Trust Point MF Increases for 2013

[SueDonJ]

Susan
I feel your pain with the Sox. Please don't tell me that Petey wasn't at Pesky's funeral.

He's the one who shocked me the most! Ortiz, Buchholz, Saltalamacchia and Padilla are the only four current players who went, along with Bobby Valentine. But later that same night a whole slew of them were available to go party up a storm at Beckett's charity fundraiser, the BeckettBowl. Sickening.

 

[jont]

He's the one who shocked me the most! Ortiz, Buchholz, Saltalamacchia and Padilla are the only four current players who went, along with Bobby Valentine. But later that same night a whole slew of them were available to go party up a storm at Beckett's charity fundraiser, the BeckettBowl. Sickening.

i agree.....

 

[bogey21]

But honestly, George, and most of all respectfully, is there anything that Marriott does these days that doesn't "concern" you?

A big selling point when i bought my 4 Marriott Weeks were their Rental and Sales Programs. When they changed these to their benefit and my detriment I felt deceived and sold my Weeks. You are right. I will never forget and never forgive their self serving tactics.

George

 

[GregT]

The Ritz Carlton properties also have very high MFs, and now that they are a part of the Trust, will be a part of the reason for the increasing MFs.

Hmmm....quoting myself again.... Not good.


Okay, looking further at the Trust, there are ~10.6M points in the Trust for Ritz Carlton - Vail from approx 1,900 weeks. Average points therefor averages ~5,700 points per week.

When I visited the Ritz Carlton in St. Thomas (in 2008) and did the walk through, the MFs were approx $5,000 per week (I believe that it was $14,000 and you had to buy three weeks).

If Vail has a similar cost to STT (??), that's almost $0.90 in MFs per Trust Point that are being loaded into the Trust.

Considering that Vail is now 6% of the Trust, that puts major upward pressure on the MFs, considering the other 94% is at ~$0.40 per points. This suggests that Vail alone is pulling the $0.41 average up to $0.437 (if 94% of the Trust is at $0.40 and 6% is at $0.90)

Interesting dynamic from putting RC properties into the Trust....Wow.....

Best,

Greg

 

[puckmanfl]

good morning....

And I snagged a ski 3 and 2 bedroom in prime February season with Legacy points only $0.35 MF/pt...

whoopee!!!

 

[FractionalTraveler]

good morning....

And I snagged a ski 3 and 2 bedroom in prime February season with Legacy points only $0.35 MF/pt...

whoopee!!!

Puck, thanks for this information.

This just goes to show everyone how much more expensive it is to be a new Marriott Trust Points ONLY Customer in 2012.

Those with legacy weeks enrolled in the DC can now snag a RC vacation for less than 1/2 of the MF of a RC Owner and at the expense of Trust Point Owners such as me who will have to flip the bill for the RC properties.

 

[GregT]

This just goes to show everyone how much more expensive it is to be a new Marriott Trust Points ONLY Customer in 2012.

Those with legacy weeks enrolled in the DC can now snag a RC vacation for less than 1/2 of the MF of a RC Owner and at the expense of Trust Point Owners such as me who will have to flip the bill for the RC properties.

FT,

You are quite correct. The timeshare world has always had its share of certain owners that subsidize others. But in return, they received a booking advantage.

The Hawaii owner who pays $1,800 - $2,200 in MFs for a week, but other owners seek to trade into MOC/Ko Olina/Westin Kaanapali/Hilton Waikoloa with a lower-MF property.

The Harborside at Atlantis/Westin St. John owner who pays $2,500 - $3,000 in MFs for a week, but other owners use StarOptions from lower-MF properties to reserve space.

Now we have the example of the Trust Owner who pays the upkeep at the RC property (starting with Vail), which is accessible to status members with points. It's even a little tougher for that Trust Point Owner who isn't Premier or Premier Plus -- paying the fee without the benefit of access.

The interesting difference is that (at the moment) the Trust Point Owner doesn't have a home resort advantage to that property, as the week owner noted above did. It is just an unusual component in the structure of the system. I do expect that one day there will be a booking advantage to having Trust Points.

But as Puck said, it is fabulous for today's legacy point owner, to be able to access these beautiful properties that are funded by Trust Points.

Best,

Greg

 

[FractionalTraveler]

Greg,

I totally agree. Puck has a great vacation coming from this. We should all try to get in on this incredible opportunity right now.

Best,
FT

 

[dioxide45]

Hmmm....quoting myself again.... Not good.


Okay, looking further at the Trust, there are ~10.6M points in the Trust for Ritz Carlton - Vail from approx 1,900 weeks. Average points therefor averages ~5,700 points per week.

