Will Vistana temporarily relax their cancellation policy [for 2021]?

[alwysonvac]

I hope Vistana considers relaxing their cancellation policy. Airlines are realizing that their customers need more flexibility to cancel plans without penalty. Cruise lines and hotels have already made the switch to relax their cancellation policy and provide more flexibility.

It’s hard to make a decision when things are constantly changing outside of your control such as resort closures and state quarantine changes. Hawaii is a very good example. They’ve changed their opening date twice.

I currently have restricted StarOptions carrying over into 2021. The last thing I want is to incur more restricted StarOptions in 2021 due to last minute changes outside of my control.

I would like to see Vistana deliver what HGVC has done for their members. Here’s what HGVC provided in 2020 and will probably continue in 2021.

We understand that our Club Members may feel uncertainty about booking future travel during this time. To allow for travel flexibility and peace of mind, we are now waiving our reservation cancellation policy through the end of the year so you can cancel any time prior to check-in.​

 

[cubigbird]

I doubt it. They are already receiving $$ through maintenance fees and are about to receive another round here in a few months so there isn’t as much competition for the guest as the airlines have.

I bet though we are soon going to see an increase in supply of resale weeks hit the market.

 

[DeniseM]

Vistana relaxed their cancellation policy retroactively back to March 12th. Under the current policy, you can cancel reservations up to the day before check-in, and the recovered 2020 Staroptions will automatically roll over to 2021. Prior to this, if you cancelled a reservation within 60 days of check-in, the Staroptions expired the same year. Not ideal - but an improvement.

 

[alwysonvac]

Vistana relaxed their cancellation policy retroactively back to March 12th. Under the current policy, you can cancel reservations up to the day before check-in, and the recovered 2020 Staroptions will automatically roll over to 2021. Prior to this, if you cancelled a reservation within 60 days of check-in, the Staroptions expired the same year. Not ideal - but an improvement.

Yes, it’s better than nothing.
But they’re restricted points (good for 120 days before checkin) not the normal 8 month window.
And unlike HGVC saved points, banked Vistana StarOptions can’t be deposited into an exchange company. It’s use it or lose it .

I bet though we are soon going to see an increase in supply of resale weeks hit the market.

Yeah, depending on Vistana‘s 2021 policy and 2021 state quarantines/resort closures, I may consider joining them .

 

[dioxide45]

They are also waiving the cancellation fees on StarOption reservations cancelled inside of 60 days.

 

[jabberwocky]

I think it's a bit of do you want the pain now or later? Vistana owners will likely have an easier time booking their owned 2021 and 2022 weeks (both home resort and unrestricted SO). You can also bank 2021 SO for two years out to 2023, so that should provide more options vs. Hilton which only provides for an additional year.

With Hilton, while I appreciate saving a few dollars and not having restrictions on using my saved points next year, I have a feeling it is going to be very difficult to get the HGVC reservation that I want next year.

Personally I don't mind what Vistana has done - it seems to be a good balance between providing incentives to not cancel at the last minute and ensuring owners have a chance to enjoy their property.

 

[mariawolf]

I own week 52 at Harborside which starts 12/27--my decision is do I cancel 60 days out and give up a primo week for a 120 day restriction--or hang on and find out at last minute and lose the points...........probably last time to take all 3 grandchildren together as one graduates from college in 2021........sigh

 

[CPNY]

I own week 52 at Harborside which starts 12/27--my decision is do I cancel 60 days out and give up a primo week for a 120 day restriction--or hang on and find out at last minute and lose the points...........probably last time to take all 3 grandchildren together as one graduates from college in 2021........sigh

Plan on going! How’s the weather then? When I’ve been to Bahamas in winter it’s always been cool. Too cool for the ocean or pools.

 

[alwysonvac]

I think it's a bit of do you want the pain now or later? Vistana owners will likely have an easier time booking their owned 2021 and 2022 weeks (both home resort and unrestricted SO). You can also bank 2021 SO for two years out to 2023, so that should provide more options vs. Hilton which only provides for an additional year.

With Hilton, while I appreciate saving a few dollars and not having restrictions on using my saved points next year, I have a feeling it is going to be very difficult to get the HGVC reservation that I want next year.

Personally I don't mind what Vistana has done - it seems to be a good balance between providing incentives to not cancel at the last minute and ensuring owners have a chance to enjoy their property.

“Providing incentives to not cancel at the last minute”?

Sorry, you’re missing my point. Under normal circumstances, the 60 day cancellation window is not unreasonable however in the current environment things are changing outside of our control.
Changes to Covid-19 conditions and updated travel restriction can be announced at any time before checkin (on the 59th, 15th or 7th day, etc). These ongoing changes can impact the destination you were planning to visit and/or your return to your home state/country .

