Understanding Grand Mayan ownership?

Hi,

Can someone tell me if this is the correct forum for asking questions about buying a resale Grand Mayan RM?

Thanks!

Here probably works as well as anyplace on TUG. There are lots of Vida owners that are TUGgers. (I'm not one)

Yes. But Grand Mayan memberships are very contract specific. Without the complete contract, it will be hard to give definitive answers. Even general info like transfer fees will be different depending on the year they were signed. The info should be in the contract but just knowing the year the original contract was signed isn't always going to be enough information.

First of all, Grand Mayan units that are "affordable" and keep their original benefits are really difficult to find. This is because Mayan World caught on to the resale world about 2005 and made a lot of changes so that it was more difficult to buy resale at a good price. Owners will have a difficult time selling a week if someone has to pay 10 MF to transfer it to their name.

As a longtime Mayan World owner of 6 weeks - 4 MP and 2 GM units (some of these were resale) until 2013, I have listed what I have documented over the years from our various contracts.

Group Mayan Maintenance Fee Timeline & Transfer Timeline

Before August 2002, transfer fees for Mayan Palace units were the cost of Maintenance fees for 1 year. The Vacation Fair week transfers with the contract. (A large majority of these have now upgraded to Grand Mayan and their old units are sold with the new terms.)

From August 2002 - November 2005, it was 10% of the original purchase price.The Vacation Fair week does transfer with the contract. I am not sure they started selling Grand Mayan units before 2003. This was the information for Mayan Palace that was in a contract that we had.

The 5 times the MF to transfer (sell) to another person started in late 2005, just before we upgraded to two GM 2-bedroom units in April 2006. These also had a 5 year renovation fee that is equal to 1 MF. The no pay unless you go feature was new in 2006, but came with an addendum that if you transferred your contract to someone else, the Vacation Fair (bonus week) and the no pay unless you go feature does not go with the transfer.

In 2008, there were some contracts that still had the 5 year renovation fee that was then 1-1/2 the cost of your MF, and still had the 5 times the MF to transfer to someone else.

I am not exactly sure when, but by the time we upgraded to the Grand Luxxe in 2013, the cost to transfer your week to someone else had gone up to 10 times the MF and none of the special benefits, especially the no pay unless you go and extra weeks go with the transfer. The new contracts have some 10 year renewal options which seem to change regularly.

So, if you are going to try to buy a GM week, you should look for one that is a 2004 or 2005 contract. The 10% of the original purchase price transfer fees is less expensive than the 5 MF, and you get to keep the VF week. The original purchase price for a 2-bedroom back then was about $32,000, so $3,200 is less than the $5000-$10000 in transfer fees that you would pay for a "newer" contract with no VF week. You will have to pay MF each year either way.

Thanks so much for this detailed information pittle!

We don't have any qualms about paying the MF every year--we or our daughter will definitely use whatever we buy during the RTU period.

It is very helpful to understand the transfer fees and how they vary by when the contracts were issued.

We have exchanged into GM RM several times, but we would like to go annually now. I've read several threads on this board and I am confused about whether there are different kinds of time use contracts. I know all the contracts are for floating weeks, but is there a level of ownership that allows you to make reservations during holiday periods? If so, what is that called so I can look at the ads to see if any are available.

As owners, do you have any trouble reserving for holiday periods? (we are specifically thinking about spring break/Easter weeks more so than Christmas, though that is a possibility too).

Do the MF vary a lot by contract year too? Some timeshare companies seem to have made the annual MF as variable as the final cost of the unit. I'm seeing some variation in the units listed for sale, but I don't know enough about their system to understand why.

I also have learned from reading the boards that II does not have the same limitations on reserving into Mayan properties that RCI does, so now I'm thinking about picking up a cheap II property that'll have good trading power into the GM RM system. Of course that runs the risk of having Vida changing their policy with II, but even then with two timeshares we'd get in more frequently.

