The Skim

[jtdillian]

Besides $ why do you think Marriott gave Destinations members the skim on their weeks?

Im not sure if it was about $. I'm thinking maybe they wanted to keep us away from using Destinations points for our home weeks because you can check in 7 days a week with points vs. 3 days a week (mostly weekends) for most of us when using our weeks. Isn't airfare cheaper on Tuesdays and Wednesday's vs. Saturday's? Maybe that can make the difference! I have also heard of owners getting more week nights from their home resort when they use the points to go back. I know Ocean Pointe owners who tell me they get more points for thier week and have points left over! Is that true? I'm thinking they just don't want us weeks owners using points and saturating a Destinations pool to go back to our home resort! What do you all think?

Happy Holidays to all us tuggers

 

[dioxide45]

I think it was for several reasons, they wanted people to continue to use their weeks based reservations to go to their home resort. With flexible checkin and checkout days, you end up with more breakage. If someone converted to points and then decided to checkin and checkout on Wednesday, they have broken two weeks. They needed to try to find a way to prevent this and the skim helps. I am sure that if there are unreserved days, MVCI is happy to rent those extra days out for $$. So it also comes down to their bottom line. But I don't think that was the primary reason.

Ocean Pointe is a little unique. At Ocean Pointe they actually gave silver season owners more points for their week than gold season. I think each resort has situations where an owner can go back to their home resort and get more days. In many cases it will because they are going back during a lower season. Though depending on the dates, you may be able to go back in the same season you own and either have points to spare of get more days. I know with Grande Vista, we own gold season. We can go in May and have points left over, but if we wanted to go in the fall during gold season with points we wouldn't have enough points.

 

[dougp26364]

All deeded weeks to points conversions have a fee. Some charge $ and owners complain about being nickel and dimed. HGVC and DRI both charge additional fee's for services (reservation fee's for non-home week reservations, cancelation fee's, change fee's et.....) MVCI decided to have one fee but, the cut comes with the points received vs points needed to reserve. At least that's my personal opinion on the subject.

As for me I'm never thrilled about add on fee's but, I'd rather pay the fee and know what I'm paying and keep the flexibility of usage for our home resort. The for instance for us is that airfare's are becoming an issue. It's cheap to fly on Tues and Weds but considerably more expensive on all the other days. Thus, we can travel more if we can arrange are check in day's to match lower airfare. With MVC we always use our Ocean Pointe unit. It would be great if I could convert to points, book a Tues. or Weds. arrival departure date AND keep my full week. Paying fee's with HGVC and DRI I can do that but, with MVCI I can't.

I was HUGELY disappointed because of Ocean Pointe. We don't have that one resort with HGVC or DRI that we travel to every year. For that matter we're working on getting rid of our DRI ownership (one week is gone and working on the other).

Remember what I said about fee's? DRI has their fee's WAY out of sight now making them VERY expensive and difficult to validate keeping. MVC locked themselves in with their "skim". There's not a lot of wiggle room that I see for MVC with their version of "fee's" other than to increase the yearly membership fee or, add additional fee's. Neither of which will go over big with deeded week owners.

It may be odd but, I'm at a point where is miss the simplicity and relative inexpensive method of deeded/fixed week ownership. True it wasn't always convenient but keeping track of multiple systems, multiple fee's and all the variations and themes has become confusing and nearly a part time job, just to plan a vacation.

BTW, MVC called and offered us a $175 American Express gift card or 22,000 Marriott Rewards points to attend a presentation and learn about the 150 changes that have been made to the DC program this year. ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY CHANGES? Are you kidding me! I just want to take a vacation! I really hate having to do calculous just to plan out a few nights at a resort.

And no, we turned them down. I'm tired of spending vacation time trying to unknot the rope only to have them tie a few more knots in it by telling me I MUST buy more points or LOSE options, availability or whatever other scary things that could befall me if I don't give MVC more money.

 

[GregT]

Besides $ why do you think Marriott gave Destinations members the skim on their weeks?

I believe they skimmed us because they needed the owners to buy Trust Points when the program was introduced, and by skimming their weeks, the owners didn't really have enough points to effectively use the new system.

I do not know if it was an unintended consequence, but now, whenever Marriott deposits their weeks into the Trust, the weeks are also skimmed, meaning Marriott is skimming themselves, so at least it is equitable.

It is an odd system.

Best,

Greg

 

[BocaBoy]

Here is my own personal take on the skim. I don't consider it to be especially relevant (I know others disagree) whether it costs me a few more or a few less DC points to go back to my home resort in my season. I should just use my weeks for that. The relevant thing to me is what value can I get from my points for the week if I use them at other resorts? And on that score I have been EXTREMELY happy. I also appreciate the simplicity of a one-time annual fee versus a fee for each transaction you do.

My biggest complaint about the DC program is the sizable junk fees on resale purchases in order to use them effectively. I find that offensive. I would much rather just see Marriott use ROFR if they think the resale price is too low. I have no need for trust points, but if I did, and if I was thinking about buying them from Marriott, these junk fees on resale would probably stop me from proceeding. Most buyers of trust points don't know anything about resale, however, and this is an example of an inefficient market benefiting the retail seller (Marriott).