Marriott: Own a developer week (prior to 2010), debating adding club points.

Hello,

I hope someone can help me clarify something.

As noted in subject line, I own a platinum week, 2-bedroom villa at a Marriott property. I spoke at length with a club sales agent, but still have some questions...

Issue I am trying to clarify:

If I have no points and just use destinations program to covert my owned weeks to club points. Sales agent made it sound like I would have real difficulty finding inventory due to the way the inventory pools work. The claim as that I needed to add points to be a Hybrid owner and get full usage of converting my owned unit to club points. Does not owning actual points in the club make points from an owned week hard to use (lack of inventory)?

I was told that points purchased on resale market will not go towards club level benefits (like Bonvoy platinum upgrade). However, my main question is: do resale points purchased on red week, allow me to be a hybrid owner and get full use of the points I would get from depositing my owned week into club program?

Much appreciate any help to clarify these questions.

No. When you buy points on resale market they can not be used in conjunction with points bought from a developer. Also do not get developer benefits, which is what those are. Developer benefits so you have to buy them from a developer.

Also points is a rabbit hole. Say hello to the Mad Hatter!!!!!

We fell for the sales pitch that buying into the points program would provide much more flexibility. (We were told we needed to own points to be eligible to exchange our weeks for points. Is that not true?) We have owned two 1 bedroom even year weeks at Maui Ocean Club for 20 years and have never exchanged or upgraded. We’ve never had any problem reserving our weeks, usually in slower seasons. For 2024 we wanted to upgrade to a 2 BR unit in one of the towers with full kitchens. Wanted to book for my birthday in Feb so started calling at 9 EST on the 13 month release date. Terribly long hold times and no rooms available in several attempts. Finally while on a lengthy hold I was on line and found a March week. Once the rep came on the line I wanted to add a day or two on the front or back of that week using points. (Another flexibility pitch for points.) No availability. Apparently the Hawaii resorts have been running close to 100% occupancy. It didn’t look like booking our weeks normally would have been any easier but I can’t say for sure. One BIG deal not disclosed is that if you convert to points without definite plans and then you decide to stick with your original week(s), the points you got aren’t enough to buy your week back. I’ve gotten a few BS explanations for that but I feel cheated. We still have enough points remaining for a week of 1 BR mountain/garden view in the old complex so we can invite more family, but so far no availability. We used to enjoy two weeks every other year to escape work and Oregon winter gloom, but now retired to a beautiful area we feel nothing to escape from and wouldn’t mind divesting of our ownership, but resale value is so low we will probably go to using one week and renting the other to cover our maintenance fees in the future. Long answer. Best advice if you’re being pitched points is to ask lots of questions because they won’t volunteer information that could be perceived as negative.

I did fall down the rabbit hole and spent better part of a day reading post on various forums. Best resource was the TUG (Timeshare User Group) forums. Here is what I learned: (please comment if your experience contradicts any of this)

Use case: I have owned a week purchased from Marriott since 2003. Most of the posts I have seen refer to an owned week purchased on secondary market after 2010. Posters are looking for strategies to get the ability to exchange that week for points and combine with owned points. Owing a week purchased directly from Marriott prior to 2010 and how club points from exchanging my week can be used with no owned points or owned points via secondary market is what I am researching.

Best single post to read: https://tugbbs.com/forums/threads/marriott-abound-formerly-destination-club-points-system-faq-guide.197346/

1. If you buy points on the secondary market, all rights and privileges do transfer if you pay the 'enrollment' fee which can double the price. If all rights transfer, then I would expect to be able book a stay and blend the points across owned and week exchanged points to secure the reservation. If someone has direct experience on this being not true, please comment.

2. I modeled a number of purchases that should clear the right of refusal hurdle and it looks like you still get a ~ 55-60% discount to retail. Here is a calculator to help calculate costs. https://vacationpointexchange.com/resale/

3. Owned week exchanged points vs owned points are kept in different inventory buckets for legal reasons. DC Trust Members have direct access to inventory in the DC Trust as well as inventory available through the DC Exchange Company; and, DC Exchange Members have direct access to only the inventory that's available through the DC Exchange Company. My salesperson represented this as very little inventory in the DC Exchange CO, but week owners who exchange for Bonvoy points or club points weeks are in the DC exchange company. It looks like availability is not bad (can't be worse than interval exchange). Just high super high demand locations/time windows are hard.

4. From what I read; owning points gives you access to all inventory per club level rules. You can book and secure the reservation with owned points and owner week points. The points are used in 250 point blocks, so if you only need 50 points from your owned week point pool, that can cause a hiccup.

I am going to trade my week for 2024 to club points and see what I can reserve without owning any points. I expect high demand / high season locations to be difficult to book, but that is not an issue as I am flexible and usually look for shoulder seasons to avoid crowds. I don't expect availability to be worse than what I have seen via putting a week into interval for exchange, but time will tell.

That test also gives me to time validate: Ability to purchase points on 2nd hand market, paying the full fee for rights and blend them with points from exchanging my week to book club property vacations. Also that points purchased on secondary market with full fee do in fact combine with the points I get from owner exchange for club level benefits (eg. bonvoy platinum)

Richard E. thanks for sharing the story. That sounds frustrating. Even the better salespeople will omit facts and exaggerate issues to pressure you into a purchase.

As you were targeting 1 specific high demand property, it sounds like using your owned week is best. I am also going to experiment with getting into properties I am interested in via the ads from owners on red week and other sites.

Note, there are people out there who sell points for onetime use, so you can top up for one year to get what you want vs. purchasing ownership of points. But you have to own some points into order to do this.

Our first purchases with Marriott were whole weeks in the last '90s. Currently we have purchased additional points. Here are a few items in relation to your question. 1) regardless of purchasing additional Destination Points (DP) if you joined that program it does allow you to trade your week(s) into DP and used them for those purposes 2) initially I didn't like that we had a prime Christmas week and with the # of DP (i.e. 2300 DP) we would get for it, we couldn't get that same week for 2300 points, it was 2500. But...we use our DP for different reasons 3) DP can really be spread out if say you only go M-F as the point value are usually a lot less than the value on wknd. Hypothetically you can spread your 7-day week turned into DP into 3 M-F weeks (depending upon location and time of year). 4) The nice thing about being enrolled in DP is that if you still want your week at your home resort, you can use it as such and not transfer it into DPs

Hope this helped a bit...BTW...you do lose a lot of benefits purchasing on secondary market.

Thanks David,

regarding your comment.. "Hope this helped a bit...BTW...you do lose a lot of benefits purchasing on secondary market."

Are you talking about buying an ownership week on secondary market or buying Marriott Club points on secondary market? From what I understand of secondary market, you have big limitations of buying an owned week but no limitations if you buy points and pay the full Marriott fees.

Thanks

I am trying to find someone to sell me one time use club points. I haven’t been able TJ find where I can do this. I need an additional 800 points for a specific trip next year. Any suggestions?