Resale into DRI's Club

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

I have read on this board and TUG of people buying resale of DRI properties and points and then having to pay or being offered to pay $2995 to join The Club.

I am now hearing from a salesman that people come in expecting to join for the above amount but that is not true. I being told that they must purchase at least 10,000 points at $38,000. Has anyone heard anything like that?

That seems a little steep, but it also seems very contrary to the numbers I have been hearing about buying into the Club.

Please don't only share that I should never listen to a salesman, because that is not always and they seem to have a conscience.

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

This was posted on TUG yesterday:
"Signed papers yesterday with DRI to convert my 4BR lockout unit at Greensprings to DRI Trust, giving me 9000 pts for Gsprings and purchasing 1500 DRI pts for $5,000 plus $125 closing. Need advice whether this makes sense".

I'm not a fan of DRI but if the resorts in "the Club" are ones you would want to use frequently, it might make more sense to pick up a cheap week on Ebay and then pay $5,000. to convert it.

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

You can say what you want but, the salesman is only going to do what the sales manager tells them to do. In the past, when people have continued to push and refuse to buy additional points, they've been offered the $2,995 conversion deal. Many times they'll slip up and tell you that the "joiner" fee of $2,995 is waived when you buy additional points. If the fee is waived, then the fee exists and it must be possible to join for that fee.

The thing is, the rules always seem to be changing with DRI. What might have been true yesterday isn't necessarily true today. DRI only recently (a little over a year ago maybe) bought out Sunterra and they still seem to be finding their way. While things are better, some things still seem to be evolving. Bringing resale units into THE Club seems to be one of those things that is constantly evolving with no real set way of doing things on the sales floor.

Having to buy an additional 10,000 points for $38,000 is to much just to bring a couple of resale units into THE Club. While I enjoy THE Club, it's not worth that sort of money just to bring a couple of resale units in. If for no other reason than because those points will likely be DRI trust points which will add an additional trust fee of $205 on top of THE Club membership fee of $269 (was $155 just a year ago). That's $471 of pure fee's.

We recently went through an on site presentation last April. At that time, the salesman indicated they seemed to be moving toward selling only points packages in the order of 5,000, 10,000, or 15,000 points. That's pretty much what they offered us until we said no. He then came back with a deal to convert our weeks into DRI's U.S. Collection trust with the purchase of just 1,500 points but, that was only because when we origianlly converted our weeks, a trust option was not offered. I still turned them down because there just wasn't any real benefit to us to belong to the trust over what we currently own.

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

What about this deal?

I was offered 3,000 points for $6,500 and they would take in my resale property (I just bought 6,500 points on EBay). What do you think of that offer?

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

That seems better than the deal we just got. We paid $6509 for only 2500 points, and we weren't converting any resales.

Just make sure that your resale points and the new points will belong to the same collection. Otherwise you will pay about $200 extra every year in collection operational fees, because each collection has a flat fee + a fee per point.

Ideally you want either the US Collection or the Hawaii collection, because the California collection only has 2 properties. Although you can use your points at any of the properties, you get a 13-month reservation window (instead of 10-months) at your own collection. I believe the maintenance fees are a little higher for the Hawaii collection than the other two.