I’ve been a Starwood/Vistana owner since 2011. I’ve never canceled within the 60 day window before this year. However for the first time ever, I had to unexpectedly cancel my April 2020 Hawaii reservations within the 60 day window due to Covid-19. I bought Starwood/Vistana for their Hawaii resorts. So I’m thankful that Vistana gave us until 2021 to rebook since Hawaii is still under the 14 day quarantine rule.

Since I own in multiple systems, I carefully plan out which will be used when for each year. With HGVC, I take advantage of their flexible borrowing option and with Vistana, I take advantage of banking.

As, we go into 2021, I don’t have a way to avoid additional restricted StarOptions since I have banked StarOptions that will expire at the end of 2021.

As I revise my plans for 2021 to make use of all StarOptions set to expire in 2021, I can‘t help but wonder if I’m going to be stuck in the same situation (Covid-19 conditions changing once I’m inside the 60 day window) then I’ll be stuck with an increased number of restricted StarOptions . Will Vistana extend the expiration again for restricted StarOptions?

I don’t know what the answer is but losing two years of StarOptions will push some owners to sell.

 

[DeniseM]

I own week 52 at Harborside which starts 12/27--my decision is do I cancel 60 days out and give up a primo week for a 120 day restriction--or hang on and find out at last minute and lose the points

Just to be clear - you won't lose the Staroptions. You can cancel up to the day before check-in, and Vistana will automatically roll the Staroptions over to 2021. Yes, rebooking is restricted to 120 days, but it's better than losing them.

 

[CPNY]

This is life, I have more restricted options than I would like. If I am finding I cannot book what I want within 120 days I will book something I normally wouldn’t with whatever is available. If I myself can’t go then I’ll offer free trips to friends or family who are willing to go to Arizona in the summer, I don’t know, it is what it is. I’m not sure what more people want vistana to do? They removed the cancellation fee, removed the restrictions of 60 days and extended it to 4 months and extended them through next year. I just don’t get it. People had the option to cancel and bank their options for 4 months when the pandemic hit. The only other thing I could have seen them do was maybe extend the banking deadline for non elite owners to August or September. Other than that, their cancellation policy is more than fair. I say this as someone who had to cancel 3 times due to local govt closures of the destinations I was traveling to. All three closures came within a week of my scheduled arrival. I’m thankful to vistana for allowing me to cancel multiple times and still have the options to use through 2021.

 

[cubigbird]

With all of these restricted options ballooning due to cancellations, what’s the prognosis on 2021 reservations? Is it going to be harder to get reservations?

 

[controller1]

With all of these restricted options ballooning due to cancellations, what’s the prognosis on 2021 reservations? Is it going to be harder to get reservations?

There should be no impact on any reservations other than those made within 120 days of arrival. I believe there could be an aggressive appetite for those reservations.

 

[alwysonvac]

This is life, I have more restricted options than I would like. If I am finding I cannot book what I want within 120 days I will book something I normally wouldn’t with whatever is available. If I myself can’t go then I’ll offer free trips to friends or family who are willing to go to Arizona in the summer, I don’t know, it is what it is. I’m not sure what more people want vistana to do? They removed the cancellation fee, removed the restrictions of 60 days and extended it to 4 months and extended them through next year. I just don’t get it. People had the option to cancel and bank their options for 4 months when the pandemic hit. The only other thing I could have seen them do was maybe extend the banking deadline for non elite owners to August or September. Other than that, their cancellation policy is more than fair. I say this as someone who had to cancel 3 times due to local govt closures of the destinations I was traveling to. All three closures came within a week of my scheduled arrival. I’m thankful to vistana for allowing me to cancel multiple times and still have the options to use through 2021.

I‘m glad it works for you and hopefully it will work for most but one size doesn’t fit all.

Your situation is different than mine. As I stated I above, I bought Starwood/Vistana for their Hawaii resorts. Honestly I’m not interested in any other Vistana location. My husband and I also need to coordinate our time off with our fellow co-workers and based on the needs of the business.

Hopefully, things will work out and the travel situation will be different next year for the destination I’m interested in.

 

[jabberwocky]

“Providing incentives to not cancel at the last minute”?

Sorry, you’re missing my point. Under normal circumstances, the 60 day cancellation window is not unreasonable however in the current environment things are changing outside of our control.
Changes to Covid-19 conditions and updated travel restriction can be announced at any time before checkin (on the 59th, 15th or 7th day, etc). These ongoing changes can impact the destination you were planning to visit and/or your return to your home state/country .

