I did an owner's update meeting this week at Sheraton Desert Oasis. I had never heard of Abound and was pretty clueless. The sales rep told me flat out 3 of your misconceptions and almost pulled another $13K out of me saying I couldn't be in Abound without it. Thanks for the facts.
Thanks Jeremy. I'm so thankful for your videos. I will be going to the owner's update meeting this year. I have all I need to assist me in that meeting. Awesome job.
Glad it was helpful. The only real new information they can tell you out of that meeting will to confirm how much your VOI is worth. But that has probably already been reported in my Google Sheets document; docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1sVBPe7C4J_3iO7Ia_DDT323VdmeZuVrgyfArcOpp6io/edit?usp=sharing Thanks for watching!
We just got back from a sales presentation at Sheraton Vistana Villages this past weekend. We looked at purchasing 88,000 points but wanted the catalog book of point conversions with Marriott Abound so that we could see what we could do with these 88,000 points. They would not let us have the catalog to do our own investigation. I see that people have posted Marriott Vacation Club point charts for resorts but they are all in Marriott Vacation Club purchases points. There has to be a conversion table from Vistana points to Marriott Points. If you can direct me to that reference, I would appreciate it so we can determine if this has the value we are looking for. Thank you
Sure, below is a link to the Vistana StarOption chart for the different resorts. 88,000 points seems like an odd number. 81,000 is one that will play better since many 2BR units are that amount of points. Then you wouldn't have a small odd number left over year to year. content.vistana.com/charts/staroptions_value_charts.pdf If you were looking at Sheraton Flex, these points convert to Bonvoy points at 34.24 to 1. So 81,000 HomeOptions would be worth about 2,365 Abound club points. You can use that to check to the Marriott Vacation Club Abound club points charts you have found. Also, if you are looking at buying into Vistana, there are cheaper options when looking at resale. You don't get Abound Club points when you buy resale, but you can get points for far less money than they would have been charging you for buying direct. Thank s for watching.
Your videos are great and the fact that you own both Marriott and Vistana properties provides a unique insight into this merger. I am an enrolled owner with Select status in the Marriott Destinations program, now called Abound. One thing I noticed while using Abound is that while I can still reserve a week or more in a Marriott resort 13 months out with my destination points (now called club points) , I can only reserve that same time period in a Sheraton or Weston property 12 months out...just curious if you know why this is the case.
The issue with Sheraton and Westin is that many of the governing documents for the resorts and VSN only allow owners to reserve 12 months in advance. Since Abound is just getting weeks based intervals for inventory, they can't reserve anything more than what a Sheraton or Westin owner could book for themselves. This limitation was called out in the Abound FAQ that Marriott published in 2022. This is a little different than with Marriott because Marriott already had a 13 month reservation provision that allowed owners with multiple weeks to be able to reserve 13 months in advance when making consecutive or concurrent reservations. So this allows Marriott to reserve certain inventory and deposit it into the Abound exchange program for point bookings at 13 months. Hope this helps and thanks for watching!
@@DestinationTimeshare Thanks for the clarification. I guess time will tell, but at first look it seems like the real winners with Abound are Vistana owners. They have access to Marriott properties 13 months out, don't have to pay to enroll their weeks in Abound, while Marriott owners had to pay to enroll their weeks in the destination program. In my opinion, if I owned a Vistana week or weeks that was able to be enrolled in Abound, I would jump at the opportunity.
Yes, most certainly Vistana owners have it great with Abound. They were simply automatically opted in and the only real change was an increase in their annual Club Fee. THough they get the same benefits of the consolidated fee, so II exchange fees will go away, as will other fees like banking, guest name changes, etc. As an owner of two Vistana weeks, the addition of them to Abound bumped us up to Executive level. We are quite happy.
