The rumored Points system is doomed to failure if Marriott can't entice the vast vast majority of owners to immediately convert. If they screw around with 2 inventories and slow conversion they are going to repeat the RCI Points introduction debacle.
Like I've said for many years now there is a grown-up at Marriott that will do the right thing and spank the marketing morons for trying to implement a disaster just as the real estate market is imploding.
Marriott only gets one chance at the introduction - do they really want to bet MVCI on a sales gimmick cooked up by marketing morons who wouldn't know a faulty system if it fell on their heads.
P.S.
Hey Marriott I found an even more fair membership fee - make the membership fee based upon the number of Points a unit generates. Say a Gold week generates 1,500 Points per year - make the membership fee $1 per point; they pay $1,500 to join. A Platinum Plus Holiday week generates 4,500 Points per year - they pay $4,500 to join.
Pick a price per point and there isn't any reason you can't make the introduction easier by spreading the membership fee over 3 years.
Holy Cow, I find myself agreeing with you this time.
If Marriott goes the way of some form of trust based internal system and divides the inventory into weeks based ownership and trust based ownership, they're doomed. I'd like to think that current owners are smart enough to retain all the rights, including home resort advantage and voting rights, vs signing them over to Marriott and giving Marriott complete control. It'd be a sweet deal for Marriott but it would harm the owners a great deal. I doubt I'd ever give any considertion to such a plan.
DRI is sort of interesting in that they have trust based ownership, deeded weeks based ownership and a points based reservations system that all owners can participate in whether they own deeded weeks or trust points. Oddly enough, it works rather well. Inventory is plentiful for points based exchanges and weeks based owners don't appear to have issues getting desirable weeks at their home resorts. I can't imagine keeping all that inventory seperated is all that easy for the resorts when owners want to reserve a week.
Marriott would be better served by introducing a points based system that allows owners to keep their deeded weeks and maintain their home resort advantage. That is what I've been under the impression they will do. If I'm wrong, Marriott is looking at potentially one of the largest flops for an internal exchange system timeshare has ever known. It could surpass the debacle that appears to be going on at Starwood.
Fotunately, owners won't have to join any trust based system and, if enough owners avoid it like the plague it will die a quick merciful death. Unfortunately by then Marriott will have issues with those owners that did buy into the system. Especially with new owners who wouldn't know anything different. It could really do a lot of damage to the Marriott brand.
I honestly don't see Marriott making this sort of mistake. I really hope they don't make this mistake. If they do, thank goodness we own weeks we can use. I'll be happy to use our ownership or trade using Interval until such a time Marriott would come to it's senses.
I still think they'll simply offer deeded weeks the option to convert those weeks into points, pay a yearly membership fee, pay a moderate internal exchange fee and keep their deeds. That would be the simplest and smartest thing they could do. Of course, I've seen large corporations make some pretty bone headed mistakes lately thinking the us common folk are to stupid to know what's best for ourselves.
