Westin St John [Master Thread] - Part 2 (June 2014 and forward)

[ksqdomer]

Just nipped me week 25.

 

[ekinggill]

My week 32 reservation is intact, but I don't know what to do. On one hand, June 30 could become August 30 late in the game leaving me few options in 2018 where the kids are not in school.

On the other hand, I really want to support St. John in its recovery. If the Westin is open for business, I want to support the recovery with my vacation dollars. Frankly a less crowded island and a few less amenities has great appeal to me.

 

[duke]

This seems like quite an imbalance and quite a question for VSE. (Probably leading to a class action lawsuit). Usually when an owner trades a use week for another use week there it is one week for one week. Here they are creating weeks out of thin air and using them to trade for real assets. So, the STJ owners are paying fees to use other system assets and the fees are going ...... where? Kinda fits the definition of fraud.

 

[GrayFal]

Vistana is able to balance things out using unsold inventory. Marriott does it all the time with their destination club program. If Marriott needs a week I deposit in II they take it and substitute another week for. deposit.
Vistana will be able to manipulate what is actually deposited.
It all works out in the end.

 

[DavidnRobin]

Vistana is able to balance things out using unsold inventory. Marriott does it all the time with their destination club program. If Marriott needs a week I deposit in II they take it and substitute another week for. deposit.
Vistana will be able to manipulate what is actually deposited.
It all works out in the end.

Hold on...
That is only if VSN has the inventory - and many of the VSN resorts are a serious step-down in many ways.

Hey WSJ Owners - those paying high MFs - go ahead and stay at a Orlando Sheraton that have 1/2 the MFs... ???
Sounds like a win for VSE/VSN unless they serious cut the 2018 fees for WSJ.
Right...

It is complicated - Duke isn’t wrong that they are walking a tight-rope. They may have just effective sold more SOs than owned (how many are going into II?), and certainly gained in MF value per SO. This is 9 months of SOs (or HOs) times 4 phases times #VOI-weeks - many that have high SO/HO holdings.
Al least they allowed SO banking until 2021 - that helps to buffer.

Isn’t that like selling more VOIs than you have? And they gain a benefit based on WSJ Owners decrease in SO value...

Again - complicated. Much depends on WSJ fees in 2018 and beyond...
At least we won’t have to pay that BS USVI fee of $175/week in 2018...


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[DavidnRobin]

I just went into VSE portal - one of our VGV weeks (wk24) was already cancelled and SOs returned, and the other week (wk23) was still listed (weird - it may because it has a separate II account number?). I cancelled it. I am going to try and get a jump on VSN usage of those SOs (191.4K) before the large increase of WSJ owners trying and figure out what to do (SO use or Bank). Hawaii - here we come!

 

[tomandrobin]

Well.....With that update, I have canceled my three weeks at St John. Our reservations are for July 14th, but I do not like the "2 week" cushion that everything is going to be ok by June 30th.

 

[tomandrobin]

Vistana has a bunch of new inventory that they can use.....Cabo, Cancun, Maui. Plus a percentage of people will do nothing or bank into 2019.

 

[DavidnRobin]

Vistana has a bunch of new inventory that they can use.....Cabo, Cancun, Maui. Plus a percentage of people will do nothing or bank into 2019.

The new resorts help somewhat, and certainly the banking. However, they will also have owners, and others are using VSN and Banking. It is still a flood - how large remains to be seen. Many WSJ Owners are paying a very high $/SO rate.
I am going to reserve 16-17 nites in a 1Bd HI for our 191.4K SOs. No desire for Cancun, and Cabo only has 2Bd (or studios?).

Of course, this will be without knowing the 2018 cost for those WSJ-VGV SOs - that could change our plans.

 

[SMHarman]

Again - complicated. Much depends on WSJ fees in 2018 and beyond...
At least we won’t have to pay that BS USVI fee of $175/week in 2018...


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How the 2018 operating budget has any operating in it. Surely they should run a huge operating surplus in 2017 as well. 3 months of no housekeeping, electric bills and many other big ticket items.

 

[tomandrobin]

the 2018 MF will be a mess......How do you "subtract" costs from being closed for 10 months (minimum) and add in costs to fix/replace damages to the resort?

 

[GrayFal]

I just got my cancelation for week 7

 

[SMHarman]

the 2018 MF will be a mess......How do you "subtract" costs from being closed for 10 months (minimum) and add in costs to fix/replace damages to the resort?

Seems pretty simple to me

Fixed costs (insurance etc) stick.
Variable costs (electric./ cleaning) pro-rated.
Take the surplus from 2017 and toss it in there.
That's your 2018 OPERATING budget.

