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[ 2016 ] Palmera Vacation Club

dwitter

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I'm interested in finding out about Palmera Vacation Club in Hilton Head. Formally Coral.

Thanks
 

tschwa2

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What do you want to know. I own a platinum EOY at Island Links 3 BR. It is in RCI points, 106,500 annually.

Are you asking about buying direct (don't do it) or resale? It's not a bad resort group on Hilton Head but they are not ocean front but they are large and comfortable.
 

dwitter

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We stayed at the Island Links and attended a timeshare presentation. We were told that Coral (now Palmera) took their resorts back from RCI and are using them for their own vacation club. They have their own points system to be used within the resorts that are on Hilton Head. You can still trade outside their resorts through them. There is no need for an RCI membership.
This part of the presentation was a little hazy but what I remember is the cost was $24,000 for 3000 points. I believe that was 3-4 weeks in a 3 bedroom. The maintenance fee was 598. They were willing to give us $14000 for our existing timeshare which would net to $10,000.
I’m wondering if anyone has any experience with the Palmera Vacation Club or has been through a presentation with regards to this.
Thanks
 

Sulalith

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We have got a similar offer last week at Links resort. They were talking about the limited number of properties available on HH. Also they said it would be easier to sell it and we have to approach Palmera Vacation Club first if we wanted to sell it back. I see lots of bad reports about the previous incarnation of Palmera Vacation Club and wanted to find out about if they are true. I am posting the links to those stories here..
http://www.islandpacket.com/news/business/article33578085.html

The sales folks at links were very pleasant and not forceful. Some of it seems too smooth.

Can you say you are able to book other vacation spots easily using Palmera Vacation Club? We are worried about that as well trying to move from a larger vacation group "Wydham".
 

tschwa2

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I haven't seen a Palmera points chart but looking at the MF, I doubt you would be able to get a full week during prime season and would be lucky to get 2 off season weeks for 3000 points. I doubt it would be hard booking within the vacation club as long you do so 11-12 months in advance. Off season you probably only need to book 6-8 months in advance.

Booking outside of the vacation club would require an external exchange company like RCI or II.
Generally you don't have to approach the TS first but they may have ROFR -right of first refusal, that just means that you have to find a buyer and then you have to submit the contract to Palmera and give them the opportunity to buy at the same terms or to waive that right. They Coral resorts killed any resale value they might have when they instituted a $1500 fee to transfer a resale. $500 goes straight to the management company and the other goes toward future MF. I don't think Palmera bought out Coral, they just changed names. The properties are nice but they don't have any resale value and they have a long history of deceptive sales practices.
 

Thomas Doan

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Unfortunately, we fell for the sales pitch. We swapped out a week at Port O'Call plus $7K for 2000 Palmera points. We were told that 2000 Palmera points would get 2-3 weeks in March or October. When we tried to book, however, we discovered that a week even in March was 6500 points. The sales pitch was not merely misleading, it was a bald-faced lie.

Our experience with the properties themselves has been excellent. We had a week at Island Links only a week after the hurricane, and they did an amazing job of getting it fixed up in time for that. It's unfortunate that they're embedded within an operation which uses shady sales tactics.
 

tschwa2

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Do you have a copy of the points chart you could post?
 

Thomas Doan

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I tried a few different dates and got (uniformly) 6060 for a week at Coral Reef, 6250 at Island Links and 8500 at Coral Sands. Port O'Call showed no availability. As you can see 2000 points will get you a closet for a week.
 

tschwa2

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Are there any summer weeks available to look at? I have RCI points and my Island Links summer gets 106,500 points. I am wondering if the points are something like 10-1 for Palmera points vs rci points. If so then the 2000 points would get you 2 weeks when RCI has discounted 9000 point availability.

RCI doesn't cut and paste well but this is the points for one of the 3 br configs at Coral Sands:

Coral Sands Resort (#6736)
3BR 3.5 F 8/6
1 - 5 Weekly 41,000
6 - 10 Weekly 61,500
11 - 23 Weekly 81,500
24 - 32 Weekly 102,000
33 - 41 Weekly 81,500
42 - 47 Weekly 61,500
48 - 50 Weekly 41,000
51 - 52 Weekly 61,500
 

Thomas Doan

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The Palmera points are strictly for internal purposes within the group of four HHI resorts. We've actually in the past stayed at Island Links and Coral Reef (never Coral Sands) on RCI swaps from our Port O'Call week. Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure the intent is for 2000 points to get you effectively nothing.
 

tschwa2

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Although you don't have to belong to RCI, I doubt they won't translate into RCI in some way. All timeshares have an external exchange company if the potential buyer says, but I don't want to stay here every year. In the past they always tried to sell the 40,000 and 60,000 RCI point weeks as a way that you could stay 4-6 weeks in HHI using your $900 MF. By putting them in a trust they could sell smaller points packages with lower MF and just reduce the promises because the objection before might be I don't want to stay 4-6 weeks, I just want 1-2 weeks.
 

