# [ 2011 ] Back from a DRI presentation with questions??



## troyandcarol (Mar 8, 2011)

Hey guys

We just stayed for a week at Cypress Point Resort in a 3 bedroom and loved it. We rented from a tugger for about the maintenance fees $900. We went to a DRI presentation for the first time and I came away with a few updates and some questions. First they wanted to sell us 4000 points for $23,000 and then they wanted to sell us 2500 for $11,600, when I balked they brought over a cute little old lady who told us she would knock $2,000 off that price to make it 9,600 and they would freeze that price for two years. All they needed from me was $999 and that would get me 9500 single use points and two 7 night dream vacations over the next 2 years?

Obviously I think the 2500 points are too expensive but I do like that it includes membership for the club which they said I cannot get with resale points?? Is that true??

Can I do much with the 9500 single use points?? Does anyone know what the dream vacations are? Has anyone gotten them?? 

Everything was a little overwhelming and took way too long so I am glad I have not spent any money yet but I really like the Grand Beach resort we toured, the remodel looks great!

Thanks for any help


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## timeos2 (Mar 8, 2011)

The amount of points being offered isn't great but we have enjoyed the Club with our ownership. We would never get the non-deeded program or give up our deeded week(s). 

I would suggest you look at a resale purchase (which gets you a deeded week at CPR) which can be found very reasonably even on the resort web site. Then if you want to get into the Club you can do it while keeping your deeded week for about $3000 last I heard. 

Two key points. You'll save money and get a deeded, voting ownership (very important to us).  You'll be in the DRI Club but at a lower overall cost and the ability to return to a simple (and less costly) weeks based ownership in the future if you want. Plus you'd still hold the deeded property to resell - the Club membership cannot be resold/transferred. 

Hope that makes sense and can be a good deal for you.  I'm happy to answer any questions here or by PM if you wish. The cost of a Diamond week can be as low as $1000 or less. Maybe much less. Take a look.


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## eal (Mar 8, 2011)

Just as an example, here is a deeded 3 bedroom floating week at Grand Beach for $1 on ebay:

http://cgi.ebay.com/3BR-GRAND-BEACH...20748964661?pt=Timeshares&hash=item3365a9e335

$299 closing and $100 resort transfer fee.


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## troyandcarol (Mar 8, 2011)

Lets say I was to buy that one at grand beach, how would I go about getting into the CLUB? Also do you guys know how many points that week would be worth in the club? Thanks for the quick replies


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## timeos2 (Mar 8, 2011)

*We prefer Cypress Pointe*



troyandcarol said:


> Lets say I was to buy that one at grand beach, how would I go about getting into the CLUB? Also do you guys know how many points that week would be worth in the club? Thanks for the quick replies



Not sure on the number of points (and why would you want Grand Beach over CPR? Both nice but location of CPR is better and fees lower).  To join Club once you own an eligible week you just ask to join through sales. They will give you the cost (as I say its between $2900-$3900 depending who you talk to) and then each year your week is turned into DRI points until you decide to drop out (if you ever do). Then you go back to your deeded week.  The Club annual fee, which includes a great corporate (priority  - VERY important) II membership is $259.  It jumped up a couple years ago but has been pretty steady recently. Again when you tire of it you just stop paying. No need to sell it as it isn't transferable except to family. You still have the underlying week to use/rent/sell as you please. Great deal IMO.   

Finally as an owner at Cypress Pointe Resort you have one of the most active and hands on independent owner controlled BOD that exist (if I do say so myself).  Holding that deeded week & vote is a key part of the value and control for you as an owner. The various Clubs & trusts don't give you that and the fees are MUCH higher than the week + Club fee tends to be. As an example a three bedroom at CPGV is $895 + the $259 club fee for $ 1154 vs nearly $1450 for enough trust based points (10,500) to ge the same 3 Bedroom unit. It is similar for CPR in that the Trust is much more to buy & own vs a deeded week & voluntary Club membership.  The "blended" fees idea of the Trust have not turned out to lower costs as they were said to have done but rather actually ended up higher from what I've seen.


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## troyandcarol (Mar 8, 2011)

We actually liked the location of Grand Beach better, it just seemed like less traffic on that side of the interstate and we liked the patios in the rooms of Grand Beach better than the Cypress Point. But we loved Cypress Point as well and I have been keeping up with all of the Cypress Pointe talk and I do realize that the board is very involved.


