Vistana Update from Marriott Insider

[VacationForever]

Why add the 2025 star options to the website if that is going away in just a couple months. I know this is Marriott but that makes no sense.

Based on old/existing programming. No additional human intervention to add future SOs to the accounts.

 

[Helios]

Why add the 2025 star options to the website if that is going away in just a couple months. I know this is Marriott but that makes no sense.

You said it, this is Marriott (working with Vistana on IT integration).

 

[RunCat]

Why add the 2025 star options to the website if that is going away in just a couple months. I know this is Marriott but that makes no sense.

As said elsewhere, “old programming.” And further, you can’t book those points anyway. The only points that really matter today are 2023 points.

 

[JIMinNC]

Would anyone still pay $35K for WKORV OF weeks if they don't come with 176.7K SOs (or 8000+ Abound points) via resale?

People pay $35K and more for Marriott Maui Ocean Club Lahaina/Napili Villas OF floating weeks without any points access, so I expect they would for WKORV as well.

 

[DanCali]

People pay $35K and more for Marriott Maui Ocean Club Lahaina/Napili Villas OF floating weeks without any points access, so I expect they would for WKORV as well.

I think that's a fair comparison.

I suspect demand from the Vistana owner side will definitely be lower. There were times when I considered it and even made a couple of offers. If VSN goes away (which I personally doubt) it's just not worth as much to me, even if I would rarely use the Staroptions to trade. But the allocation was generous, and it was a feature that came with the week and now it (perhaps) won't.

Remains to be seen if Marriott owners will offset that decline in demand. The market for $3000+ in MFs is limited, as we've seen with HRA weeks.

 

[DavidnRobin]

Mandatory resorts will no longer have access to other VSN resorts ???

Anyone want to make a wager?

This will mean that you can no longer use the studio side (1 week interval) to stay 6 days in 1 Bd at the same resort since this is a StarOption exchange.

It is the 2nd pillar of Vistana ownership and established in CCRs (regardless of the other “Club” mentioned).

Again - I am will to wager that this is BS.
To much risk of valid lawsuits. They are removing a key aspect of ownership that goes against the Contract made when purchasing.


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[cubigbird]

Remains to be seen if Marriott owners will offset that decline in demand. The market for 3000+ in MFs is limited, as we've seen with HRA weeks.

I bet the MF for WSJ top over $4000 in 2023.

 

[Eric B]

Seems to me that if Marriott kept the Florida Club, etc., they’ll keep the VSN.

 

[robertk2012]

Just trying to scare buyers out of the market.

Mandatory resorts will no longer have access to other VSN resorts ???

Anyone want to make a wager?

This will mean that you can no longer use the studio side (1 week interval) to stay 6 days in 1 Bd at the same resort since this is a StarOption exchange.

It is the 2nd pillar of Vistana ownership and established in CCRs (regardless of the other “Club” mentioned).

Again - I am will to wager that this is BS.
To much risk of valid lawsuits. They are removing a key aspect of ownership that goes against the Contract made when purchasing.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[bizaro86]

Seems to me that if Marriott kept the Florida Club, etc., they’ll keep the VSN.

If they keep the VSN then mandatory weeks stay mandatory.

 

[CalGalTraveler]

Perhaps they need to keep VSN. Otherwise Abound becomes mandatory for resale buyers given the CC&Rs. They will probably try to find ways to neuter VSN.

 

[travelhacker]

We won't really know anything until September / October. However, I think there's enough smoke to say that mandatory resale owners of record by 8/8/2022 will be able to access Abound without a significant purchase (perhaps a small enrollment fee).

There are a few sticking points:
- Mandatory is written into the CC&R's. Having a cutoff of 8/8 for access to the successor of the VSN seems like it would be problematic.
- Awkwardness for those who have banked SO's
- Part of what made trading so healthy in VSN is that weeks became available at 8 months out.

My thought is that the VSN will have to exist in some form to take care of the CC&R requirement. However, what Marriott could do is make the VSN infinitely less attractive:

Here's how I think something could work:
1) You will be eligible to enroll into Abound if you have access to staroptions on 8/8/2022.

2) When you enroll into Abound, you will need to agree that you will need to elect your usage by dates that are similar to when Marriott owners need to make elections. If you do not elect, you will only have access to your home resort / season / unit and VSN.

3) Abound will naturally be more attractive for the following reasons:
- Access to more resorts
- No fees for housekeeping, no interval fees, no guest certificate fees, etc.
- Reduced availability of inventory for VSN exchanges

4) All mandatory resales set up after 8/8/2022 will be considered mandatory in that they will have access to their home booking as well as whatever units make it into the VSN.

