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A question that I often get from newer Marriott Vacation Club owners is this:
“Why can we see units available to book on Marriott’s hotel webpage but when we go to book the same week with our timeshare week or Destination Club Points we can’t see any availability? Is there something underhand going on?”
A understandable question as, on the face of it, you’d think that if Marriott has rooms to sell on Marriott.com (or on other travel sites) they’d allow owners to book those weeks with their timeshare units or with their Destination Club points. But it’s not that simple.
To understand how this situation can arise we must first address the question of where Marriott is getting the units from in the first place – after all, Marriott doesn’t own the resorts, they just manage them. So where are the units coming from?
Marriott has three primary sources of units that they can sell on Marriott.com (and on other well known travel websites) : unsold inventory, foreclosures and owner traded weeks.
- Unsold inventory: These are units at timeshare resorts which Marriott hasn’t yet sold and therefore still owns.
- Foreclosures: These are units which Marriott has repossessed following the failure of the owner(s) to pay either a loan that was taken out to purchase the unit (a terrible idea) or a failure to pay the maintenance fees on the unit.
- Owner traded weeks: These are units which owners have handed back to Marriott (for a given year) in exchange for either Marriott Reward Points or Destination Club points.
With any of the above, Marriott is well within its right to use the units just like an owner would, i.e. for its own ends. For the purposes of the booking year in question Marriott ‘owns’ the rights those units and so can use them as it pleases. This means that the units do not have to go back into the pool from which owners book their weeks.
It’s worth noting that Marriott doesn’t always use all the units at its disposal to generate more revenue. It makes for bad PR to have owners (especially new owners) who cannot book their preferred weeks (either with their Destination Club Points or with their deeded weeks) so Marriott uses the inventory at its disposal to free up dates that may otherwise have not been available.
So, the next time you see one of your resorts available on Marriott.com but not available for owners on the my-vacationclub.com website you’ll know that there’s nothing underhand going on. It’s probably just Marriott acting as any other owner would and attempting to get maximum value out of their units.
