Diamond Resorts International f/k/a Sunterra NEW TRANSFER FEES

[julieab Member Find all posts View Profile Close julieab]

If I can get the exchanges I want and use the left over points for other services or to reduce my MF's then it's a great deal.

Just had to comment on that last bit! Have you seen the exchange rate that they give you? It's highway robbery! And then they charge you a $42 fee to convert on top of it, and limit it to 2500 points per transaction then. Oh, and the best part is, you have to know you're gonna have "left over points" PRIOR to the year you use them. Have left over 2008 points you want to put toward 2009 MF? Out of luck. Only 2009 points can go toward 2009 fees. No worth it, IMHO.

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

Doug,

I appreciate (and agree) with that opinion and take your comments as another vote of confidence, at least for now, with Diamond. I see things here the same as you. Time will tell!

DWM

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

Just had to comment on that last bit! Have you seen the exchange rate that they give you? It's highway robbery! And then they charge you a $42 fee to convert on top of it, and limit it to 2500 points per transaction then. Oh, and the best part is, you have to know you're gonna have "left over points" PRIOR to the year you use them. Have left over 2008 points you want to put toward 2009 MF? Out of luck. Only 2009 points can go toward 2009 fees. No worth it, IMHO.

Well, it's better than what I had before which was nothing at all. Even with the fee's I'm still lowering my MF's whereas before I just exchanged my weeks and paid I.I. their membership fee's and exchange fee's.

Now I have 26,500 points. If I plan on 2 two bedroom exchanges I know I'm going to use 13,000 points and have 13,500 points left over. That's $675 off my club fee's and MF's less the $service fee. Without the Club, I'd just pay my $1,700 plus $225 THE Club membership fee and still only have 2 two bedroom exchanges PLUS pay the I.I. membership fee (if I weren't a member of THE Club) plus I.I.'s exchange fee's.

So, without THE Club I pay $1,700 plus $84 (I.I. membership fee) plus $139 X 2 (II exchange fee's) for a grand total of $2062.

With THE Club I pay $1,700 plus $225 (club membership fee) Plus $139 X 2 (II exchange fee's) minus $675 (converted club points to pay fee's) plus $42 (transaction fee) for a grand total of $1570.

So even with the poor conversion rate (5 cents per point for 2008) and the transaction fee, I'm still getting my 2 two bedroom unit exchanges AND shaving $498 off what I was going to pay without THE Club. So I wouldn't go so far as to say it's a rip off. It HAS saved me money over the last two years for owning the same thing and that's a great deal IMO. It just takes advanced planning.

[BocaBum99 Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close BocaBum99]

Well, it's better than what I had before which was nothing at all. Even with the fee's I'm still lowering my MF's whereas before I just exchanged my weeks and paid I.I. their membership fee's and exchange fee's.

Now I have 26,500 points. If I plan on 2 two bedroom exchanges I know I'm going to use 13,000 points and have 13,500 points left over. That's $675 off my club fee's and MF's less the $service fee. Without the Club, I'd just pay my $1,700 plus $225 THE Club membership fee and still only have 2 two bedroom exchanges PLUS pay the I.I. membership fee (if I weren't a member of THE Club) plus I.I.'s exchange fee's.

So, without THE Club I pay $1,700 plus $84 (I.I. membership fee) plus $139 X 2 (II exchange fee's) for a grand total of $2062.

With THE Club I pay $1,700 plus $225 (club membership fee) Plus $139 X 2 (II exchange fee's) minus $675 (converted club points to pay fee's) plus $42 (transaction fee) for a grand total of $1570.

So even with the poor conversion rate (5 cents per point for 2008) and the transaction fee, I'm still getting my 2 two bedroom unit exchanges AND shaving $498 off what I was going to pay without THE Club. So I wouldn't go so far as to say it's a rip off. It HAS saved me money over the last two years for owning the same thing and that's a great deal IMO. It just takes advanced planning.

Let me see if I understand this correctly. You own 26,500 DRI Points and pay $1570 in fees to get 2 II exchanges per year?

If I've got that right, that is extremely expensive.

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

I hear this argument all the time. I don't share the concern to the same extent others do. I think those who hold the view that deeded weeks are better completely over estimate their power. You are powerless either way. You always need to trust your management company whenever they control the board. That can happen in deeded weeks and in trusts. Any unethical developer can screw up a recorded deed timeshare just as much as it can a trust. The bottom line is that you need to trust the management of the resort group.