I’ve been a Starwood/Vistana owner since 2011. I’ve never canceled within the 60 day window before this year. However for the first time ever, I had to unexpectedly cancel my April 2020 Hawaii reservations within the 60 day window due to Covid-19. I bought Starwood/Vistana for their Hawaii resorts. So I’m thankful that Vistana gave us until 2021 to rebook since Hawaii is still under the 14 day quarantine rule.

Since I own in multiple systems, I carefully plan out which will be used when for each year. With HGVC, I take advantage of their flexible borrowing option and with Vistana, I take advantage of banking.

As, we go into 2021, I don’t have a way to avoid additional restricted StarOptions since I have banked StarOptions that will expire at the end of 2021.

As I revise my plans for 2021 to make use of all StarOptions set to expire in 2021, I can‘t help but wonder if I’m going to be stuck in the same situation (Covid-19 conditions changing once I’m inside the 60 day window) then I’ll be stuck with an increased number of restricted StarOptions . Will Vistana extend the expiration again for restricted StarOptions?

I don’t know what the answer is but losing two years of StarOptions will push some owners to sell.

There is no perfect solution to this problem. Like you, we love Hawaii and have been Vistana owners for many years (since 2013). We had actually never canceled a reservation until this year, much less one within 60 days.

We ended up canceling a spring break trip to Orlando scheduled to start on March 21. The Canadian government announced the border closure just a few days prior, so we ended up canceling on March 19. That ended up being a chunk of SO that came back restricted. At the time the policy was still for a 60 day RSO with a cancelation fee waiver. I was extremely grateful that Vistana not only went to 120-day RSO policy from 60 days, but they also made it retroactive to March 12.

We also had two weeks in a 2BR scheduled for WKORV-N in late June/early July. I canceled those 62 days out as I could see where things were headed and I wanted to avoid them becoming RSO. I then banked my 2020 SO to 2022 (some of the SO for this reservation were due to expire in 2021).

The upshot is that I have nearly 750k of SO that I can use in 2021. 125k of which are RSO and 86k of unrestricted SO which expire in 2021.

In my opinion, at this point C-19 is a known risk in booking travel, including the possibility of last-minute lockdowns or closures. Any bookings scheduled to start after May 2020 would be beyond the 60-day window for someone to realize this possibility. If you don't want to risk having them come back as RSO then it's best to cancel before the 60-day window and bank them.

I don't think my RSO should have preference over other owners who want to make regular use of their 2021 SO, and so I'm happy with the four-month restriction. We did book a week at WMH over Christmas using our RSO plus some of our 2021 expiry banked SO.

My other SO I've managed to move around carefully - but it has taken more planning than normal and a few cancel/rebookings to get optimal usage and ensure 2021 expiring SO are used first. I've just canceled our March Maui time since I don't really want to put out several thousand dollars in airfare on the chance that Hawaii will be able to manage things in a coherent manner. Right now we're planning on going to WLR in March instead (we've never been and probably I wouldn't have considered it but for C-19). We're now looking at Hawaii in August. The upshot is that if our plans work out, we will have used up all RSO and SO that expire in 2021 and only have 155k banked SO which will carry-forward into 2022.

I will see how the booking is for our HGVC points, but I'm less optimistic I'll get the time/resort we want.

 

[tomvc]

I have 140K restricted staroptions due to Covid cancellations. Under the "Exchange with Interval International", I have an option to deposit a studio since that was a full week that was returned. Depositing to II by end of year will extended usage for up to three year (two years for initial exchange and another with e-plus extension).

 

[CPNY]

I have 140K restricted staroptions due to Covid cancellations. Under the "Exchange with Interval International", I have an option to deposit a studio since that a was a full week that was returned. Depositing to II by end of year will extended usage for up to three year (two years for initial exchange and another with e-plus extension).

Didn’t know you can deposit restricted options

 

[CPNY]

I‘m glad it works for you and hopefully it will work for most but one size doesn’t fit all.

Your situation is different than mine. As I stated I above, I bought Starwood/Vistana for their Hawaii resorts. Honestly I’m not interested in any other Vistana location. My husband and I also need to coordinate our time off with our fellow co-workers and based on the needs of the business.

Hopefully, things will work out and the travel situation will be different next year for the destination I’m interested in.

You an still go to the resort in Hawaii. You’ll just have to quarantine. The issue is with the government in Hawaii not vistana I guess.

 

[jabberwocky]

Didn’t know you can deposit restricted options

I don't think you can. II doesn't know that the weeks have already been used. I think if you tried to deposit your week that has been used for a SO booking it would come back from Vistana as non-existent. In II, I see units that have been used to make SO reservations and can't be banked.

