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Re: Ripoff - Marriott Vacation Club Destinations Program - New Point System

Frankd, As an MVCI owner, since they started in this business in the mid 1980s, I understand your concern that your exchange opportunity to other Marriott properties via II has been reduced with the advent of the Destination Points program. The ample number of Marriott exhanges to good destination until this year was in part due to the fact that prior to the start of DP ALL Marriott owned (un-sold) weeks were placed into II for weeks-to-weeks exchange (when Marriott did not rent them out). MVCI owners always had first access to these weeks for the first 30 or 60 days on II (I don't recall exact time). The DP program took in all Marriott unsold and new properties into a Trust with assigned week values. Those weeks and all future Marriott properties are now exchanged via II in the DP program. This Marriott owned inventory, now part of the DP Trust, is primarily why you don't see as many exchange opportunities on II. As weeks owners, who number in the 10s of thousands, we still exhange via II by depositing a week and those are available to us before any non-Marriott owner. If we want access to the DP deposits as well we must consider becoming members of the DP program and exchanging our weeks for DP points and using them as that program rules require. Marriott never promised us access to their un-sold inventory and they did not promise us they would continue to build new and better properties forever in the most in-demand locations. These have always been bonus weeks that Marriott could not rent out-right. Thankfully they have elected to provide Marriot weeks owners with all that we signed up for in our contracts and for $600/week we can each join the new DP program and enjoy the benefits of both the past and new programs. The decision is ours. I for one am happy, in a tough economy, Marriott did not leave the timeshare industry as most other developers have or worse declare bankruptcy and/or get taken over by groups like Diamond Resorts Inc. I trust that as we learn to master the new programs in concert with our old trusted programs we will learn that Marriott still offers the best vacation options and experiences in the timeshare business. Cheers, Erman