Fix / replace that's all CAPITAL budget and an assessment to cover insurance gaps and rebuild deductible reserves over an appropriate time-frame. Realistically there is likely a short term borrow with a lien on the grounds or other HOA owned assets (including the ability to uses owners future cashflow as collateral on that loan) to spread the pain of the rebuild assessment.

 

[tomandrobin]

I am sure the insurance will also cover interruption of business to the resort too.

 

[SMHarman]

I am sure the insurance will also cover interruption of business to the resort too.

The bit I feel sad for here is the resort mitigates interruption costs by laying off all non essential staff instead of paying them and the cost rolling up to the insurer.

It's not like the staff have other jobs to go to.

 

[okwiater]

I was able to reserve an oceanfront 2-bedroom villa in Maui, change my flights with no change fee to cover the outbound flight, and redeem AA miles accumulated during an SPG-AA transfer bonus promotion for the return flight. Total spent to trade my St. John vacation for a Hawaii one for my family of 4: $105. Not bad.

 

[clsmit]

We own a 3BR pool villa fixed/fixed that's out of network. The Hubby just called the elite line to see what we could get with this situation. Basically, nothing special due to the situation. We can reserve someplace else 8 months out as if we were just using the options. We were trying to reserve something at Harborside for 8 months + 1 day and the rep nicely explained how we could do that at midnight. Basically, have fun using your options somewhere else in 2018 if you can find it at this late date, or bank them.

Our 2019 reservation, which we had not yet confirmed, still looks like it's available for confirmation.

 

[Helios]

My week 32 reservation is intact, but I don't know what to do. On one hand, June 30 could become August 30 late in the game leaving me few options in 2018 where the kids are not in school.

On the other hand, I really want to support St. John in its recovery. If the Westin is open for business, I want to support the recovery with my vacation dollars. Frankly a less crowded island and a few less amenities has great appeal to me.

I think you may be out of luck, your week is close enough that it may get cancelled if they hit any issues. Hopefully I am wrong.

 

[Helios]

This seems like quite an imbalance and quite a question for VSE. (Probably leading to a class action lawsuit). Usually when an owner trades a use week for another use week there it is one week for one week. Here they are creating weeks out of thin air and using them to trade for real assets. So, the STJ owners are paying fees to use other system assets and the fees are going ...... where? Kinda fits the definition of fraud.

I mentioned this before, I agree with the unbalance 100%. But, can Vistana really get in trouble given the circumstances? Now, more than ever, it will be very important to reserve during the home season. Too bad for us WSJ owners...

 

[Helios]

Vistana is able to balance things out using unsold inventory. Marriott does it all the time with their destination club program. If Marriott needs a week I deposit in II they take it and substitute another week for. deposit.
Vistana will be able to manipulate what is actually deposited.
It all works out in the end.

Do they own enough inventory to balance things? Are they OK forfeiting revenue to keep owners happy?

 

[SandyPGravel]

Has anyone asked what the deal is for the star points?

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[Helios]

the 2018 MF will be a mess......How do you "subtract" costs from being closed for 10 months (minimum) and add in costs to fix/replace damages to the resort?

Of course I don't pay an SA, but, should SAs cover the rebuilding cost? MF should cover the recurrent costs, so those should go down until the units can be occupied.

 

[Helios]

Has anyone asked what the deal is for the star points?

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I am guessing they will be similar to the discount packages you can get when you buy from them. If so, I want 100 of those...

So nice of them...

 

[Helios]

Reserve a Vistana Signature Network reservation for a stay at one of our other 20 network resorts; OR
Bank your 2018 Use Year StarOptions with no transaction fee, which are valid for use through December 31, 2021; OR
Assign your Weeks or Points Use Right with the full trading power of your Home Resort interval with Interval International(1) for use through December 31, 2020. While there is no fee to assign your week, at the time you initiate a vacation exchange request, Interval will collect its current exchange fee.(2)

How about if you are a non-VGV resale owner? Can you still use VSN to exchange or bank?

 

[SandyPGravel]

I just went into VSE portal - one of our VGV weeks (wk24) was already cancelled and SOs returned, and the other week (wk23) was still listed (weird - it may because it has a separate II account number?). I cancelled it. I am going to try and get a jump on VSN usage of those SOs (191.4K) before the large increase of WSJ owners trying and figure out what to do (SO use or Bank). Hawaii - here we come!

I just got my cancelation for week 7

My week 8- 2018 rez is still showing confirmed... Guess they aren't cancelling chronologically.