Points for maintenace fees

[stippy52 Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close stippy52]

Exactly how does this work?

Thanks

Stip

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

Starting November 1st you can elect to use your next years points to pay MF's. So on Nov. 1st of 2009, you can elect to use part of your 2010 points to pay next years MF's or THE Club dues. As of last year each point was worth 5 cents towards MF's. It's not a good deal unless you have points you're not going to be able to use to make reservations or exchanges.

If you plan on doing this, be aware that it took DRI 6 weeks to credit my account. So long that I was almost into being dinged for late fee's. The rep. on the phone assured me when I called back that I would not be assessed late fee's, even if they got it credited late. I have read posts on other talk forums that indicate this isn't necessarily true. People who waited until mid December were reporting late fee's an interest accumlating on their accounts, even though they requested the conversion of points to fee's prior to the due date for their MF's.

[stippy52 Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close stippy52]

Boy, that's not a good deal at all.

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

Boy, that's not a good deal at all.

If you look at any of the "Options," none of them are a good deal. They are, in fact, bad deals and if you need to use them because you don't have use for your points for direct reservations then you either have too many points or are poor planner. Item 2 applies.

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

Another way to get more money for the developer

Starting November 1st you can elect to use your next years points to pay MF's. So on Nov. 1st of 2009, you can elect to use part of your 2010 points to pay next years MF's or THE Club dues. As of last year each point was worth 5 cents towards MF's. It's not a good deal unless you have points you're not going to be able to use to make reservations or exchanges.

If you plan on doing this, be aware that it took DRI 6 weeks to credit my account. So long that I was almost into being dinged for late fee's. The rep. on the phone assured me when I called back that I would not be assessed late fee's, even if they got it credited late. I have read posts on other talk forums that indicate this isn't necessarily true. People who waited until mid December were reporting late fee's an interest accumlating on their accounts, even though they requested the conversion of points to fee's prior to the due date for their MF's.

Agreed that it is not a good deal (except for DRI of course). You pay to buy a use right, you get billed for the fees, you pay the fees for the year you get billed for the next year, you don't take a vacation but use, at a heavy discount, the money you paid for annual fees to pay (or partially pay) the NEXT years fees. What a racket! It's all money out and no benefit IMO.

As for late fees you had better believe they will accrue. At many resorts DRI isn't the management so any payment made with Points as to be credited prior to the due date or you are on the hook for late fees/interest. That fact that you authorized the use of points 4-8 weeks earlier doesn't matter until the Association gets the cash in hand from DRI. Even if it is DRI managed they may still take weeks to credit the amount and it appears they too may charge late fee/interest even if the hold up is on their end.

Overall it is not a good use of points to pay fees for a number of reasons. About the only reason to even consider it is if you have left over points to use up that cannot be used any other way. You will not get good value out of it as a fee payment.

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

In almost every circumstance, points for fee's isn't a good deal. Even some of the salesmen will tell you this. But, there is that rare occasion where it works out to be an improvement.

In our case, we already owned two DRI weeks prior to DRI purchasing Sunterra. When they offered us the conversion, I did the math goiing back to our original purchase and how many points we would have used and how many we would not have needed. The points to fee's would have saved us a couple thousand dollars over that time frame. So we converted and every year I have extra points. Those extra points are used to offset the MF's I'd be paying whether I was a member of THE Club or not. Next year, assuming a rate of 5 cents per point, we should hit break even on the joiner fee and yearly THE Club dues. So, in this rare instance, it actually works out for us.

Now, if we had it to do all over again, we wouldn't own all the points we own. In fact, we quite possible wouldn't own with DRI at all. Of course that's right now and not 11 years ago when we first purchased.

Back then, Polo Towers was THE place to own in Vegas in our opinion. There wasn't the Marriott right behind them and there wasn't Westgate's Planet Hollywood across the street on Harmon. We didn't know MF's would climb the way they have. We didn't know the developer had the right to shut down the owners lounge without consent of the HOA/BOD. We didn't know there would be issues with the water system requiring that owner pay a SA to upgrade the water treatment system that would eventually fail again a few years down the road. We didn't know that the HOA/BOD would hit owners up for a SA >$1,000 just to keep PT's units at that 5 star level. If we'd have known all these things about how DRI managed this resort, we never would have been owners. Hind sight is always 20/20.

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

....
Back then, Polo Towers was THE place to own in Vegas in our opinion. There wasn't the Marriott right behind them and there wasn't Westgate's Planet Hollywood across the street on Harmon. We didn't know MF's would climb the way they have. We didn't know the developer had the right to shut down the owners lounge without consent of the HOA/BOD. We didn't know there would be issues with the water system requiring that owner pay a SA to upgrade the water treatment system that would eventually fail again a few years down the road. We didn't know that the HOA/BOD would hit owners up for a SA >$1,000 just to keep PT's units at that 5 star level. If we'd have known all these things about how DRI managed this resort, we never would have been owners. Hind sight is always 20/20.

Doug, as always I respect and enjoy reading your posts.

With the fact that Polo Towers (PT) is DRI's 'baby' (excluding the Jockey Club, mind you) given the ties between it and SC (now/new owner of DRI), I would say how PT is/will be managed says alot of how DRI is/will be managed.

I am crossing my fingers for the best, but again 10 yrs from now, it will be 20/20 hind sight that SC will be judged on. So, what Legacy will SC leave?

[hercules24 Member Find all posts View Profile Close hercules24]

Planning when to bank points for fees

With regards to an earlier statement that it is a bad deal to bank your points, well I accept you get a raw deal only 66% refunded into fees, however, there may be various reasons other than bad planning to leave yourself with surplus points, I am a platinum member and last year was horrified at my fee bill, I long term will have use for these points, however, in 2009 I had a couple of cruises booked outside of DRI so the ability to bank 50% of my points towards my fees was very useful indeed otherwise I simply could not have afforded my fees or would have had to cancel one of the cruises.

I agree none of the selection items offer good value for money but if you have surplus points it is better than just throwing those points which you have paid fees against down the drain. Therefore it offers some alternate flexibility other than simply banking your points to the following year.

Ideally I would love parity (full) refund as DRI do still recover the fixed membership fee on top of the cost per point and they could consider capping the trade in for fees to a maxima quota against each membership.

That we we the members would be happier and DRI would not loose out - happy members must mean more sales and referrals surely.

[Ryne08 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Ryne08]

Wow! At .05 cent per point a Club member that have 20,000 points to pay their MF would save them $1000.00 dollars toward MF that year. Wow! How many exchanges could that couple made with 20,000 point in their account that year.

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

Wow! At .05 cent per point a Club member that have 20,000 points to pay their MF would save them $1000.00 dollars toward MF that year. Wow! How many exchanges could that couple made with 20,000 point in their account that year.

If flexible, LOTS. If inflexible, still a lot. .05 for MFs of .104 plus Club Dues plus Trust Operational Fees if you're in that is like stealing candy from a baby and that and all the other options gives the management the same free for all on rentals that RCI has done.....