Point Transfer Receiving Limit - Capped at 20,000 Points Annually [MERGED]

[Steve Fatula]

This is just another way these timeshare companies, make money by forcing you to turn your points in for a crappy valuation, such as cruises...

I don't think anyone forces you to turn in your points for these uses.

 

[bdurstta]

Am I missing something? "Only" transferring 20,000 vacation club points a year? O my!!! I mean, isn't that alot of points? Alot of maintenance fees? How many owners have more than 20K points? (OK...I hope that doesn't make me sound naive).

 

[SueDonJ]

Am I missing something? "Only" transferring 20,000 vacation club points a year? O my!!! I mean, isn't that alot of points? Alot of maintenance fees? How many owners have more than 20K points? (OK...I hope that doesn't make me sound naive).

For someone who has a business renting other owners' points through his/her member account, 20,000 Points isn't very many at all. This would be owners renting/transferring any amount of Points to the broker with the broker paying the owners at the time of the transfer, then the broker doing all the work to search availability, confirm reservations, rent those reservations and get paid by the rentees according to whatever the terms are in his/her rental contracts. Five different owners renting out 4,000 Points each, or ten different owners renting out 2,000 each, with all the points being transferred in to a single broker's account, would make that broker hit the 20,000/year incoming transfers cap in no time. No doubt the bigger players could hit it in a day, a week tops.

This only affects transfers IN to member accounts, not transfers OUT. An owner with a monster points generator like an enrolled Grand Residence fractional who rents out his/her points could easily cause multiple brokers to hit their caps.

 

[Dean]

Out of all the different options which is the most cost effective ?

If you're talking about using points for cash type options, the answer is none of them. Collette may be the least painful compared to using cash and for many of us might reach break even on fees though not for trust points.

How many TUGgers have 20,000 + points? I am just curious. I would consider enrolling my weeks, which are substantial, most were added during the last year. The thing is, our fees are high, so the point cost would be crazy high. So I guess I will leave them as weeks. Shadow Ridge Villages this year has increased a lot, and we own 3 of those. We own a bunch of Willow Ridge in Branson, too. We did buy a small one bedroom at Grand Chateau, which I cannot even book for next year because the website is not working.

What's the deal with the website lately? The Marriott hotel site is also a disaster. I get error code 400 when I do a hotel search on Maui.

Quite a few I'd think. I'm well over 20K if I turned everything into points though I generally only take points on about 1/3 of my weeks.

I think, with this rule, MVC was simply looking to stop the bleeding/abuse at the highest level. This change is perhaps somewhat of a knee jerk reaction. I suspect they will take some time to look at the issue on a bigger scale and we could very easily see more changes in the future. Given how long it took them to roll out the new Abound changes that are not yet done, I would expect any other changes here to take a looonnnnngggg time.

My guess is they got complaints about lack of availability and reservations for rent online then started looking at the issue. At the current level it'll have little effect other than for an extremely small handful (guess) but look like they're actually doing something. We'll see if they up the ante later. As compared to About though, this is an easy one to put out there as it doesn't necessarily need IT involvement.

 

[SueDonJ]

... My guess is they got complaints about lack of availability and reservations for rent online then started looking at the issue. At the current level it'll have little effect other than for an extremely small handful (guess) but look like they're actually doing something. We'll see if they up the ante later. As compared to About though, this is an easy one to put out there as it doesn't necessarily need IT involvement.

I have no idea how many big players are working a commercial venture involving Abound Points transfers but my guess would be more than a handful - remember how Perry glommed onto the opportunity almost immediately at the DC inception? I'd guess since then that more than a few realized the opportunity.

