What is Marriott Priority in Interval International?

What is the Marriott to Marriott Priority & How Does it Work?

When a Marriott vacation club owner first deposits their week into Interval International, that deposit can only be reserved by other Marriott owners for a period of time. This means that non-Marriott owners who are members of Interval International are not able to immediately confirm an exchange into that week and unit.

This affords Marriott owners a huge advantage when exchanging into other Marriott resorts. It is like you are getting exclusive access as a Marriott owner to exchange into these resorts ahead of hundreds of thousands of other Interval International members.

What the Marriott to Marriott Priority Isn’t

Many might refer to the Marriott to Marriott priority as an internal Marriott Vacation Club exchange. It isn’t. All exchanges using this priority are facilitated by Interval International. While Interval International may be owned by Marriott Vacations Worldwide, which also owns Marriott Vacation Club, it is still considered a third-party exchange. This goes back before the introduction of the Abound by Marriott Vacations program, which was preceded by the Marriott Destinations Club.

A Little Bit of History about the Marriott to Marriott Priority

To better understand the Marriott to Marriott priority, let’s go back in time a while – 25 to 30 years in fact. For a long time, Marriott owners have been afforded a 21-day priority on new deposits. That means for the first 21 days after a Marriott Vacation Club week has been deposited into Interval International for exchange, only other Marriott Vacation Club owners could exchange into it.

In the early 2000s, Marriott introduced the Horizons Brand. While planned to be more resorts, this initially consisted of Horizons at Orlando in Florida and Horizons at Branson in Missouri. For this new brand that was targeted toward younger families, Marriott afforded them an additional three days to exchange into other Horizons resorts. This meant that a Horizons owner had a 24-day priority exchange between the Orlando or Branson properties through Interval International. As additional rumored Horizons resorts come online, the 24-day exchange priority would have been extended to them. After the 24-day exchange priority, those Horizons resort properties would then be available for other Marriott Vacation Club owners to exchange into.

Unfortunately, or even fortunately, depending on how you look at it, the Horizons brand didn’t last very long. Marriott Vacation Club officially squashed the brand in the late part of the 2000s. The Orlando and Branson resorts later became Marriott’s Harbour Lake and Marriott’s Willow Ridge Lodge respectively.

When they took away the Horizons brand, Marriott Vacation Club simplified the exchange priority to 24 days and included all Marriott Vacation Club Resorts. This means any owner at any Marriott Vacation Club resort potentially has up to a 24 day exchange priority when trading into other Marriott resorts through Interval International.

How it Works

We’ve now discussed how the Marriott to Marriott priority can be 24 days. That said, the Interval International Buyers Guide (II Terms and Conditions) doesn’t specify a set number of days.

Those terms outline the priority given to Marriott Vacation Club owners exchanging into other Marriott resorts through Interval International. You can also see an additional priority for VSN (Vistana Signature Network) members, which we will discuss shortly.

Owners who own both Marriott and non-Marriott Vacation Club resorts can see this priority firsthand. Experimenting with exchange searches on the Interval International website, many are able to see new Marriott Vacation Club deposits using their Marriott weeks for exchange. At the same time, when using their non-Marriott weeks, they are not able to see those same new Marriott Vacation Club deposits.

When 24 Days Isn’t Always 24 Days

We’ve noticed over the years that the Marriott-to-Marriott priority may not last for the full 24 days. If you read the terms and conditions quoted above, you will see no mention of a specific timeframe for this priority period.

The actual priority period may be much less than 24 days or might not exist at all. We’ve seen at times when the priority only lasts a few days, or sometimes when new Marriott Vacation Club deposits can be seen instantly by non-Marriott Vacation Club owners.

This means non-Marriott owners may be able to exchange into those units as soon as they are deposited, potentially creating more competition for those deposits. Don’t worry too much, though. These tend to be smaller units (studios) and for areas during low travel demand times of the year, like Orlando or Palm Desert in the summer.

Taking Marriott Priority a Step Further with Sheraton and Westin Vacation Clubs (VSN Resorts)

Looking further into the Interval International Buyers Guide (II Terms and Conditions), we see some additional verbiage related to VSN resorts:

The last sentence underlined above indicates an additional priority period for Marriott Vacation Club owners to exchange into VSN Resorts. It has been indicated that Vistana owners are afforded a 30-day priority period.

This priority period, like the Marriott to Marriott priority, might also not last the full 30 days. After the end of the VSN priority offered to VSN members, Marriott Vacation Club owners have a short window of time where they are offered a priority to exchange into Sheraton and Westin Vacation Club resorts through Interval International.

This gives Marriott owners a leg up on other Interval International members who are not Marriott or Vistana owners.

How to Use Priority to Your Advantage

We discussed many mistakes you may be making when exchanging your Marriott Vacation Club weeks through Interval International in an earlier article. Not utilizing the Marriott-to-Marriott exchange priority is one of those mistakes.

It’s huge to have an advance priority of up to 24 days ahead of all other non-Marriott owners when exchanging. Also, be sure to set up ongoing searches with Interval International and only include Marriott, Sheraton, and Westin Vacation Club resorts in your search.

This will ensure that you are at the front of the line when other Marriott owners deposit their weeks into Interval International or when Marriott does bulk banking of multiple weeks into the deposit pool.

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