5) Since the vast majority of SO owners would be better off enrolling into Abound, they will expect most to do this (and it could take time, there are still a lot of owners that haven't enrolled into the DP program, but I would guess a lot of those don't get enough points to justify the club fee). Since there is already a club fee for VSN, it would almost be a no brainer.

6) Marriott will have RoFR at everything but WKV (I believe). They'll continue to add weeks as the opportunity presents itself.

Basically everything within the VSN as of 8/8/2022 will be much better off enrolling into Abound. All mandatory resales after this date would have access to a greatly depleted VSN -- thus fulfilling the requirement of a mandatory exchange network, but it wouldn't be nearly as desirable. If you buy at one of the Ka'anapali resorts after 8/8/2022 you are mainly buying to stay there.

I think by allowing all mandatory resorts to join Abound they kill two birds with one stone:
- Make a ton of inventory available day 1
- Kill the competition with the VSN.

I think what I described above also lines up with what we have heard from other insiders (apart from the FUD factor to encourage people to buy).

 

[pacman777]

Just trying to scare buyers out of the market.

Haha. Maybe the insider wants to discourage people buying up WKV so he/she can without having the prices go up on the resale market.

 

[FTEddie]

Ok, so if I have a mandatory resort VOI such as WKV Kierland that I purchased resale, will that VOI be automatically a part of Abound? Assume before 8/8

 

[CalGalTraveler]

This will mean that you can no longer use the studio side (1 week interval) to stay 6 days in 1 Bd at the same resort since this is a StarOption exchange.

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You make a great point. One of the reasons we purchased WKORVN was the flexibility to make these kinds of changes or even to lock off and book using SO's next year or use that somewhere else in the system. If they neuter VSN and require people to apply skim to gain access to the second half of their unit, then this is a major devaluation.

 

[dioxide45]

Ok, so if I have a mandatory resort VOI such as WKV Kierland that I purchased resale, will that VOI be automatically a part of Abound? Assume before 8/8

According to the OP, as long as it was registered with Vistana by 8/8, then yes.

 

[pchung6]

Seriously I really don’t care about mandatory can join Abound or not. I just want to keep VSN. There is nothing attractive about Abound to me.

 

[dioxide45]

Why is there some 8/8 arbitrary date anyway? Where does that date come from? In the early Marriott DC days, the dates were determined by official announcements to owners and their ability to start enrolling. Neither of which has actually happened yet with Abound. The only thing definitive that has happened is Marriott conveying Westin and Sheraton weeks to the MVC Destinations Trust on 3/3 and 3/4 and the master affiliation agreement between MVCD and VSN on the same date. None of these correspond to 8/8.

 

[jabberwocky]

Rumors of the demise of VSN are greatly exaggerated, IMO.

As an aside, I’m wondering if we should get the mod to merge this thread with the master Abound thread? It seems like we are getting to the point where we are just continuing that discussion here.

 

[dioxide45]

Rumors of the demise of VSN are greatly exaggerated, IMO.

As an aside, I’m wondering if we should get the mod to merge this thread with the master Abound thread? It seems like we are getting to the point where we are just continuing that discussion here.

I would agree. I am not sure why this was really started as a new thread in the first place other than to hopefully get more eyeballs on it.

 

[bizaro86]

We won't really know anything until September / October. However, I think there's enough smoke to say that mandatory resale owners of record by 8/8/2022 will be able to access Abound without a significant purchase (perhaps a small enrollment fee).

There are a few sticking points:
- Mandatory is written into the CC&R's. Having a cutoff of 8/8 for access to the successor of the VSN seems like it would be problematic.
- Awkwardness for those who have banked SO's
- Part of what made trading so healthy in VSN is that weeks became available at 8 months out.

My thought is that the VSN will have to exist in some form to take care of the CC&R requirement. However, what Marriott could do is make the VSN infinitely less attractive:

Here's how I think something could work:
1) You will be eligible to enroll into Abound if you have access to staroptions on 8/8/2022.

2) When you enroll into Abound, you will need to agree that you will need to elect your usage by dates that are similar to when Marriott owners need to make elections. If you do not elect, you will only have access to your week in your season (they would not convert to staroptions)

3) Abound will naturally be more attractive for the following reasons:
- Access to more resorts
- No fees for housekeeping, no interval fees, no guest certificate fees, etc.
- Reduced availability of inventory for VSN exchanges

4) All mandatory resales set up after 8/8/2022 will be considered mandatory in that they will have access to their home booking as well as whatever units make it into the VSN.

5) Since the vast majority of SO owners would be better off enrolling into Abound, they will expect most to do this (and it could take time, there are still a lot of owners that haven't enrolled into the DP program, but I would guess a lot of those don't get enough points to justify the club fee). Since there is already a club fee for VSN, it would almost be a no brainer.

