Decided not to convert

[deb335 Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close deb335]

Well, some of you followed my thread a couple weeks ago about converting a fixed week at Powatan to points beginning in 2010.
The final offer from DRI was a decent offer - $4000 total to convert and to buy 1000 points.
When the paper work came we read it through and through, and the 1000 point fees were to start for 1/1 /09, so they wanted $519 now for the fees for those 1000 points for THIS year. And you were right - included in those fees were the M/F, the Club fees AND $200 yearly TRUST FEES, which were not explained.
So I called them and told them we changed our minds, forget the whole deal.
Today they called and offered to TRY to get the conversion for $2995 without extra points or fees. I told them forget it! I don't like high pressure sales! They assured me in the future it would cost me at least $12000 to convert and buy 2000 points , their"minimum" - our 1000 points was a "special deal". Yea, Ok, whatever!
I'm not convinced this company will still be in business in a few years and if they are and we change our minds I'll deal with it then.
In the meantime I will keep up on DRI from this forum. As I told them, you can't get any info directly DRI, - it changes by the minute!!
Thanks again everyone for your info.
Deb

[tonyg Goomba & Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close tonyg]

Good choice.

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

Well, some of you followed my thread a couple weeks ago about converting a fixed week at Powatan to points beginning in 2010.
The final offer from DRI was a decent offer - $4000 total to convert and to buy 1000 points.
When the paper work came we read it through and through, and the 1000 point fees were to start for 1/1 /09, so they wanted $519 now for the fees for those 1000 points for THIS year. And you were right - included in those fees were the M/F, the Club fees AND $200 yearly TRUST FEES, which were not explained.
So I called them and told them we changed our minds, forget the whole deal.
Today they called and offered to TRY to get the conversion for $2995 without extra points or fees. I told them forget it! I don't like high pressure sales! They assured me in the future it would cost me at least $12000 to convert and buy 2000 points , their"minimum" - our 1000 points was a "special deal". Yea, Ok, whatever!
I'm not convinced this company will still be in business in a few years and if they are and we change our minds I'll deal with it then.
In the meantime I will keep up on DRI from this forum. As I told them, you can't get any info directly DRI, - it changes by the minute!!
Thanks again everyone for your info.
Deb

So, you do get fairly accurate information here even if we aren't company employees in the know. $2995 is the price for conversion, and you've again confirmed it, thank you very much for the feedback.

[deb335 Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close deb335]

Yes, the information from this forum was great. Without the information I gathered here, we would have been completely in the dark and they would have tried much harder to "railroad" us into a decision - and believe me they tried very hard anyway. I never doubted the info, esp the $2995 conversion, but it is totally exhausting trying to deal with DRI!
I hope others find this forum and educate themselves before making whatever decision is right for them!

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

Hooray for you!

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

The sad part is, THE Club is a good program. It's just to bad they felt the need to jerk you around rather than deal straight with you in the first place.

[brisket lover Member Find all posts View Profile Close brisket lover]

Well, some of you followed my thread a couple weeks ago about converting a fixed week at Powatan to points beginning in 2010.
The final offer from DRI was a decent offer - $4000 total to convert and to buy 1000 points.
When the paper work came we read it through and through, and the 1000 point fees were to start for 1/1 /09, so they wanted $519 now for the fees for those 1000 points for THIS year. And you were right - included in those fees were the M/F, the Club fees AND $200 yearly TRUST FEES, which were not explained.
So I called them and told them we changed our minds, forget the whole deal.
Today they called and offered to TRY to get the conversion for $2995 without extra points or fees. I told them forget it! I don't like high pressure sales! They assured me in the future it would cost me at least $12000 to convert and buy 2000 points , their"minimum" - our 1000 points was a "special deal". Yea, Ok, whatever!
I'm not convinced this company will still be in business in a few years and if they are and we change our minds I'll deal with it then.
In the meantime I will keep up on DRI from this forum. As I told them, you can't get any info directly DRI, - it changes by the minute!!
Thanks again everyone for your info.
Deb

[SIGN]Good Job![/SIGN] I also decided to not join. They wanted to send a rep to my house to go over it with me and get me to join. I asked them to send me documents about it first and they said they didn't have any. I told them to give me a month to think about it and that they did. When they called back I said I wasn't interested based on what information I had read and what my needs are. They continued to call so I had to block the number.

[deb335 Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close deb335]

We agree. We never doubted that the program is a good one once you are in, but working with people who are trying to blindside you to get more money than is required causes a really uneasy feeling! I guess it works for them because most people don't research it as much as we did. We were looking forward to the DRI points exchange system instead of RCI, but couldn't deal with the high pressure sales approach.

