Recently I was trying to reserve our home resort at Newport Coast Villas for July 2023. That is the busiest and most popular month to travel to that resort, so getting the reservation during that month isn’t “easy shmeazy”. But making that reservation is totally doable — if you don’t make the common mistakes many owners make.
First mistake owners typically make — assume 12 months out is 12 months from the date they would be checking in. NOT CORRECT! When reserving deeded weeks, check-in days for Newport is Friday, Saturday, or Sunday. If you want to check in on Sunday July 9, 2023, for example, the inventory is released for that weekend on July 7, 2023 — a year from the FRIDAY check-in date. Check-in days are different for the various resorts, so make sure you are aware what those days are. There is a great Inventory Release Calendar on the website you should refer to that has that information as well as calculates the first day possible to make your reservation 12 to 13 months out. Access it through the “Use Weeks” tab NOT the “Use Points” tab.
Second mistake owners typically make — even though the inventory is released at 9:00 am EST, making the reservation can be done a little later — like around 9:30 or 10:00 am. NOT CORRECT! The inventory was gone with 15 minutes after the 9:00 am release for both weeks I followed it. If you are looking at high travel dates, 9:00 EST means 9:00 EST.
Third mistake owners typically make — owners call Owner Services at 9:00 EST instead of making the reservation online. By the time you get through the prompts and actually speak to an Owner Advisor, you might be too late if it is high travel date. Marriott has done a great job of getting the owner to the correct screen to make your reservation for your deeded week, and as soon as the clock changes to 9:00, you hit the “refresh” button. WALLAH — within a matter of a second you can see the inventory is available, and you can grab your week.
There is a way to make your reservation 13 months in advance for a Deeded Week, but that’s a post for another day. Spoiler alert — you need at least TWO Deeded Weeks to do so.
Have you written the blog post about being able to make reservations 13 months in advance for a deeded week? I searched through a few of your posts, but was unable to see if that’s the case.
To reserve 13 months out, you need to reserve TWO deeded weeks to qualify for that. It can be two consecutive or concurrent weeks at the same resort, or use one week at one resort and one week at another resort to qualify. For example, I used my week at Newport to reserve 13 months out for the exact week I wanted. I also reserved Shadow Ridge for the following week — a week I DID NOT want to keep, but it qualified me for the 13-month reservation window. After a few weeks when everything was confirmed (and before the deadline to elect points from a deeded week), I cancelled the Shadow Ridge reservation and elected points.
I hope that helps you understand the process. Let me know if you have other questions. And thanks for bringing this “hole” in my blog to my attention. I will prepare a post explaining this process for others.