Is Platinum Elite worth it?

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

Hello,

I am a DRI owner in the Trust and a Marriott timeshare. I have been approached by DRI to go from a Gold to Platinum. I know you get unlimited free upgrades, but is it worth it. I was offered 20000 points for $26000 which is about $1.30 or so. It sounds good considering what I have read here lately as to what people are paying. However, it still seems like a lot. Maintenance fees for the Platinum Elite would jump to $4400/year. It just seems a little steep.

The only reason I have even considered it is because I think I may need more points when I retire in 12 years and will want to spend more time with my grandchildren. I notice that the number of points to reserve units is becoming higher. What one could get with 30,000 today is less than what it could yet you in the past.

DRI seems to be creating more opportunities to use the points but from what I have learned all of the Diamond Selections give you little value for your points if use it for that. For example, I looked to book a cruise and DRI were going to use all 30000 points and give me $1500. The stress is on the upgrades. I've tried tried to upgrade using my gold but there was no availabilty each time I tried. It makes you feel as if maybe it isn't worth it. The salesman of course said that the prices were changing and the interest rates were going up as the prices.

I would like to know what you guys think.

Carlos

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

To be honest, right now I'd advise staying as liquid as possible. I'd hold back that 20K until I knew what was going to happen with the current financial crisis. Watch Wachovia and foreign banks. Understand the housing balloon is as bad or worse in Europe. It looks like a long and deep recession may be the best of possible outcomes, anything else could be much worse.

I'd seriously hold off! You can buy at any time.

[Werner Member Find all posts View Profile Close Werner]

Besides economic issues, there is the question of how financially valuable is the Platinum Elite status to you specifically. The primary benefit of any Elite status is the upgrade privilege. How many times per year will you use it and for what... bigger units, units with better views? We are silver elite and use it for view upgrades at our home resort at a cost of $99 per reservation (usually 2 or 3 weeks). Any reservation through II costs more than that. Compared to most other travel costs $99 is a drop in the bucket. We do a few trades / year through II but Elite upgrades don't apply there. I wouldn't spend any serious money to reduce the upgrade cost. The ROI on that extra money just isn't there.

If the reason you want more points is to take more resort vacations during retirement or use them for higher point value resorts, then do it but I can't see spending big bucks to save little bucks.

BTW, we are retired and take many more trips than we ever did before we retired but be careful about getting locked into resort-type vacations. We like to tour and timesharing resorts are often not good for touring vacations. They work great on small islands like the Caribbean or Hawaii where you can stay in one place and easily get anywhere but for touring on the mainland they often don't work well. We toured the Central Coast of California from Avila Bay and that involved a lot of driving the same miles on the same roads every day. It worked better touring the Tucson area from Starr Pass where we could go out in a different direction every day. I think you have to decide if you will really be doing enough timesharing resorts in retirement to warrant more points. We have two weeks per year and use them as 3 weeks every other year in Hawaii and the other week get used mostly on the off year but usually results in 2 or 3 actual weeks at lower point-value resorts, and by making less than 60 day reservations. That is more than enough resort vacations for us. Our other trips involve touring with usually 1 or 2 nights per stop.

As for the point inflation that you mentioned, you have confirmed what others have said, owning a deeded week is superior to owning points in a trust. I will always get my float/float weeks at my home resort any time of year because it says so in the deed. The basic sales pitch for timesharing is fixed cost vacations. That was never really true because maintenance fees go up with inflation but if point values are inflating it is more obviously not true.

Werner

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

points inflation

Points that were originally set up in the Club Sunterra system have not changed in the 9 years of existence, with very little exception. The inflation comes with the addition of 'new' resorts into the system, EPIC, Raintree, Resort options, etc are all more expensive, and of course the points for tickets etc has inflated as they give you less and less value for your point.

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

You shouldn't buy today for something you can't use for 10+ years. I would say invest your money for the next several years and see how Diamond evolves in the next 2 to 3 years, lot of money to be made in the market. I believe we will all know the future of the DRI in that amount of time.