But I do think you're dead on with the ease of Marriott implementing this restriction. For years, dating back prior to the DC inception, Marriott has been fielding complaints about large-scale rentals of high-demand Weeks found on the internet as well as large singular groups taking over resorts during specific high-demand periods. (One in particular should come to mind for any TUGger who's been here a while.) But those rental transactions involved Weeks Owners being responsible for the reservations and for adding Guest Names to them, and for whatever risk is inherent in guests using owners' timeshares, with a middleman being the contact who kept track of which owners were renting out and which guests were renting in. In contrast the ease of Abound Points transfers result in the Owner completely removing him/herself from the reservation process and ensuring minimal-to-no risk of a rentee reneging on payment or causing damages, both of which are assumed by the middleman/broker who finds/reserves the intervals and processes all the related transactions through his/her own account.

If Marriott had wanted to respond to the complaints over the years about the excessive Weeks rentals that were impacting high-demand intervals, they'd have had to identify the middlemen/brokers, define the vague "commercial activity" prohibition language in the docs, enforce one or more of the rules that are in the docs which Marriott has leeway to not enforce (like the reservation lottery system for high-demand/holiday intervals or the EOY/Every Third Year availability for the high-demand/holiday intervals,) and finally put a number to the intervals which would trigger an account review. And even though Marriott would be protected by related language to each of those steps if they wanted to implement the restrictions on an as-needed and not in-every-instance basis, they'd likely elect a uniform policy so as to lessen the risk of having to spend money on fighting legal challenges.

But like you say, with points transfers between owner accounts it's easy. Set a cap, which the docs give Marriott leeway to do by not prohibiting a cap, and BAM! it's done.

I get why this causes concerns about a drip-drip-drip of Marriott working on more Abound restrictions that will impact owner rentals, but I'm okay with waiting for them to be announced before joining in the discussion about why Marriott should be sued for them.

(Last thought - don't even get me started on the brokers out there who convince owners to add their names to their accounts in order to do all the transactions in the owners' accounts that the owners do - I think that's bonkers and way too much of a risk, unless the broker is personally known to the owner long before such an agreement is reached.)

 

[dioxide45]

(Last thought - don't even get me started on the brokers out there who convince owners to add their names to their accounts in order to do all the transactions in the owners' accounts that the owners do - I think that's bonkers and way too much of a risk, unless the broker is personally known to the owner long before such an agreement is reached.)

I do understand what you were conveying here, but to be more clear, I don't think they add their names to their account, but rather just get their login credentials to perform transactions online. Perhaps they also get a sort of POA or authorization to also perform transactions over the phone too?

 

[SueDonJ]

I do understand what you were conveying here, but to be more clear, I don't think they add their names to their account, but rather just get their login credentials to perform transactions online. Perhaps they also get a sort of POA or authorization to also perform transactions over the phone too?

You're right. I was thinking of all the times we've seen questions asking how to add "associate" names to accounts (for other reasons but it would be beneficial to brokers, too) and, didn't somebody mention earlier in the thread that DVC rentals were transacted via associate memberships until DVC banned them? I think so, @bnoble maybe? Anyway, I wouldn't give any stranger access to my account either as an associate or by sharing log-in credentials or by giving telephone authorization. Like I said, bonkers.

 

[rickandcindy23]

No idea how many TUGgers have 20,000 Abound Points.

I'm just here to comment on what I bolded in your quote above. I think you understand this (and you're talking about the cost to purchase enough points to be be able to enroll the Weeks you own that aren't eligible) but it's amazing how many people still think that enrolling a Week means permanently exchanging that Week for Abound Points and/or that enrolling a Week and electing Abound Points for it means that MF's are assessed on the points during that election year. Neither is true. Enrollment only means that the Week can annually be elected for the stipulated amount of Abound Points, and the only change to the annual fees is that the Week Owner will be assessed Abound Club Dues in addition to the Week MF's.

Well, I would have to make a purchase and pay to enroll my weeks. But I think my fees on Willow Ridge and Shadow Ridge are pretty high and not really worthy of making a purchase for that purpose. So far, exchanging works. When it stops working, I will have to attend a timeshare presentation. Rick will go, but quite unwillingly.