When I visited the Ritz Carlton in St. Thomas (in 2008) and did the walk through, the MFs were approx $5,000 per week (I believe that it was $14,000 and you had to buy three weeks).

If Vail has a similar cost to STT (??), that's almost $0.90 in MFs per Trust Point that are being loaded into the Trust.

Considering that Vail is now 6% of the Trust, that puts major upward pressure on the MFs, considering the other 94% is at ~$0.40 per points. This suggests that Vail alone is pulling the $0.41 average up to $0.437 (if 94% of the Trust is at $0.40 and 6% is at $0.90)

Interesting dynamic from putting RC properties into the Trust....Wow.....

Best,

Greg

Greg, Definitely interesting. It seems that MVCI legacy owners have the best of both worlds. They can get these expensive reservations for cheap. Many with prime weeks have MFs in the $0.20-$0.35 range.

While I can understand why RC owners would be upset with this. It seems that the only viable way for MVW to keep these resort solvent is to get people using them. The trust owners are now covering the fees at an increased cost. The fact that those RC MFs can be spread out over a large trust ownership base should make it easier for trust owners to take. of course this hurts the Standard Owners with only trust points who don't even have access to that inventory, even though they are paying for it.

 

[dougp26364]

I'm sure we're going to see this thing evolve over the next few years as Marriott tweeks what it can to even things up. They've already added online reservations and have better blended trust/legacy points to make reservations a little easier. It will be interesting to see what they do in the next couple of years.

As it is, I'm glad we didn't/haven't purchased trust points. I have to admit that sometimes it would be tempting to own just a few more points to round things out and make full week reservations easier (we always seem to be just a few points short) but, I'm not paying the big bucks Marriott demands and I don't trust them on the MF's. Right now it looks like it's maybe a good call to not trust them on trust point MF's if there are indeed using the trust to support the very expensive RC brand. RC just hasn't been something we're really interested in and I wouldn't want to have that financial weight hanging around my head, even if it only added one or two cents in MF's/point. We're just not RC style people.

 

[jont]

I'm sure we're going to see this thing evolve over the next few years as Marriott tweeks what it can to even things up. They've already added online reservations and have better blended trust/legacy points to make reservations a little easier. It will be interesting to see what they do in the next couple of years.

As it is, I'm glad we didn't/haven't purchased trust points. I have to admit that sometimes it would be tempting to own just a few more points to round things out and make full week reservations easier (we always seem to be just a few points short) but, I'm not paying the big bucks Marriott demands and I don't trust them on the MF's. Right now it looks like it's maybe a good call to not trust them on trust point MF's if there are indeed using the trust to support the very expensive RC brand. RC just hasn't been something we're really interested in and I wouldn't want to have that financial weight hanging around
my head, even if it only added one or two cents in MF's/point. We're just not
RC style people.

I agree Doug. Going to an RC resort would be a nice change of pace, but generally, I'm very happy with my plain old Marriotts. At the last presentation we attended last year, the salesperson made a big point for use to top off our DC points with our trust points so we could access RC resorts, we are 450 pts short of primer status. I said fine, I'll buy 500 points knowing the minimum purchase was a 1000 pts. Needless to say, we reached a stalemate. I have since then figured out, if I wanted to go to an RC property I could "ask" a premier member to make a ressie for me and transfer my points to their account.
I love figuring out ways to beat them at their own game! No new points for me,

 

[FractionalTraveler]

I agree Doug. Going to an RC resort would be a nice change of pace, but generally, I'm very happy with my plain old Marriotts. At the last presentation we attended last year, the salesperson made a big point for use to top off our DC points with our trust points so we could access RC resorts, we are 450 pts short of primer status. I said fine, I'll buy 500 points knowing the minimum purchase was a 1000 pts. Needless to say, we reached a stalemate. I have since then figured out, if I wanted to go to an RC property I could "ask" a premier member to make a ressie for me and transfer my points to their account.
I love figuring out ways to beat them at their own game! No new points for me,

We almost purchased RC in Tahoe 2 years ago. To be honest, I didn’t purchase because I thought the RC units were pretty much very similar to all my MVCI units in terms of decor, quality, and locations.

When I made this comment to the salesperson, she said the differentiating factor was the level of service and amenities provided.

Well I kind of understood where she was coming from but at the end of the day that difference wasn't enough of a motivating factor for me to invest an additional $75K over a comparable MVCI developer purchase.

Don't get me wrong, the RC units are nice, but for me they are not $75K nicer than what is already in my portfolio today.