@@DestinationTimeshare I will reserve judgement on how good this will be for enrolled Marriott owners like myself, who don't travel to their home resort anymore, but do use points to go to other locations. How easy will it be to get to Sheraton or Weston resorts where Marriott does not have properties (ie. Mexico, St. Johns etc)? Conversely, how much more difficult will it be to get to Marriott properties with a much increased pool of owners participating in Abound than were participating in the destinations program. Guess, I will have some indications of that pretty soon as I make plans for 2024.
@@DestinationTimeshare Jeremy, I could so use your input. I have so many questions but this is my first and most important: Were letters sent in the mail to Vistana owners last summer (2022) explaining, based on current ownership levels (ours was annual week of 2-bedroom - Orlando Vistana Villages, Platinum season and a bi-annual year's week 2-bedroom same resort) what we would be able to convert to Marriot Abound for and how much it would cost us if we acted before a certain deadline? (I think the deadline was supposed to be August?) We met with an agent in October; it was the first question he asked us: did we get the letter? He seemed to believe us when we assured him we had NOT gotten a letter, an email, any offers or correspondence of any kind regarding our ownership[ and he said (after a lot of going to 'talk' to other people) that it would be OK. He could still get us the same offer and we made what I think was a reasonable transaction based on combining our weeks, adding an upgrade and being bumped to Executive level with 7,225 Club Points HOWEVER our new program would not start until 2024.I was ecstatic! Thought it was best deal I ever heard of. Now, on my Vistana Dashboard, my 2024 level is showing as 'Owner' in Abound with 3,350 Club Points and he is saying we never made that agreement. That's the gist of a long story and I am not sure if have been duped but what I want most to know is.... DID Vistana owners receive some kind of offer letter in USPS mail last year with an offer based on their ownership.......or was his first question a lie right out of the gate? Cuz if he lied right out of the gate......I think I am in trouble. Can't thank you enough for your response....
Went to sales presentation in Cancun (Westin Laguna Mar) mid-Jan, 2023. All of the misconceptions you brought up were referenced in the presentation, but to their credit, they didn't lie about any of them. One thing they told us that we have not been able to confirm or deny is that Vistana was phasing out Star Options, and that other Vistana properties (i.e. Westin Flex) were already selling Marriott Club Points pkgs, and that Adventuras was on their last leg of selling Star Options, which they represented as being cheaper than Club Points (Based on some MVC literature referencing minimums of $25k for some unknown number of Club Points...). Any information about this sales pitch?
At some point in time, the sale of Westin Flex, Sheraton Flex and eventually Westin Aventuras will almost end and they will transition over to mostly selling Marriott Abound Trust Points. I say eventually because there is still probably a lot of unsold Aventuras inventory and there will always be some deedbacks and foreclosures on all of the resorts and Flex products. So while they may not actively push these other programs when they do a sales presentation, someone in the know will probably be able to ask and buy any of these products at any given time.
@@DestinationTimeshare Well, i guess they were somewhere between the truth and a half-truth 🤣. Pretty good for sales folks i suppose. Thank you so much for your videos! Really enjoying them. Just wish I would have started watching before I started purchasing w/Vistana. Probably could have ended up in the same place for a lot less money. 😓
I think the only real new information from an Owner Update today is that they can now tell us how many Abound Club Points a Vistana VOI is worth. Both Marriott and Vistana sales reps have access to it. Thanks for watching!
The salesmen have told me several times that I need to "retro" (or whatever it's called) my mandatory resale in order to stay at the Marriott properties. Great that you can pay attention during the presentations. My mind wanders off.
Yeah, I just talked with someone today who was told they had to buy more points to get to Executive even though they were grandfathered in as 3 Star Elite Vistana owners. The sales people will say anything to try and make a sale.
Great videos; thanks for the info! I noticed that, on the email you posted from VSN, it says that future purchases from an unauthorized reseller will not be eligible to elect to receive Club Points or convert to Marriott Bonvoy points... In that context, what is an "unauthorized reseller," and what does that verbiage in the email mean? If you (or I) later buy a resale (for example, on ebay or redweek, etc.), would we not be able to make those elections? Thanks very much!
