Getting myself back on topic.
Like Horizons was marketed to more middle class families I believe the Grand Residence was marketed as an exclusive luxury alternative to multi/decamillionaires who did not want to sink $3 - $5M into a vacation home. I assume most owners are in at ~ $500k plus fees. Any trading was to be done with other Residences and mixing at the resort was to be with people of the same social class. This idea got folded into the Abound program instead of what was promised.
I can see why people would be upset when the new system gives you "options" at less luxurious resorts and a low per point cost that allows you to enter into a moderately profitable points rental business if you want to waste your time with that. At the same time all the other owners are now allowed into your "house" and most did not pay a fraction of what you did. Over the years the ongoing cost of MF has been going up a lot because that is how Marriott protects their brand and the general economy. You might not see much value in activities like a wine tasting class if you have 500 bottles in your cellar, etc. If you want to use as a vacation home and don't value the other Abound properties, potential rental income, and incoming traders then you have little to lose and can probably gain a 10-20% reduction in MF by getting a different management company. If I had to guess, this is the root issue between the BOD and MVC.
Which is a long way to say that if you put a big value on the MVC affiliation and are an owner at the GR then you need to let your voice be known to the BOD. Regardless of how Trust ownership issues get worked out being in a constant state of head butting and lawsuits is no fun for anyone. I don't see MVC backing down on how they operate so the BOD is not going to get the reductions they want which will lead to the next step in the game of chicken. Think this was the same dynamic that led to some of the Ritz fractionals leaving the system.
I'm going to say that I think you're pretty far off here. At least in our case, I can't speak for others, but I don't suspect we're atypical. I'll just give you our story as an example.
We bought a quarter share at the end of 2009. Retail value from Marriott then, before they had a destination club points system, was in the range of 140-180k or so for a 1 bdr 1 bath, which is what we bought in the end. We paid substantially less buying resale, and were able to get a unit (deeded and assigned) with a high floor and view that we preferred. We know years in advance which weeks we have our unit assigned, and every 4 years you get both Christmas and New Years week, which we usually rent out. Our weeks shift to one week later than the current year each subsequent year, because one of the quartershare owners of your unit gets those two weeks on a regularly rotating basis, which pushes you back a week the following year until you get those 2 weeks again every 4 years.
At the time of our purchase, we were considering buying a condo in South Lake. They were in the range of about 200-300k for what we were looking at - still fairly basic quality then. We decided we didn't want to pay that much, since we were still working then and couldn't get up there that often, and weren't thinking about renting it much. Also, Airbnb was not on our radar then. Just the cost of mortgage and maintenance in winter turned us away from buying a condo there.
We thought we would go mostly to Tahoe regardless of what we bought, since we really liked it there. We can drive up easily from the Bay Area. We weren't real knowledgeable about trading yet, but we knew it might become a possibility.
We did not see the Grand Residence as a super luxury place like a Ritz in Aspen or Vail, but as a really nice Marriott quality timeshare, very similar to Timber Lodge but smaller and more personal. We had rented for short stays at Timber Lodge and Grand Residence before we bought at Grand Residence. We did not feel like we were buying in with a bunch of millionaires either.
As to the points system, they didn't bring us in when they started, because they had to develop it differently for the fractionals. It took a few years. When they made it available, they gave us the ability to buy in on a grandfathered basis. At first I was skeptical, because I thought we either had to keep our weeks ownership, or switch fully to points with no going back. When I came to understand that we could treat each week separately, and use, rent, trade, or enroll it however we chose each year, it made a lot of sense. Since then, we plan out the usage fully in advance, so we can make reservations at the 13 month mark for points if necessary.
So having spent a LOT of time now at Tahoe over the years (retired 10 years now), we added a lot of points trading, often for less than a week, to our GRC usage and II trades. We string together trips mostly in the SW and Hawaii, and between trading and points usage, and some other timeshares we own, it works very well.
I have no problem with a lot more people using our units now under the points system, other than short term users who may not respect the property unit as much as we owners do, since they're assigned and deeded to us. But I haven't really noticed a lot of extra wear and tear on our unit so far from the advent of the points system. Maybe it increases our housekeeping fees though.
While we don't use the planned events or even the facilities like the pool or gym much at all, I see why they're an attraction to other visitors. But I don't see that they need to be as at high a level as at places that seem to attract more families with lots of kids, like Timber Lodge or perhaps Newport Coast, and which aren't fractionals with dedicated owners.
Bottom line, I don't compare us to Ritz owners or the like, and we do greatly value the points system as well as the somewhat more personal touch at Grand Residence - which is less about exclusivity or getting spoiled by extra service than about a more relaxed, personal approach with acknowledgement of fractional owners as part of the mix. So, I would like to see the BOD and Management work out a compromise and remain as Marriott, unless MVC starts going really overboard with their fee demands.
