Change to resale II accounts?

Had not looked at my II accounts for a while. In the past I had two accounts. One for my Starwood developer purchase, and another for my two resale units- one independent and one sbp. My second membership needs to be renewed. When I just logged on I saw three accounts
-my developer unit
- my independent
- my sbp
And my sbp is active.

Has there been a change to how II is treating resale ownerships?

Someone else reported this a few days ago with his SDO. All of my SBP weeks are in an active paid II account with multiple other units. II has not divided them out.

I wonder if this is a one year thing or something ongoing that if you do not have your non SVN units in an active II account than Vistana/ILG will pay for the membership for those units.

I just checked my II account. Only my developer weeks are there. My SDO week is not in there (don't have a separate II account for this week). Would be nice to have them all in one place.

Just purchased the SDO week a few months ago so may be too to appear?

Looking in my membership page, they did add 2 SBP's that I never listed with II.

Still wondering if an II account would be free indefinately for those without a paid II account. I just hope they don't add any fees to our MF for this especially if you don't need or want it. Now if they wanted to make all resorts mandatory then I could live with a little extra.

tschwa2 said:

Looking in my membership page, they did add 2 SBP's that I never listed with II.



Still wondering if an II account would be free indefinately for those without a paid II account. I just hope they don't add any fees to our MF for this especially if you don't need or want it. Now if they wanted to make all resorts mandatory then I could live with a little extra.

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When I joined Interval I identified my resort wrong during the signup process, that unit still shows. When I deposited the actual unit it got added too. I'm planning to give the unit away next year, will be interesting to see if they clean it up.


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SmithOp said:

When I joined Interval I identified my resort wrong during the signup process, that unit still shows. When I deposited the actual unit it got added too. I'm planning to give the unit away next year, will be interesting to see if they clean it up.

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Probably only if you tell them. I haven't owned my SBP units for about two years, but they are still listed in my account. Next time I talk to them I'll have them remove them.

Looks like I'm not as lucky. I own SDO and SBP for II trading and when I logged in today, there is a bright orange message on the upper right corner stating "Renew now". My self-paid II account has VSE/Starwood (voluntary) weeks only.

I sent an email to membership on Monday asking for any break/freebie. Silence up to now and that is not reassuring.

scootr5 said:

Probably only if you tell them. I haven't owned my SBP units for about two years, but they are still listed in my account. Next time I talk to them I'll have them remove them.

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Interesting, is one of them the one I adopted from you which I turned immediately back as requal credit (my ID was moto x). It showed up in my account for a couple of days before SVN took it back. My understanding is that it was converted (or it was going to be converted) to the trust.

I just checked my corporate Starwood account. My two resale SVV mandatory and resale WSJ mandatory weeks are in it but now my WSJ Coral Vista voluntary is also there.
I had never added this ownership to my personal II account as I am not going to trade it.
Interesting.

GrayFal said:

I just checked my corporate Starwood account. My two resale SVV mandatory and resale WSJ mandatory weeks are in it but now my WSJ Coral Vista voluntary is also there.
I had never added this ownership to my personal II account as I am not going to trade it.
Interesting.

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This is interesting. If it is related to the Free II for 2 years, you would think they would have setup a separate account for your Coral Vista voluntary. With them putting it in your corporate account, it seems it would be free forever. Unless they have plans to pull it back out in two years.

dioxide45 said:

This is interesting. If it is related to the Free II for 2 years, you would think they would have setup a separate account for your Coral Vista voluntary. With them putting it in your corporate account, it seems it would be free forever. Unless they have plans to pull it back out in two years.

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It may be a signal of how ILG is viewing the Vistana acquisition as a strategic move. If you think about how many Vistana voluntary resale units are outstanding this is a huge potential amount of inventory that could be traded within the II system (some of course is being used within personal II accounts) but for whatever reason the owners do not see a benefit to putting a unit in II.

Now there are several types of non-SVN voluntary owner scenarios (there are of course others beyond these I'm sure):

1. Owners with other SVN-eligible units in a corporate developer account but don't use II for their voluntary units
2. Owners with no other SVN-eligible units but use II for trading their voluntary units
3. Owners with no SVN-eligible units but don't use II
4. Owners with other SVN-eligible units in a corporate developer account and who currently do use a personal II account for their voluntary units.

II likes types 2 and 4 because they are a good source of revenue because they are probably more active in II for trading (so more exchange fees). Occasional promotions are run to encourage more clients like this (2-1 deals) and emphasis is placed moving people up to the platinum level.

Type 3 owners could potentially become type 2 owners, so let's offer them a free trial and hope they like trading and stick around.

Type 1 owners are more problematic. They have II for their developer units but don't see the need to open a new paid II account for their voluntary units (perhaps because they always use their week at their home resort). Further, many of them probably use SVN for trading and rarely use II. Since Vistana is now part of ILG, the cost to include these weeks in an existing developer account is negligible and an owner who may not have considered trading their week previously because they didn't want to pay an additional annual II account fee might just do so - providing II with more revenue.

Given this I would not be surprised if owners with SVN developer accounts have their voluntary units included in their II developer accounts on a long term basis. Of course this could potentially mean cannibalizing their existing II owners who have both a developer and personal II account (i.e., type 4 owners could become type 1 owners). I'm sure they've done the math on this and have figured out what will be best for ILG.

jabberwocky said:

Given this I would not be surprised if owners with SVN developer accounts have their voluntary units included in their II developer accounts on a long term basis. Of course this could potentially mean cannibalizing their existing II owners who have both a developer and personal II account (i.e., type 4 owners could become type 1 owners). I'm sure they've done the math on this and have figured out what will be best for ILG.

