Latest Conversion info

[Spence Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close Spence]

ON past purchases from Sunterra we did not pay the closing costs.Of course like everything else inthe end it was buried inthe price.

You know you did! And, DRI can/should charge whatever the Market will bear.

[CaCordero Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close CaCordero]

converstion points for existing owners

Hi,
This forum has been great for information. My hubby bought Sunterra with his ex 6 years ago, she had defaulted on her payment and now we have taken over as the owners. Because they only had 4000 points (and club members), I felt we needed more to make it worth our while. Therefore I just purchased 15,000 points on ebay for $3,051.00. Now my problem is the conversion points. Since we are members already, I didn't think we had to pay the full price of conversion, but it doesn't appear that way. I spoke to the owner enhancement center (and I agree it sounds like SALES CENTER to me). She wanted to charges us $4,120 to convert the resale points into our club membership. Her reasonings was that the 15,000 points on ebay are actually 2 memberships combined together therefore I would be charge $2,000 bucks for each membership. She also tried to make me feel better by "offering" 2,000 more points (which I don't need). How does this sound to everyone?!?

[winger Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close winger]

Hi,
... How does this sound to everyone?!?

Without analysing anything (I leave this to Spence and other crunchers here), I will keep it short, three words "used car salesman"

[dougp26364 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close dougp26364]

Basically it sounds like she's selling you 2,000 more points for $4,000 dollars and telling you she'll add the resale points to your account. I wonder if there would be another MF associated with those 2,000 points she's just tossing in for you?

[richardr Member Find all posts View Profile Close richardr]

Often on purchases at a sales centre they include one time bonus points with no mf which you can allocate to the current or following year.

[midwest6 Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close midwest6]

how much is it worth to become elite members? how high would you go to convert 7000 pts?

[Spence Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close Spence]

Hi,
This forum has been great for information. My hubby bought Sunterra with his ex 6 years ago, she had defaulted on her payment and now we have taken over as the owners. Because they only had 4000 points (and club members), I felt we needed more to make it worth our while. Therefore I just purchased 15,000 points on ebay for $3,051.00. Now my problem is the conversion points. Since we are members already, I didn't think we had to pay the full price of conversion, but it doesn't appear that way. I spoke to the owner enhancement center (and I agree it sounds like SALES CENTER to me). She wanted to charges us $4,120 to convert the resale points into our club membership. Her reasonings was that the 15,000 points on ebay are actually 2 memberships combined together therefore I would be charge $2,000 bucks for each membership. She also tried to make me feel better by "offering" 2,000 more points (which I don't need). How does this sound to everyone?!?

Sounds like there typical price and their typical reasoning to make you think you're doing OK.

Without analysing anything (I leave this to Spence and other crunchers here), I will keep it short, three words "used car salesman"

nuff said

Basically it sounds like she's selling you 2,000 more points for $4,000 dollars and telling you she'll add the resale points to your account. I wonder if there would be another MF associated with those 2,000 points she's just tossing in for you?

Of course there's a MF associated with the 2000 extra points, it's 8.03¢/pt.

Often on purchases at a sales centre they include one time bonus points with no mf which you can allocate to the current or following year.

sometimes they do, but that's not what I think was being offered.

how much is it worth to become elite members? how high would you go to convert 7000 pts?

Go to the sticky post which lists elite benefits and decide for yourself. Other than what's listed - for next year elite members have extended deadlines to trade their points for other 'things'

[CaCordero Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close CaCordero]

combined memberships

The 15,000 points I purchased on ebay were two combined memberships. I have noticed that the timeshare resales companies are doing that in order to drive up more interest and higher fees. However, has anyone else purchase these bundles of re-sale points and want to convert them and is being charged 2 conversion fees?

[Spence Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close Spence]

The 15,000 points I purchased on ebay were two combined memberships. I have noticed that the timeshare resales companies are doing that in order to drive up more interest and higher fees. However, has anyone else purchase these bundles of re-sale points and want to convert them and is being charged 2 conversion fees?

