We can't use resort credit on Abound reservations for Vistana properties

[kozykritter]

I have 9,000 SO's expiring this year that I wanted to use for resort credit in June on a Steamboat Sheraton reservation I had booked through Abound. Since that reservation isn't showing on my Vistana dashboard, I had a sinking feeling that this wouldn't be an option. I spent half an hour with the lovely Montana on the cross brand customer service line and she diligently investigated the topic, including making several phone calls to both Vistana and MVC staff in her quest to come up with the following bottom line fact:

**The only way to get resort credit at a Vistana property is to book it within Vistana/VSN so the reservation resides in their system and they can attach a resort credit using StarOptions. There is no workaround.**

The problem is that Abound reservations reside in MVC's system which is still completely separate from Vistana's reservation system. The only crosslink they made between MVC and Vistana as part of the Abound launch was the feature giving Vistana owners access from their Dashboard into their Abound Club Point account at MVC, which doesn't change this situation. This means from a current IT perspective there is no way for Vistana to access that Abound reservation and attach StarOption-based resort credits to it.

What about using Club Points for resort credits instead, you ask, since the reservation is in the MVC system? Unfortunately MVC has not added any Vistana properties to the existing list of MVC resorts that participate in the resort credit program using Club Points, again due to current system limitations on MVC's side. I would guess the IT change needed has low priority in the current mop-up environment they are facing from an IT standpoint after the Abound launch.

The agent predicted that this situation won't change any time soon and likely not unless/until the two timeshare programs share one reservation system, if that ever happens.

 

[daviator]

That sucks, to put it bluntly, and I guess it's another good reason to try to reserve within VSN instead of in Abound. Of course, there are sometimes good reasons why you need to use Abound, so it's a shame the resort credits won't work.

I wonder if you can attach resort credits to a different owner's VSN reservation? If so, maybe you could essentially sell the resort credit to someone else who could use it, maybe someone would give you $90 or $100 for $110 worth of credit.

 

[Red elephant]

I have 9,000 SO's expiring this year that I wanted to use for resort credit in June on a Steamboat Sheraton reservation I had booked through Abound. Since that reservation isn't showing on my Vistana dashboard, I had a sinking feeling that this wouldn't be an option. I spent half an hour with the lovely Montana on the cross brand customer service line and she diligently investigated the topic, including making several phone calls to both Vistana and MVC staff in her quest to come up with the following bottom line fact:

**The only way to get resort credit at a Vistana property is to book it within Vistana/VSN so the reservation resides in their system and they can attach a resort credit using StarOptions. There is no workaround.**

The problem is that Abound reservations reside in MVC's system which is still completely separate from Vistana's reservation system. The only crosslink they made between MVC and Vistana as part of the Abound launch was the feature giving Vistana owners access from their Dashboard into their Abound Club Point account at MVC, which doesn't change this situation. This means from a current IT perspective there is no way for Vistana to access that Abound reservation and attach StarOption-based resort credits to it.

What about using Club Points for resort credits instead, you ask, since the reservation is in the MVC system? Unfortunately MVC has not added any Vistana properties to the existing list of MVC resorts that participate in the resort credit program using Club Points, again due to current system limitations on MVC's side. I would guess the IT change needed has low priority in the current mop-up environment they are facing from an IT standpoint after the Abound launch.

The agent predicted that this situation won't change any time soon and likely not unless/until the two timeshare programs share one reservation system, if that ever happens.

This is good for VSN. We can continue to use it without fear of it disappearing some day and mandatory resales loosing value within it.

 

[kozykritter]

That sucks, to put it bluntly, and I guess it's another good reason to try to reserve within VSN instead of in Abound. Of course, there are sometimes good reasons why you need to use Abound, so it's a shame the resort credits won't work.

I wonder if you can attach resort credits to a different owner's VSN reservation? If so, maybe you could essentially sell the resort credit to someone else who could use it, maybe someone would give you $90 or $100 for $110 worth of credit.

An interesting idea but the terms and conditions say that it has to be the Owner using the unit to apply a resort credit. I ended up using the 9,000 SO's to add two nights at nearby SMV right before my week Abound stay at Sheraton Steamboat. It's all good.