 

[SueDonJ]

Well, I would have to make a purchase and pay to enroll my weeks. But I think my fees on Willow Ridge and Shadow Ridge are pretty high and not really worthy of making a purchase for that purpose. So far, exchanging works. When it stops working, I will have to attend a timeshare presentation. Rick will go, but quite unwillingly.

Yeah, I figured you were talking about the direct purchase you'd have to make to be able to take advantage of the sales incentive which would allow you to enroll otherwise ineligible Weeks. I only mentioned how Weeks work after they're enrolled for the benefit of any readers who might still be confused.

 

[davidvel]

I haven't ever seen anything else (other than the SW 13-mos anomaly) that made me assume differently.

But there is the "bucket theory" that many Tuggers have espoused, stating that instead of calling or logging into reserve its owned weeks (like us lowly regular owners must do), the DC Trust somehow auto-allocates a percentage of weeks at each resort based upon its ownership. Even if applied proportionally across the seasons (ie. the same percentage of great, good, and crappy weeks), there is nothing in the governing docs that allows it.

 

[frank808]

For example, some years ago, Disney put restrictions on Associate Members (one mechanism that point managers were using to help facilitate rentals), and also limited transfers to one per year, either in or out, per membership, for the same reason. They will sometimes waive the transfer restriction if the same person owns both accounts. Disney also added explicit language to their governing documents that any owner with more than 20 reservations in a year had to justify why it wasn't commercial.

I have never seen a letter or post from DVC. I have read posts from owners saying the hard limit is 20 reservations. Although have never seen confirmation from DVC but I might have missed it.

Did DVC recently cone out and specify over 20 rentals per year is commercial? Thanks

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[SueDonJ]

But there is the "bucket theory" that many Tuggers have espoused, stating that instead of calling or logging into reserve its owned weeks (like us lowly regular owners must do), the DC Trust somehow auto-allocates a percentage of weeks at each resort based upon its ownership. Even if applied proportionally across the seasons (ie. the same percentage of great, good, and crappy weeks), there is nothing in the governing docs that allows it.

I've always thought that the mental picture of "buckets" is misleading. In my mind it's more a system coded with indicators of how any inventory can be used based on origin and the rights of those requesting its usage. For example, an owner of a Week can choose from a number of options like home resort in-season stay, Bonvoy points exchange if eligible, Abound Points exchange if enrolled, given to Marriott's rental program, etc, and once the owner relinquishes it then it's coded into the system to reflect how it's eligible to be booked/used and by whom. Then the actual usage is determined at the time of request if all the parameters of that usage for that requester are satisfied.

To me it seems most important that the coded inventory controls prevent usage that's in violation of any rules, laws, etc, as opposed to coding allowable usage. So the system that makes the most sense to me is a realtime availability metric with back-end coding that prevents anyone, owner or Marriott, from using an interval unless the request is in conformance with the requester's usage rights and doesn't infringe on anyone else's usage rights. That way by design no specific inventory needs to be pre-selected to be deposited into any "bucket" prior to usage for it being requested. And the reason that real-time activity can happen is because in the background the entire system is constantly running and re-coding the individual intervals as they're relinquished and booked, in such a way that owners and Marriott and whoever else is eligible for usage is automatically prevented from booking intervals to which they're not entitled.

It sounds complicated and I'm definitely not a programmer so I'm probably not using any of the correct lingo to describe it, but I can't imagine it would be difficult for professionals to write the programs/codes with the built-in necessary safeguards to ensure correct inventory control.

 

[davidvel]

I've always thought that the mental picture of "buckets" is misleading. In my mind it's more a system coded with indicators of how any inventory can be used based on origin and the rights of those requesting its usage. For example, an owner of a Week can choose from a number of options like home resort in-season stay, Bonvoy points exchange if eligible, Abound Points exchange if enrolled, given to Marriott's rental program, etc, and once the owner relinquishes it then it's coded into the system to reflect how it's eligible to be booked/used and by whom. Then the actual usage is determined at the time of request if all the parameters of that usage for that requester are satisfied.