Althepal16

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I just bought 3000 Palmera points for about $14,000 yesterday (a resale but brokered at Palmera) and Ben Knighton, my salesperson, told me this would for sure get me 3 weeks of vacation at Hilton Head at one of the Palmera owned properties, but there is nothing in the contract that states anything except I am buying 3000 Palmera points. So Ben's statement appears to be a total lie from what I see on this blog. I am going to meet with him in person today for some proof of what he said...but I am very very skeptical. Fortunately the contract I signed CLEARLY states I have 5 days to cancel it and that is probably what I should do....any suggestions?
 

Althepal16

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Thanks!!! That is my plan...I am just going to put my salesguy through some hell first. This was a waste of my time. I am going to show him how full of baloney he is in person.
 

Althepal16

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I cancelled this morning...here are just a few of the statements that Palmera tells you:
1. That a single Palmera vacation club point is worth 10 RCI points...but they have nothing to prove that
2. That you get a Palmera Quest club membership included for free...but then they admit that it is a temporary gift and they can take it away at any time.
3. That any vacation you want to book with RCI will take less than 1000 Palmera vacation points...then they admit that is only if you book less than 45 days in advance.

In reality, almost all slots in high demand vacation spots are booked up 100% more than 45 days out. So you will get nothing for less than 1000 Palmera vacation points in high demand season.

They are slick liars, no more.
 

Steve NH

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Interesting - I went thru their presentation earlier this week,
They only got as far as the 3000 points, when I made him pull up the website and actually do a search for what I could get.
He never got to the point where he told us the price ($ 14,000 ugh - In my mind I was guessing $ 5,000 - and even at that what you could get would not be worth the yearly maint fee)
Ushered us out and gave me the $125 gift card. Been going to Marleys on them.
 
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Island Links
We own at Island Links. Feel free to reach out to me. I purchased our week second hand and could not be happier with Island Links and all it has offered us for travel needs. Feel free to contact me to discuss
 

Cat McD

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Was with Alhambra at Poinciana, now Palmera Vacation Club
HELP. Very confused, think I already messed up. We had a timeshare "Alhambra at Poinciana" in Florida. We went to Island Links in Hilton Head SC and listed to spiel. We paid for Palmera Vacation Club about a month ago. They want us to sign limited power of attorney so they can buy our timeshare and transfer it to Palmera AND we are told - don't tell Alhambra because they will cause problems. Sounds like we totally messed up. Any thoughts on what we should do now - I don't want to give anyone a limited power of attorney.
 

tschwa2

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In all liklihood they are going to use a company that will try to sell it on Ebay for $1. If no one takes it, they will attempt to transfer it out of your name either to a LLC that they plan on bankrupting or to an individual that in all liklihood has agreed to have the TS assigned to his/her name but has no intention of every paying MF and will cause the TS to foreclose on the unit. IF your timeshare knows this is what is happening they will never approve the transfer. It may or may not work to get the TS out of your name. You may end up owning both if your TS does not approve the transfer.
 

Cat McD

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In all liklihood they are going to use a company that will try to sell it on Ebay for $1. If no one takes it, they will attempt to transfer it out of your name either to a LLC that they plan on bankrupting or to an individual that in all liklihood has agreed to have the TS assigned to his/her name but has no intention of every paying MF and will cause the TS to foreclose on the unit. IF your timeshare knows this is what is happening they will never approve the transfer. It may or may not work to get the TS out of your name. You may end up owning both if your TS does not approve the transfer.
Is there a lawyer or something that I can contact to help me from getting in deeper? Obviously they want the limited power of attorney and I need help.
 

Ty1on

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In all liklihood they are going to use a company that will try to sell it on Ebay for $1. If no one takes it, they will attempt to transfer it out of your name either to a LLC that they plan on bankrupting or to an individual that in all liklihood has agreed to have the TS assigned to his/her name but has no intention of every paying MF and will cause the TS to foreclose on the unit. IF your timeshare knows this is what is happening they will never approve the transfer. It may or may not work to get the TS out of your name. You may end up owning both if your TS does not approve the transfer.

There is also a chance they want the interval to add that resort as a dot on their map. They do appear to be trying to grow a club.
 

tschwa2

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If they wanted to expand they would go to the resort and buy a block of off season weeks not take one or two weeks from new buyers. What they are doing is the typical "mexican TS type" take backs through a 3rd party. If it was above board they wouldn't have said not to let the resort know what is happening. Funny thing is that type of takeback scheme is one of the reason that Corral Resorts/Reba before they changed to Palmera followed Spinnaker in requiring $1500 transfer fee when selling with $500 going to management and the remaining going toward prepaid MF's when transferring.
 
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I'm currently at Hilton head and they are trying to buy my timeshare and sell me quest vacation club membership. Is it a scam. Thanks
 

Althepal16

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The Palmera vacation club is a total scam, but I don't know about the Quest vacation club. Most likely it is also a scam.
 

jkfissjr

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Just traded my Plan with Tan today for Palmera Vacation Club. PVC promised four weeks a year vacation anywhere in the world plus their HH Island resorts. I had to pay $1350.00 to secure the transfer. They gave me an RCI directory and said that I could use my weeks traded equally for weeks anywhere in the directory which includes properties in vacation spots all over the world. After reading this thread, I am thinking of backing out tomorrow. What do y'all think?
 
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