My name is Lani Ng and I joined this forum about a week ago after purchasing my membership on my honeymoon in PV. Our purchase date was January 16th, and I'm sharing here my formal complaint letter with RVC that I've just sent to the Sales Director Art Denning at Club Regina, Doug Bech the CEO, and Member Services. I apologize for the length of the missive below, but I hope that by chronicling our attempt to ask Raintree to do right by us it will be of some assistance to others who find themselves in our position. I will of course follow up to share any responses we receive from the company.
8 February 2011
Dear Mr. Denning, Mr. Bech, and Raintree Member Services,
We recently entered a contract with your company to buy a timeshare at Club Regina Puerto Vallarta, and we are writing today to express our serious concerns about that contract and the underlying timeshare. In short, we were told several things during the presentation that turned out not to be true.
On January 1st we were married and we went to Puerto Vallarta on our honeymoon from January 15th to 22nd. When we arrived at the airport we were asked by a man named Angel to attend a presentation at Club Regina. When we first started touring the grounds of Club Regina, we were enchanted. It is a beautiful setting with carefully maintained grounds and we especially enjoyed the fact that art and sculpture were on display throughout the property. Our presenter was named Jack Kilroe. He shared with us the advantages of a points-based vacation club membership, and we listened with open minds. Over 4 hours of talking Jack outlined the benefits of the Raintree points system and persuaded us that the flexibility of would be worth the very significant investment that he told us would be required.
Jack told us that with 50,000 annual points, we would be able to book one week in a one bedroom suite within any of the Raintree properties, save for on holiday weeks. This turned out to be true. He also said that in any year that we did not use our points, they could be deferred to the next year for use without any penalty, and that a fee could be levied to allow us to carry them forward annually beyond one year. This also turned out to be true.
However, you must know that these features alone could not justify an investment of $24,750, followed by an annual maintenance fee of $934 USD, and Jack himself confirmed this. He explained to us that merely booking within the club and staying within the Raintree properties is not the best use of our points nor the way that most members end up using them. Jack further explained to us that the best use could be made of our points by leveraging them with partner programs accessible to Raintree members. This could be done by joining RCI and depositing our points to trade to other resorts and services. Jack then named three benefits that were crucial to our decision that turned out not to be true.
1. Last Minute Bookings
He indicated that our 50,000 points, if used on a short notice booking schedule, would allow us to vacation for 5 1/2 weeks if we could book within 6 weeks for last minute vacations on RCI. Despite the additional fees, we felt that this would still be a good value, and that 6 weeks would be just enough time to get organized with a flight to the resorts that we would be able to access through this program. However, upon further research, we have since found out that at least since last year in 2010, RCI has cut back the booking window for their 9000 point reservations to only 4 weeks, which as any sensible traveller would know, antes up significantly the cost of booking flights, thus making this misrepresentation another hindrance on using our membership allotment of points.
2. Flight Bookings
Due to exchange fees, Jack shared with us that many members chose not to book any resort time with their points, but rather opted to travel with them by trading them in for flights. He pulled out a sheet from his binder and pointed out to us that the cost in points for a flight from Vancouver BC, where we live, to Cancun was 13,000 points per person return. By his estimation, since the flight from Vancouver BC to the West Coast of Mexico, or Puerto Vallarta was shorter, it should actually cost us much less to fly per person return, and his guess was that it would be closer to 11,000 points. I have since been online to verify his claim and have discovered several factors which make this option impossible for us to use.
Firstly, RCI points partners permit us to use a maximum of 1/3 of our deposited points to fly with, which adds to 16,667 points if we deposited all of them. Secondly, in the attached document entitled "RCI Points Partners Flights" you will see as we did that a return flight for one from North America to Mexico is between 40,000 and 48,000 points, taking up our entire annual allotment to fly only one of us down to Mexico. In our agreement to purchase, our calculation of the long term benefit of our membership was based on being able to fly both myself and my husband twice a year for vacation. As that is now impossible, our membership has become a very expensive way to vacation defeating Jack's thesis that this is ultimately a very economical and high value way to vacation. Without Jack’s assurances of our being able to use our points to fly twice a year together, we would never have agreed to this membership.
3. Point Surrender for Rental Income
Even as we made this discovery, my husband and I were still examining with an open mind how we could possibly make best use of our points. One final security measure that Jack outlined to us which we have discovered is unusable has thoroughly defeated this effort. Jack told us both on our presentation day and at breakfast the next morning when we were clarifying the use of our membership that in any given year when we would not be able to travel, we could easily surrender our points for rental, and that for every 20,000 points we gave back, we would be paid out $1250 as the resort could easily rent that week out to paying clients at a much higher rate. This sealed the deal for my husband and I as we trusted that when unforeseen circumstances arise in the future preventing us from travelling, we would be able to take comfort that our annual maintenance fee would at least be covered by this option.
