I got a post card in the mail offering a free dinner and $25 gift card to hear the "new system" of time sharing. They said some new ruling passed and all time shares had to inform owners of this and a huge conference in Los Angeles took place 18 months ago. Since we didn't get the certified mailing we were still eligible to get rid of our maintenance fees. Luxury Platinum Adventures would convert our old system time share into the new one for only $9000-$12,000 in turn we would get 10,000 RCI points based out of Florida Vacation Villa club, either every year or EOY. We wouldn't have any maintenance fee and only pay a club fee of ~$229 the years we used it. It seemed kinda fishy. I'd rather rehome my shell points to someone on TUG when we are ready, rather than pay $9000.
Nonsense. At best, this is just another worthless travel club. At worst, it's just one more "Post Card Company" among far too many --- or perhaps an outright scam.
If there was in fact a "new system" and a "huge conference" and "legal rulings" (...supposedly a year and a half ago now, btw
), don't you think that
someone here on this site among tens of thousands of knowledgeable and experienced timeshare people would probably have learned about it by now, reported it and discussed it at great length at
some point during the past 18 months?
Whoever these "Luxury Platinum Adventures" people are, in the final analysis the only "conversion" that would take place is a conversion of $9000 -- $12,000 of your hard earned money from your bank account into theirs.
What could you (or anyone else) do with just 10,000 RCI Points anyhow? That's far too few RCI Points to even be useful. Also, you could obtain multiple times that amount of RCI Points (for peanuts) almost any day of the week on eBay or elsewhere, while leaving your $9,000 -- $12,000 in the bank. Btw, paying $229 per year (which sounds just like the RCI "exchange fee" amount to me) for 10,000 RCI Points is no particular bargain by any standard or measure either.
While one can certainly admire the imagination and creativity behind such contrived schemes and fairy tales, it's ultimately still just smoke and mirrors and surely not worth your time and / or a $25 gift card --- with or without a rubber chicken or beans and franks "dinner".
The bottom line is that you can't make your existing ownership and / or its' associated maintenance fees just somehow disappear, despite paying $9,000 -- $12,000 out of pocket to participate in this particular (apparently new) "magic show".
P.S. Along these same lines of wondrous (but mythical) benevolence, I also regret to note that there is also no Santa Claus or Easter Bunny either.
