Reserving Starwood weeks.

There is alot of discussion on the difficulty of reserving good weeks with Marriott. I was wondering how difficult it is to reserve prime weeks at your home resort in the Starwood system. Special attention to issues at Keirland and Mission Hills would be appreciated.

We own premium week at Mission Hills and have received what we wanted when we requested it. Have also used the split units to go to Paris and St. John and recently used it for airline miles. Just request your desired week as soon as it allows.

I reserved a week at KOR on a Wednesday for Sunday arrival in January, right during the Mercedes Classic and even got the studio upgraded to a one bedroom. I've also exchanged into Mission Hills during my children's spring break with relatively short notice. I do try to book my weeks in Maui 12 or 11 motnhs out and so far I've always gotten them for the 4th of July week. So far I haven't run into a problem with internal exchanges.

Personally, I think it is too early to tell with Westin Kananapali in Maui. The resort is fairly new and is probably close to or almost sold out. Hopefully, someone can verify that. I think you really can't judge how difficult it is to make a reservation until the resort is fully sold out.

Also, I've never had trouble reserving a Marriott week. I've been lucky. Even my aunt who is going to Maui with us in June was able to reserve a June summer week for a Saturday to Saturday check-in and then, the following week found out she had a conflict and was able to change her reservation from Sunday to Sunday.

Hard to say at this point...

ohioelk said:

There is alot of discussion on the difficulty of reserving good weeks with Marriott. I was wondering how difficult it is to reserve prime weeks at your home resort in the Starwood system. Special attention to issues at Keirland and Mission Hills would be appreciated.

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Starwood owners have priority at their home resort from 8 to 12 mos. out. As long as you book right at 12 mos. out, at 9 a.m. ET, when the Resv. office opens, you shouldn't have any problem. Making an exchange for another resort, especially Maui, St. John, and Harborside, can be much more difficult for prime weeks.

DeniseM said:

Starwood owners have priority at their home resort from 8 to 12 mos. out. As long as you book right at 12 mos. out, at 9 a.m. ET, when the Resv. office opens, you shouldn't have any problem. Making an exchange for another resort, especially Maui, St. John, and Harborside, can be much more difficult for prime weeks.

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Even the big three can be reserved with staroptions if you are flexible with your dates and reserve early. I just reserved the Atlantis for the Michael Jordon Celebrity Golf Tourn. Week next year. This is with my staroptions from my VV ebay resale. It is my fourth time I have made a big three reservation wihout a problem. Ben

I was able to reserve my Kierland week for spring break for both 2006 & 2007 with no problem. I did call at 12 mos. out, right when they opened the reservation line. For the 2006 week, at 8 mos. out, I cancelled my Kierland reservation, and reserved a 1-bedroom at Westin Ka'anapali for 11 nights (later adding one more night), with the stay starting on June 16th. There didn't seem to be an issue with availability.

I agree with the others that if you reserve at your home resort right at 12 mos. out, you shouldn't have a problem.

Glorian

DeniseM said:

Starwood owners have priority at their home resort from 8 to 12 mos. out. As long as you book right at 12 mos. out, at 9 a.m. ET, when the Resv. office opens, you shouldn't have any problem. Making an exchange for another resort, especially Maui, St. John, and Harborside, can be much more difficult for prime weeks.

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I was late and booked at Maui 7 mths out (we're owners) when we arrived Jan 06 we were placed into an "island view" out to highway! although we own oceanview. Didn't know till we asked that our "view" is only effective during the 8 - 12 mths out. I was upset since no one mentioned this when I was making reservations. I could easily have just made reservation for a later date and had what we paid for.
I asked why not let people know - I'd rather change my dates than go all the way to Maui from NJ (10 hrs) and get a view of the highway! I guess I made enough of a problem that we were eventually put inot a condo that looked over the construction but at least we had a reasonable ocean view from balconey. My DH enjoys looking at buildings under construction so he enjoyed greatly

This time I will try to make reservations early but I still think we should be told of the possibility of getting highway view building and letting us make a decision.

Sorry about your view, pharmgirl. Maybe Starwood should be more clear that this will happen if you do not reserve within your "home resort preference period" (8-12 months in advance). As you found out, when you reserve 0-8 months out, that is considered the "network float period", and you are using your StarOptions, competing with all other Starwood owners. During this period, there is no difference between you (an owner at the resort) and an owner at another Starwood resort.

Hi pharmgirl - I have found that www.mystarcentral.com is a good place to familarize yourself with Starwood policies. And you can also pay your MF and make payments there (if you have one) and contact Starwood or your owner's Assoc. with questions there.

I would hate the freeway view too! Glad you got moved!