When I contacted Raintree customer service by email and phone, I was told that this was not an option at all. Later I heard back from Art by email that it was done by an independent broker, but no contact information was provided in your communication. Finally, on the Raintree Vacation Club Facebook page my question was answered by one of your representatives. At first the number he gave me did not work at all, but instead went to an outgoing voice mail message saying a numbered mailbox and a beep, not even identifying the name of the company. I requested clarification and tried google to find the company, called PPM by your representative with no luck online.
Some days later, your representative again posted online that the name of the company was Premier Property Management, at www.premierpropertymanagements.com and gave us another toll free phone number. When I linked to the website, I found it was sparsely lain out with minimal meaningful information and an upfront "membership / listing fee". I was immediately apprehensive as I've been told by many experienced timeshare owners that any company requesting an up-front fee to assist you with the rental or sale of your timeshare is a scam. My fears were further confirmed when I googled the phone number and saw that it was connected to another shell website for a company called Resort Equity Solutions. I called the number to see who I would reach, and was greeted by an outgoing message that invited me to leave a message for an agent to return, but without actually stating the name of the company I had called. At this time I should share with you that I have now been in touch with many timeshare owners that were promised that their unused weeks or points would be easily rented out and that have lost further money to online companies that require a significant up-front fee to rent the property but then stop returning their calls and never pay them out.
As you must have discerned with my lengthy letter, my husband and I have both discovered through our attempts to verify Jack's claims that we are very dissatisfied with joining the Raintree Vacation Club, not only with the misrepresentations that were made to us by our presenter Jack Kilroe, but also by the fact that every attempt we have made to find facts and honest answers to our questions have been met with delays in responding as well as misdirection in the case of PPM. We cannot imagine continuing in a relationship with RVC for the next 36 years with our trust in your company being so severely breached.
Terry and I have spent the last several weeks in a process of hopeful investigation to confirm the use of our membership, and in every subsequent discovery we have been racked with stress and disbelief that we could be dealt with in this manner, and that the actuality would differ so much from the original representation. We have lost sleep and our peace of mind.
We are writing to you today to request the cancellation of our membership and the return of our initial deposit of $12,375 USD, as well as the cancellation of all further charges for our membership. We have dealt with your company in good faith, with open minds and trust in your representations, and it is our sincere hope that in the inability to live up to the expectations your presenter has outlined regarding the use of our membership, that you will do right by us and cancel this membership now.
Please acknowledge receipt of this letter and outline for us the next steps to be taken to complete the cancellation of our membership.
Sincerely,
Lani Ng and Terry Chau
8 February 2011
Dear Mr. Denning, Mr. Bech, and Raintree Member Services,
We recently entered a contract with your company to buy a timeshare at Club Regina Puerto Vallarta, and we are writing today to express our serious concerns about that contract and the underlying timeshare. In short, we were told several things during the presentation that turned out not to be true.
On January 1st we were married and we went to Puerto Vallarta on our honeymoon from January 15th to 22nd. When we arrived at the airport we were asked by a man named Angel to attend a presentation at Club Regina. When we first started touring the grounds of Club Regina, we were enchanted. It is a beautiful setting with carefully maintained grounds and we especially enjoyed the fact that art and sculpture were on display throughout the property. Our presenter was named Jack Kilroe. He shared with us the advantages of a points-based vacation club membership, and we listened with open minds. Over 4 hours of talking Jack outlined the benefits of the Raintree points system and persuaded us that the flexibility of would be worth the very significant investment that he told us would be required.
Jack told us that with 50,000 annual points, we would be able to book one week in a one bedroom suite within any of the Raintree properties, save for on holiday weeks. This turned out to be true. He also said that in any year that we did not use our points, they could be deferred to the next year for use without any penalty, and that a fee could be levied to allow us to carry them forward annually beyond one year. This also turned out to be true.
However, you must know that these features alone could not justify an investment of $24,750, followed by an annual maintenance fee of $934 USD, and Jack himself confirmed this. He explained to us that merely booking within the club and staying within the Raintree properties is not the best use of our points nor the way that most members end up using them. Jack further explained to us that the best use could be made of our points by leveraging them with partner programs accessible to Raintree members. This could be done by joining RCI and depositing our points to trade to other resorts and services. Jack then named three benefits that were crucial to our decision that turned out not to be true.
1. Last Minute Bookings
He indicated that our 50,000 points, if used on a short notice booking schedule, would allow us to vacation for 5 1/2 weeks if we could book within 6 weeks for last minute vacations on RCI. Despite the additional fees, we felt that this would still be a good value, and that 6 weeks would be just enough time to get organized with a flight to the resorts that we would be able to access through this program. However, upon further research, we have since found out that at least since last year in 2010, RCI has cut back the booking window for their 9000 point reservations to only 4 weeks, which as any sensible traveller would know, antes up significantly the cost of booking flights, thus making this misrepresentation another hindrance on using our membership allotment of points.
