Sorry - your math is wrong!
 

I hate people using math (wrongly) to prove a point.

Let me try and explain.

If there were 1000 redemptions broken down as:

57 % for one night
22% for two nights,
10% for three nights and
3% for seven nights

for a total of 92%, then:

57/92*1000*1 nights using 1 night awards = 620 nights
22/92*1000*2 nights using 2 night awards = 478 nights
10/92*1000*3 nights using 3 night awards = 326 nights
3/92*1000*7 nights using 7 night awrds = 228

for a total of 1652 nights.

So,

620/1652 nights = 38% of all room nights were redeemed using 1 night packages
478/1652 nights = 29% of all room nights were redeemed using 2 night packages
326/1652 nights = 20% of all room nights were redeemed using 3 night packages and
228/1652 nights = 14% of all room nights were redeemed using 7 night packages

(adds up to 101% due to rounding)

Now in my experience (which is considerable), when someone uses numbers (wrongly) to prove a point against people who lack the math skills to see through the deception, it brings the question as to the accurcy of the data itself. Did the 7 night redemption include travel packages? We don't know. Did the 7 night redemption include 7 night samplers? We don't know. Did it include standard and stay anytime awards? Or were the numbers just from a subset of all the data, like say non-travel packages? We don't know.

Shame on anyone misleading "Statistics" like this.

As you can "clearly" see now, 7 night packages are AT LEAST 14% of all award redemptions, and may be more. Instead of 7 night redemptions being 3%/57% ratio (like 19:1), it's more like 14%/38% which is 2.7:1 (close to e:1). And I might add, that if that 3% were really 3.49%, it would make the room night percentages much bigger, like well over 16%.

We will never have all the data Marriott does, and clearly they are trying to mislead their employees as well as us.

Shame on them.

Billy

During the last 2 years I convinced my father, sister and some close friends to buy timeshares from Marriott as it had worked pretty well for me for 15 years by trading my weeks for points. For somebody living outside the US, a 9 hour flight away from the nearest Marriott Vacation Club, the trade-for-points option is vital and almost the sole reason for ownership. I can't tell you enough about how sorry and embarrased I feel for them after this terrible devaluation that has ruined the program and does not consider any compensation to Marriott owners.

While our nights are sold by Marriott at higher rates every year, and our maintenance fees go up too, our revenue in terms of points is worth less and less due to devaluation of the fixed amount of points that we get. When I bought my first week I could trade my week for 7 nights one of the nicest Marriott. Now, I can barely get 3-4 nights at that same hotel. The trade for points option makes no sense anymore and Marriott has betrayed all of us who bought for that reason and were highly dependant on it.

I'm glad I could warn a friend that had bought a week and cancelled just in time but I face many others that are asking me what to do now. Very sad.

All statistics are skewed to present information in the terms they need to match, not just by Marriott. Should have been the first thing you learned in Statistics 101...

While your math may add up your logic seems flawed. You are only accounting for 92% of rewards stays even by your calculations so your total of 100% is based on that 92% and not all rewards stays. Four, Five, and Six night redemptions would make up the remaining 8% which your argument does not account for. So by your own numbers, all stays would account for more than 100% of the stays which is impossible. Also by using 92 and your denominator, you are finding the given percentages of the 92 percent which further skews and falsifies the information.

Let's assume the remaining 8% is made up by 5 night bookings:
57% = 570 bookings = 570 nights
22% = 220 bookings = 440 nights
10% = 100 bookings = 300 nights
8% = 80 bookings = 400 nights
3% = 30 bookings = 210 nights

For a total of 1920 nights giving the following results:

1 night stays = 570/1920 = 30%
2 night stays = 440/1920 = 23%
3 night stays = 300/1920 = 16%
5 night stays = 400/1920 = 21%
7 night stays = 210/1920 = 11%

So by that math (which remember though is taken some things for granted), 5 night or less stays account for 89-90% of all nights redeemed so the changes and fifth free night option now make more sense.

But the thing that needs to be clarified here is are the numbers given to us by Marriott based on the actual nights redeemed or the redemption bookings?

I could not use data that was not presented, they only presented 92% of the information - you choose to make up the rest of the data - I did not. I stand by my analysis.

All I'm saying is that the data they presented shows that 7 night stays represent 14% of all nights used. They want to talk about redemptions, but longer redemptions use more nights (duh).

Anyway -it puts all their data in suspicion.