 

[alwysonvac]

I have 140K restricted staroptions due to Covid cancellations. Under the "Exchange with Interval International", I have an option to deposit a studio since that a was a full week that was returned. Depositing to II by end of year will extended usage for up to three year (two years for initial exchange and another with e-plus extension).

Thanks for pointed that out .
I also didn’t know restricted StarOptions could be deposited in II. I’m sure that tip will help others .

I unfortunately used banked StarOptions for my original April 2020 Hawaii reservation. I just checked, in case they made an exception this year to allow members to deposit restricted StarOptions that were previously banked StarOptions , but as expected per the current rules, I don’t have that option (See screen capture below).

But I would take the option to deposit in Interval International in a heartbeat if they somehow made this an exception for this year . It would also reduce some of the competition for next year.

 

[alwysonvac]

There is no perfect solution to this problem. Like you, we love Hawaii and have been Vistana owners for many years (since 2013). We had actually never canceled a reservation until this year, much less one within 60 days.

We ended up canceling a spring break trip to Orlando scheduled to start on March 21. The Canadian government announced the border closure just a few days prior, so we ended up canceling on March 19. That ended up being a chunk of SO that came back restricted. At the time the policy was still for a 60 day RSO with a cancelation fee waiver. I was extremely grateful that Vistana not only went to 120-day RSO policy from 60 days, but they also made it retroactive to March 12.

We also had two weeks in a 2BR scheduled for WKORV-N in late June/early July. I canceled those 62 days out as I could see where things were headed and I wanted to avoid them becoming RSO. I then banked my 2020 SO to 2022 (some of the SO for this reservation were due to expire in 2021).

The upshot is that I have nearly 750k of SO that I can use in 2021. 125k of which are RSO and 86k of unrestricted SO which expire in 2021.

In my opinion, at this point C-19 is a known risk in booking travel, including the possibility of last-minute lockdowns or closures. Any bookings scheduled to start after May 2020 would be beyond the 60-day window for someone to realize this possibility. If you don't want to risk having them come back as RSO then it's best to cancel before the 60-day window and bank them.

I don't think my RSO should have preference over other owners who want to make regular use of their 2021 SO, and so I'm happy with the four-month restriction. We did book a week at WMH over Christmas using our RSO plus some of our 2021 expiry banked SO.

My other SO I've managed to move around carefully - but it has taken more planning than normal and a few cancel/rebookings to get optimal usage and ensure 2021 expiring SO are used first. I've just canceled our March Maui time since I don't really want to put out several thousand dollars in airfare on the chance that Hawaii will be able to manage things in a coherent manner. Right now we're planning on going to WLR in March instead (we've never been and probably I wouldn't have considered it but for C-19). We're now looking at Hawaii in August. The upshot is that if our plans work out, we will have used up all RSO and SO that expire in 2021 and only have 155k banked SO which will carry-forward into 2022.

I will see how the booking is for our HGVC points, but I'm less optimistic I'll get the time/resort we want.

Yeah, I have several thousand dollars in United Airlines travel credit .

So I’m keeping my fingers crossed for Hawaii next year in the Spring with the Fall as my backup. My plan is also to use up all RSO and SO that are set to expire with my Hawaii trip .

 

[dioxide45]

There should be no impact on any reservations other than those made within 120 days of arrival. I believe there could be an aggressive appetite for those reservations.

I do think we will see some impact on regular StarOption reservations. There were probably a lot of people that were able to cancel early enough to be able to bank by their respective deadlines and have unrestricted banked options in to 2021 and 2022. At least those will spread out over a couple years where the 120 day points will only be good through 2021. Of course, Vistana could decide sometime in 2021 to extend those all again.

 

[controller1]

I do think we will see some impact on regular StarOption reservations. There were probably a lot of people that were able to cancel early enough to be able to bank by their respective deadlines and have unrestricted banked options in to 2021 and 2022. At least those will spread out over a couple years where the 120 day points will only be good through 2021. Of course, Vistana could decide sometime in 2021 to extend those all again.

I agree.

 

[alwysonvac]

Added “[for 2021]” to the thread title.

 

[grrrah]

Yup, but it seems a lot of folks hanging onto reservations then cancelling right before or right after the 120 day mark. The 120 to 60 day window is a nice time to modify. I was just able to switch my new year's week from star options to restricted options. There was no availability 2 weeks ago (~125 days out).

Then with my returned star options, I was able to cancel my home options res for HI in April and re-book with start options. Then booked June with my Home options, just in case I have to postpone my April res. I should know by Jan/Feb if I have to cancel April, modify June, and book a backup week in the fall.