Custom House Blues - Does This Sound Right?

DCBoy · Sep 16, 2014

To All,
As most of you know, owners can book individual days at the Custom House.

I found out this morning on the Marriott Rewards website that space was available at the Custom House for 12/31/14 so, I called MVCI to book that night. However, the CSR told me that nothing was available that day. How can something be available to the public, but not to an owner? Does that sound right?

Thanks,
Doug B

jeepie · Sep 16, 2014

I'll take a stab at this, because the exact thing happened to me. I believe their inventory system is designed to maximize revenue, so they set aside some units for cash reservations. They vary the availability over time, based upon their sophisticated software and analytics (just like airline pricing).

Anyway, I booked a cash ressie and separately waitlisted with DC points. The wait list came through, and I canceled the cash ressie. If I recall correctly, the DC points were WAAY less than the cash cost (like 1/3 of the cost, based on my arbitrary DC point value of $.50 per point. Ymmv. Cheers.

LAX Mom · Sep 16, 2014

Different buckets of inventory.
Marriott has nights available they can rent. These nights come from different sources...people who turn a week into Marriott for MR points, weeks that Marriott owns, etc.
You are wanting to book a night from owner inventory. You have access to nights/weeks that have been set aside for owners, but this is different from the inventory that Marriott can access.

dioxide45 · Sep 16, 2014

This sounds right and is rather common. Different inventory buckets. You can't use Marriott.com to determine availability for booking owner inventory.

EducatedConsumer · Sep 16, 2014

It sounds spot on to me.

Marriott has every right to do whatever they want with the inventory that they allowed Custom House owners to redeem for Marriott Rewards points. Earning rental income in lieu of giving an owner Marriott Rewards points, seems like a very fair formula to me.

In fact, because many (not all) Custom House purchasers who purchased from Marriott can exchange their week for Marriott Rewards points every year, rather than every other year, it would seem to me that Marriott would have a pretty hefty number of "hotel room nights" annually at the Custom House.

Superchief · Sep 16, 2014

EducatedConsumer said:
It sounds spot on to me.

Marriott has every right to do whatever they want with the inventory that they allowed Custom House owners to redeem for Marriott Rewards points. Earning rental income in lieu of giving an owner Marriott Rewards points, seems like a very fair formula to me.

In fact, because many (not all) Custom House purchasers who purchased from Marriott can exchange their week for Marriott Rewards points every year, rather than every other year, it would seem to me that Marriott would have a pretty hefty number of "hotel room nights" annually at the Custom House.

Although this is true, I doubt that many owners of a premium MVC week would continue to redeem for MR points with their significant devaluation. Why would anyone give up a week at Custom house for 4-5 nights at a Courtyard, which is about all you can get for 110k points.

dioxide45 · Sep 16, 2014

Superchief said:
Although this is true, I doubt that many owners of a premium MVC week would continue to redeem for MR points with their significant devaluation. Why would anyone give up a week at Custom house for 4-5 nights at a Courtyard, which is about all you can get for 110k points.

You would think that people wouldn't, but I suspect that the number of people trading for MR points has dropped over time. I always read that it was about 25% of owners trade for MR points. That is probably about the same today. Consider that the average owner is not a TUG owner and they are not analyzing all the numbers like we do.

BocaBoy · Sep 16, 2014

Superchief said:
Although this is true, I doubt that many owners of a premium MVC week would continue to redeem for MR points with their significant devaluation. Why would anyone give up a week at Custom house for 4-5 nights at a Courtyard, which is about all you can get for 110k points.

While I agree with your general premise that exchanging for MR points is not nearly as valuable as it once was, I disagree with your conclusion that 110,000 points is only worth 4-5 nights at a Courtyard. The way I look at it is that 110,000 points is nearly half of the points required for a rather valuable travel package. This is most valuable if the individual wants to use airline miles for business class or first class air travel.

EducatedConsumer · Sep 16, 2014

Superchief said:
Although this is true, I doubt that many owners of a premium MVC week would continue to redeem for MR points with their significant devaluation. Why would anyone give up a week at Custom house for 4-5 nights at a Courtyard, which is about all you can get for 110k points.

