Points shuffling

[tahoe]

Hi all,

I currently have 2 weeks booked with points in Hawaii this summer.

- 1 week booked with mostly 2020 banked points in KBC
- 1 week booked with a mix of 2021 and borrowed 2022 points for Waiohai

All points on non-restricted (i.e. not holding and not the 120 day COVID limit)

I'm reasonably sure at this point that I want to cancel the KBC week, and would like to move the 2020 banked points that expire this year over to Waiohai. Has anyone shuffled points around like this before? I just got off the phone with MVC and they said it can't be done. I would need to cancel both reservations, and then rebook Waiohai. I'm hesitant to try this as I'm sure reservation will be released to someone on a waitlist as soon as it is freed up.

Any suggestions?

Thank you

 

[Fasttr]

Call again. A supervisor can do it for you

 

[tahoe]

Thanks for the advice! I called back and the 2nd customer rep was able to do it without a supervisor, so I'm a little miffed with the first customer rep. But still pretty happy right now I don't have expiring points this year.

BTW, I did cancel the KBC reservation. If anyone is interested, there's a 1 bedroom ocean front available for at least a week starting 7/3. It's still there as of ~6:50am PST 3/2/21.

 

[GregT]

I'm glad this worked out for you -- I like that Marriott will allow you to shuffle points to minimize waste. HGVC doesn't do that (at least that I am aware) and you are stuck with the points that were used when you made the reservation. Conversely, Worldmark does it automatically so you don't even need to request it. But all things considered, its good that Marriott does this.

Best,

Greg

 

[SueDonJ]

I'm glad this worked out for you -- I like that Marriott will allow you to shuffle points to minimize waste. HGVC doesn't do that (at least that I am aware) and you are stuck with the points that were used when you made the reservation. Conversely, Worldmark does it automatically so you don't even need to request it. But all things considered, its good that Marriott does this.

Best,

Greg

Except officially Marriott doesn't do this, or at least they're not supposed to do this. It's another rule that some reps can be talked out of enforcing. Early in December in another thread I posted that there appears to be a recent emphasis among MVC staff:

>>The way the first rep explained it to you is the way that it's supposed to officially work, i.e. the second reservation gets booked with existing available DC Points and the first gets canceled after with those points going into a Holding Account. In the past I've had some luck with getting them to do whatever manual transactions they can do during the same call so that points are manipulated the way you're asking, but far more often they've followed official policy.

Over the years only twice was I able to get them to manipulate the points when the same interval wasn't available within the 60 days, admitting to them that I knew the rules but called in to take a chance anyway. But I called in last week to try with another and the spiel they gave me sounded much more scripted, much more strict, as if they'd recently gotten some new direction to be on high alert for owners asking for manual points manipulations, so of course I tried twice more. Both the second and third calls followed the exact same script.

I'm guessing that with so many COVID-impacted reservations resulting in an unprecedented number of Holding Account points that don't expire until 12/31/21 across so many more ownerships, somebody anticipated that requests like this - following both the official policy in the first paragraph and the infrequent lucky situations in the second - would multiply as well so they're already on top of it. And as the frequency with which they get these calls makes these requests more familiar to more phone reps, unluckily for us it's going to eventually be second nature to them to know off the tops of their heads that they need to stick with the script.<<

 

[tahoe]

Grateful for all the feedback here. One potential difference between my situation and what Susan described is that I was not dealing with points in a holding account. I was trying swap in banked points from 2020. I hope this is not explicitly banned by Marriott.

 

[Fasttr]

Grateful for all the feedback here. One potential difference between my situation and what Susan described is that I was not dealing with points in a holding account. I was trying swap in banked points from 2020. I hope this is not explicitly banned by Marriott.

Agree. Trying to stuff in Holding points inside the holding window is gaming the system and has always been prohibited. You were not doing that and were merely swapping points between ressies where any of the points could have been used to secure them in the first place.

 

[SueDonJ]

Grateful for all the feedback here. One potential difference between my situation and what Susan described is that I was not dealing with points in a holding account. I was trying swap in banked points from 2020. I hope this is not explicitly banned by Marriott.

Agree. Trying to stuff in Holding points inside the holding window is gaming the system and has always been prohibited. You were not doing that and were merely swapping points between ressies where any of the points could have been used to secure them in the first place.