[epaulc242 Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close epaulc242]

Did not convert either

We had two sales guys from Outfield Marketing come to the house to try and get us to convert our week at PoiPu in Kauai. They first quoted $3,500 for 3500 points but if we signed "today" the price would be $2,995. Since they were jerking me around, I offered $1,000 take it or leave it. They laughed and showed me a contract with the $2,995 price and then the hard sell really kicked in. I almost had to kick them out of the house. As others have said, the Club may be a good deal but since we have never had problems exchanging our week and I HATE hard sales pitches we are not converting.

[shaggy Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close shaggy]

Didn't look at the forum name, just the title. Imagine what I thought the topic was!! shaggy

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

Sedona Ridge conversion offer

Just went through an exhausting presentation re: my 1 BR at the Sedona Ridge. Bottom line: buy an additional 1500 pts. for $5200 plus give them a Santa Fe Otra Vez timeshare (purch. on Ebay for $1000). MF on th 1500 pts. will be $566 + $545 MF on 1 BR = $1,111. So end up with 8,000 pts + can get 8500 ClubSelect pts. for Australia ts if pay the $119 yr. & keep up with the mf on that one.
Their pitch is that weeks at the Ridge will become less useful as more folks convert to Diamond pts. i.e. more availability through the Club. Also, big pitch on booking 59 or less days for 50% off. Also trashed RCI pts. and said II was waive of future.
Any input/thoughts on whether to rescind or not will be appreciated.
Thanks,
Tom

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

Just went through an exhausting presentation re: my 1 BR at the Sedona Ridge. Bottom line: buy an additional 1500 pts. for $5200 plus give them a Santa Fe Otra Vez timeshare (purch. on Ebay for $1000). MF on th 1500 pts. will be $566 + $545 MF on 1 BR = $1,111. So end up with 8,000 pts + can get 8500 ClubSelect pts. for Australia ts if pay the $119 yr. & keep up with the mf on that one.
Their pitch is that weeks at the Ridge will become less useful as more folks convert to Diamond pts. i.e. more availability through the Club. Also, big pitch on booking 59 or less days for 50% off. Also trashed RCI pts. and said II was waive of future.
Any input/thoughts on whether to rescind or not will be appreciated.
Thanks,Tom

• As you've read $2995 is bottom line conversion cost with no extra points
• Those 1500 points cost you big time forever as you can see from you MF comparison, that's because you're paying a MF/pt plus an overhead for the Trust that matters not how many points you own, and I don't see where you've included THE Club fee
• It's a shame that they tell you a tale about your deed becoming less useful, it should remain the same use. This is floating time and as many deeded owners as there are, they get allotted a proportional amount of available time for every week of the year. Less deeded owners will natuarally have less deeded availability between them.
• It's a shame that they pitch heat so hard on the 59day thing. If everyone used it like they insinuate, the points would be so out of balance that it hurts, everyone can't book for half price and have the system work. The chances of 59day availability in prime time where you want to go is not good.
• Of course they trash RCI/RCI points, THE Club is in II.

DRI has a quality product, it's too bad the saleswomen can't see that and sell it without pitching the heat. You might want to renegotiate and get conversion for $2995 plus Club Select for your Otra Vez. The sales teams can't understand that THE Club, the product that they're selling, is better with happy Club members, no matter how they got there.

[T. R. Oglodyte Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close T. R. Oglodyte]

Their pitch is that weeks at the Ridge will become less useful as more folks convert to Diamond pts. i.e. more availability through the Club.

If nothing else, this is precisely the reason why you should get out of this deal while you can.

That Ridge week you own was sold with the promises and guarantees of availability and usage. Now, if you believe the sales person, those promises are being broken, requiring you to pony up more money just to preserve what was originally promised.

If that is the reason, why in the world should you give them any more money? If this is true, that means that if they have a chance to degrade your new ownership in the future so that they can suck more money from you, that's what they will do. If they can't stand by the validity of what was originally promised, it's stupid to give them even one more cent.

[Werner Member Find all posts View Profile Close Werner]

We also heard the pitch that our deeded floating TS weeks would end up being fixed unit / fixed weeks because soon there would be no one left to "float" with. It's all nonsense. If you are happy with the reservations you have been getting with your current units there is nothing in the deal that adds any real value that you can't buy cheaper elsewhere. When we heard that pitch we naturally asked for numbers about just how much the deeded owners pool was shrinking. They didn't have any.

Fear mongering is a lousy way to sell something to people who presumably will be around using the product for years to come.

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

IMHO, that's a horrible way to sell new product. Telling me what you originally sold me will soon be worthless isn't going to make me trust you enough to give you even more money. After all, how much more are you going to be asking for in another 10 years, just to keep the value in what I've already paid for once.

In the sales world, we use to refer to this as churning. It's what you do when you're not good enough to go out and get new business.