Marriott doesn't really have any authorized resellers. Even their own internal resale operation doesn't usually qualify for Abound Club Point access. So any type of resale purchase wouldn't be able to participate in Abound unless it is later somehow requalified. Thanks for watching!
We stayed at Vistana Villages last week and we are Westin Aventuras (88k star options/yr) owners. Since they are eliminating the banking fees we were told that we can bank any leftover points (by June 30th of the current year) rather than letting them expire. That might be a nice feature when you have a few points left over after taking a vacation. We were led to believe that we needed to make a purchase and convert all of our star options to club points that day but we declined. The salesperson said they are trying to move all Vistana owners into Marriott but that doesn't seem to be entirely true. He also said that if we bought 44k more star options that it would convert to about 4100 club points which would make us platinum. Is there any advantage to that? I'm sad to see that any resale purchase going forward (from an unauthorized reseller) does NOT qualify for club point conversion....wouldn't that essentially eliminate the resale market unless you definitely want to vacation at that property?
4,100 Club Points would make you Select Owner Benefit Level in the Abound program and that would provide Bonvoy Platinum Elite status for as long as you own enough points. As mentioned in the video, there is no need to buy anything from Marriott or Vistana in order to qualify for Abound. Sad that they are actually still telling people this to try to make sales. One would think that the inability to get Bonvoy points from a Vistana ownership would hurt resale prices, but the mandatory weeks will still be able to use VSN and one recent resale listing seemed to sell for a much higher price than I was expecting. Thanks for watching!
Wow, wish I had seen this before our trip last week. We just upgraded from Sheraton Vacation Network to Abound because we were told we had to in order to use the new destinations. We were also told that if we didn’t upgrade, I would only be able to use my week 31 and week 1 period. I am so mad 😡 they lied to me. Something has to be done about this.
To give a little more info. I bout 4400 star options in 2006 for a one bedroom even years and then in 2010 when I got back from Afghanistan. I bought 81000 options which gave me a two bedroom during the odd years.
How long ago did you purchase? Did you buy in Florida? It is possible that you are still inside the 10 day rescission period to where you can cancel the contract. Read through your contract NOW!
I feel like I'm a reasonably smart person, but I cannot figure out whether I need to or should elect for Abound points. I have a floating week at Sheraton Vistana Resorts in Orlando. I purchased it on the resale market 20 years ago. It's 81,000 Star Options, but only 2,425 club points. Some FAQs sound like you can convert but still use options. Others sound like you can't. They really could have made this clearer!
Once you convert, you no longer have the ability to use the StarOptions for that year. Conversion though is not permanent and is a year to year choice. So you can take Club Points in 2024 but still use StarOptions or your actual week in 2025. Determining if it is better to use Club Points or StarOptions depends on where and when you want to travel. Thanks for watching!
@@DestinationTimeshare Hey Jeremy...I heard from a Kierland meeting this week that the switch may not be flipped until Jan 1 due to computer issues, etc.
This second item applies to us ... we own two mandatory resells ... however we never received a clarifying email from Marriott. We did go to two updates BEFORE June 2022, and were told we would not be eligible for Abound exchanges, so this is interesting information we will explore.
Yeah, I don't know if the reps didn't know early that mandatory resales would be included, or they were just hoping to make a sale by telling people they weren't. I know a couple people that bought to requalify their mandatory resales based on the mention that they couldn't participate in Abound unless they did. The regarding our mandatory resale weeks being eligible came on August 31st.
@@DestinationTimeshare Yes...I have been told several times that I couldn't participate in Abound unless I bought something. I told the salesmen that I was happy with the Vistana selection and didn't need anything more.
