New Terms and Conditions for Renting Marriott Vacation Club Units

Hello,

FYI, I found out today that Marriott has implemented a new terms and conditions policy on renting units on Redweek or any other secondary timeshare rental company. The new policy is as follows:

This reservation may not be used for any commercial purpose, including any pattern of occupancy, rental leasing, or use by a member that the program manager/exchange company, in its reasonable discretion, could conclude constitutes a commercial enterprise or practice.

I called Marriott Vacation Club to get a clarification on this. I was told that Marriott has decided they do NOT want owners renting their units.

I am a long time Marriott Vacation Club owner and I do not like this new policy! It is going to hurt the inventory of units available on Redweek.

That is VERY disappointing. Where did you find out about this? Do you have a link to more information? What do they expect owners to do if they can't use all their points?

I found out when I posted a unit for rental at Maui Ocean Club. I called the Vacation Club advocate and she said longtime owners like me are not a target. They are looking to restrict corporate businesses that reserve large blocks of units. If you are just trying to recover your maintenance fees, you won't be restricted.

Ok, thanks. That makes me feel much better about Book My Points (.com) which enables exactly that.

Marriott is running a risk of getting sued here someday. When they try to sell their destination points, their sales pitch is often "Keep buying from us and we'll handle everything including renting out some of your properties." That is what a lot of the sales team does. They work with big high end buyers, make their reservations for them, and rent their properties. My understanding is sometimes Marriott salespeople are the ones literally grabbing up properties with destination points and then turning around and renting them on Redweek or similar services. Their argument is ... We're just working with our clients to get their maintenance fees covered and allow them "free" vacations. We're not really making a "profit" for anyone. This may very well be true, but then so what if owners go out and essentially hire company to do the same thing like Book My Points (.com) without having to spend 10s of thousands on purchasing new destination points every year. Marriott should be careful.....just sayin....

I read people complain that they can never get the weeks and properties they want. Yeah, I have no doubt. You're up against paid Marriott staff who know how to use Marriott's cumbersome and tricky destination points system where you often have literally seconds to secure high demand weeks at high demand destinations.