Marriott Going to Point Syst

Iet is my understanding that they can.

Clearly I am not an expert on the Marriott point system, but I do know that I paid a lot of money for my timeshares and I thoroughly resent the fact that Marriott changed the rules and hit its existing members up for MORE money to stay in the game. I have not joined yet. As current owners we should have been grandfathered into the new program with a nominal fee and they could have started their NEW scheme with new owners. I too have lost faith in Marriott and will not purchase another timeshare. I use to sing their praises about the timeshare program and do not any longer. With the new point system if you do not join, it will be increasingly difficult to trade from Marriott to Marriott product with Interval because Marriott properties rarely come up anymore. That is the downside of not joining the point system. I like to stay in the Marriott family so I know what I am getting when I trade. Additionally, just before Marriott announced the new program we got the bum's rush from Interval to reup our membership with them. I think it was because they knew Marriott was going to launch their new program. I feel taken advantage of all around. I think what Marriot is doing to its current owners is very wrong!

If you extended your ownershp with Interval and you wish you had not done so, the solution is really really simple. Just call Interval and tell them that you wish to cancel your membership and they will refund the all the time you have not used.

If you are in the points program there are only two reasons to keep your original Interval account: (a) you still have weeks listed in that acccount you have not used yet and (b) you own timeshares other then Marriott that you wish to trade thru Interval.

Anybody going to fold under the pressure of the raise of the entrance fee to join destination points? In June I'm told that the $695 one time fee will be well over $2k. I have started to get comfortable about the annual fee since it includes Interval membership and the fees that would normally be associated with lock offs and trades.

Please let me know if I'm missing something. We own prime time weeks 51& 52 in the new buildings in Maui along with a couple of other weeks so the best value is using our weeks or renting. Just am feeling like it's now or never to buy into the points.

Would love to hear what others are thinking...

Never let go of a deed if you have one, especially with 51 & 52! And NEVER give back a deed and BUY points!

My understanding is that you don't give up your deeded property when you join the Destination Program. Is that correct?

Don't let them put it in a "trust" either!

David is absolutely right! NEVER give up your deed to a management company... no matter what they promise you, and especially if they want more money in the process.

I think the marriott points system is awful and I will not buy into it! My understanding is that this was a way for Marriott to do a bit of corporate restructuring, but more importantly, a way for them to bundle all their unsold (usually non-prime) inventory into their points trust. Then you buy into the trust and hopefully you get to use those points for your dream vacations? Really??? Do some research and google user reviews of the marriott point system and your eyes will be opened by the oodles of complaints!!! Afterall, when you are selling points to get rid of non-prime inventory and the purchasers want to trade in points for prime inventory....well, there is not enough space in hawaii etc to accomodate all those prime inventory requests = lots of disgruntled points purchasers. I am disappointed with Marriott for going down this route and I will not be joining their points system after all the complaints I have seen on other review sites

I'm at Marriott's Grande Vista today. I talked to many of the owners at the pool and those that are actually aware of the program are unhappy. They are upset because they thought they bought their weeks, spent thousands and are now being asked to spend thousands again to get into a new program. They all seemed to think that their original purchase has been devalued. I was very surprised at how many were completely unaware the new program!

I remember reading somewhere that a hotel company (not sure if it was Hilton or Marriott) was handing off their timeshare business to an outside company. Raise HELL now! The hotel company might still be interested in protecting their image.

I recoommend you buy into the point system. The HI property gets a lot of points for each week and it provides a lot of flexiblity. You are not giving up anything -- you just have another alternative.

You already own it. How often should you have to buy the same thing?

j227 wrote:

I recoommend you buy into the point system. The HI property gets a lot of points for each week and it provides a lot of flexiblity. You are not giving up anything -- you just have another alternative.

I think you get the fact that I will get a bundle of points for the weeks I have making it more valuable than other properties at low times. I have three weeks in Maui that combined will give me an average of 6k each whereas the one in the desert is much closer to 3k. Unfortunately the later wasn't bought from the developer and I'm not about to pay 2k for the priveledge of adding it to my inventory.

I would never give up the deeded property but rather have the points to allow for more flexibility. It's not always easy to get into the properties you want when you want to through II.

I'm playing out my particular scenerio to illustrate that in a case like mine it may still be a benefit. Considering all the fees that I pay throughout the year to II for locking off and trading, it may just payoff and give me flexibility at the time.

I'd love to see if I'm missing something here but now that I'm under the gun, I may just fold! It would be great to hear from current destination point members to see how it's playing out in the real world.

I would suggest that you go to Timeshare User's Group (tug2.net) There is an enormous amount of information on its forum about the points system of Marriott. There are people's experiences with the system there too. It seems that those who addes the points system to their weeks seem to like it.

Take a look there and there is plenty to read.

I have enrolled into the program. I do have one week that was purchased after the deadline so that one cannot be converted. Frankly I was very worried in the beginning but now that I have been trading (I have a total of over 40000pts) some weeks for pts, I am happy about the flexibility of it all. I was able to add days when needed, change stuff when plans changed and visit new resorts without having to wait for an II exchange confirmation. My complaint is that somehow I ended up with a balance about 10 pts. Now because Marriott’s has a rule that the pts can only be transferred to someone else by increments of 25 & therefor I cannot even sell them or give them away to someone else. Also because there is obliviously not enough pts to book anything with it, I will end up losing those pts in less I decide to convert an other week. Many people end up leaving pts on the table that they are unable to use. I have told Marriott’s that that is not fair! Imagine how much money they gain if so many of us have these small balances? I know it’s not much individually but combined? Anyway, they should implement a system that allows you maybe to buy a voucher for a drink, an ice cream or money certificate that can be spent at the resorts when to balance prevents you from booking anything….

You couldn't be more right. Vote with your pocketbook (or wallet).

You are right it will cost you 695$ to join the new program, no need to buy anything else. It may give you more options, you do not give up your deed We were interested and ready to sign , actually waiting for the sale person to come back with the paper work. When he came back , all bets were off , he realized we had bought one week on the resale value, all of the sudden instead of 695$ it would have cost us, 695$ plus 1,400$ to enroll, we own 3 wks , yikes . Of course , we did not joined, it was pretty slimy for them to change their mind, maybe a honest mistake from them, but it did not make us feel any better. They also change their story because I remember being told before, since we bought in the island time share resale we were okay Also , this year it is the first time I did not get what I wanted when I made my reservation 13 months In advance. My question is : they always say the point system is a different bank but if a legacy owner has joined the point system and not using their week, then that week is part of the bank and Marriott can keep it for the point owners, how do they distribute those weeks? Do they keep them for when the demand is higher, especially Maui in the spring, you need more pts then, meaning those weeks are not available for legacy owner to use. I always thought it was the unsold units that were part of the new point system, but now I realize it is everything . A little scary for our future reservations

I went ahead and made the decision to buy today after a long conversation with the Destination Points sales person. Kept my resale week out of it and paid the $695.

I did it under the pressure of it being a last chance before the pricing tripled. They must really think the economy is improving. I had heard presentations on site but wasn't convinced.

After the purchase was made my take on things changed when the salesperson told me that not only are there buckets for points and deeded weeks but if you don't also own 1000 of the "new" points you don't have access to all of the inventory. I was told the optimum was to buy points at $9.97 each (about to go up) so I would be in a hybrid position. This was after he explained I had the ultimate position as a premiere member in the upper tier to make reservations and have some other advantages.

Good luck making the decision for yourselves. I'm off to get my rebate from Interval.

Joining the points program was good for flexibility, but I believe you could have just as easily rented those trust points and have the same access without the additional cost and annual maintenance fees.