Hi Jeremy. Thanks for your video. I have purchased a Vistana Timeshare in 2021 at Orlando with 37,000 annual. I’ve read that converting to abound points would cost me $230 annual, which would avoid several Vistana fees, including, but not limited to banking (not sure how that would work), housekeeping, and a VSN fee… However I don’t see a VSN fee info on my account in Vistana’s website. As of today I am only paying yearly HOA fees. Am I missing a payment or that is for Elite members? Then, there are other fees into Interval International but I believe that’s optional. Can you please let me know if I am missing anything? Thanks you
The VSN Fee used to be included in your Annual Maintenance Fee bill. If you have copies of past bills, or even look online at your paid fees for 2022, you will see a "Membership Fee" listed for $155. For 2023 they are separating it because Marriott bills their Abound Club Fee separately and that is how they will bill it for Vistana in the future also. So your fees will only go up $75 (difference between $155 and $230). For that, there will be no other fees as you mention, like banking, housekeeping, and the $155 fee is of course gone. Hope this answers your questions. Thanks for watching!
@@DestinationTimeshare Thanks Jeremy. You’ve answered my questions perfectly. I just checked my old statement and shows exactly what you are saying. My 2022 bill says VOI assessment: $681.92 plus VSN: $155. And my 2023 says VOI assessment: $705.07 (increased slightly but I guess is normal today). I thought the $230 was going to be only in case we enroll to Abound, thanks for clarifying. As a matter of fact it appears that I will pay a little less… I typically pay $56 for housekeeping; plus $109 for banking (I could no do the saving method that you suggested in other video); plus the $155. That makes a total of $320 (vs the $230). In addition, this fee will avoid fees for converting to Bonvoy, guest certificates fees, some exchanges fees, and reservations cancellation fees. Not that I am getting too excited about my “saving”, I’m more likely thinking where the hit will come from… I suspect, they will get some money in some other way. Thanks again Jeremy, your channel is by far the best about this topic. Nice talking with you for now… when you get more thousands of subscribers you will not have much time Lol
@@DestinationTimeshare Hi there, I have the same situation as Geraldo, but my annual fees show no mention of that $155 membership fee. It only lists 1 line item: maintenance fees. Does that mean I have not been charged the membership fee?
@@lynek2126 It depends on what you own. I cover it in more detail in this video; th-cam.com/video/ZL_q3lFDJxs/w-d-xo.html In many cases, the Club Dues would have been billed separately. That other video explains when they would be billed separately vs with your annual maintenance fees. If they are billed separately, you should see them in the "View Statements & Make Payment" section you can get to from the Vistana Dashboard. If you don't see it there, you need to call Owner Service as it may not be linked to your account correctly.
Hi! I’m wondering if you know anything about owners that own biannually? We own 81,000 points every even year with Vistana. We attended an owners update last Thursday and we were told that our timeshare is pretty much worth nothing because Marriott doesn’t recognize biannual ownership and that we will start to be billed maintenance fees at the same rate as an annual owner in 2024. This was very discouraging for my husband and I and left us feeling very uncertain about what the future holds for us. Any info you can share would be appreciated.
This is not true. You will continue to pay the fees as you always have. You will pay the new club fee every year but you also paid the VSN Fee every year too. Thanks for watching.
What happens to original owners when another company takes over? Do they lose any benefits? Better to convert to new point system? Lawrence Welk purchased by Hyatt.
Usually converting (for a high fee or buying more) is a bad idea. Right now buying more Hyatt Vacation Club (prev Welk) doesn't get you anything new. You don't get access to Hyatt Residence Club resorts. I would suggest not converting to points until more is know about the acquisition between Hyatt Residence Club and Welk Resorts.
This dude has such a calm about him, he can make timeshares interesting
I did an owner's update meeting this week at Sheraton Desert Oasis. I had never heard of Abound and was pretty clueless. The sales rep told me flat out 3 of your misconceptions and almost pulled another $13K out of me saying I couldn't be in Abound without it. Thanks for the facts.
Glad this video was helpful. Sales isn’t always truthful in the process to try and sell you more timeshare. Thanks for watching.
Thanks Jeremy. I'm so thankful for your videos. I will be going to the owner's update meeting this year. I have all I need to assist me in that meeting. Awesome job.