Because if you own two Custom House weeks, as many Custom House owners do (who purchased from the developer), 250,000 points for two platinum weeks, gets you pretty close to a desirable travel package of air for 2, and 7 nights at a hotel. Personally, we take the 250,000 Marriott Rewards points, commingle them with existing Marriott Rewards points and frequent flyer miles in our accounts, and the base 250,000 Marriott Rewards points becomes the vehicle by which we fly for two in Business Class to most places worldwide, vacation for two weeks, 7 nights in a Marriott or Renaissance Hotel using the certification from our travel package, and 7 additional nights in a Marriott or Renaissance Hotel using points that we earned elsewhere. This spring we are flying to London on British Air in Business Class, spending 1 night at a Renaissance Hotel in London, getting back on British Air to Paris, spending 7 nights at the Marriott in Paris, traveling on our own to Prague, staying at the Renaissance in Prague for 7 nights, and flying home on British Air (in Business Class) from Prague (via London), all on our travel package, plus some additional Marriott Rewards points and airline miles.

There was a period when Marriott discounted a two week Custom House purchase, and offered a huge purchase bonus to go along with it, and we took advantage of it.

So, that's why we exchange for Marriott Rewards points. I can assure you the value (and enjoyment) of our trip, will far exceed the cost of our two maintenance fees and the amortized cost of the weeks.

Superchief · Sep 17, 2014

That is a good package. How many MR points would a single week owner be able to get? Until the severe point downgrade three years ago, we frequently used our Royal Palms week for 110k MR points. At the time we bought our week, 110k points would get us 2 roundtrip air fares anywhere, 7 nights in any Marriott hotel or resort worldwide, plus a free week rental at Hertz.

With most resorts now requiring 40k points per night, redeeming for points is a poor use of my MF fees. Airline mileage requirements have also increased significantly, especially for international business travel.

vacationtime1 · Sep 17, 2014

EducatedConsumer said:
Because if you own two Custom House weeks, as many Custom House owners do (who purchased from the developer), 250,000 points for two platinum weeks, gets you pretty close to a desirable travel package of air for 2, and 7 nights at a hotel. Personally, we take the 250,000 Marriott Rewards points, commingle them with existing Marriott Rewards points and frequent flyer miles in our accounts, and the base 250,000 Marriott Rewards points becomes the vehicle by which we fly for two in Business Class to most places worldwide, vacation for two weeks, 7 nights in a Marriott or Renaissance Hotel using the certification from our travel package, and 7 additional nights in a Marriott or Renaissance Hotel using points that we earned elsewhere. This spring we are flying to London on British Air in Business Class, spending 1 night at a Renaissance Hotel in London, getting back on British Air to Paris, spending 7 nights at the Marriott in Paris, traveling on our own to Prague, staying at the Renaissance in Prague for 7 nights, and flying home on British Air (in Business Class) from Prague (via London), all on our travel package, plus some additional Marriott Rewards points and airline miles.

There was a period when Marriott discounted a two week Custom House purchase, and offered a huge purchase bonus to go along with it, and we took advantage of it.

So, that's why we exchange for Marriott Rewards points. I can assure you the value (and enjoyment) of our trip, will far exceed the cost of our two maintenance fees and the amortized cost of the weeks.

Although travel packages are a great use for Marriott points, they are not the deal they used to be because of point inflation by both the airlines and Marriott.

We are in Europe right now. Our 300,000 point travel package got us one week at the Renaissance in Aix-en-Provence (very highly recommended; 180,000 points) plus 132,000 United miles due to a 10% bonus. 132,000 United points buys one round trip business class ticket on United (U.S. to Europe; 57,500 miles each way) with 17,000 points left over.

I believe British Air costs fewer points (100,000 for round trip Business Class, if I recall correctly), but it requires a couple hundred dollars of taxes (per person) flying home from London.

How many Marriott points (and how much in taxes) did this trip cost? I suspect it was closer to four Custom House weeks rather than two.

Custom House Blues - Does This Sound Right?

DCBoy

jeepie

LAX Mom

TUG Review Crew: Veteran

dioxide45

TUG Review Crew: Expert

EducatedConsumer

Superchief

dioxide45

TUG Review Crew: Expert

BocaBoy

EducatedConsumer

Superchief

vacationtime1

TUG Review Crew: Veteran