The only place I have had issues booking is Hilton Head. We always book at 9 months. Now, I’ve tried to book a ski weekend or a SW Florida affiliate. I have booked Elara at 6-7 months, though.
Given that MVW has now replaced their CEO and their #2 guy suddenly decided to retire the next day, it sure seems like whatever is going on is more than a single quarter aberration.
They pivoted from a reasonably wholesome TS product that had been successful for years, because they only had trash inventory left that no one wanted to buy at their exorbitant rates (and excruciatingly high MF equal to platinum inventory), to a smoke and mirrors fake overlay points system.
I know nothing in detail about those systems and whether they followed the same path. MVC's trajectory with this fake points overlay has been discussed since its introduction in 2010.
I think it's more about what MVC isn't doing that HGVC and others are. MVC decided to really forget about the "lower income" customers and decided to focus on the premium market. They really don't have an entry-level product anymore, unlike HGVC and others. Listen to the conference call and you'll hear the disdain the (now former) CEO has for the lower-income customers at the two Sheraton properties in Orlando.
Plus the Marriotts and Sheratons in Orlando simply aren’t that exclusive like some of the other MVC properties. All of them can be rented on 3rd party sites between $100-200 a night. The sell of an Orlando timeshare isn’t that great with so much cheap inventory.
MVC doesn't have as large a footprint in Vegas - that is pretty much HGVC territory.
When they (supposedly) stopped selling Flex, I wondered about the mechanics of that. I'm not sure it's possible for them to put Westin or Sheraton Flex into the Abound trust – it's a real estate trust and I don't think it can hold fractional interests in another trust, but I could be wrong. I think they'd have to get the underlying weeks out of the Flex trust first – and I'm not sure if they can do that. They've sold interests in those trusts and I doubt they're allowed to remove weeks once they've gone into one of the trusts. So when they stopped selling Flex, what did they do with all of that inventory?
Marriott has been putting Westin and Sheraton deeded weeks into the Abound trust. They still convey Vistana Beach Club to Sheraton Flex and I think they still have lots of unsold Sheraton Flex and the re-acquisition rate on Sheraton Flex is also very high due to foreclosures. They still sell Sheraton Flex in Orlando and Myrtle Beach. I don't know if they sell it at the other Sheraton properties. I think Westin Flex has mostly stopped being sold. Though if you ask for it I suspect they have something they can sell. They just don't push it anymore.
I'm a little surprised they are still adding to Sheraton Flex, even with low quality VBC weeks. I'd think they'd put those into Abound as a cheap source of new inventory. Maybe they see Sheraton Flex as something akin to an entry level product they can sell in Florida, as they are apparently doing. It's more downmarket than Abound, maybe.
We don't see the specifics, so don't know. They have the network operator role across all their exchanges and the right to forecast demand and then add inventory to where they feel it needs to go. That also means that they can shuffle inventory around as actual demand changes from the forecast and to meet their financial objectives. Whether this extends to taking inventory that is in one of the Trusts and moving it elsewhere is not clear, I suspect they have access to enough inventory not to have to go to that.
I couldn't agree more.
otoh, there is no "hiding" here. Hide from whom? Those are 2 different things. THey are easily parsed. They are valued by different types of investors. The dynamic of "raise MF" being good for mgmt profit but bad for new sales is prob over the heads of some of these Wall St analysts. But you know "Sell-Side" analysts are too busy selling to focus on getting much right. I read the transcript. The analyst basically said "All of us have never heard of Redweek." How's that for ignoring publicly-avail info!
I just don't know if they openly offer it to new buyers. It seems new buyers are pushed Abound Trust Points unless they are at a Sheraton sales center that still sells Sheraton Flex.
As far as I know the only Vistana Beach Club weeks going to the Sheraton Flex trust is stuff they take back via deed back and the odd maintenance fee foreclosure. It isn't a long term plan for the Sheraton Flex trust. I think they just want to avoid unbranded properties in the Abound trust. I think much of the unsold Sheraton Flex inventory is from the Sheraton Kauai Resort conveyance.
I think the mechanics would have to be that they remove the week from the relevant Flex trust and then convey into Abound trust.
We were offered WFlex at Nanea this summer. It was part of their first pitch. I imagine if we didn’t already own Flex that this would have been brought up.
Completely agree with you on the removal aspects.
If I read that correctly, it essentially says that they can remove deeds from the trust if ⅔ of the "voting interests" agree to do so. But since MVC controls all the votes, I think, maybe that is a given. But it sounds like they'd also need court approval, so this is not something that would happen routinely.
In all the MANY owner updates I've attended, they've never offered to take back my Westin Flex in order to sell me Abound points. They've offered to take back every single one of my deeded weeks. That tells me that they really don't want Flex inventory – there's probably nothing they can do with it other than sell it as Flex. They DO want deeded weeks, because that's where the real value exists.
