Grand Luxxe timeshare presentation --good deal?

OK, first I did NOT buy anything. I knew full well that the presentation was going to be "interesting". Unfortunately I forgot to print out Phyllis' post, but I was just wondering if the "final" offer was "good" or not.

They initially offered $119,000 for a 2 bedroom Grand Luxxe Punta, 4 weeks. I believe 2 weeks were residence weeks and 2 were "bonus"/Vida weeks, but I could be remembering wrong.

No way I was going to pay that, so I said the MINIMUM I would take was a 1 bedroom Grand Bliss.

They wanted the 10-year renewable for 100 years, but then it seemed to get interesting that the "Vida" weeks LOOKED like they were really the same as my SFX bonus weeks.

They finally offered to pay me $2,000 for our vacation and we would pay just the 16% tax for a suite ($4995). I still declined. Mainly because at that point I wanted to get out of there and it was nearing noon and we'd already fulfilled our bargain.

However, I'm guessing they were offering a Mayan Palace?

IF one wanted to be guaranteed at least a 1 bedroom Grand Bliss 2 weeks/year, what would've been a decent package?

But the whole residence weeks vs. lifestyle weeks vs. Vida weeks was very confusing. Although I think they do it on purpose.

To be honest, we'd probably only stay every other year at RM or PV. Given that I'm wondering if I'm just better off keeping my HGVC and getting SFX to get me into the Vida locations???

Thoughts/ideas? I figure the "deal" would always be around (like a car salesman that tells you "today only" you'll save X dollars).

I will say that the actual sales rep was fine. It was the final guys that were a bit rude (almost offended and taking it personally that we didn't buy). But again, I knew what we were getting into but we got $2,000 pesos and 10% off 5 rooms (we had like 19 people) so that helped defray the costs and we did get a free breakfast. We really only lost about 1.5 hours of our time (we didn't have anything planned and wouldn't have breakfast anyway until around 9:00 a.m. etc).

But I'm thankful for the TUG so I knew what to look/listen for (ie, what they say and what's in the contract...)

I will say I did like the video about the upcoming Cirque du Soleil theme park. We'll see if it gets built in 4 years.

LOL! Sounds like I'm better off just exchanging in every other year or so. We left on 1/16/15, so I'm freezing my buns off now in upstate NY.

What's weird is that I wanted to rent from an owner for the particular week, they said no availability, but I was able to get 3 exchanges via SFX. I guess that should tell me how much Vida values their members that pay (although Hilton probably does the same at times, I don't know).

--Kevin

There is a lot of availability to exchange into the Mayan resorts in Interval.

hurnik said:

LOL! Sounds like I'm better off just exchanging in every other year or so. We left on 1/16/15, so I'm freezing my buns off now in upstate NY.

What's weird is that I wanted to rent from an owner for the particular week, they said no availability, but I was able to get 3 exchanges via SFX. I guess that should tell me how much Vida values their members that pay (although Hilton probably does the same at times, I don't know).

--Kevin

Click to expand...

You made the right decision.

Just understand when you trade in you get the least desirable units. I did it over last Spring Break. I'm an owner at the GL, but also through HGVC. I traded a week of HGVC through SFX and got into the Grand Bliss (which I personally prefer to the GL if you have older teens). I don't care about the view, so it didn't matter at all. You have to pay for internet, but it wasn't a big deal. But be advised that SFX and RCI have some limitations on how frequently you can book it (1 in 5 as I recall). Another route is through Elite HGVC owners. We have access to the Grand Mayan as a standard booking. Again, you get a bad view, but it's much, much less expensive than the standard maintenance fee.