Glad it was helpful. The only real new information they can tell you out of that meeting will to confirm how much your VOI is worth. But that has probably already been reported in my Google Sheets document; docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1sVBPe7C4J_3iO7Ia_DDT323VdmeZuVrgyfArcOpp6io/edit?usp=sharing
Thanks for watching!
@@DestinationTimeshare Thank you.
We just got back from a sales presentation at Sheraton Vistana Villages this past weekend. We looked at purchasing 88,000 points but wanted the catalog book of point conversions with Marriott Abound so that we could see what we could do with these 88,000 points. They would not let us have the catalog to do our own investigation. I see that people have posted Marriott Vacation Club point charts for resorts but they are all in Marriott Vacation Club purchases points. There has to be a conversion table from Vistana points to Marriott Points. If you can direct me to that reference, I would appreciate it so we can determine if this has the value we are looking for. Thank you
Sure, below is a link to the Vistana StarOption chart for the different resorts. 88,000 points seems like an odd number. 81,000 is one that will play better since many 2BR units are that amount of points. Then you wouldn't have a small odd number left over year to year.
content.vistana.com/charts/staroptions_value_charts.pdf
If you were looking at Sheraton Flex, these points convert to Bonvoy points at 34.24 to 1. So 81,000 HomeOptions would be worth about 2,365 Abound club points. You can use that to check to the Marriott Vacation Club Abound club points charts you have found.
Also, if you are looking at buying into Vistana, there are cheaper options when looking at resale. You don't get Abound Club points when you buy resale, but you can get points for far less money than they would have been charging you for buying direct.
Thank s for watching.
Your videos are great and the fact that you own both Marriott and Vistana properties provides a unique insight into this merger. I am an enrolled owner with Select status in the Marriott Destinations program, now called Abound. One thing I noticed while using Abound is that while I can still reserve a week or more in a Marriott resort 13 months out with my destination points (now called club points) , I can only reserve that same time period in a Sheraton or Weston property 12 months out...just curious if you know why this is the case.
The issue with Sheraton and Westin is that many of the governing documents for the resorts and VSN only allow owners to reserve 12 months in advance. Since Abound is just getting weeks based intervals for inventory, they can't reserve anything more than what a Sheraton or Westin owner could book for themselves. This limitation was called out in the Abound FAQ that Marriott published in 2022.
This is a little different than with Marriott because Marriott already had a 13 month reservation provision that allowed owners with multiple weeks to be able to reserve 13 months in advance when making consecutive or concurrent reservations. So this allows Marriott to reserve certain inventory and deposit it into the Abound exchange program for point bookings at 13 months. Hope this helps and thanks for watching!
@@DestinationTimeshare Thanks for the clarification. I guess time will tell, but at first look it seems like the real winners with Abound are Vistana owners. They have access to Marriott properties 13 months out, don't have to pay to enroll their weeks in Abound, while Marriott owners had to pay to enroll their weeks in the destination program. In my opinion, if I owned a Vistana week or weeks that was able to be enrolled in Abound, I would jump at the opportunity.
Yes, most certainly Vistana owners have it great with Abound. They were simply automatically opted in and the only real change was an increase in their annual Club Fee. THough they get the same benefits of the consolidated fee, so II exchange fees will go away, as will other fees like banking, guest name changes, etc. As an owner of two Vistana weeks, the addition of them to Abound bumped us up to Executive level. We are quite happy.
@@DestinationTimeshare I will reserve judgement on how good this will be for enrolled Marriott owners like myself, who don't travel to their home resort anymore, but do use points to go to other locations. How easy will it be to get to Sheraton or Weston resorts where Marriott does not have properties (ie. Mexico, St. Johns etc)? Conversely, how much more difficult will it be to get to Marriott properties with a much increased pool of owners participating in Abound than were participating in the destinations program. Guess, I will have some indications of that pretty soon as I make plans for 2024.
