Westin St John Master Thread - Part 3 [Dec. 2017 and forward]

[dioxide45]

Weird question...I was looking at the Vistana App Dashboard and it lists what my Staroptions Balance is for 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024. The balance for 2021, 2022, and 2023 are all correct, however 2024 is listed as zero. It's not something I'm terribly worried about (a few years to potentially fix it) but I was curious if anyone else saw the same thing.

It shows the same when you look at your balances online. They figure StarOptions and VSN will be gone by then in favor of the new Marriott program, so they aren't listing them

 

[GrayFal]

Ive decided that virgin grand is prob where I’d want to be since I would spend any time at the resort. The ability to drive to the room in that phase is a huge plus. The island is phenomenal and I cannot wait to come back. What are the chances that a combined program makes it even harder for vistana owners to book in the VSN? I can see all of the Marriott die hards dump FC and try and book this resort.

I have owned Marriott since 2001. It is hard to imagine that Marriott owners would have priority over Vistana owners - and the other way around. The premise of Vistana is that home resort resie is 12-8, Staroptions at 8 months. It’s highly unlikely Marriott owners would have access at 8 months. At 6 months, possibly.
But you just don’t know. It is all speculation at this time.

 

[Gatorfan]

It shows the same when you look at your balances online. They figure StarOptions and VSN will be gone by then in favor of the new Marriott program, so they aren't listing them

I wondered if it was some nefarious scheme to eliminate Staroptions! Glad I caught it early and could bring it to everyone's attention so we can start early to thwart their evil plans!

 

[SandyPGravel]

I wondered if it was some nefarious scheme to eliminate Staroptions! Glad I caught it early and could bring it to everyone's attention so we can start early to thwart their evil plans!

Better yet, maybe they're busy recalculating how much more they'll be worth once the programs are combined and are just waiting to dump them into our accounts.

 

[DanCali]

Seems like a quick call to customer service may shed some light on this.

 

[sharr7]

2024 Weekly Ownership Interests StarOptions

I've searched and didn't see this discussed anywhere. When I look at my Account Balances on Vistana the StarOptions associated with my Weekly Ownership Interests show 0 (zero). The other three years are showing the correct amounts. I've never seen it like this before. Is it this way on others or...

tugbbs.com

I don't think it's anything

 

[DanCali]

I have owned Marriott since 2001. It is hard to imagine that Marriott owners would have priority over Vistana owners - and the other way around. The premise of Vistana is that home resort resie is 12-8, Staroptions at 8 months. It’s highly unlikely Marriott owners would have access at 8 months. At 6 months, possibly.
But you just don’t know. It is all speculation at this time.

(note to moderator: responding to post in this thread but not really on WSJ topic so feel free to move if needed)

I don't think it would work like this. Just think of it as another exchange company. If you have a 2BR WKORV and decide to go somewhere else you can:

(i) use 148,100 Staroptions via SVN to try Colorado, Atlantis, Kauai etc, in which case your Hawaii week would become available to other SVN owners (in fact, in SVN any unit not reserved at 8 months out becomes available for exchange, which may force some owners to use SOs whether they want to or not)

(ii) Deposit in II, in which case your week would be available to other II exchangers or

(iii) exchange via the Marriott DC (using maybe 4600 DC points based on rumors), in which case only other Marriott DC members can book that WKORV week

In the latter case it would be subject to those Exchange Company rules. They could also conceivably allow you to covert to the DC points and make a trade even at 12 or 13 months out, in which case other DC members may also book WKORV at 13 months out, even before other WKORV owners making a home resort reservation. I do see that as a potential problem for home resort owners so I actually went and looked at what the formal documents say (this is from WKV Owner Information). Based on my reading, it seems to me that home resort reservations should at least be safe up to 10 months out but I am not a lawyer so I can't tell you how ambiguous it is. I highlighted what seem to be key some statements.

Required Reservation Periods. There must be at least one “Home Resort Reservation Period.”

(i) The Home Resort Reservation Period must permit an Owner having a Floating Vacation
Ownership Interest to request a reservation, without competition from anyone who does not
own a Vacation Ownership Interest in the Plan, for a Vacation Unit that is the same Unit Type
as the Owner’s Unit Type and for any Vacation Period in the same Season as the Owner’s Use
Week, provided that nobody else has reserved the Vacation Period and that no other persons
have the exclusive right to reserve the Vacation Period. The Reservation Period for Floating
Vacation Ownership Interests must last at least sixty (60) days.

