Original Message:
Re: Ripoff - Marriott Vacation Club Destinations Program - New Point System (by Glenn A.):
I am a completely upset owner. Marriott Vacation Club is practicing deceptive trade practices through its poorly designed website that facilitated mys losing vacation points with no notification, knowledge nor communication.
The Vacation Club website showed that I could still exchange recently expired points for Bonvoy points good at Marriott related hotels. The vacation club rep was on the phone as I did it, and said that these points had not yet reached expiration date. I printed a confirmation that 4500 vacation club points had been accepted as transferred to Bonvoy. I asked to speak with a supervisor about the lack of communication regarding expiring points. She relayed that I had actually used 2000 of my current year points for Bonvoy points. I relayed that the web site did not communicate this at all, and requested that the vacation club points be restored. She relayed that the transaction could not be undone. This despite the false information conveyed on the web site and lack of clarity. She said that she would go back and listen to the recording of the call, but said in any case nothing would be done to restore the vacation club points. I have the print out showing what I requested is different from what they did.
Further recent issues:
The process for re-establishing access to the owner portal is a mess. Confusing, not intuitive, took me two hours.
When I did get back on I see 3650 points that say end date 9/2019 but "available." I tried to call the vacation adviser number and was disconnected twice because there was heavy call activity and told to call back later. On try 4 after a two hour wait the next day, I reached a representative.
The vacation club rep relayed that indeed the 3650 points had recently expired with only spam looking emails to alert the owner. My Worldmark, Wyndham and RCI time share ownerships are much better at helping owners not accidentally lose points.
Finally, I recently purchased 2000 more points, and had been told at sales it could charge my card monthly like my other 3 timeshare companies do. I made an on line inquiry and was told i could pay monthly manually through the site but might lose access to my points and incur late fees. The vacation club rep I reached said there is a form that one fills out to do this, but that it is not available on the website in the pay your dues area.