@@DestinationTimeshare Jeremy, I could so use your input. I have so many questions but this is my first and most important: Were letters sent in the mail to Vistana owners last summer (2022) explaining, based on current ownership levels (ours was annual week of 2-bedroom - Orlando Vistana Villages, Platinum season and a bi-annual year's week 2-bedroom same resort) what we would be able to convert to Marriot Abound for and how much it would cost us if we acted before a certain deadline? (I think the deadline was supposed to be August?) We met with an agent in October; it was the first question he asked us: did we get the letter? He seemed to believe us when we assured him we had NOT gotten a letter, an email, any offers or correspondence of any kind regarding our ownership[ and he said (after a lot of going to 'talk' to other people) that it would be OK. He could still get us the same offer and we made what I think was a reasonable transaction based on combining our weeks, adding an upgrade and being bumped to Executive level with 7,225 Club Points HOWEVER our new program would not start until 2024.I was ecstatic! Thought it was best deal I ever heard of. Now, on my Vistana Dashboard, my 2024 level is showing as 'Owner' in Abound with 3,350 Club Points and he is saying we never made that agreement. That's the gist of a long story and I am not sure if have been duped but what I want most to know is.... DID Vistana owners receive some kind of offer letter in USPS mail last year with an offer based on their ownership.......or was his first question a lie right out of the gate? Cuz if he lied right out of the gate......I think I am in trouble. Can't thank you enough for your response....
Went to sales presentation in Cancun (Westin Laguna Mar) mid-Jan, 2023. All of the misconceptions you brought up were referenced in the presentation, but to their credit, they didn't lie about any of them. One thing they told us that we have not been able to confirm or deny is that Vistana was phasing out Star Options, and that other Vistana properties (i.e. Westin Flex) were already selling Marriott Club Points pkgs, and that Adventuras was on their last leg of selling Star Options, which they represented as being cheaper than Club Points (Based on some MVC literature referencing minimums of $25k for some unknown number of Club Points...). Any information about this sales pitch?
At some point in time, the sale of Westin Flex, Sheraton Flex and eventually Westin Aventuras will almost end and they will transition over to mostly selling Marriott Abound Trust Points. I say eventually because there is still probably a lot of unsold Aventuras inventory and there will always be some deedbacks and foreclosures on all of the resorts and Flex products. So while they may not actively push these other programs when they do a sales presentation, someone in the know will probably be able to ask and buy any of these products at any given time.
@@DestinationTimeshare Well, i guess they were somewhere between the truth and a half-truth 🤣. Pretty good for sales folks i suppose. Thank you so much for your videos! Really enjoying them. Just wish I would have started watching before I started purchasing w/Vistana. Probably could have ended up in the same place for a lot less money. 😓
@@DestinationTimeshare what will happen to the people who currently own the Austin Aventuras? Can still convert?
@@MiaMurphy-rb8qj Those who own Westin Aventuras and are in VSN can elect Club Points from their HOme Options.
Agree on the owner's updates. We received little information about Aboud. It was in June so there may be better information now at Owner Updates.
I think the only real new information from an Owner Update today is that they can now tell us how many Abound Club Points a Vistana VOI is worth. Both Marriott and Vistana sales reps have access to it. Thanks for watching!
The salesmen have told me several times that I need to "retro" (or whatever it's called) my mandatory resale in order to stay at the Marriott properties. Great that you can pay attention during the presentations. My mind wanders off.
Yeah, I just talked with someone today who was told they had to buy more points to get to Executive even though they were grandfathered in as 3 Star Elite Vistana owners. The sales people will say anything to try and make a sale.
Great videos; thanks for the info! I noticed that, on the email you posted from VSN, it says that future purchases from an unauthorized reseller will not be eligible to elect to receive Club Points or convert to Marriott Bonvoy points... In that context, what is an "unauthorized reseller," and what does that verbiage in the email mean? If you (or I) later buy a resale (for example, on ebay or redweek, etc.), would we not be able to make those elections? Thanks very much!