To me it seems most important that the coded inventory controls prevent usage that's in violation of any rules, laws, etc, as opposed to coding allowable usage. So the system that makes the most sense to me is a realtime availability metric with back-end coding that prevents anyone, owner or Marriott, from using an interval unless the request is in conformance with the requester's usage rights and doesn't infringe on anyone else's usage rights. That way by design no specific inventory needs to be pre-selected to be deposited into any "bucket" prior to usage for it being requested. And the reason that real-time activity can happen is because in the background the entire system is constantly running and re-coding the individual intervals as they're relinquished and booked, in such a way that owners and Marriott and whoever else is eligible for usage is automatically prevented from booking intervals to which they're not entitled.

It sounds complicated and I'm definitely not a programmer so I'm probably not using any of the correct lingo to describe it, but I can't imagine it would be difficult for professionals to write the programs/codes with the built-in necessary safeguards to ensure correct inventory control.

I'm not questioning whether they can accurately track the inventory they own, just as I can with my ownership. The question is how do they actually reserve their weeks that they own vs. how you or I have to do it? And whatever the answer is, why am I not permitted to do it they way DC does?

 

[Dean]

I have no idea how many big players are working a commercial venture involving Abound Points transfers but my guess would be more than a handful - remember how Perry glommed onto the opportunity almost immediately at the DC inception? I'd guess since then that more than a few realized the opportunity.

But I do think you're dead on with the ease of Marriott implementing this restriction. For years, dating back prior to the DC inception, Marriott has been fielding complaints about large-scale rentals of high-demand Weeks found on the internet as well as large singular groups taking over resorts during specific high-demand periods. (One in particular should come to mind for any TUGger who's been here a while.) But those rental transactions involved Weeks Owners being responsible for the reservations and for adding Guest Names to them, and for whatever risk is inherent in guests using owners' timeshares, with a middleman being the contact who kept track of which owners were renting out and which guests were renting in. In contrast the ease of Abound Points transfers result in the Owner completely removing him/herself from the reservation process and ensuring minimal-to-no risk of a rentee reneging on payment or causing damages, both of which are assumed by the middleman/broker who finds/reserves the intervals and processes all the related transactions through his/her own account.

If Marriott had wanted to respond to the complaints over the years about the excessive Weeks rentals that were impacting high-demand intervals, they'd have had to identify the middlemen/brokers, define the vague "commercial activity" prohibition language in the docs, enforce one or more of the rules that are in the docs which Marriott has leeway to not enforce (like the reservation lottery system for high-demand/holiday intervals or the EOY/Every Third Year availability for the high-demand/holiday intervals,) and finally put a number to the intervals which would trigger an account review. And even though Marriott would be protected by related language to each of those steps if they wanted to implement the restrictions on an as-needed and not in-every-instance basis, they'd likely elect a uniform policy so as to lessen the risk of having to spend money on fighting legal challenges.

But like you say, with points transfers between owner accounts it's easy. Set a cap, which the docs give Marriott leeway to do by not prohibiting a cap, and BAM! it's done.

I get why this causes concerns about a drip-drip-drip of Marriott working on more Abound restrictions that will impact owner rentals, but I'm okay with waiting for them to be announced before joining in the discussion about why Marriott should be sued for them.

(Last thought - don't even get me started on the brokers out there who convince owners to add their names to their accounts in order to do all the transactions in the owners' accounts that the owners do - I think that's bonkers and way too much of a risk, unless the broker is personally known to the owner long before such an agreement is reached.)

I don't think any of us know for sure the number or volume. If we arbitrarily draw the line at those advertising, accessing others account, or owning/transferring 100K points that are renting this volume year on year; I doubt it's more than 50. I don't think they have to have a formal definition to proceed assuming this type of situation but it would be best.