Billy

same here:(

To say that Marriott is trying to deceive all including their employees is a pretty bold statement and warrants scrutiny of yourself. Since we do NOT know and can only assume through semantical interpretation what these numbers were based off, neither you nor I can concretely find flaw in their numbers. HOWEVER, you DID state that 7 night stays make up AT LEAST 14% of all rewards redemptions to which my numbers clearly proved false so even your stance which you so aptly stand by is still flawed. Maybe it was just the wording that really irked me so if you weren't trying to sit up on a high horse then I apologize for coming across as brash.

I still don't understand how you can say that your statement is any more accurate than mine though. You are basing the percentages on the 92% mentioned. So for example, instead of 57% of 100% it is now 57% of 92% (which is 52.4% of 100%). This would necessitate a consistently scaled sampling though and is going to throw all of your numbers off.

OK, I'm 28 pages in - I honestly did not read this entire thread, and I've been traveling so much that only tonight am I looking at the detailed program changes.



With Marriott, I'm almost exclusively a Cat 6 Travel Package guy. 250k a pop - I've done about six of them in my Marriott lifetime, counting the two rooms I have booked in 4 weeks at the JW Cancun.


So I see this as a long-story short: my 250k just became 300k, because I'm assuming most Cat 6's are now Cat 7's. But, for my extra 50k, I'm theoretically going to find better availability.

Am I, in a nutshell, right? :confused:



BTW - Renaissance Chancery Court as a Cat 8 makes perfect sense. Marriott Marble Arch as a Cat 8 is an embarrassment to the other Cat 8's. I didn't see that JW Grosvenor House as an 8....why not? The Grosvenor Square is an 8... :confused:

Marble Arch > I wouldn't stay there if it was a four.. much less an 8.. what a joke

with the pound losing strength daily though, it will be priced closer to its value though soon enough and If I was ever to be forced into that dump, I'd pay for it rather than use points

I agree. My rule of thumb is avoid posts that extrapolate number data to prove a point. That rule seems to be especially sound on this thread.

Did the people who bought Marriott timeshares really believe that the value of their conversion points wouldn't devalue over time?

There is absolutely no reason to bring this up. Let's let sleeping dogs (and unchanged hotel categories) lie.

On the availability = yes, that is the big claim from Marriott that for the moment we just have to trust in.

You're wrong on the Cat 6's becoming Cat 7s (No mention of this has been made, for the moment assume that Marriott probably won't uplift them for at least a few months due to even more negative publicity)

As such your travel award will now cost 300k as you said (same package for a Cat 6).

If the hotels you stay at become Cat 7 your travel package would now cost 330k points... but again, this isn't part of the changes.

If you are a platinum member (as your profile says) you will also earn around extra points per night stayed (as the plat bonus is going up by 20%), luckily that puts you in a sweeter spot than say a gold as you manage to avoid most of the devaluation because you get more points to compensate. Unfortunately this isn't applied retrospectively so your existing points will lose their value, so, book your travel packages before January if you can afford to!

Wow...I misread the chart... you're right - it's 330k for a Cat 7 package. :eek:

Yes, I'm a Plat and will requal for '09.

I will go ahead and assume that Marriott will announce major category shifts within a couple of months. That's what it seems like we're being set up for.

However, if the availability actually *is* improved and I can get award rooms exactly where I want them, at least in "semi-peak" season, then the 330k might actually be a better value than the 250k where I had to work hard to get my dates and usually wouldn't get the "best" Cat 6 in a city with several of them.

And obviously if I get lucky and my favorite Cat 6's stay as Cat 6's, that's even better. But we've all been to the Category Creep rodeo before... :)

I'm using two 087's in December, so my first one under the new rules probably won't be until Fall or Winter '09.

Why not? After all, we invested our money in rooms/nights, so if rates have gone up and Marriott price them higher in terms of points, why shouldn´t we get a proportional adjustment when they "buy" them from us with points?

The fact that a reward stay at a Vacation Club still requires the same amount of points with the new points schedule shows that Marriott acknowledges that if they increase the points needed then they would be forced to compensate the owners accordingly. A reward stay at a MVCI has become the best pick in the catalogue now and it is subsidized by owners not Marriott.

Considering the above and that new sales are severely affected by the crisis and the poor trade-for-points ratio, I´m sure that Marriott will have to review their policy towards owners pretty soon.

Was this stated in your purchase contract?