(ii) The Home Resort Reservation Period must permit an Owner having a Fixed Vacation
Ownership Interest to have the exclusive right to reserve the Owner’s Use Week. The
Reservation Period for Fixed Vacation Ownership Interest Owners must last at least sixty (60)
days. During this Reservation Period, an Owner may only reserve a Vacation Unit that is the
same Unit Type as the Owner’s Unit Type.

(iii) Owners of Ultra Premium or Event Vacation Ownership Interests do not have a required
Reservation Period, as the Plan Operator will reserve a specific Use Week for the Vacation
Periods associated with the Vacation Ownership Interests of such Owners. However, the Plan
Operator may establish specific Reservation Periods during which Owners of either Event or
Ultra Premium Vacation Ownership Interests may give up their special reservation rights for
that Use Year and instead be treated as if the Owner had a Floating Vacation Period for that
Use Year, pursuant to Section 4.9.

(iv) The Reservation Period for Fixed and Floating Vacation Ownership Interest Owners
cannot begin more than eighteen months before the Check-in Day for any Use Period.

b) Other Reservation Periods. The reservation rules may create other Reservation Periods that are Home
Resort Reservation Periods.

c) Club Reservation Periods. “Club Reservation Period” means a Reservation Period when Club
Members may reserve a Use Period in any Club Unit (including a Vacation Unit in this Plan) that nobody
else has reserved and that no other persons have the exclusive right to reserve. There must be one or more
Club Reservation Periods at any time when the Club is no longer affiliated with an External Exchange
Program. There may also be Club Reservation Periods at times when the Club is affiliated with an External
Exchange Program. The Reservation Rules may give different names to the Club Reservation Periods.

d) Developer and Club Operator Reservations. The reservation rules may create one or more
Reservation Periods during which the Developer and/or the Club Operator may reserve any Use Period in a
Club Unit that nobody else has reserved and that no other persons have the exclusive right to reserve. This
means the Owners and Other Club Members may have to compete with the Developer and/or the Club
Operator for a reservation. This Reservation Period may not start more than sixty (60) days before the
Check-in-Day of a Use Period. It may overlap with other Home Resort or Club Reservation Periods.

e) Additional Reservation Periods. In addition to these reservation periods, there may be other
Reservation Periods. They may appear, for example, when the Developer creates a new Unit Type or a
new kind of Vacation Ownership Interest or when the Club Operator creates new kinds of Reservation
Periods as permitted by the Club Documents.

 

[CPNY]

I have owned Marriott since 2001. It is hard to imagine that Marriott owners would have priority over Vistana owners - and the other way around. The premise of Vistana is that home resort resie is 12-8, Staroptions at 8 months. It’s highly unlikely Marriott owners would have access at 8 months. At 6 months, possibly.
But you just don’t know. It is all speculation at this time.

I may just have to pick up a WSJ unit if it becomes harder to get in with SO than it already is. I can see myself easily coming here once a year.

 

[daviator]

Weird question...I was looking at the Vistana App Dashboard and it lists what my Staroptions Balance is for 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024. The balance for 2021, 2022, and 2023 are all correct, however 2024 is listed as zero. It's not something I'm terribly worried about (a few years to potentially fix it) but I was curious if anyone else saw the same thing.

Patience, grasshopper. They just haven’t posted any of the 2024 SOs yet. There's no way to book that far ahead so it doesn’t matter. I’m not sure why they even show 2024. Anyway I’d expect them to post those SOs by early 2022.

 

[bobpark56]

It shows the same when you look at your balances online. They figure StarOptions and VSN will be gone by then in favor of the new Marriott program, so they aren't listing them

I asked, as my 2024 numbers seemed wrong too. They told me it's just too early for those numbers to be fully correct. So patience seems warranted.

 

[DavidnRobin]

And now back to your regular programming…
May weather in June - rainy here.
More rain in last day than entire year in CA.
Glad we rented a car months ago.


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[DavidnRobin]

Nice sunsets lately

20 minutes before

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[GrayFal]

I may just have to pick up a WSJ unit if it becomes harder to get in with SO than it already is. I can see myself easily coming here once a year.