 

[Dean]

Well, I would have to make a purchase and pay to enroll my weeks. But I think my fees on Willow Ridge and Shadow Ridge are pretty high and not really worthy of making a purchase for that purpose. So far, exchanging works. When it stops working, I will have to attend a timeshare presentation. Rick will go, but quite unwillingly.

There are benefits that work with exchanging also (no exchange fees M to M, no II yearly fee if that's all you have, free cancelations and free lock offs) but it might be a high cost for that savings indoor situation.

I have never seen a letter or post from DVC. I have read posts from owners saying the hard limit is 20 reservations. Although have never seen confirmation from DVC but I might have missed it.

Did DVC recently cone out and specify over 20 rentals per year is commercial? Thanks

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I don't have my POS and may not have one new enough but here is info from a reputable site. https://dvcnews.com/index.php/dvc-p...commercial-renting-limitations-amended-to-pos . I've also seen posts of letters members received at the time. There is also a limit of a single person being on no more than 4 accounts as an associate I believe. At the time there were a couple of big time clearly commercial members and a lot of sales followed.

 

[wuv pooh]

I don't think II getaways are a big loss at all. Usually this is excess inventory from owner deposits. Owners paid their MF and II got the deposit for free. Marriott may do last minute deposits of unreserved weeks, but the owner still paid the MF, not Marriott. Neither II nor Marriott is out any money here unless Marriott is depositing their own owned inventory which ends up in Getaway.

True enough. I am probably thinking of the good old days when Marriott actually built resorts and had unsold inventory to bulk deposit I think it does illustrate how many junk weeks there are that there are no trades for and they rent for a fraction of the MF the owner paid.

 

[Dean]

True enough. I am probably thinking of the good old days when Marriott actually built resorts and had unsold inventory to bulk deposit I think it does illustrate how many junk weeks there are that there are no trades for and they rent for a fraction of the MF the owner paid.

This is the nature of seasonal resorts and it's actually worse with Trust points as every buyer tends to think they are getting prime time.

 

[ski_sierra]

My guess is they got complaints about lack of availability and reservations for rent online then started looking at the issue. At the current level it'll have little effect other than for an extremely small handful (guess) but look like they're actually doing something. We'll see if they up the ante later. As compared to About though, this is an easy one to put out there as it doesn't necessarily need IT involvement.

I haven't attended a sales update with Marriott in over 3 years but my plan was to tell them that I can just rent the week I need from Redweek. The purchase will never pay off. I'm sure they got a lot of people making the same objection.

Another reason could be people at owner updates must have pointed out that they can't book the resorts they were shown during their sales presentations. So they don't want to buy more points.

 

[davidvel]

I

I haven't attended a sales update with Marriott in over 3 years but my plan was to tell them that I can just rent the week I need from Redweek. The purchase will never pay off. I'm sure they got a lot of people making the same objection.

Another reason could be people at owner updates must have pointed out that they can't book the resorts they were shown during their sales presentations. So they don't want to buy more points.

I did this at a presentation once. When they talked about what great Hawaii and ski weeks I could get with points (as if they are all just sitting there ready to be reserved), I asked the sales person what I knew she couldn't (and certainly wouldn't) answer: How much will that week cost me each year, over the next 15 years?

Deer in the headlights. I said "If you, the salesperson don't know, how could I justify such a purchase?" She said I was buying memories for my family, and I shouldn't worry so much about the price. I said I wouldn't worry about the price if she didn't. Sales pitch over.

No one should ever consider buying points, resale or otherwise, without doing real world comparison of costs in points of the actual resort/season/view they would want to reserve.

 

[frank808]

There are benefits that work with exchanging also (no exchange fees M to M, no II yearly fee if that's all you have, free cancelations and free lock offs) but it might be a high cost for that savings indoor situation.
I don't have my POS and may not have one new enough but here is info from a reputable site. https://dvcnews.com/index.php/dvc-p...commercial-renting-limitations-amended-to-pos . I've also seen posts of letters members received at the time. There is also a limit of a single person being on no more than 4 accounts as an associate I believe. At the time there were a couple of big time clearly commercial members and a lot of sales followed.