The difference is that in a deeded resort, the owners can band together and kick out the management company and any HOA BOD it controls. That happened at all four of the First Flight resorts on the Outer Banks, for example, where owners changed the composition of the BOD and then kicked out developer management. One went through it a second time where owners had to kick out a subsequent management company that had gotten control of the board. Also at both Peppertree / Fairfield resorts, the owner-controlled HOA BOD kicked out Fairfield as management. In a trust arrangement, that is simply not possible. They have you by the short and curlies.

In a deeded arrangement, the owners have ultimate control. In a non-deeded arrangement, owners have no control whatsoever.

One example from DRI of what a non-deeded arrangement can bring is their closing and selling off one of their crown jewels, Carlton Court in central London. In the timeshare world, London is one of those places where demand is certainly going to always outstrip supply more than anywhere else, and DRI inherited a resort there from Sunterra. But it is also a place where real estate prices are in the stratosphere, so selling off such a resort puts a LOT of money in someone's pocket. It would be real interesting to follow the money from that transaction, but in a private company, I suspect we will never really know where it went.

[BocaBum99 Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close BocaBum99]

The difference is that in a deeded resort, the owners can band together and kick out the management company and any HOA BOD it controls. That happened at all four of the First Flight resorts on the Outer Banks, for example, where owners changed the composition of the BOD and then kicked out developer management. One went through it a second time where owners had to kick out a subsequent management company that had gotten control of the board. Also at both Peppertree / Fairfield resorts, the owner-controlled HOA BOD kicked out Fairfield as management. In a trust arrangement, that is simply not possible. They have you by the short and curlies.

In a deeded arrangement, the owners have ultimate control. In a non-deeded arrangement, owners have no control whatsoever.

One example from DRI of what a non-deeded arrangement can bring is their closing and selling off one of their crown jewels, Carlton Court in central London. In the timeshare world, London is one of those places where demand is certainly going to always outstrip supply more than anywhere else, and DRI inherited a resort there from Sunterra. But it is also a place where real estate prices are in the stratosphere, so selling off such a resort puts a LOT of money in someone's pocket. It would be real interesting to follow the money from that transaction, but in a private company, I suspect we will never really know where it went.

The same is true of a non-deeded arrangement. Look at WorldMark. Owners are pretty much trying to take control of the board by voting in their own board members and soliciting proxies to systematically get them out.

The WorldMark owners may never be able to take control from Wyndham, but the same is true of deeded weeks. I don't see the difference.

In addition, look at Wyndham Vacation Resorts. I own 2 deeded weeks in Wyndham. I don't see anyone being able to get Wyndham off controlling the board of my resorts whereas at least the WorldMark owners have a fighting chance.

In my view, what is far more important is the ability to sell and exit and ownership whenever it is obvious that the Resort Developer is screwing over owners. That's how the stock market works. As soon as you lose confidence in management, you sell. If you can do that with a timeshare, you have good protection. The issue in timesharing is that it takes so long to close that you could easily get caught with your pants down. With a multi-resort point system, you can in general sell it much easier.

[timeos2 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close timeos2]

In the end, it will not matter with DRI whether you have a deeded week or a trust week. DRI will convert enough deeded weeks or sell enough trust based weeks in all the resorts they manage so that they'll have control. Owners, deeded or trust, will just be along for the ride. The only difference will be the way MF's are charged. Trust owners will be an average of all the resorts in the trust while deeded weeks will be based soley on the resorts they own at.

Doug - That is not the case. At least not in most States. If the HOA has been turned over to the owners, as most require after a % of sales or a number of years (unless Wastegate is involved as they simply ignore that regulation) then the Developer, its subsidiaries or subsequent developers are never allowed to retake control of the Board. In the extreme (fortunately unlikely to happen) a group such as the Diamond Trust could, over time, amass the majority of weeks at a sold old resort as they converted deeded owners to the non-deeded trust. Thus they, not the remaining individual owners, would hold the majority vote. But the law says they must remain the minority on the BOD - they cannot regain that control.

Now I'm not naive enough to think the simple existence of that law means attempts wouldn't be made to retake control but, if it happens, the remaining owners have the law on their side to fight it (and with enough effort win). On the other hand if you have a resort that has never been turned over to Owner control and/or has remained under developer management there is a real risk of what you say occurring. I won't own a non-deeded week and only buy into developer controlled situations/clubs/systems with my eyes wide open. They can (and do) turn on you in a blink of an eye.