The Future of Weeks ownership

[chkvtzn]

I saw this letter posted on another board. Would love to hear the opinions of others. I think that it is Spot On!



For years, legacy Marriott Vacation Club weeks owners believed we purchased something straightforward: deeded vacation ownership with meaningful reservation rights tied to a season, a view category, and a resort we loved.

Many of us paid premium prices specifically for Platinum season ownership at resorts like Marriott's Ocean Pointe because we understood that demand, scarcity, and owner priority created long-term value. We believed we were buying into a community of owners — not a corporate inventory management system.

But the evolution of the Destinations Club and the Marriott Trust has fundamentally changed the nature of what many of us originally purchased.

Today, Marriott is no longer simply the manager of our resorts. Through the Trust, Marriott has become one of the largest owners of Platinum inventory while simultaneously controlling the reservation systems, points allocations, inventory management, and exchange mechanisms that determine who actually gets access to that inventory.

That creates an obvious conflict of interest.

Every Platinum week Marriott reacquires through ROFR, foreclosure, or surrender and places into the Trust increases Marriott’s corporate control over high-demand inventory. Those weeks no longer belong to independent legacy owners with traditional usage expectations. Instead, they become fuel for the Destinations Points system — a system from which Marriott profits repeatedly through points sales, financing, fees, and inventory flexibility.

Meanwhile, legacy weeks owners increasingly report:

• greater difficulty reserving prime weeks,
• reduced availability,
• diminished exchange value,
• and rising annual maintenance fees.

At what point do owners ask the obvious question: are HOA costs being shifted disproportionately onto remaining weeks owners while an ever-growing percentage of premium inventory is controlled by the Trust?

Transparency is badly lacking.

Why is there no easily accessible owner ledger showing exactly how many Platinum weeks are owned by:

• individual legacy owners,
• the Marriott Trust,
• Marriott-affiliated entities,
• and unsold developer inventory?

Why shouldn’t every owner have the right to know precisely how much of their resort is now effectively under Marriott corporate control?

If the Trust owns a substantial percentage of Platinum inventory, that fact directly affects:

• reservation competition,
• governance influence,
• resale value,
• and the overall character of ownership itself.

Many of us bought weeks — not points. We bought certainty — not algorithmic inventory allocation. We bought into the understanding that owner interests and management interests were aligned.

Today, they increasingly are not.

That is why owners should begin demanding:

1. A full public accounting of Trust-owned inventory at every MVC resort.
2. Annual disclosure of all reacquired weeks and their disposition.
3. Independent audits of reservation allocation practices.
4. Greater owner oversight of HOA governance.
5. A moratorium on additional Platinum week acquisitions into the Trust until full transparency is provided.

This is not opposition to points owners. It is a demand for fairness, transparency, and protection of the ownership expectations upon which legacy weeks purchasers relied when they invested tens of thousands of dollars into Marriott Vacation Club properties.

The fundamental question is simple:

When the corporation becomes both the dominant owner of inventory and the operator controlling access to that inventory, who is truly being protected — the owners, or the system itself?

 

[Hindsite]

This is not an issues because of the points, system, its the same for where weeks are the only inventory. Consider what would have happened, and does happen, at independent resorts, if MVC had not invented the points system. Consider what would be happening if MVC does not take back weeks that owners want to get rid of or abandon.
Both of those scenarios end up with the HoA "owning" the abandoned or given back weeks, and the responsibility for paying the maint fees for those weeks and working out if they can recover some or all of the cost via rentals. Currently MVW shareholders hold the risk associated with the very significant volume of weeks that they own and pay maint fees for. Create a solution for those problems before you reject the current approach, flawed as it is, and don't put the burden on individual owners to pay for. MVW is under no obligation to take back or pay the maint fees on weeks that nobody wants, so who is going to pay instead?

MVC owns lots of inventory at many resorts and effectively has a controlling interest in the owner board/HoA. Many bemoan the lack of engagement from the +80% of individual owners who don't bother to vote, but they most likely bought knowing that it was a decent brand that was running the resort and feel no need to get involved, as that's not what they want from vacation lodging. There are a vocal few who feel that they are getting nowhere with driving their agenda of the "interests" of the bulk of owners, but do they really? Really? Really? or is it more about their personal mission? Frankly I'm glad that someone else makes the rather tricky decision on what type of microwave to equip the units with as I've seen a staggering range of views on just that from people who profess not to know that there is a microwave in the unit as they don't go on vacation to cook, right through to those who are outraged that the microwave has none of the extensive bells and whistles that they have in their home, when they travel to their "Home from home". Scale up that rather trivial example across all resort operations and put on your big pants and either muck in with supporting the management team in resolving these issues, or step away as this is not a spectator sport. I am very, very grateful to those volunteer owners who do step up and put their time in to put forward alternative views and often hold local management to account, but I'm not convinced that they have a greater effect than guest satisfaction scores do, they may do, I just don't know or need to know. There is no HoA at the Bonvoy hotels that I stay in and that seems to work well enough.

 

[davidvel]

Sums up pretty well what I have been saying for over a decade.

 

[Dean]

My view on this is that it's much ado about nothing. The system has evolved, high demand reservations have always been difficult and the membership as a whole is more educated about reserving than ever. For 13 month reservation the points system has little to no effect, it's only effect is when someone reservers more than one week at a time (that crosses over to the next calendar week) in points for a single reservation. 12 months have always been difficult which is why many recommended the 13 month reservation option years ago (before points) for such options by purchasing a second week or more. I do believe that points has some effect on the 12 month reservations but not as much as some would like to believe.

IMO the trust should get more Platinum weeks both to improve trust maintenance fees and to improve availability. Right now the off season owners are effectively fighting for the best weeks anyway.

We all signed up for a system that controls reservations unilaterally without input, we agreed to that legally. We should not have signed on if that was not acceptable.