Enrolling my weeks was worth it to me. I prepaid 8 years of exchange and lock off fees. The no cost M to M retrades is the icing on cake.

Thanks for the info about how DVC defines commercial renting. I can not find the addendum in the T&C for VGC, Aulani and VGF that I bought post 2008. I have not seen cancellations being enforced on someone. I do know someone in Florida that has over 25,000 dvc points and they did threaten him. None of his reservations were cancelled but he takes a more low profile approach now. Sort of like how the Chrisleys were caught by IRS because of their flaunting of wealth on TV show.

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[rickandcindy23]

Enrolling my weeks was worth it to me. I prepaid 8 years of exchange and lock off fees. The no cost M to M retrades is the icing on cake.

Thanks for the info about how DVC defines commercial renting. I can not find the addendum in the T&C for VGC, Aulani and VGF that I bought post 2008. I have not seen cancellations being enforced on someone. I do know someone in Florida that has over 25,000 dvc points and they did threaten him. None of his reservations were cancelled but he takes a more low profile approach now. Sort of like how the Chrisleys were caught by IRS because of their flaunting of wealth on TV show.

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I would love to learn about this myself, but I have a mental block or something. I think my brain is too full of Wyndham, Disney, Westin, and other resort systems to even add this to the mix. I don't think I can add a new system without my head exploding.

A few years ago, Emmy was able to help me a bit by explaining what the skim is all about. I kept seeing negative comments about the skim.

I do rent my Disney points, but I usually book reservations that are 50+ points, and we do use quite a few points ourselves. It's not hard to use up the Disney points. We own 500 points. It's the most valuable ownership we have. I love Disney points. I wish I'd bought more when they were $50-60 per point.

I just rented Disney's Riviera for a whopping $21 per point via Redweek. I have listings on go-koala.com as well that have made over $20 per point. Super happy with my ability to rent Disney.

 

[timsi]

I'm not questioning whether they can accurately track the inventory they own, just as I can with my ownership. The question is how do they actually reserve their weeks that they own vs. how you or I have to do it? And whatever the answer is, why am I not permitted to do it they way DC does?

Crickets.

 

[daviator]

Crickets.

I'm not sure what you expect. You are asking questions that nobody here could possibly know the answers to. And I don't know why you would expect the booking rules to be the same for an individual owner as for the developer or operator of the exchange system.

But the implication that MVC is manipulating the rules to disadvantage owners is an unproven allegation. I don't think that you, or anyone else, has presented any real evidence that this is happening, only that it COULD happen.

 

[timsi]

I'm not sure what you expect. You are asking questions that nobody here could possibly know the answers to. And I don't know why you would expect the booking rules to be the same for an individual owner as for the developer or operator of the exchange system.

But the implication that MVC is manipulating the rules to disadvantage owners is an unproven allegation. I don't think that you, or anyone else, has presented any real evidence that this is happening, only that it COULD happen.

In case you did not notice, I was not the one who asked the question this time. If you ask me, I expect the booking rules to be according to the resort and exchange documents. You are right, no party should be disadvantaged: individuals, corporations or trusts.

 

[daviator]

In case you did not notice, I was not the one who asked the question this time. If you ask me, I expect the booking rules to be according to the resort and exchange documents. You are right, no party should be disadvantaged: individuals, corporations or trusts.

I think your expectation is reasonable (and sorry, I indeed didn't notice that you didn't ask the original question.). But the documents give a lot of leeway to the developer, and I think it's realistic to expect them to interpret the language as liberally as they think they can justify. That may not always seem fair, but it's "just business." If they color too far out of the lines, then they are risking a lawsuit or other legal action, one which they might lose. I haven't seen any evidence that MVC has been crossing those lines.