Marriott doesn't really have any authorized resellers. Even their own internal resale operation doesn't usually qualify for Abound Club Point access. So any type of resale purchase wouldn't be able to participate in Abound unless it is later somehow requalified. Thanks for watching!
We stayed at Vistana Villages last week and we are Westin Aventuras (88k star options/yr) owners. Since they are eliminating the banking fees we were told that we can bank any leftover points (by June 30th of the current year) rather than letting them expire. That might be a nice feature when you have a few points left over after taking a vacation. We were led to believe that we needed to make a purchase and convert all of our star options to club points that day but we declined. The salesperson said they are trying to move all Vistana owners into Marriott but that doesn't seem to be entirely true. He also said that if we bought 44k more star options that it would convert to about 4100 club points which would make us platinum. Is there any advantage to that? I'm sad to see that any resale purchase going forward (from an unauthorized reseller) does NOT qualify for club point conversion....wouldn't that essentially eliminate the resale market unless you definitely want to vacation at that property?
4,100 Club Points would make you Select Owner Benefit Level in the Abound program and that would provide Bonvoy Platinum Elite status for as long as you own enough points. As mentioned in the video, there is no need to buy anything from Marriott or Vistana in order to qualify for Abound. Sad that they are actually still telling people this to try to make sales. One would think that the inability to get Bonvoy points from a Vistana ownership would hurt resale prices, but the mandatory weeks will still be able to use VSN and one recent resale listing seemed to sell for a much higher price than I was expecting. Thanks for watching!
Wow, wish I had seen this before our trip last week. We just upgraded from Sheraton Vacation Network to Abound because we were told we had to in order to use the new destinations. We were also told that if we didn’t upgrade, I would only be able to use my week 31 and week 1 period. I am so mad 😡 they lied to me. Something has to be done about this.
To give a little more info. I bout 4400 star options in 2006 for a one bedroom even years and then in 2010 when I got back from Afghanistan. I bought 81000 options which gave me a two bedroom during the odd years.
How long ago did you purchase? Did you buy in Florida? It is possible that you are still inside the 10 day rescission period to where you can cancel the contract. Read through your contract NOW!
I think they told me that back in September and again in January at SVV. I don't believe anything the salesmen say anyway.
I feel like I'm a reasonably smart person, but I cannot figure out whether I need to or should elect for Abound points. I have a floating week at Sheraton Vistana Resorts in Orlando. I purchased it on the resale market 20 years ago. It's 81,000 Star Options, but only 2,425 club points. Some FAQs sound like you can convert but still use options. Others sound like you can't. They really could have made this clearer!
Once you convert, you no longer have the ability to use the StarOptions for that year. Conversion though is not permanent and is a year to year choice. So you can take Club Points in 2024 but still use StarOptions or your actual week in 2025. Determining if it is better to use Club Points or StarOptions depends on where and when you want to travel. Thanks for watching!
Another great video Jeremy. Do you know when the conversion to Abound will take place?
Not sure, they keep saying "this fall" which technically would take us into late December...
@@DestinationTimeshare I think it will happen before November 1....thanks for all you do.
Yes, they have mentioned October several times. We shall see.
@@DestinationTimeshare Hey Jeremy...I heard from a Kierland meeting this week that the switch may not be flipped until Jan 1 due to computer issues, etc.
This second item applies to us ... we own two mandatory resells ... however we never received a clarifying email from Marriott. We did go to two updates BEFORE June 2022, and were told we would not be eligible for Abound exchanges, so this is interesting information we will explore.
Yeah, I don't know if the reps didn't know early that mandatory resales would be included, or they were just hoping to make a sale by telling people they weren't. I know a couple people that bought to requalify their mandatory resales based on the mention that they couldn't participate in Abound unless they did. The regarding our mandatory resale weeks being eligible came on August 31st.
