I agree with the fine points others are making, and I would like to add my 2 cents. Virtually every company on the planet has a very simple task, make the best possible product and charge the highest price that the market can accept in the long run. Owners are starting to understand that the product is not the resorts. The resorts have to meet Marriott International quality standards and our managers are not doing a better job than the ones who manage the other 8000 hotels and resorts in their portfolio. Instead the product is our interaction with MVC when we are not on vacation and has to do with how we book, how easy and fun is to deal with customer service issues, how much we pay for the MF and the inventory we have access to.
Unfortunately, Marriott has allowed itself having opposing interests to its customers (“owners”) and in time these opposing interests only grew larger with the proliferation of the trusts. The list of opposing interests is long: ROFR, control of the trusts so the developer can pick and choose the inventory that is added to the trusts, a large rental business that means Marriott has a business incentive to keep the best inventory for the highest rental profit (instead of conveying it to the trusts), lack of transparency on how and when they actually book their own units that will be rented, a selection and election process that is designed to assert a higher influence to the BODs than the actual developer ownership, perceived disregard for our maintenance fees since their management fee is even higher when the MF go up.
To my knowledge, the trust owners do not even know what they actually own, even if the information should probably be continuously updated and disclosed to the trust holders. My understanding is that the initial purchase documents list an inventory that lacks details about the season, which is the most important feature of a timeshare aside from the name of the resort. Another important feature is view, when applicable, and that is also not disclosed. It seems that after the purchase there is no attempt to inform directly the owners about the additions to the trusts and the owners have to do detective work to find out more, and with no way of telling what is the quality of the new additions, since the season and the view are not public record.
This would not be possible without a decent dose of arrogance that others have mentioned already. At the same time when they reduced the benefits to the Vistana owners (reduced banking features, they ditched the early and late checkout for their best customers etc), they explained to us that everything will continue to be the same, a statement that was obviously contradicted by their actions. Abound itself was launched with the gross disregard IMO to what a home resort reservation period in our system meant, whether implicit at most resorts or explicit in the case of Lagunamar. To make it worse, they are moving a huge amount of inventory around based on a provision of the VSN rules that was written for external exchanges at the time, not for an in house exchange that is under full control of the company. The Lagunamar governing docs explicitly make the home resort reservation period even stronger, but Marriott does not even care about that.
I agree with others that, because of social media, owners are more informed now and the lack of transparency is no longer acceptable to many. Sure, the “customer advocacy” will try to correct few minor procedural issues, but that department functions as the PR arm of the firm, so virtually useless for the things that actually matter.
When Abound was launched, they created imbalances in the Vistana ownership base, and suddenly many who paid good money to trade within the system realized that their contracts may be worth 30 of 40% less in Abound, unless they exchange into low season (when Interval is often a better alternative for low season anyway). Sure, if you own Lagunamar of Hawaii you may still be happy with the point allocation, but how is that supposed to please the other owners in the system who saw their value collapsing in the new world? Of course the Vistana owners are supposed to believe that everything will stay the same if they want to, but Marriott’s actions to favor Abound at every level reminds us that the time is not in our favor and that in the future it may be harder and harder to get what we used to in VSN. Or course, at any “owners update” we are also told that VSN is not great, and that you need Abound points to compensate for the deteriorating VSN inventory.
Aside from the issues already mentioned by myself and others, I believe Abound has an additional structural challenge for Vistana owners because managing points in two different systems is more complex, and the life of a timeshare owner was already complicated enough with just one system. If you're content with Vistana and still happy with what you're getting, at least for now, why would you buy Abound points? Doing so could complicate your life, and potentially lead to a higher number of expiring points in either system and increase overall costs. While many Marriott owners were used to the existing setup and had no comparison, Vistana owners had a reference point—a system that many considered superior in terms of cost, abundance of inventory, quality of customer service, and booking platform. So, the question remains: why pay more for less? Sure, you only had access to 25 resorts instead of 100 or so but to many the number was sufficient since it already included great mountain and beach locations and the average family does not travel more than two weeks a year.
Will Marriott understand that they have to start to create value for the owners? Often those who try to satisfy the investors to the detriment of the customers, may end up pleasing neither.
Nobody likes a bully, particularly one that does it multiple times.
