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

Gregm290. Thanks for further clarifcation. Hmmm.... I don't know what to say, as our units are also ocean FRONT units on Kauai (one bedroom) and Maui (two bedroom - also limited in number) and we were able to reserve. We called the time Marriott opens on the day it opened 13 months out (reserving multiple consecutive weeks - as whole weeks, not points) and did not have a problem. My understanding from Marriott (and we are Legacy owners who joined the program) is that Destination Points can be traded/reserved at 12 months or 13 months, depending on the level of ownership you have (Premier, Premier Plus etc. And the points can only be used for inventory in a pot which was traded in by points owners.

However, it is our understanding that no one is allowed to reserve more than 13 months out. The only way around this (and this may have been what happened to you) is if you own multiple weeks. For example, if I want to reserve three weeks in Hawaii at Christmas and I want them to be consecutive weeks, I can reserve the first week (i.e. Dec. 23) 13 months ahead on the day it opens for reservation. HOWEVER, I can also reserve the following two weeks (Dec. 30 and January 6) at the same time which means I am getting the 2nd and 3rd week a bit more than 13 months out. This is the way it has always been and we have owned for 16+ years. This makes inventory for that second and third weeks even less for the 13 month reservation when it opens on the appropriate date. While this may seem a bit unfair to some, it is the only way to allow multiple week owners to reserve their weeks in a consecutive fashion. If we are using our Maui week, we sure want to be able to occupy our Kaui weeks at the same time, as do most owners - whether at Grand Ocean, Ocean Point, or Hawaiian properties. This very well may be the reason the inventory is "limited" but I surely can't say that positively. I am worried, also, that our inventory may be limited in the future, but I have no Marriott policies in writing that support that. Everything I have written above is in Marriott documents, but I am still unsure how the Destination points may change things in the future.

One more thing we learned from Marriott many years ago - only half of the weeks (inventory) open up at the 13 month period and the other half at the 12 month point. As far as I know, that has not changed. That protects the single week owner to assure that he/she will have a chance to also get the week desired. However, if a person reserves multiple weeks two weeks before the date you want, it will cut into the inventory, whether they are reserving 12 or 13 months ahead.

On another note, I am more concerned about not ever being able to trade into the new properties that do not have any weeks sold (like Kauai Lagoons) because Marriott has also said that the ONLY way to get into all future properties in the future will be if you use Destination Points to do so. This will mean that the "devaluation" of our points will make it nearly impossible to trade a high season Marriott Kauai Beach Club week into a new property (such as Lakeshore Reserves) in the future. That's exactly why we took a chance to stay at Kauai Lagoons when we had a chance to trade into that property this past New Years. As someone said earlier, there are a lot of wonderful Marriott properties out there that we will always (?) have an ability to trade our weeks to, so I'm hoping that continues even if I can't use points to get in to that property.

Hope this provides some further insight.

Additionally,