That's what happened to me. I personally love the flexibility of Points in CV and SB with different unit sizes and length of stay but you have to do you!

 

[GrayFal]

And now back to your regular programming…
May weather in June - rainy here.
More rain in last day than entire year in CA.
Glad we rented a car months ago.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Enjoy your stay. Please continue to share pix of your stay. October can't come soon enough! I have 33 days booked.

 

[DavidnRobin]

Enjoy your stay. Please continue to share pix of your stay. October can't come soon enough! I have 33 days booked.

How about this?
There is a resort evacuation going on for some buildings (not ours, but friends in B44, and heard main pool deck cleared).
No response from Westin yet.
Stay tuned…


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[GrayFal]

How about this?
There is a resort evacuation going on for some buildings (not ours, but friends in B44, and heard main pool deck cleared).
No response from Westin yet.
Stay tuned…


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I just saw your FB post.
Please send pictures of the bomb squad response (yikes!)

 

[DavidnRobin]

I just saw your FB post.
Please send pictures of the bomb squad response (yikes!)

Supposedly a bomb threat.
We took off to Little Lameshur.
Robin missed the shot of all the police action.


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[tomandrobin]

And now back to your regular programming…
May weather in June - rainy here.
More rain in last day than entire year in CA.
Glad we rented a car months ago.

Really nice to see that you guys made it back to St John!

 

[controller1]

I asked, as my 2024 numbers seemed wrong too. They told me it's just too early for those numbers to be fully correct. So patience seems warranted.

It appears 2024 numbers were posted this week.

 

[DavidnRobin]

Really nice to see that you guys made it back to St John!

Great to be back - so nice just to float around in warm water. Too bad for the May weather in June.
Super crowded here for this time of year.
(Covid related due to accessibility compared to other islands and Mexico)

Great meals at Morgan’s Mango and Longboard, and incredible sunset at The Windmill Bar

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[GrayFal]

@DavidnRobin what do you mean by May weather? Is it cooler? Rainier? Just curious!

 

[DavidnRobin]

@DavidnRobin what do you mean by May weather? Is it cooler? Rainier? Just curious!

Cooler and Rainy


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[ferndale]

Supposedly a bomb threat.
We took off to Little Lameshur.
Robin missed the shot of all the police action.


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So it was surely a fun day!! We were asked to vacate our villa and wait in the parking lot for instructions (which never came!). In the end, the we left for the beach and returned after all was over! So sorry we missed seeing y'all this year!!!

 

[sharr7]

I just picked up a resale week 51 as well, though it's a sun-sun so I won't have this issue until 2023. I'm fairly certain these were sold as event weeks covering Christmas, so I'm expecting mine to shift to week 52 in 2023; I would expect yours to shift to week 52 in 2022. I've been seeing my fixed week VGV reservations showing up at the 18-month point on the Vistana website, so you should be able to tell on June 17th this year whether it's starting December 17th next year and you should know for sure on June 24th if it's starting December 24th next year.

Following up on this - now that we're 18 months out from week 51 2022, my reservation appeared in the system as still in week 51 (12/17/22-12/24/22). I inquired in the vistana chatbox and received the following response: "Our Hawaii and Colorado properties offer Event Weeks 51 and 52, which cannot be confirmed using StarOptions, as Owners who own at these properties paid a higher premium to secure travel to their Home Resorts during these time-frames."

Thus, St John weeks 51/52 were NOT sold as event weeks and do not shift during 53-week years. Somewhat disappointing. If anyone has heard otherwise at WSJ, let me know.

 

[GrayFal]

Following up on this - now that we're 18 months out from week 51 2022, my reservation appeared in the system as still in week 51 (12/17/22-12/24/22). I inquired in the vistana chatbox and received the following response: "Our Hawaii and Colorado properties offer Event Weeks 51 and 52, which cannot be confirmed using StarOptions, as Owners who own at these properties paid a higher premium to secure travel to their Home Resorts during these time-frames."

Thus, St John weeks 51/52 were NOT sold as event weeks and do not shift during 53-week years. Somewhat disappointing. If anyone has heard otherwise at WSJ, let me know.

I own week 7 Saturday check in VGV and for 2022 it is 2/12-19. Not presidents week. This is the first time in 6 years it has happened.