Marriott DC Program- Trust Inventory

[mjm1]

We attended a presentation at NCV today and the rep told us that Mr Marriott owned 20% of each of the properties, and that he put all of his weeks into the Trust Inventory to start the program. I challenged her on that as I understand that Marriott started the DC program by putting all of it's unsold inventory at that time into the DC Land Trust to start the program. Has anyone heard anything similar to what we were told?

She used this as a basis for buying DC Trust Points to access availability that they have at each resort in the system. She also indicated that there will always be availability whether legacy owners trade their weeks for DC points. I don't believe that is true as I know I couldn't get a week at Heritage Club for next April using points and we were very high, if not #1, on the waiting list for that resort. She even checked the system at my request and confirmed that nothing was available there.

The minimum purchase is 1000 points again, which hasn't always been the case. They have a special incentive available only at NCV, Myrtle Beach and one of the Florida properties is for a 3500 point package. It provides a price point of $9.70, which she said is a 15% discount, and 275k MRPs. They are trying this out to see if it is successful. If so, they may offer it at other resorts as well.

Otherwise, nothing new to report. Very nice rep and we enjoyed talking with her.

Cheers.

 

[FractionalTraveler]

We attended a presentation at NCV today and the rep told us that Mr Marriott owned 20% of each of the properties, and that he put all of his weeks into the Trust Inventory to start the program. I challenged her on that as I understand that Marriott started the DC program by putting all of it's unsold inventory at that time into the DC Land Trust to start the program. Has anyone heard anything similar to what we were told?

She used this as a basis for buying DC Trust Points to access availability that they have at each resort in the system. She also indicated that there will always be availability whether legacy owners trade their weeks for DC points. I don't believe that is true as I know I couldn't get a week at Heritage Club for next April using points and we were very high, if not #1, on the waiting list for that resort. She even checked the system at my request and confirmed that nothing was available there.

The minimum purchase is 1000 points again, which hasn't always been the case. They have a special incentive available only at NCV, Myrtle Beach and one of the Florida properties is for a 3500 point package. It provides a price point of $9.70, which she said is a 15% discount, and 275k MRPs. They are trying this out to see if it is successful. If so, they may offer it at other resorts as well.

Otherwise, nothing new to report. Very nice rep and we enjoyed talking with her.

Cheers.

No, I have not heard of the 20% ownership before but its not accurate anyways so I would just consider it a sales person's small talk.

In theory the availability comment is accurate. If we look at what is in the Trust inventory today, its pretty much most of MVCI's portfolio so the coverage is very representative.

According to this thread, Heritage Club has the least amount of units in the Trust so getting access with DC points may in fact be difficult.

http://tugbbs.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1377112&postcount=191

 

[SueDonJ]

We attended a presentation at NCV today and the rep told us that Mr Marriott owned 20% of each of the properties, and that he put all of his weeks into the Trust Inventory to start the program. I challenged her on that as I understand that Marriott started the DC program by putting all of it's unsold inventory at that time into the DC Land Trust to start the program. Has anyone heard anything similar to what we were told? ...

I don't believe either statement is true. 20% of the total is a LOT of Weeks for Mr. Marriott to own! At some of the newer resorts it's possible that Marriott as developer was holding 20%+ unsold when the DC was introduced, but outright ownership of that much by the Marriott family doesn't sound right at all.

The post that FT linked here is from the ongoing Recorded Trust Documents thread that TUGger dioxide45 is maintaining. Based on the ongoing conveyances to the Trust, I think it's safe to say that the original seeding of inventory from only 11 resorts didn't represent the total that were unsold at the time.

 

[GregT]

All,

I have a different interpretation of this statement about 20% ownership, and one that may be true.

I believe that the Trust may have a goal to own up to 20% of a specific property (by week, not total property), but not more than that because I don't think Marriott wants to remove too much accessibility from the existing legacy ownership. This goal would be accomplished over time (because it clearly doesn't own 20% today).

As an example, I tend to monitor the Marriott Maui Ocean Club, Lahaina/Napili Villas reasonably carefully, both from a resale pricing perspective as well as what is deposited in the Trust.

Accordingly, I looked at what has been deposited into the Trust for the MOC weeks most interesting to me -- Weeks 25, 26 and 27, and knowing that there are 45 floating OF units for each week at MOC -- Lahaina/Napili (45 excludes the fixed units).

Looking at the week in the deed, we note the following:

9 out of 45 OF floating units are in the Trust for Week 25
6 out of 45 OF floating units are in the Trust for Week 26
6 out of 45 OF floating units are in the Trust for Week 27

Maybe this is a random occurrence, but I also looked at other summer weeks in the Trust, and never found a single instance where the Trust had more than 9 of any particular floating week. I find that interesting.

I believe this may be important if, for reservations purposes, Marriott is "peeling off" the weeks that are in the Trust from the pool available to legacy week owners when they call to make reservations at 12 or 13 months out. If they are doing this (unproven), then they likely need to limit the number of weeks they've peeled off so that legacy week owners can still get reservations. If this is true, then up to 9 units of the 45 are available to Trust Point owners, and the other 36+ units are available to legacy week owners. I think this would be a very fair way to do it, if this is Marriotts approach.

