during the HomeResort period is legally mine and must be made available to me during weeks 1-50.
If not, due to nefarious usage by Marriott, then they open the open themselves to a simple Legal action (which I believe they will not) and transparency in inventory. A simple look at reservations made at WKORV/N OF (n=12 and n=24 and n=158?) would make it easily transparent - especially since OF was not part of Flex.

So it is only those VOIs owned by them (outright and converted to DC), and the OF Owners that exchanged to SOs or the for proposed annual DC conversion - the rest of the weeks are owned by the Owners. I suspect these exchanges are more likely for WKORVN OF than the south resort.

If I make attempts to reserve our WKORV OFD and nothing is available for making off season reservations (like we do) - then expect *bleep* to hit the fan. Starting here and by me.

But, I do not expect this - why would they risk it? They certainly can use the migration as a reason and make satisfactory arrangements, but post-migration? I do not think so - as a exposed (equity and bonds) corporation they risk too much.

Will they take it to a border that benefits them? (Like reserving the premier weeks). No doubt.

This is why I expect very little 13 month trading into WKORV/N OFs.
IMO


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[timsi]

This is why I expect very little 13 month trading into WKORV/N OFs.


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I thought they made it clear, only 12 months reservations in Abound at the Vistana resorts.

 

[CalGalTraveler]

Usage of a deeded week usage of my WKORV VOI during the HomeResort period is legally mine and must be made available to me during weeks 1-50.
If not, due to nefarious usage by Marriott, then they open the open themselves to a simple Legal action (which I believe they will not) and transparency in inventory. A simple look at reservations made at WKORV/N OF (n=12 and n=24 and n=158?) would make it easily transparent - especially since OF was not part of Flex.

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Well said! We many not know if Marriott is nefarious but we do know these are artificial boundaries set after the fact by a profit loving business. If we let them get away with this, what else will they concoct to limit our rightful ownership?

 

[CalGalTraveler]

I thought they made it clear, only 12 months reservations in Abound at the Vistana resorts.

12 months is still problematic if Abound exchange system makes enrolled-owner trades available to non-owners at 12 months competing with deeded owners and limiting the 1 - 50 owner pool. Should be 8 months on par with VSN with the leftovers after owners have made their selection. See my prior posts.

 

[timsi]

If I make attempts to reserve our WKORV OFD and nothing is available for making off season reservations (like we do) - then expect *bleep* to hit the fan. Starting here and by me.

The problem is that it is hard to assess if they bend the rules in a smart way. No units available at midnight? Yes, easy to catch but that sounds like an amateur move. But what if they only make available fewer (or a lot fewer) units of a particular week? You will never know.

 

[timsi]

12 months is still problematic if Abound makes enrolled-owner trades available to non-owners at 12 months competing with deeded owners and limiting the 1 - 50 owner pool. Should be 8 months on par with VSN. See my prior posts.

I agree with you, I was just referring to that part of the comment, I though we had already clarified through official sources that there would be no Vistana reservation in Abound at 13 months.

 

[dioxide45]

12 months is still problematic if Abound exchange system makes enrolled-owner trades available to non-owners at 12 months competing with deeded owners and limiting the 1 - 50 owner pool. Should be 8 months on par with VSN with the leftovers after owners have made their selection. See my prior posts.

But doing this would then technically give Vistana deeded weeks owner a significant advantage. As an example, right now you have 100 owners competing for 100 reservations. Have 25 of those owners elect Club Points and you now have 75 owner completing for 100 reservations.