Diamond/Sunterra charges whatever they can get. Whether they make up a reason like "this is two memberships" or any other reason their nominal charge is $5000 to convert whatever with an added 2000 points. So you can take your deal and think you have a good deal at only $4120, please forget whatever 'reason' they give you, it's all B.S. They have also been known to convert whatever you have for $2995 with no points, or any other permutation you can come up with (including a report of $1500!)

[mace Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close mace]

I forgot to post my recent resale adventure, but just to add to the information on the site. I upgraded 4 deeds resale to a club membership was forced to buy 8000 points, and paid I believe an additional $9940 in all to convert to a total of 71000 points. So I too was given the line about 2000 points for each resale deed and eventually complied when I got a price where I saw value. I was given a rather good rate on the 8000 points a good "retail" rate that is, but it did cost nearly 10,000 to convert but when we first visited their system they were trying to sell and did sell several couples on a 10,000 point deal for $30,000, one helluva use car saleman. The key in my opinion is too look at your overall cost my resale purchase and my retail purchase/upgrade cost me around $16,000 in all.
So I would set a goal of how much you would be willing to pay in all, but note that if you are a deeded week owner you could be stuck with a fixed week that you can't use personally and it might be difficult to rent until you upgrade (been there done that), the Florida trust membership is a whole lot more flexible and some people should consider not upgrading all their contracts (if Diamond continues to push this 2000 extra points per contract deal) if they find themselves visiting those 19 resorts a good amount of the time.
A good rule of thumb in my opinion is to get 3 points per dollar for instance 5000 dollars should net you 15000 club points in the end. If you are around this ratio you should feel good the less points you convert however the more likely you will pay a higher conversion rate.
By the way anything Spence says take to the bank he definitely helped us through the process. Goodluck

[CaCordero Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close CaCordero]

Thank you everyone for your suggestions, it will helps us tremendously. I guess we will play paper/rock/scissor to determine if we want to ditch the resale deal, keep it with only the 19 resorts, or pay an additional 4 grand to convert.

[Bill4728 Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close Bill4728]

trust membership is a whole lot more flexible and some people should consider not upgrading all their contracts

The "Trust" has lots of great resorts and for many people offer all the advantages of sunterra without the cost to upgrade to the full "club" membership. If that is what you're buying resale, you maybe happy with it all by itself.

[Schooner Member Find all posts View Profile Close Schooner]

Earlier in this thread I promised to provide an update on my "conversion" experience.

First, I tried over the phone in Vegas and got nowhere fast. To be fair, I was trying to do a deal where they would allow me to bring in 4 deeded weeks that were in escrow and invisible to them at the time. Recent experience has confirmed to me that trying to do this over the phone where both parties are total strangers doesn't provide for an optimal negotiating environment … perhaps only if the office is real hungry for a sale.

So ... while on a recent visit to the Ridge on Sedona I signed up for a sales meeting. The initial approach of the sales staff was a mirror of what many have reported on this site ($2995 per deed or $15 to 20K for a point package). Armed with the knowledge gained form this forum we were able to cut to the bottom line without an overly long painful dance. We were professional and the sales staff returned the courtesy (with the exception of one guy who played the resident "bad cop" role)... they could see we were well informed consumers. Our sales representative was a gentleman by the name of Barry Woods. We wanted to convert CSV1 points plus a PT week and three other deeds still not visible to DRI (they have been buried in the back office of DRI for weeks now) but we had copies with us.

We went in with a price in mind we could live with and the knowledge the weeks we owned had some leverage. We came to an agreement where we assigned our PT week and kept the door open to convert the 3 deeds now in our name but invisible to DRI plus 32,500 CSV1 points. This will bring us to 84,500 in the club for $5700 when all is done.

Now if only the back office would move faster I have a lot of vacationing to do!

[Spence Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close Spence]

Earlier in this thread I promised to provide an update on my "conversion" experience.

Thanks for the update.

[Bill4728 Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close Bill4728]

We went in with a price in mind we could live with and the knowledge the weeks we owned had some leverage. We came to an agreement where we assigned our PT week and kept the door open to convert the 3 deeds now in our name but invisible to DRI plus 32,500 CSV1 points. This will bring us to 84,500 in the club for $5700 when all is done.

That sure doesn't sound too bad for that many points. Nice Job!!