Post reply

Re: Marriott Going to Point Syst (by Kathy W.):

Want to share news from Aruba - we returned about a week ago. We went on the "points" sales appointment to get the 15,000 reward points and found out a shocker! Aruba is still allowed to sell weeks! The salesperson said it is the only Marriott property allowed to do so, but that there is something to do with the legal end and it will be a while before they have to switch over to all points. However, there is a catch according to the salesperson: you have to be on the island to be able to buy a week there. - not sure if that is accurate, but that is what he said. I asked him why all the U.S. Marriott employees say that there are no weeks available anywhere, and he said he wasn't sure, but he thought it is because there ARE NO U.S.A. Marriott properties where you can buy weeks. If we had been interested in buying 1500 Destination points (we need about 800 to add to ours and make us Premier Plus, but since we plan on continuing to trade weeks, we don't want to "buy" any at this time), it would have actually been cheaper to buy a one-bedroom week in Aruba than it would to buy the destination points. Then we would own the week, have it enrolled in the Destinations program and get the points for it - and all for less than buying the points! It really was a good deal, but we didn't want to shell out over $15,000 at this time.

Also, want to share that we have had chances to trade our accomodation certificate into Maui Marriott, into Grand Vista Easter week, and intoHilton Head Island all in April and May, so there is still inventory to be exchanged.

rick1227 - I agree - we also own at Grand Ocean and I was surprised to see that they only held a 35 minute annual meeting last year. It would be nice to have more communication throughout the year.

As far as rentals, we have rented several Marriotts through RedWeek and we have rented our properties (Marriott several locations and Kona Coast Resort on the Big Island) out as well and have not had any problems. We use a contract that an attorney friend looked over - it protects both the rentor and the rentee. RedWeek also has a contract you can use, but I think it costs. We just rented out a unit for some friends who decided to go to Florida for spring break. Was able to get them a nice unit at the Marriott on the ocean in Ft. Lauderdale through RedWeek. As far as what we have rented ourselves, we have always rented Marriott properties and been happy with what we have rented. We offered one of our Marriotts to be rented through Marriott once and after receiving their offer, we decided we would most likely never do that again - it was a ridiculous price. But it may work for some.

Hope some of this helps!