Question re: Manhattan Club

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

Someone just sent me a PM asking about how they can prove a rental outlet for the Manhattan Club is legit. They offered him a great price for a one-bedroom unit for a whole month in May and June all in the same unit. The rate is less than $100/night.

The rental outlet claims they are doing direct exchanges with owners to get inventory. That could be possible.

My question is this. How does the Manhattan Club offer confirmation to owners of units they have reserved for them. Do they get a confirmation letter in the mail and how do they assign guests?

Thanks

[Glitter Brunello Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close Glitter Brunello]

That sounds incredible. How are owners renting through a broker for less than their MFs? When I checked on a rental for Jim and Pat, I got the owner's name and verified it with MC before they paid. I'm not sure what kind of confirmation they got, I will see if I can get him to pop in here.

[Patash2 Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Patash2]

I'm the one who passed this question on to BocaBum -- I'm new here and not at all familiar with timeshares. Here's the quote from the agency (which handles sales and trades) when I questioned how they could do this:

" We do trades. If they accept, Instead of giving the timeshare owners cash we do even exchanges which profits us the best in the long run. So we are able to lower the nightly costs, which brings more people to us, therefore resulting in a great profit outcome. We are not connected to The Manhattan Club at all, just some of the unit owners.

You will be in the same room for the whole month. So you do not have to worry about keep switching. Thank you so much for asking."

And thanks to BocaBum for posting the question for me.

By the way, I attempted to call customer service and reservations at Manhattan Club three times to question this. But after over a half hour on hold each time, I gave up. I have yet to speak to a person there. Someone in "sales" answered right away, but said I'd need to speak to Customer Service and transferred me to the wait and wait game. In other words, I guess there is no customer "service" at the Manhattan Club.

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

This really does sound fishy to me. What they are basically saying is that they have done what is called a direct exchange for Manhattan Club units.

This means they have inventory from other resorts that they trade Manhattan Club owners with in exchange for use rights for their timeshare units. This is only profitable if the units they use for exchange have maintenance fees far lower than the fee they are charging you for the week.

Typically, this only happens when someone is using an exchange company like RCI to do what I call a trade up. But, if they are doing trade ups, it would be very difficult to get the same unit for 4-6 consecutive weeks.

Seth Nock is the Manhattan Club expert. We should email him for his thoughts.

[jimbosee Member Find all posts View Profile Close jimbosee]

Question on Manhatten Club.

Hi BocaBum,
Jimbosee here from Melbourne,Australia.When we rented into MC,in June this year,the lady we rented from sent me a letter signing over her week and explained that there were no extra expenses,IE-$25 day,that was covered in the rental paid.Also the confirmation number and the size unit she had requested for me,everything worked out perfectly.As Glitter said,she kindly checked for us,and everything was as required.It is possible with management of good will to arrange the one unit for the whole time,if your lucky.If it checks out ,you will have a wonderful time.Regards Jim Seedsman


jimbosee@hotmail.com

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

I'm the one who passed this question on to BocaBum -- I'm new here and not at all familiar with timeshares. Here's the quote from the agency (which handles sales and trades) when I questioned how they could do this:

" We do trades. If they accept, Instead of giving the timeshare owners cash we do even exchanges which profits us the best in the long run. So we are able to lower the nightly costs, which brings more people to us, therefore resulting in a great profit outcome. We are not connected to The Manhattan Club at all, just some of the unit owners.

You will be in the same room for the whole month. So you do not have to worry about keep switching. Thank you so much for asking."

And thanks to BocaBum for posting the question for me.

By the way, I attempted to call customer service and reservations at Manhattan Club three times to question this. But after over a half hour on hold each time, I gave up. I have yet to speak to a person there. Someone in "sales" answered right away, but said I'd need to speak to Customer Service and transferred me to the wait and wait game. In other words, I guess there is no customer "service" at the Manhattan Club.

Patash2, welcome to TS4M's. Glad someone here could help you out, and hopefully your question was answered. And, personally, I hope you continue to 'hang out' here, even though you don't own a t/s. I know you from Fodor's and your knowledge and wisdom and travel expertise could help all us t/s owners tremendously.

