Doug,
No real disagreement as to their general approach...or at least their public justification of why they claim they have to rapidly increase MF costs. I know there was some truth to that when they took over resorts or systems in distress that had been neglected for years.
But in this case the resort already had millions in reserves, and the reserve amount of MF is still approx 14%, even after back to back 10% annual MF increases. That is the same approx reserves rate that the original developer used.
So far it is not clear how the increased costs have represented any actual tangible benefit to owners, or even non-owners. In fact services have been decreased, additional fees have increased, and unfortunately there has been significant turnover of key resort personnel over the last 12 months.
You've perfectly stated why we're no longer DRI owner/members. While it seems nearly all timeshare management companies play a financial shell game with owners money, DRI really does a number (no pun intended) on the owner/members pocketbook. I was never able to reconcile their charges against what they were providing. It was painfully apparent when comparing our 2 weeks ownership at Polo Towers against the financial statements provided by Marriott and Hilton for our ownerships in Las Vegas, with Marriott being directly behind/adjacent to Polo Towers. DRI's numbers just never did add up IMHO and, I'm convinced there was more than a little padding of the expenses going on. There was ABSOLUTELY no way Polo Towers, with the amenities it provided and the "quality" of their furnishings justified the $$ spent in comparison to MVC and HGVC.
When DRI bought out Sunterra, there was a lot of neglected maintenance that needed funding. However, it's entirely possible that DRI has learned from that experience and has decided to carry on the tradition of "upgrading" resorts, even when they don't require upgrading to DRI standards. Of course, not being an owner at many of these resorts, I have no factual basis on which to stand, only speculation.
Still, the comparison of DRI's expenses to MVC and HGVC expenses were very easy for me to hold up against one another as I was an owner at all three in Las Vegas. DRI was by fat the more expensive in ratio to quality and, again IMHO, there was little to no basis for their numbers. Thus, we got.
Granted one could make arguments against MVC and the cozy relationship that appears to exist between MVC and those they contract to provide goods/services. MVC has their preferred contractors and that's that as far as owners get a say in the matter.