Sorry for the confusion; I should have included the link to the thread Puck Trick ... to not cause it. That OP wasn't trying to manipulate points that came out of a Holding Account, just trying to rebook an existing reservation within 60 days to get the points discount (which would result in the returned points going into a Holding Account.)

As I understand it Owner Services reps are not supposed to routinely manipulate reservations behind-the-scenes in any way that we're not able to do in our own accounts, when there isn't availability at the time of the manipulation and/or if by doing so the expiration date of the points swapped out would be extended. In this case I'm assuming the desired Waiohai interval isn't still available, and, moving the banked 2020 points from the cancelled KBC reservation would result in extended life for the 2021 points swapped out of the Waiohai reservation.

I know there are quite a few things that Owner Services does contrary to what the official rules say they should be doing, and I'm not so strict as to say they should never. I mean, in my own post I admitted that I try the tricks that everybody else tries! It's just that I think we should be clear when we're suggesting something that's not guaranteed but is granted through the kindness of telephone reps, compared to something that we have the absolute right to demand. I'm glad it worked for you this time, Tahoe, glad whenever somebody gets OS to help. But I'm repeating my caution about this year changing the expectations, because with so many COVID Holding Account points floating around this year I think Owner Services is going to be hounded to manipulate a whole lot of points reservations and I expect they're going to lose patience after dealing with many irate owners.

 

[Dean]

Except officially Marriott doesn't do this, or at least they're not supposed to do this. It's another rule that some reps can be talked out of enforcing. Early in December in another thread I posted that there appears to be a recent emphasis among MVC staff:

>>The way the first rep explained it to you is the way that it's supposed to officially work, i.e. the second reservation gets booked with existing available DC Points and the first gets canceled after with those points going into a Holding Account. In the past I've had some luck with getting them to do whatever manual transactions they can do during the same call so that points are manipulated the way you're asking, but far more often they've followed official policy.

Over the years only twice was I able to get them to manipulate the points when the same interval wasn't available within the 60 days, admitting to them that I knew the rules but called in to take a chance anyway. But I called in last week to try with another and the spiel they gave me sounded much more scripted, much more strict, as if they'd recently gotten some new direction to be on high alert for owners asking for manual points manipulations, so of course I tried twice more. Both the second and third calls followed the exact same script.

I'm guessing that with so many COVID-impacted reservations resulting in an unprecedented number of Holding Account points that don't expire until 12/31/21 across so many more ownerships, somebody anticipated that requests like this - following both the official policy in the first paragraph and the infrequent lucky situations in the second - would multiply as well so they're already on top of it. And as the frequency with which they get these calls makes these requests more familiar to more phone reps, unluckily for us it's going to eventually be second nature to them to know off the tops of their heads that they need to stick with the script.<<

While they could change this, I'm not aware of any rule or edict to prevent it at the present time. To reallocate the points it does require a supervisor level but if the desired replacement is available, any rep can do this. That assumes the points are not restricted either as holding account points or as a points premium. What I have noticed with all timeshares, esp points based ones, is that there are rules, interpretation of the rules and sometimes rules that simply get made up by the worker bees.

 

[tahoe]

But I'm repeating my caution about this year changing the expectations, because with so many COVID Holding Account points floating around this year I think Owner Services is going to be hounded to manipulate a whole lot of points reservations and I expect they're going to lose patience after dealing with many irate owners.

Agreed - it's one of the reason I trying to get my reservations figured out before the 120 day window. I'm just assuming I won't be able to book anything this year within 4 months of arrival date.

 

[SueDonJ]

While they could change this, I'm not aware of any rule or edict to prevent it at the present time. To reallocate the points it does require a supervisor level but if the desired replacement is available, any rep can do this. That assumes the points are not restricted either as holding account points or as a points premium. What I have noticed with all timeshares, esp points based ones, is that there are rules, interpretation of the rules and sometimes rules that simply get made up by the worker bees.

I agree, if the "desired replacement is available" and the points aren't restricted then any rep should be able to help, if only to ensure that a hold is put on the replacement while the cancellation is processed. But in this case, we're assuming (I am, anyway) that an exact replacement for the Waiohai week Tahoe wants to keep isn't available. So the rep would have to put a hold on the existing Waiohai res, cancel the existing KBC res, then manipulate the 2021/2022 points out of the Waiohai res and the banked 2020 points into it (resulting in the 2020 banked points being used instead of sitting in the account subject to a 12/31/21 expiration date, and, the 2021 points able to be banked ahead, and possibly, the 2022 borrowed points going back to their original use year. That's a lot of manipulating with an expiration date being avoided and the life of previously-used points being extended.)

