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[ 2017 ] New Westin Flex

youppi

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Vistana should have gone the way of Marriott and setup a single flex program. Dumped all their inventory in there and sold a single product with access to all the resorts.
Yes but to do that they must revise the number of SO at each resort to reflect the MF of each resort. Otherwise people in the flex could have access to Hawaii at 12 months way too low or way too high compared to deeded Hawaii week owners. If they revise, some people would not be happy to see their platinum+ season going down and not be able to get Hawaii at 8 months. Look at the number of points for Hawaii in the Marriott's system vs others areas. Don't forget the skim done by Marriott's to enrolled weeks.
 

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Let’s all remind ourselves of the objective of the Flex products. Inially designed to package unsold low season weeks, ( after years of active sales at resorts). To compensate for low season weeks, additional resorts were added to the trust to make the package more attractive and to try and smooth MFs over many products. This is a creative approach to selling out these less attractive weeks.

I can understand this approach for the Sheraton Flex. The Aventuras product however, includes resorts just going into active sales. Why not sell the attractive weeks first, then bundle the remainder in a trust product like the other flex? I think that this product offers the best availability in prime weeks given the way it was designed.

Then there is the new Westin Flex. This will resemble more the Sheraton Flex with unsold weeks.

Bottom line is I think it will take some time for these products to affect deeded week availability in VSN. The number of deeded weeks out there is significant, and the balance of power in terms of weeks available to deeded owners is high. This of course hold true as long as the pools of weeks are properly accounted for, which legally, Vistana must do.

Markus
 
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dioxide45

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Yes but to do that they must revise the number of SO at each resort to reflect the MF of each resort. Otherwise people in the flex could have access to Hawaii at 12 months way too low or way too high compared to deeded Hawaii week owners. If they revise, some people would not be happy to see their platinum+ season going down and not be able to get Hawaii at 8 months. Look at the number of points for Hawaii in the Marriott's system vs others areas. Don't forget the skim done by Marriott's to enrolled weeks.
When they put the weeks in to the trust, the MFs adjust themselves. The platinum season weeks at a resort in their trust are the same as the MF in gold season. Once put in the trust, they then set the MF based on each SO. Marriott is no different. There are resorts where the enrolled MF per point is very high where others that it is very low.
 

VacationForever

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It sounds like it will slowly over time become harder to book weeks with deeded weeks because they will migrate over to Flex and deeded week inventory will decline. I can see that being and angle for sales. “Don’t like availability, here buy points.”
Maybe like in 50 years' time? ;) I doubt many people will be willing to "migrate" over to Flex, which is like paying more to get less.
 

DeniseM

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It sounds like it will slowly over time become harder to book weeks with deeded weeks because they will migrate over to Flex and deeded week inventory will decline.

Yes, but, the number of people who are trying to reserve deeded weeks in the home owners reservation period will decrease at the same rate as deeds leave the pool. For every deed that goes into the flex pool, there will be one less owner competing for deeded weeks. Then those owners can only reserve inventory in the flex pool.
 

bizaro86

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It sounds like it will slowly over time become harder to book weeks with deeded weeks because they will migrate over to Flex and deeded week inventory will decline. I can see that being and angle for sales. “Don’t like availability, here buy points.”

Availability for hard to get reservations should always be better for weeks owners.

Even if all of wkorv
Yes, but, the number of people who are trying to reserve deeded weeks in the home owners reservation period will decrease at the same rate as deeds leave the pool. For every deed that goes into the flex pool, there will be one less owner competing for deeded weeks. Then those owners can only reserve inventory in the flex pool.

Right. And the number of owners in the flex pool will probably grow faster than the number of Hawaii deeds in the pool. It will be easier for them to get owners of off season weeks to convert wkorv/n owners.
 

jabberwocky

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It sounds like it will slowly over time become harder to book weeks with deeded weeks because they will migrate over to Flex and deeded week inventory will decline. I can see that being and angle for sales. “Don’t like availability, here buy points.”

We did an owners update at SVR this morning and they are already starting to use that line.

I did ask about the Westin Flex rumour and he confirmed that they will start selling January 4. Over time he said we won’t be able to book anything as everything will be in the flex system. Also asked why they didn’t do one large system like Marriott and he said the Westin flex homeoptions will be much more expensive than the Sheraton flex product so they didn’t want to combine.