I'll keep monitoring to see if additional Week 25/26/27 get added to the Trust (and exceed the 9 unit max that I currently see) -- and again, this is just a theory.

But it may be true that Marriott's goal is to have up to 20% of each week at each property present in the Trust.

All the best,

Greg

Edited: I've corrected the numbers above to remove Fixed Weeks, originally the numbers included fixed weeks for 25/26/27 as well. Thanks!

 

[FractionalTraveler]

Greg,

I hope you are correct! That means that Hybrid owners who have access to both buckets have the best chance of getting what they are looking for.

Best,

FT

 

[mjm1]

Greg, you present a very interesting scenario. It makes sense that Marriott would want to have some basic amount of inventory at each resort in the trust. 20% seems like a reasonable level as well. Without it, trust owners wouldn't be able to travel to each of the resorts as Marriott says they can.

FT, I agree that hybrid owners would be in their sweet spot if this is true.

I believe I read in the Hybrid Points discussion that a legacy owner can simply rent trust points from the trust owner rather than buying points, thereby avoiding the up front cost and long term commitment. Is that true? You don't need to own trust points to have rented trust points in your portfolio?

We have actually considered buying a small package of points to be hybrid owners, but as Greg has pointed out before, the cost is very high for what you get.

 

[swaits]

I hope you are correct! That means that Hybrid owners who have access to both buckets have the best chance of getting what they are looking for.

At some point we could do a little experiment, if we could get three different owner types to cooperate. We'd need a points only owner, a weeks only owner with elected weeks, and a hybrid owner.

Have each of them look at specific reservations to see what is visible to the different owner types.

I'm a hybrid owner. I was surprised I could book a 3BR OF at Kauai Lagoons this morning. Now, it's 12 months out, but I was still surprised. That place does not have many OF units. We were there last week and really enjoyed it!

 

[wvacations]

I can see availability of 2 and 3 bedroom Kauai Lagoons IV/OV/OF for most of next October using only Legacy Points.

 

[FractionalTraveler]

At some point we could do a little experiment, if we could get three different owner types to cooperate. We'd need a points only owner, a weeks only owner with elected weeks, and a hybrid owner.

Have each of them look at specific reservations to see what is visible to the different owner types.

I'm a hybrid owner. I was surprised I could book a 3BR OF at Kauai Lagoons this morning. Now, it's 12 months out, but I was still surprised. That place does not have many OF units. We were there last week and really enjoyed it!

I'm in for the experiment but I'm a hybrid points owner as well. I am happy to assist. A while back I worked with GregT on a Trust points experiment. He can better speak to the results.

 

[GregT]

All,

Note that I went back to my spreadsheet to check the numbers (previously posted), and I'd included fixed weeks in the numbers posted. I've now corrected the previous post to reflect only the Floating Weeks.

With respect to the experiment with FT, I did a thread search and looked for the results, but couldn't find it. My recollection (and FT, tell me if you recall differently) was that there were specific dates that he was able to see availability for, that I was not.

We knew the inventory existed in the Trust, because they were fixed week 2BR OF at MOC L/N. But I could not see them as available, but he could. This was 12-13 months away from check-in, and we were conducting this I believe in August???

I've done similar "Sightings", where I've known a 3BR fixed week exists in the Trust, and I look for it 13 months out. I did this for August and September fixed weeks at MOC L/N. They finally appeared available to me (using Legacy Points) at approx 11 months out, so this suggests that Marriott waited 2 months for a Trust Points owner to book it, before finally removing the "preference period" and making it available to legacy points owner.

Interesting stuff...also more data on the number of 2BR OF Floating weeks in the Trust -- for the highest demand weeks:

Week..... # of Floats in Trust
7............ 8
24.......... 7
25.......... 9
26.......... 6
27.......... 6
28.......... 7
29.......... 8
30.......... 7
31.......... 9
32.......... 9
33.......... 8
34.......... 7

There are no Week 51 or 52 Floats in the Trust, as all are Fixed Weeks. Thanks!

Best,

Greg

 

[swaits]

I can see availability of 2 and 3 bedroom Kauai Lagoons IV/OV/OF for most of next October using only Legacy Points.

I can see availability for "some" (not most) of next October as a Hybrid owner.

 

[GregT]

I can see availability for "some" (not most) of next October as a Hybrid owner.

I'm not sure if Kauai Lagoons is the best test subject because 13 months out from now is still shoulder season. I think the key for these experiments is to look for a very high demand week that sits in the Trust.

I could see Kauai Lagoons availabilty online for November 2013 13 months out when I did a space check for another TUGger. So Marriott loaded that Trust inventory online without a preference period for Trust point owners.

Perhaps we can do a Sighting experiment with Timber Lodge, or one of the ski weeks coming up?

Best,

Greg

 

[GregT]

All,

Here is the thread where FT and I did a Sightings test for Sept 2013 space at MOC. I know there were others but this one was most recent. Thanks

http://tugbbs.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1355260&postcount=24

 

[swaits]

I'm up for helping with a sightings experiment as a hybrid owner. Just let me know when to do it and what to look for. I will be fairly busy this weekend, so coordination may be difficult. Maybe Monday?