6) Marriott will have RoFR at everything but WKV (I believe). They'll continue to add weeks as the opportunity presents itself.

Basically everything within the VSN as of 8/8/2022 will be much better off enrolling into Abound. All mandatory resales after this date would have access to a greatly depleted VSN -- thus fulfilling the requirement of a mandatory exchange network, but it wouldn't be nearly as desirable. If you buy at one of the Ka'anapali resorts after 8/8/2022 you are mainly buying to stay there.

I think by allowing all mandatory resorts to join Abound they kill two birds with one stone:
- Make a ton of inventory available day 1
- Kill the competition with the VSN.

I think what I described above also lines up with what we have heard from other insiders (apart from the FUD factor to encourage people to buy).

This seems likely to me, because it fulfills their obligations while maximizing their ability to sell conversions for easy profits. It's what I would do if I were them.

 

[Sv1plat52]

For the most part, whatever happens, there a things that most people knew already:

-something I learned here: buy in place that you like and you are most likely to go

-Devaluation: no matter what happens, your currency will be devaluated: what you use to buy with 81000 staroptions will be no more.

Forget about booking HRA, or WSJ. Now you will be competing with Marriot owners for the best weeks/resorts. You likely to have to purchase additional currency with increased Annual Fees to do what you were doing up to now.

as a result of the above and other macroeconomics cycles, there will be a lot of defaults and Marriott will accumulate additional weeks with the caveat that will not be collecting MF for such weeks: more consolidation or bankruptcies in in the industry to follow…

 

[Grandma2016]

For the most part, whatever happens, there a things that most people knew already:

-something I learned here: buy in place that you like and you are most likely to go

-Devaluation: no matter what happens, your currency will be devaluated: what you use to buy with 81000 staroptions will be no more.

Forget about booking HRA, or WSJ. Now you will be competing with Marriot owners for the best weeks/resorts. You likely to have to purchase additional currency with increased Annual Fees to do what you were doing up to now.

as a result of the above and other macroeconomics cycles, there will be a lot of defaults and Marriott will accumulate additional weeks with the caveat that will not be collecting MF for such weeks: more consolidation or bankruptcies in in the industry to follow…

Wont the owners of those resorts still have the 8 to 12 month booking window?

 

[Grandma2016]

Seriously I really don’t care about mandatory can join Abound or not. I just want to keep VSN. There is nothing attractive about Abound to me.

I agree. I bought where i want to vacation

 

[Grandma2016]

We won't really know anything until September / October. However, I think there's enough smoke to say that mandatory resale owners of record by 8/8/2022 will be able to access Abound without a significant purchase (perhaps a small enrollment fee).

There are a few sticking points:
- Mandatory is written into the CC&R's. Having a cutoff of 8/8 for access to the successor of the VSN seems like it would be problematic.
- Awkwardness for those who have banked SO's
- Part of what made trading so healthy in VSN is that weeks became available at 8 months out.

My thought is that the VSN will have to exist in some form to take care of the CC&R requirement. However, what Marriott could do is make the VSN infinitely less attractive:

Here's how I think something could work:
1) You will be eligible to enroll into Abound if you have access to staroptions on 8/8/2022.

2) When you enroll into Abound, you will need to agree that you will need to elect your usage by dates that are similar to when Marriott owners need to make elections. If you do not elect, you will only have access to your home resort / season / unit and VSN.

3) Abound will naturally be more attractive for the following reasons:
- Access to more resorts
- No fees for housekeeping, no interval fees, no guest certificate fees, etc.
- Reduced availability of inventory for VSN exchanges

4) All mandatory resales set up after 8/8/2022 will be considered mandatory in that they will have access to their home booking as well as whatever units make it into the VSN.

5) Since the vast majority of SO owners would be better off enrolling into Abound, they will expect most to do this (and it could take time, there are still a lot of owners that haven't enrolled into the DP program, but I would guess a lot of those don't get enough points to justify the club fee). Since there is already a club fee for VSN, it would almost be a no brainer.

6) Marriott will have RoFR at everything but WKV (I believe). They'll continue to add weeks as the opportunity presents itself.

Basically everything within the VSN as of 8/8/2022 will be much better off enrolling into Abound. All mandatory resales after this date would have access to a greatly depleted VSN -- thus fulfilling the requirement of a mandatory exchange network, but it wouldn't be nearly as desirable. If you buy at one of the Ka'anapali resorts after 8/8/2022 you are mainly buying to stay there.

I think by allowing all mandatory resorts to join Abound they kill two birds with one stone:
- Make a ton of inventory available day 1
- Kill the competition with the VSN.

I think what I described above also lines up with what we have heard from other insiders (apart from the FUD factor to encourage people to buy).

Why do you think a majority of people with SO would be better off enrolling with Abound