I must say it was the most pleasant update we’ve been to recently. Salesperson was pretty straightforward and didn’t try to push us too hard - he agreed that what we had already met our needs. He also said he’s been selling Vistana for just over one year and we were the most informed prospects he had talked to.

Only “improvement” he suggested was to sell us 100k flex options for $35k to get us to elite and requal our SDO plat. (No thanks).




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cubigbird

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Yes, but, the number of people who are trying to reserve deeded weeks in the home owners reservation period will decrease at the same rate as deeds leave the pool. For every deed that goes into the flex pool, there will be one less owner competing for deeded weeks. Then those owners can only reserve inventory in the flex pool.

I’m sure deeded week capability will never go away completely. Not everyone is willing to pay 20-30k to move to Flex, no matter how hard they position it. There will forever have to be “an old system.” I plan to stay with what own as I own where I want to go. That can’t be taken away with this new Flex.

On another note, there can only be so far they can churn. What happens when inventory dries up in Flex, or essentially they’ve moved what they can to the Flex??
 

DavidnRobin

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Nothing to book because everything will be in Flex...
LOLOLOLOL

How do you know a TS salesperson is lying?


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dioxide45

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Marriott's program and DC trust has been going for seven and a half years. Marriott has been acquiring weeks from ROFR, buyback and foreclosure to dump in to their trust. They have been more aggressive than Vistana ever could be because Vistana has very few properties with ROFR. Owners in Marriott weeks aren't having any more issues reserving home resort weeks now than they did before. Yes, prime home resort reservations are hard, but they were before 2010.

As long as you own a week, they have to guaranty you a week in your season at your home resort. So you will always get that. Will you always get the exact week you want, perhaps not. But that is how a floating weeks system works. StarOptions won't change much, it may actually make it easier. People owning flex options may be more slack in reserving what they want and then at eight months it still goes to the VSN system for anyone to reserve.
 

vistana101

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Also asked why they didn’t do one large system like Marriott and he said the Westin flex homeoptions will be much more expensive than the Sheraton flex product so they didn’t want to combine.

See I don't understand this. Couldn't you just make the Westin properties require more options, like the internal system works and how Marriott works?
 

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They probably resell the OF weeks they acquire at such high prices that selling 176k westin flex options would be a big downgrade for them.

If you want to trade maui OF for Westin Flex they will take it, but if you have Westin Flex there won't be any maui oceanfront deeds in the trust to book at 12 months.
I see your point, don't get me wrong.

But, they would also have a good selling argument if they try to sell Westin flex which includes OF units. Perhaps i see it from my stand point only, i would consider upgrading sheraton weeks to westin flex (knowing i will need to put new money) if OF is included. If it not, they are not getting my new money.

So, some people will fall for it. And some sales people will lie and say OF is included.
 

Helios

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See I don't understand this. Couldn't you just make the Westin properties require more options, like the internal system works and how Marriott works?
I like this idea. They are not assigning a different value, but they are further segregating the units.
 

pathways25

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Dave - Flexoption owners won't be competing with deeded week owners. The deeded weeks wil be in one pool, and the flexoption weeks will be in another pool. The flexoption pool will consist of inventory that deeded week owners have converted to flexoptions and inventory that VSE buys or forecloses on, and then sells as Westin flexoptions.

It sounds crazy that Hawaii owners will be willing to convert to flex options, but as I wrote above, I know an owner who converted multiple ocean front Maui deeds to Sheraton Flex. :eek: I am afraid that some vulnerable owners will fall for the sales pitch.

The big difference for Westin Flex is that Hawaii only has one season so there's no segregation of low and high season deeds. Lets for the sake of discussion say that the trust owns 3000 WKORV and WKORVN VOI's. In theory, all of that inventory could be fighting for the same "high" season times at WKORV and WKORVN (namely, President's Day, Easter and summer). Before, there would have been 3000 individual owners that might be trying for those reservations, now with flex owners also able to come in through those 3000 VOI's, there might be many more flex owners trying for those same reservations. The total possible number of reservations would still be 3000, but many more individual owners would be fighting to get that space during popular weeks.

I think that as the number of Westin Flex owners grows, it will become harder for weeks owners to get the most popular times at the Hawaii resorts.
 

