To enroll or not? your thoughts...

[davemy]

Online Trading ?

I understand the savings with enrolling my 2 weeks that i have as far as lock off fees and exchanges fees. I have no interest in buying any points ever! I do alot of trading. Under the old system, most of my trades are upgrades. I am at beachplace right now in 2- 2bedroom units that i saw online that i picked up back in october 2011, using 2, 1-bedrooms. My question is under the new system will i be able to go online and still do this? I know the Marriott salesman are telling people this is coming to an end. ( I didn't know MVC sales people were running interval. lol )

 

[GrayFal]

I understand the savings with enrolling my 2 weeks that i have as far as lock off fees and exchanges fees. I have no interest in buying any points ever! I do alot of trading. Under the old system, most of my trades are upgrades. I am at beachplace right now in 2- 2bedroom units that i saw online that i picked up back in october 2011, using 2, 1-bedrooms. My question is under the new system will i be able to go online and still do this? I know the Marriott salesman are telling people this is coming to an end. ( I didn't know MVC sales people were running interval. lol )

Yes, you will still be able to do this (based on availability in II) online just like you did it before.
The difference would be you would not pay the two exchange fees or lock-off fees for your units if these exchanges were Marriott to Marriott. That would be included in your yearly club fee ($165 or $195?)

 

[ilene13]

We still have not enrolled. We own three platinum one bedroom units at the Aruba Ocean Club and a three bedroom platinum unit at Surfwatch. I have never exchanged those properties. The $199 would not save any money for me in fact it would be more costly. We also own three weeks at the Royal Resorts which on occasion I do exchange. Therefore I need to keep a separate II account. I feel that with the proposed price increase I am being forced to enroll, but I am not sure if there are any benefits to doing it.

 

[kjd]

It's my belief that you can get along fine as a trader without ever enrolling even though I have enrolled my weeks. I do think that enrolling brings with it another dimension to trading. Features like borrowing points from next year, extending vacations, staying for less than a week, having reservation advantages, etc increase a trader's flexibility. I also believe it offsets the "skim" that Marriott robs from us. The major question is "Is it worth it to you?".

That's only a question that each individual can answer for them self. Without reviving the old tired argument about inventory and "buckets" I do believe that the DC points seem to have greater availability of premium weeks. At first I was reluctant to use the points over the use of weeks for trading. I got over that when I was able to get trades that my II weeks couldn't get. That may be my perception but I'm always going to weigh trading weeks or using points on every trade. You can't do that if you're not enrolled.

 

[Lardan]

We have two Marriott weeks and enjoy both of the resorts we own. Only one of the two weeks would be eligable for the new system. I don't think it would be worth the expense to enroll only one. So far we have gotten every trade we asked for through II over the last few years to include the last two years with the new program.

For shorter stays or sometimes longer stays we use Wyndham for that. I have to say I do like Wyndham's point system much better, but it may be simply because I understand how to use it quite well.

Our 2012 vacationing using both worked out to be:

-4 night stay at Bonet Creek in March over the kid's Spring Break.

-1 week at BeachPlace Towers we traded Cypress Harbour for with II followed by a week at Ocean Pointe. These weeks are coming-up. I have to say Cypress Harbour is certainly not the most expensive resort, but I think owners of Marriott know how nice it is. I say this because it has traded quite well for us.

-5 night stay coming at Bonet Creek over Thanksgiving.

-7 night stay coming for Ocean Walk in Daytona over the wife's birthday.

I can certainly understand someone going to the new system, but I can just as well understand anyone chosing not to. I really think this is a case by case type thing for owners to evaluate what works best for them.


What also helps us using our ownerships as we do is the fact we live in Florida. Many great resorts here within an easy drive, plus not so costly for us to go to the Caribbean as it is for many others.

 

[ciscogizmo1]

One thing that has changed for us recently is the fact that going on vacation starting on Fri, Sat, or Sun check-in isn't always possible. My oldest is in High School and sometimes with her sports and other activities a weekend check-in doesn't work and I'm sure a full week schedule may not work either.

For example, this December Christmas falls on a Tuesday. So, if you wanted to reserve a week at most places you'd either have to stay the week of 12/21 or the week of 12/30. Well, we like to be home on Christmas so 12/21 is out and we need to be back by 1/4 so, 12/30 is out. With points I was able to reserve Wed to Wed. Yes, I paid a premium to do so but our schedule is extremely tight now and we don't have much flexibility to vacation when we want to. I know once we are empty nesters we'll be able to go off season and use less points. I doubt I would have gotten this week through II on a trade otherwise. So, at this point I'm liking the flexibility of DC.

The other thing I noticed it is getting harder and harder to rent my non-Hawaii weeks. Hawaii is pretty easy as everyone wants to go there but Palm Desert not so much. I didn't have problems in the past but the last two seasons yes. I think with the economy there are too many other "hot" deals out there that renting a timeshare isn't always the cheapest.