I do agree completely with your last sentence, which is why I like to make sure we're clear when talking about the difference between how things are supposed to work and how we can sometimes work loopholes around the rules.

 

[Dean]

I agree, if the "desired replacement is available" and the points aren't restricted then any rep should be able to help, if only to ensure that a hold is put on the replacement while the cancellation is processed. But in this case, we're assuming (I am, anyway) that an exact replacement for the Waiohai week Tahoe wants to keep isn't available. So the rep would have to put a hold on the existing Waiohai res, cancel the existing KBC res, then manipulate the 2021/2022 points out of the Waiohai res and the banked 2020 points into it.

I do agree completely with your last sentence, which is why I like to make sure we're clear when talking about the difference between how things are supposed to work and how we can sometimes work loopholes around the rules.

My main reason for responding to your post above was that as I read it (could have read it wrong), you implied that there was a current rule not to reallocate the points and my understanding is that there is no current such rule. While it's not written, at least not externally, the current rule is to allow reallocation but it has to be done by a supervisor. This is likely restricted for 1 of 2 reasons, either to prevent reallocation where restricted points are involved or to make sure those that are allowed to do so are trained to do it correctly and not lose the reservations.

 

[SueDonJ]

My main reason for responding to your post above was that as I read it (could have read it wrong), you implied that there was a current rule not to reallocate the points and my understanding is that there is no current such rule. While it's not written, at least not externally, the current rule is to allow reallocation but it has to be done by a supervisor. This is likely restricted for 1 of 2 reasons, either to prevent reallocation where restricted points are involved or to make sure those that are allowed to do so are trained to do it correctly and not lose the reservations.

If the replacement is available and the points aren't restricted, it's not actually required that a rep do the points manipulation. I forget which TUGger deserves credit for this but just a few weeks ago I read the post explaining how to do it. Open up your account, click through and put a hold on the desired res while at the same time, call in to have them cancel the existing res. The points should be returned immediately so as soon as they show up back in your account you can book the held reservation.

There isn't a rule, as I understand things, that actually says points manipulations can only be done when the res is available and the points are unrestricted. It is, though, how the process should work if all of the stated rules about cancelling/rebooking and usage of restricted points are followed to a T. For just one example of what is supposed to happen, cancelling results in the interval being returned to the pool and like this OP mentioned, that could result in it being immediately released to fill a Waitlist request. That's why they'll happily help you manipulate points when an interval is currently available, why they can hesitate to help you manipulate when it's not.

 

[Dean]

There isn't a rule, as I understand things, that actually says points manipulations can only be done when the res is available and the points are unrestricted. It is, though, how the process should work if all of the stated rules about cancelling/rebooking and usage of restricted points are followed to a T. For just one example of what is supposed to happen, cancelling results in the interval being returned to the pool and like this OP mentioned, that could result in it being immediately released to fill a Waitlist request. That's why they'll happily help you manipulate points when an interval is currently available, why they can hesitate to help you manipulate when it's not.

To my knowledge there isn't a rule either way but if there is, it's not been published. As for how it should work, I'm not sure I agree with you. I do agree they should follow any rules but I am not aware of anything official that would prevent them from reallocating the points or even that one could interpret that way. If you can point me to something, I'd appreciate it. If you're addressing "fairness", then I can see both sides but would not agree that making every such change a cancelation and rebooking is the clear cut most fair way to address this issue. IMO it's exactly the same philosophical discussion as allowing one to shorten a booked reservation without cancelation and rebooking. In addition, they've done it so much over time and over such a broad number of interactions that it's actually become the rule even if not written. They could certainly come out with a new rule tomorrow that said every change was a cancelation and rebooking as they have complete control over the reservation process within the guidelines of the POS. Just realize that such a rule would almost certainly apply to all changes, not just reallocation.

 

[Fi2]

I’ve got to agree with Fasstr and Dean that reallocation of unrestricted points is allowed.

As a Chairman’s Club owner, I’ve been more and more frequently offered a review of my bookings, to make sure that points have been (re)allocated [vs manipulated!] properly during my many, many pandemic changes this year. Often, wait times for a supervisor or other specialist to perform these changes are long, but I’m always happy to wait, and am truly grateful for this service.