VacationForever

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The big difference for Westin Flex is that Hawaii only has one season so there's no segregation of low and high season deeds. Lets for the sake of discussion say that the trust owns 3000 WKORV and WKORVN VOI's. In theory, all of that inventory could be fighting for the same "high" season times at WKORV and WKORVN (namely, President's Day, Easter and summer). Before, there would have been 3000 individual owners that might be trying for those reservations, now with flex owners also able to come in through those 3000 VOI's, there might be many more flex owners trying for those same reservations. The total possible number of reservations would still be 3000, but many more individual owners would be fighting to get that space during popular weeks.

I think that as the number of Westin Flex owners grows, it will become harder for weeks owners to get the most popular times at the Hawaii resorts.
They would belong to 2 separate inventory pools. Flex owners cannot book inventory from weeks pool.
 

youppi

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They would belong to 2 separate inventory pools. Flex owners cannot book inventory from weeks pool.
Yes but who decide which Hawaii weeks are in each pool ?
Hawaii deeded weeks are they fix or float ?
If they are float then VSE could decide that all weeks in the flex pool are in whale season and summer and in this case deeded weeks owners could have difficulty to get a week in those seasons.
 

VacationForever

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Yes but who decide which Hawaii weeks are in each pool ?
Hawaii deeded weeks are they fix or float ?
If they are float then VSE could decide that all weeks in the flex pool are in whale season and summer and in this case deeded weeks owners could have difficulty to get a week in those seasons.

There is always going to be suspicion from the owners but when you look at Marriott, they have kept inventory pools separate and there are no issues with having access to weeks in prime season anymore so than in the past.
 

DeniseM

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If they are float then VSE could decide that all weeks in the flex pool
I believe that would be a serious violation of the contractual terms which state that floating week owners can reserve weeks 1-50.
 

vacationtime1

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I believe that would be a serious violation of the contractual terms which state that floating week owners can reserve weeks 1-50.

We don't know what happens behind the curtain.

But we do know that in the area of Interval deposits, Vistana controls what gets deposited and guess what, few if any WKORV/WKORVN summer weeks go into Interval. The weeks available for Interval exchanges tend towards lower demand weeks. In other words, Vistana already "enriches" and "depletes" the more desirable inventory available for different classes of users (owners, StarOption exchanges, Interval exchanges, renters, etc.). They can do the same for the Westin Flex trust if it is in their interest to do so.

Of course many summer, holiday, and other high demand weeks will remain available for owners. But whether or not the number of prime weeks available to Westin Flex owners is proportionate to Westin Flex's fractional ownership will be impossible to determine; that curtain will be opaque.
 
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pathways25

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Of course many summer, holiday, and other high demand weeks will remain available for owners. But whether or not the number of prime weeks available to Westin Flex owners is proportionate to Westin Flex's fractional ownership will be impossible to determine; that curtain will be opaque.

I don't think the Westin Flex inventory pool will be under any obligation to maintain a proportional fraction of each week in the year. The deeds in the trust have the same rights as any other weeks deed owned by any individual owner. Flex owners accessing the Hawaii resorts using those trust weeks can reserve any week that any individual weeks owner can reserve so long as the total number of room nights / weeks does not exceed the number of deeds owned at each of the resorts. This was the point I was trying to make a few posts back.
 

dioxide45

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There is always suspicion among owners in Marriott if Marriott is somehow skimming the better weeks for their DC program away from weeks owners. One area where Marriott differs is that they better demand balance their points charts across the system. In Hawaii Vistana charges the same SOs whether you go in October or you go in February. With higher points requirements for higher demand times, it helps to balance the demand better since it will cost someone more points to reserve that higher demand time. With Vistana, that doesn't exist and it creates big problems with Vistana trying to create a single system.

Perhaps if Marriott buys ILG, they could start adding Vistana properties to their DC trust and allocate them new point values in the DC system. That is really the only easy way that Vistana could create a new system across their different brands.
 

tschwa2

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Vistana does have a historical precedent for separate buckets for the same type of inventory for SVN owners at voluntary resorts and non SVN deeded float week owners. As an owner of a non SVN week at SBP that floats weeks 9-47 with the most desired weeks being 26-32, availability usually favors SVN home week owners vs non SVN although occasionally I have seen availability for a non SVN home week when it didn't show availability for staroptions with the late available to me as a SVN non SBP owner.
 
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