@@DestinationTimeshare Yes...I have been told several times that I couldn't participate in Abound unless I bought something. I told the salesmen that I was happy with the Vistana selection and didn't need anything more.
Hi Jeremy. Thanks for your video. I have purchased a Vistana Timeshare in 2021 at Orlando with 37,000 annual. I’ve read that converting to abound points would cost me $230 annual, which would avoid several Vistana fees, including, but not limited to banking (not sure how that would work), housekeeping, and a VSN fee… However I don’t see a VSN fee info on my account in Vistana’s website. As of today I am only paying yearly HOA fees. Am I missing a payment or that is for Elite members? Then, there are other fees into Interval International but I believe that’s optional. Can you please let me know if I am missing anything? Thanks you
The VSN Fee used to be included in your Annual Maintenance Fee bill. If you have copies of past bills, or even look online at your paid fees for 2022, you will see a "Membership Fee" listed for $155. For 2023 they are separating it because Marriott bills their Abound Club Fee separately and that is how they will bill it for Vistana in the future also. So your fees will only go up $75 (difference between $155 and $230). For that, there will be no other fees as you mention, like banking, housekeeping, and the $155 fee is of course gone. Hope this answers your questions. Thanks for watching!
@@DestinationTimeshare Thanks Jeremy. You’ve answered my questions perfectly. I just checked my old statement and shows exactly what you are saying. My 2022 bill says VOI assessment: $681.92 plus VSN: $155. And my 2023 says VOI assessment: $705.07 (increased slightly but I guess is normal today). I thought the $230 was going to be only in case we enroll to Abound, thanks for clarifying. As a matter of fact it appears that I will pay a little less… I typically pay $56 for housekeeping; plus $109 for banking (I could no do the saving method that you suggested in other video); plus the $155. That makes a total of $320 (vs the $230). In addition, this fee will avoid fees for converting to Bonvoy, guest certificates fees, some exchanges fees, and reservations cancellation fees. Not that I am getting too excited about my “saving”, I’m more likely thinking where the hit will come from… I suspect, they will get some money in some other way. Thanks again Jeremy, your channel is by far the best about this topic. Nice talking with you for now… when you get more thousands of subscribers you will not have much time Lol
@@DestinationTimeshare Hi there, I have the same situation as Geraldo, but my annual fees show no mention of that $155 membership fee. It only lists 1 line item: maintenance fees. Does that mean I have not been charged the membership fee?
@@lynek2126 It depends on what you own. I cover it in more detail in this video; th-cam.com/video/ZL_q3lFDJxs/w-d-xo.html
In many cases, the Club Dues would have been billed separately. That other video explains when they would be billed separately vs with your annual maintenance fees. If they are billed separately, you should see them in the "View Statements & Make Payment" section you can get to from the Vistana Dashboard. If you don't see it there, you need to call Owner Service as it may not be linked to your account correctly.
Hi! I’m wondering if you know anything about owners that own biannually? We own 81,000 points every even year with Vistana. We attended an owners update last Thursday and we were told that our timeshare is pretty much worth nothing because Marriott doesn’t recognize biannual ownership and that we will start to be billed maintenance fees at the same rate as an annual owner in 2024. This was very discouraging for my husband and I and left us feeling very uncertain about what the future holds for us. Any info you can share would be appreciated.
This is not true. You will continue to pay the fees as you always have. You will pay the new club fee every year but you also paid the VSN Fee every year too. Thanks for watching.
Ok thanks!
What happens to original owners when another company takes over? Do they lose any benefits? Better to convert to new point system? Lawrence Welk purchased by Hyatt.
Usually converting (for a high fee or buying more) is a bad idea. Right now buying more Hyatt Vacation Club (prev Welk) doesn't get you anything new. You don't get access to Hyatt Residence Club resorts. I would suggest not converting to points until more is know about the acquisition between Hyatt Residence Club and Welk Resorts.
@@DestinationTimeshare Thanks. You provide an awesome informational channel! Hope to see your channel thrive!