Marriott Vacation Club Destinations Review

 vs 



My husband and I attended a Marriott Vacation Club Destinations sales presentation in 2013 while on vacation at Marriott’s Barony Beach Club on Hilton Head Island (obtained through and Interval International exchange). We were shocked to discover the significant changes Marriott had made to timeshare ownership and the creation of a new exchange system. We are deeded week owners (of a Marriott Vacation Club timeshare property in Orlando), and we learned about the Marriott Vacation Club points system Marriott rolled out in 2010.    
 

The MVC Destinations program is pretty complicated.  There are deadlines to be concerned about that have a big impact.  Basically, you have to decide by September 30^th what you want to do with your week for the next year.  Once you decide to either use as points, or stay at your home resort, or use Interval International, you are locked into that choice.  Personally, it is difficult to assess that early, without knowing availability, school vacations (calendars for the following year aren’t available usually), airfare options etc.

 

We were VERY close to buying into this new program, and at the closing found out a few BIG things they hadn’t told us yet (for example: the annual membership fee/dues to use the Destination points program).

 

I have listed some Pros and Cons:

Pros

•Potentially eliminate Interval International annual dues and exchange fees (if you decide not to use II)

 

•Potentially more successful trading to Marriott properties (this is not quantifiable and will decrease as inventory goes down, if more people buy into the Destinations program)

•You can book less than 7 nights to stay at a Marriott timeshare resort.

Cons

•Your ownership week may be worth less than 1 week at another property when booking with points. It may require 2+ weeks of your ownership to book 1 week at a different property.

•No advantage to enrolling if you plan to stay at your home property

•As more and more owners join the Destinations Club program, inventory will become harder to obtain.

 

•The cost of converting to points (and possibly trust points)

 

In Summary

The biggest “Con” would be the amount of money you have to pay, just to trade “internally”.  You can only trade your week for points to use at other Marriott Vacation Club resorts.  There are so many more resorts and locations available through Interval International. 
 

The biggest "Pro", in my opinion, would be that you can stay fewer than 7 days.  But this is not a very big “Pro”, because many resorts are far enough away, you would want to stay a week, and not less (not economically or logistically sensible to stay a few days, when either spending a lot of time or money on transportation to the resort).  A way around this would be to stay at hotels and not timeshare resorts for shorter stays (you can use Marriott Rewards points to stay for free).

Maybe Interval International is not so bad after all!