[Patash2 Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Patash2]

Well, things are getting very weird. I had filled out the formal reservation request AFTER the agency told me the full 30 nights I requested was available and that we would definitely have one room. Today I emailed and asked as I hadn't heard and they had said it would be final in 24 to 48 hours. First I got an email about how now they are all filled for my dates in February (huh? my dates are May and June). Then I got a second email apologizing for that mixup but telling me that they will now need to find an owner with a full month's availability. How likely is that? Not very, I'd think. Especially since she already had confirmed that they did have availabilty for the full month of my dates. I'm now beginning to think this whole thing was a comeon as a foot in the door to try to sell timeshare units, or something like that. She tells me she is still working on my reservation, but it may take a week -- yea, I'll bet!

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

Now it's making more sense. They are obviously booking exchanges through RCI and renting them out. I wouldn't deal with them.

[Glitter Brunello Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close Glitter Brunello]

Very fishy. Reminds me of the old addage... "if it sounds to good to be true...."

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

Manhattan Club upset

Hello

I'm new to this forum.

I bought my full suite more then 10 years ago, but haven't used it for 5 years because I fell behind on the $2200 maintenance fee. I've had it advertised on Craig's List for $2950 for 7 nights, and got someone interested. But they backed out when they saw suites being advertised on the website for less then $300/night!

Turns out that the developer has units that he's renting out for LESS then what we are paying in maintenance fees!

Can you imagine? If I DIDN'T buy it for $28,000 and wasn't paying $2200/year in maintenance fees, I'd be able to rent suites for LESS then what I'm paying in maintenance fees!

Insane!

Does anyone else have this kind of experience?

[Glitter Brunello Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close Glitter Brunello]

Hello

I'm new to this forum.

I bought my full suite more then 10 years ago, but haven't used it for 5 years because I fell behind on the $2200 maintenance fee. I've had it advertised on Craig's List for $2950 for 7 nights, and got someone interested. But they backed out when they saw suites being advertised on the website for less then $300/night!

Turns out that the developer has units that he's renting out for LESS then what we are paying in maintenance fees!

Can you imagine? If I DIDN'T buy it for $28,000 and wasn't paying $2200/year in maintenance fees, I'd be able to rent suites for LESS then what I'm paying in maintenance fees!

Insane!

Does anyone else have this kind of experience?

That has become the sad truth about the Manhattan Club. Sorry to hear you haven't been able to enjoy your ownership. At least get what you can to cut your losses, or find someone to take it over so you can get out from under your payments.

When developers are in sales mode, they do tend to offer "deals" to get new potential buyers in for the sales pitch. It can undercut retail rental value.

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

It is also possible (and, perhaps even likely) that as the economy recovers and demand for NYC lodging picks up, the market rental rates will once again go above the MF costs. That's cold comfort today, but so it goes.

[GrayFal Silver Contributor and supermoderator Find all posts View Profile Close GrayFal]

Late coming to this thread - but the first red flag for me was saying they could "guarentee" the same room for the whole stay - that is just not very likely at a resort like MC - maybe at a mega-resort somewhere, but there is so much short stay usage, I could not see it happening especially if the 4 weeks are not the same owner.....I know many people who own here and it is hard for owners to get two weeks in the same room !

[brother coony Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close brother coony]

Late coming to this thread - but the first red flag for me was saying they could "guarentee" the same room for the whole stay - that is just not very likely at a resort like MC - maybe at a mega-resort somewhere, but there is so much short stay usage, I could not see it happening especially if the 4 weeks are not the same owner.....I know many people who own here and it is hard for owners to get two weeks in the same room !

Once the rooms are the same classification, they will let you stay in one room as long as you have days or weeks reserved one mth. six mths,whatever there is no benefit for them to move you, to another room if they were to move you it might cost them more as they would have to store your bags get the other room clean and but your bags into that room,
MFS are outrageous, getting reservations is the pits,but once you are there, the service is topnotch, they have owners services on the first floor and also the 26 floor fully staff all day

[GrayFal Silver Contributor and supermoderator Find all posts View Profile Close GrayFal]

Once the rooms are the same classification, they will let you stay in one room as long as you have days or weeks reserved one mth. six mths,whatever there is no benefit for them to move you, to another room if they were to move you it might cost them more as they would have to store your bags get the other room clean and but your bags into that room,
MFS are outrageous, getting reservations is the pits,but once you are there, the service is topnotch, they have owners services on the first floor and also the 26 floor fully staff all day

Good to know Howard....just spent 2 weeks there (thru II and SFX) and the customer service can not be beat - you are certainly pampered when u r a guest there.