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I like your analysis. You're right that with Vistana as part of ILG there isn't really much point to imposing 2 types of accounts for mandatory and voluntary owners. Furthermore, any "cannibalized" membership revenues could be replaced by increasing the number of II trades as well as increasing the portion of the MFs for maintaining the II account. SVN is already a separate line item -- why not II account?

To play devil's advocate and further the discussion, let me ask this then: Why would they want to combine resale II account with developer II accounts because they get the extra membership fee for having this second account? With ILG being publicly traded this could be a huge source of additional revenue.

cubigbird said:

To play devil's advocate and further the discussion, let me ask this then: Why would they want to combine resale II account with developer II accounts because they get the extra membership fee for having this second account? With ILG being publicly traded this could be a huge source of additional revenue.

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As jabberwocky pointed out, there is a type of owner which already has a single II "developer" account but has not chosen to open a 2nd II "personal" account for voluntary weeks. ILG may have done the analysis and decided that there are relatively few owners who willingly pay for that 2nd account, and that there may be more opportunities for revenue by instead bringing the additional weeks into the system. Remember, they make a lot more money on a single exchange fee than on an annual membership.

So far that I've seen the only reported voluntary resale resort being added to an SVN corporate account is a voluntary phase at WSJ. Vistana may have simply made a mistake with that one or decided that that particular resort may be valuable enough to make permanently free addition to II.

Everyone else at other resorts have reported that either the weeks were added to an existing paid person II account or if none exist set up in a free (along with the letter describing the free account lasting for 2 years) separate II account.


For what it is worth I have 3 II accounts: a mandatory SVN, a corporate CIG points account, and a mixed resort personal account which includes several voluntary Vistana, Marriott, and various other independent and developer controlled resorts.

My existing II paid account doesn't expire until Feb 2017 so I'm sure I won't see anything, if at all, until after then. I actually exchange my SVR voluntary week in II so I'm likely their target market for them to clip those exchange fees.

okwiater said:

As jabberwocky pointed out, there is a type of owner which already has a single II "developer" account but has not chosen to open a 2nd II "personal" account for voluntary weeks. ILG may have done the analysis and decided that there are relatively few owners who willingly pay for that 2nd account, and that there may be more opportunities for revenue by instead bringing the additional weeks into the system. Remember, they make a lot more money on a single exchange fee than on an annual membership.

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Agreed. If they throw your voluntary in for free to your main account you may be more likely to hit the exchange button. Don't they charge a fee to add units normally, too? Seems like they are hoping to generate revenue if they make it more convenient for you to exchange.

okwiater said:

SVN is already a separate line item -- why not II account?

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This is a good point and I wouldn't put it past them to start this. IIRC isn't part of the SVN fee supposed to be for the II membership?

cubigbird said:

Why would they want to combine resale II account with developer II accounts because they get the extra membership fee for having this second account?

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ILG's main business model is under a huge threat right now. The value for customers has always been the "network". The more people that are in the network the more valuable it is for everyone else in the network. For the longest time II and RCI were essentially the only game in town for exchanges and could charge accordingly. You now have more alternatives exchanges coming online plus threats from VRBO, airbnb and even TUG. They need to bring more people/weeks into the system to retain their value.

I'm probably a good example of this. I have a developer SVR week which includes an II account that I have not used for a deposit (in fact I never signed up for an II login until earlier this year). I also have an EOY SDO plat-plus week that we just acquired. Our plan is to use the plat-plus for our own personal use at that resort.

Will I sign up for an II account to use the week as a trader? Definitely not as the annual fee doesn't make sense for only a single EOY unit. Would I consider trading the unit if it was included in my existing II account? Probably if there was an attractive trade. So for my unit the potential revenue from combining accounts is well above the revenue they would get otherwise ($0).

tschwa2 said:

So far that I've seen the only reported voluntary resale resort being added to an SVN corporate account is a voluntary phase at WSJ. Vistana may have simply made a mistake with that one or decided that that particular resort may be valuable enough to make permanently free addition to II.

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This is an excellent point and one that can't be discounted. It could also be a trial run with a subset of voluntary units to see if it does actually encourage more II exchanges. If this works it might be rolled out system wide - and as others have pointed out with a potential additional fee attached.

Regardless, one can gather that ILG is now starting to use the data on Vistana voluntary ownerships it acquired to enhance the II side of the business - a smart move on their part.

Might be interesting to start a poll and see how widespread the automatic inclusion of voluntary units into existing/and or freebie offers are.

tschwa2 said:

So far that I've seen the only reported voluntary resale resort being added to an SVN corporate account is a voluntary phase at WSJ. Vistana may have simply made a mistake with that one or decided that that particular resort may be valuable enough to make permanently free addition to II.

Everyone else at other resorts have reported that either the weeks were added to an existing paid person II account or if none exist set up in a free (along with the letter describing the free account lasting for 2 years) separate II account.


For what it is worth I have 3 II accounts: a mandatory SVN, a corporate CIG points account, and a mixed resort personal account which includes several voluntary Vistana, Marriott, and various other independent and developer controlled resorts.

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I have my original personal II account which used to have my Marriott's in there. Now all I have is my Bluegreen ownership and Morritts Tortuga Club
I have a Wyndham Corpoarte Account
I have two Marriott Corporate accounts
And the SVN Corpoarte account.
So that would be 5 accounts.

I guess it could be a mistake that my voluntary WSJ Coral Vista was put into the Corpoarte account.
Time will tell. As you know, II charges you a fee to add a unit to your account. If I had wants to add this, I would have put it in my personal account (where my voluntary SBPs used to be).