Excellent! Will you be going alone, or can a friend join you? And if you don't have room for me (admittedly, you don't know me at all), can you get someone to post a video of your departure on You Tube?

And can you arrange for Internet access so that you can stay in touch via FlyerTalk? Honestly, I think your posts during your trip would be much more interesting than most threads, and I for one would welcome them.

PointSaver Rewards will continue to be offered at up to a 33% points discount off Hotel Rewards. http://www.marriott.com/rewards/lra-faq.mi#question6

Best regards,

Drew

i just received an offer on my door for timeshare meeting and I m going to collect the points and then rip them at the same time for what they are doing to current owners which is an excellent way not only to say no thank you but no f-ing way would i ever do this

As a MVCI multi week owner I'm sure that's the message we and other existing owners will give when offered incentive points for possible refferal's in the future....f--k um!!!!

I have a better idea. Let them give their spiel and then have them write up the contract. Then read the contract and tell them that they need to bump up the annual trade amount to 560000 points for your week since your two bedroom unit would require 2 rooms at the highest hotel category level. Also make sure they have a clause in the contract to protect you from point inflation, something like your trade for points level will be equivalent to two (2) times the maximum number of points needed for a 7 night stay at the highest hotel category level offered by Marriott International Hotels (including MI franchise and MI managed hotels) during the year of trade. This should protect you when they add categories 9, 10, 11, etc. If they don't like the variable nature of the above terms, or the wording of the contract mkaes it difficult to convey, then tell them they can just put an amount equivalent to anticipated inflation; about 60% higher (560000 x 1.60) = 896000 points per trade. Oh and just for good measure change their terms from being allowed to do a trade for points once every two years, to being able to do it every year. After all it is a buyers market.

FWIW, my answer is the same as it has been in the past. No.

I find that some of the replies are what is called in the securities business as "talking your book". In other words justifying your current position. The fact that new time-shares or hotels are still being built says NOTHING about Marriott's financial situation today as these projects were started a long time ago when things were very different.

I think that looking at how quickly major US Companies, AIG, Bear Sterns, Lehman Bros. have gotten into severe problems or gone out of business very quickly is more to the point. Marriott would NOT have made the multiple changes (60% point increase, etc) created the customer wrath, made things very hard on their sales employees (Marriott & MVCI) unless things were going DOWNHILL FAST. Just look at the 2 most recent posts prior and several others on how difficult things will be getting for Marriott employees. As we can all remember from high school --once a reputation is lost it is almost impossible to regain it.
The longer Marriott lets the anger build........... unless they don't really care about their reputation. Usually where there is smoke there is fire.

Marriott is not going bankrupt. They have the strongest flag, and their balance sheet can withstand the current downturn. Hilton, on the other hand, might be in trouble in 5 years if Blackstone (Hilton's owner) cannot replace their $20 billion debt which will balloon by then.

That's your opinion & you're certainly welcome to post it. However, just because it is your opinion does not make it correct. Others are also welcome to post their opinions, which they have. Not all us agree w/ your conclusions or are willing to do the chicken little thing. Also, financial company-hotel company comparisons are apples-oranges. OVMV.

Cheers.

if you think about it Bulgari is a new brand (this costs $$$) the new Ian Schrager partnership (another new brand $$$) Nick hotels is a new brand (again costs a few $$$) new courtyard prototype ($$$) etc....$3B doesn't buy what it use to

How are they "ripping" current owners? As a current owner I continue to earn the points I earned last year and the year before...the difference is I dont have a mortgage on my timeshare-those in debt (who were earning MI additional money's) are no longer earning a perk...given the state of the financial system in this country I can't say I blame them

Again...look at the free cash flow if you dont trust the net income on the statements

Every time I call the rewards line they keep telling me my points will be posted tomorrow, yet nothing shows. I bought 100,000 points a while ago and they haven't posted those points yet.

Tammy and her team need to step to the other side and recognize what their clients are going through during this period of economic malaise.

A more appropriate move might be to suspend the points for financed deals, but make them cumulative so they can repost them to your account when times get better. Yeah, like they are hurting all that much... They are still offering increases on the hotel users side!

I was intending to buy a second unit and refer a friend; that just evaporated.

Shame on you Tammy!

Today -- Zacks Equity Research analyst reconfirmed his SELL rating on Marriott. Looks like Marriott has taken the ostrich approach to dealing with all the 2009 "Enhancement" complaints from its Elite members. The moderator on the Elite Marriott Rewards website has 599 posts to his "..oh these are good changes.." with 95% of them in disagreement with him.

A number of these members that are upset with the 60% increase in the Award categories and 7-night Travel Package have stated they are leaving the program and booking their 70+ nights for Business Travel with Hilton, Starwood etc. This can not be good.

Driving the best customers away by trying to push through these changes in the current economic environment is not a sound strategy.

Don't confuse your "love of a hotel or vacation experience" with what is really happening due to the Marriott program changes. Continue to contact them and voice your dissatisfaction with the changes they are putting in play January 15th if that is how you feel. Otherwise they will continue to ignore everyone.

Back to the original post:
This was a program where they gave you 25,000 points if you kept the loan with Marriott (at a Credit Card type 13% rate).
Many people kept the loan with Marriott only because of the points.

By stopping the program, there is now a reason for many people to payoff the loan (by transferring it somewhere else most likely).

While this will hurt profit a little on the finance side, it will free up capital to use to help people buy TS.
With tightening secondary credit market seems like a smart move.

I'm not sure what any of the above have to do with MI's financial condition.....everything I've seen including Arnie's latest comments (CFO) continue to show MI being hugely cash flow positive......it would be very difficult to MI not to have a large positive position given their method of generating sales compared to Hilton & Starwood