2. Flight Bookings
Due to exchange fees, Jack shared with us that many members chose not to book any resort time with their points, but rather opted to travel with them by trading them in for flights. He pulled out a sheet from his binder and pointed out to us that the cost in points for a flight from Vancouver BC, where we live, to Cancun was 13,000 points per person return. By his estimation, since the flight from Vancouver BC to the West Coast of Mexico, or Puerto Vallarta was shorter, it should actually cost us much less to fly per person return, and his guess was that it would be closer to 11,000 points. I have since been online to verify his claim and have discovered several factors which make this option impossible for us to use.
Firstly, RCI points partners permit us to use a maximum of 1/3 of our deposited points to fly with, which adds to 16,667 points if we deposited all of them. Secondly, in the attached document entitled "RCI Points Partners Flights" you will see as we did that a return flight for one from North America to Mexico is between 40,000 and 48,000 points, taking up our entire annual allotment to fly only one of us down to Mexico. In our agreement to purchase, our calculation of the long term benefit of our membership was based on being able to fly both myself and my husband twice a year for vacation. As that is now impossible, our membership has become a very expensive way to vacation defeating Jack's thesis that this is ultimately a very economical and high value way to vacation. Without Jack’s assurances of our being able to use our points to fly twice a year together, we would never have agreed to this membership.
3. Point Surrender for Rental Income
Even as we made this discovery, my husband and I were still examining with an open mind how we could possibly make best use of our points. One final security measure that Jack outlined to us which we have discovered is unusable has thoroughly defeated this effort. Jack told us both on our presentation day and at breakfast the next morning when we were clarifying the use of our membership that in any given year when we would not be able to travel, we could easily surrender our points for rental, and that for every 20,000 points we gave back, we would be paid out $1250 as the resort could easily rent that week out to paying clients at a much higher rate. This sealed the deal for my husband and I as we trusted that when unforeseen circumstances arise in the future preventing us from travelling, we would be able to take comfort that our annual maintenance fee would at least be covered by this option.
When I contacted Raintree customer service by email and phone, I was told that this was not an option at all. Later I heard back from Art by email that it was done by an independent broker, but no contact information was provided in your communication. Finally, on the Raintree Vacation Club Facebook page my question was answered by one of your representatives. At first the number he gave me did not work at all, but instead went to an outgoing voice mail message saying a numbered mailbox and a beep, not even identifying the name of the company. I requested clarification and tried google to find the company, called PPM by your representative with no luck online.
Some days later, your representative again posted online that the name of the company was Premier Property Management, at www.premierpropertymanagements.com and gave us another toll free phone number. When I linked to the website, I found it was sparsely lain out with minimal meaningful information and an upfront "membership / listing fee". I was immediately apprehensive as I've been told by many experienced timeshare owners that any company requesting an up-front fee to assist you with the rental or sale of your timeshare is a scam. My fears were further confirmed when I googled the phone number and saw that it was connected to another shell website for a company called Resort Equity Solutions. I called the number to see who I would reach, and was greeted by an outgoing message that invited me to leave a message for an agent to return, but without actually stating the name of the company I had called. At this time I should share with you that I have now been in touch with many timeshare owners that were promised that their unused weeks or points would be easily rented out and that have lost further money to online companies that require a significant up-front fee to rent the property but then stop returning their calls and never pay them out.
As you must have discerned with my lengthy letter, my husband and I have both discovered through our attempts to verify Jack's claims that we are very dissatisfied with joining the Raintree Vacation Club, not only with the misrepresentations that were made to us by our presenter Jack Kilroe, but also by the fact that every attempt we have made to find facts and honest answers to our questions have been met with delays in responding as well as misdirection in the case of PPM. We cannot imagine continuing in a relationship with RVC for the next 36 years with our trust in your company being so severely breached.
Terry and I have spent the last several weeks in a process of hopeful investigation to confirm the use of our membership, and in every subsequent discovery we have been racked with stress and disbelief that we could be dealt with in this manner, and that the actuality would differ so much from the original representation. We have lost sleep and our peace of mind.
We are writing to you today to request the cancellation of our membership and the return of our initial deposit of $12,375 USD, as well as the cancellation of all further charges for our membership. We have dealt with your company in good faith, with open minds and trust in your representations, and it is our sincere hope that in the inability to live up to the expectations your presenter has outlined regarding the use of our membership, that you will do right by us and cancel this membership now.
Please acknowledge receipt of this letter and outline for us the next steps to be taken to complete the cancellation of our membership.
Sincerely,
Lani Ng and Terry Chau