Thanks for any additional insights into how to proceed. We're not expecting dirt cheap on the purchase, but we weren't willing to cough up the 6 figure amount people who'd taken the timeshare presentations were quoting to buy into GL, which seemed to be all they were pitching. Having listened to their lies the first couple times we exchanged in, there's no way I could buy directly from the developer even if the price were decent because I couldn't trust what I was actually getting.

You may run into trouble getting an Easter week through II. The contracts that allow Holy Week, Xmas, and NYE are going to be more expensive and a lot harder to find as those are the main weeks that can rent at a premium over MF's and obviously only 3 can be sold for each unit vs 48-49 contracts that float for the rest of the year.

People that own Easter/Holy Weeks and Christmas/New Years pay a premium when they buy - I have heard that it was 50% more. Their MF are usually the same as other units of the same size that were sold at the same time. I posted elsewhere today that it amazes me how the same unit can have so many prices. It depends on when the unit was originally bought and the amount they are allowed to raise the price each year. The oldest contract that we had was only 3% per year, but most are now at least 5% and some maybe more. The newer the contract, the more the MF are.

All that said, it is difficult to book Easter week or Christmas with the 6 month out limitation that a resale week will most likely have. You will be on hold or speed dial pretty much all day the first day of the month that you are eligible to book. Depending on when your spring break is, you will have a better chance than the week before and after Easter. You still will have to book September 1 for a March week or October 1 for an April week.

Occasionally, we get an email about Easter or Christmas weeks being available. We did in December for Easter this year and one time got one in September about Christmas. That does not happen too often.

Our weeks were assigned RCI when we purchased, and our GL weeks to The Registry Collection (upscale RCI). We do have an II account that we let expire because we do not have any II properties now. I should ask if our GL could be added there.

SFX will not let you book into a Mayan property when you are a Mayan owner.

Thanks much for the continued information! You're really helping me make sense of whether this is a good option for us or not.

Are the holiday weeks called gold season and the rest of the weeks considered red season or is there another level to owernship?

Would there be any benefit to buy into GB or GL resale and trade our weeks into GM units?

Probably not, because those owners have $$$ invested and have the no pay unless you go option, so why sell. For a GL week you would have to pay about $18000, just to get it into your name and the seller will want some money out of the deal. I seldom see those for sale at a reasonable price because many folks still believe these are really worth something. When you see them sell for $1 plus all the transfer fees and closing costs, you know they are not.

I do not know what they call the Holiday Weeks, other than Holiday weeks. But I do know the folks who own them often deposit them with RCI and get enough points to go at least 2 weeks in a similar resort. Many used to get 2 weeks at MP or GM for that 1 week. Now there is the restriction about going back to one to the home resorts.

At the Buganvilias, they call them Super Prime weeks.

You might consider renting weeks from TUG folks. It would be cheaper in the long run. Many of us do not use our weeks on a regular basis and post them on the TUG rental area. Most GL owners can reserve various levels of the resorts.

PS - thanks for feeling good enough about TUG to become a Member right away!!!

pittle said:

SFX will not let you book into a Mayan property when you are a Mayan owner.

Click to expand...

I had a conversation with SFX regarding this and I could suggest a way around this. A way I am considering using to get a bump and a week in July (See my other thread) however I am not entirely sure it will work.

But overall I love SFX. They have been very good to me thus far.

But I did see that I could buy my way into a GL/GM via RCI. That makes me really pissed because I cant book as an owner. MP, are you listening? You are screwing your own owners....

To the OP, I don't have GM holiday weeks, but I do have MP holiday weeks. They're also known as 'special' weeks, per the contract.

As Phyllis wrote, the holiday week contracts don't come up too often I have noticed. There was one GM holiday week listed for free, but they decided to gift it to a 'non-profit.' I believe that's the first one I've seen in my 12 years on this site.

The holiday weeks get very good RCI trade value and can command an excellent rental value. Although they are rare, they do pop up once in a while. For instance, you may want to check out Redweek rentals--I've seen an offer to sell in a holiday week rental ad before (but it was MP).