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## timeos2 (Mar 8, 2011)

I wouldn't say there is less traffic and making a left out of the resort is a real challenge. But that aside what we really miss are all the things you can easily walk to at CPR. Almost everything has to be by car at Grand Beach. It is a beautiful resort though - we stayed there in October last year and enjoyed it a lot.  But we prefer CPR overall.  Just our choice.


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## tidefan (Mar 9, 2011)

timeos2 said:


> Finally as an owner at Cypress Pointe Resort you have one of the most active and hands on independent owner controlled BOD that exist (if I do say so myself).  Holding that deeded week & vote is a key part of the value and control for you as an owner. The various Clubs & trusts don't give you that and the fees are MUCH higher than the week + Club fee tends to be. As an example a three bedroom at CPGV is $895 + the $259 club fee for $ 1154 vs nearly $1450 for enough trust based points (10,500) to ge the same 3 Bedroom unit. It is similar for CPR in that the Trust is much more to buy & own vs a deeded week & voluntary Club membership.  The "blended" fees idea of the Trust have not turned out to lower costs as they were said to have done but rather actually ended up higher from what I've seen.



This, I am a bit envious of.  I would encourage you to definitely seek out a resort with an active HOA board.  We own a deeded week (45) at the Diamond Resorts Royal Palm Beach Club in Sint Maarten.  When Diamond took over management (well, they bought out the rights when they took over the Sunterra resorts), our MFs went from around $800 a year for a 2-Bdrm to $1,400/year this year.  This jump only took 3 years.  As RPBC was a sold out resort, they didn't have anything new to sell there, so this seems to be their way of making money.  Diamond takes 35% of MF as a "management fee", which I think is a bit excessive.  This is on top of resort operations.

The downside of owning in a foreign country is that you are subject to its laws, and I don't think St Maarten is as owner-friendly as the US is.  Since the Diamond takeover, owners have started organizing, even bringing legal action against Diamond.  There is a growing group of owners that would like to remove DRI as the manager of the property, but as they own the property, that is going to be tough to do.

Now, I don't think that DRI is necessarily bad for everyone, it just hasn't worked out for us in St Maarten, and a lot of that is actually due to Sunterra, not DRI.  If you are interested in "the Club", then make sure you look at what your units would get you point-wise and pick a suitable unit.  2500 points will get you hardly anything.  Sunterra actually started "the Club", and when they did that, they assigned points to all of the resorts.  We have a "High Season" week at RPBC and have been to a few presentations.  The problem that we always had (and that most RPBC owners have always had) was that our resort was not assigned as many points as most of the US properties (save, perhaps Cypress Pointe).  For instance, my 7,000 points that my unit would bring me wouldn't get me a high season 2-Bdrm in Arizona, for instance.  So, we RPBC owners really didn't have any incentive to exchange.  

I think that they had a little more success with Flamingo owners, as they were getting more points than RPBC was.  IMHO, Royal Palm is the nicer of the two properties, but got the short end of the stick when they assigned points.  Among other oddities is that a 2-Bdrm at Flamingo draws more points than a 3-Bdrm at Royal Palm.  Anyway, the upshot of all of this was that Sunterra, and then DRI was having a really hard time making any sales of RPBC members into "the Club".  Most owners just decided to keep their week and trade out through RCI where the property has pretty good trading power.  That, in turn, meant less inventory for DRI for members to exchange into RPBC through "the Club", because RPBC was a sold out resort, so the only way to get units was either to buy them back (you can imagine that wasn't very popular) or to have current owners join "the Club" (which wasn't happening very often either).  Then, some of the ones that did join started reporting that they couldn't get trades back in when they gave up their deed.

So, I noticed this past trip (Nov '10), that DRI wasn't even advertising sales meetings like they always had.  I talked to someone there whom we had known for awhile about the situation and he told us that DRI just wasn't selling anything in St Maarten, so they let most of the sales force go.  What has happened is our MFs for deeded weeks have gone up almost 75% in 3 years.  A lot of people will rail on here about how MFs were too low and the resort needed all of this extra money, yada, yada, yada.  However, the resort IMHO isn't as well kept up now as it was when Sunterra ran it.  There has been a nice renovation of the property, but that was completed before Sunterra relinquished ownership to DRI and RPBC was even on its books at the time of the takeover (there weren't any deficits).  My personal opinion is that DRI is using the deeded week owners as their personal cash cow, putting more and more on the backs of the owners.  MFs have now reached the point where they are more expensive than just renting the week would be, and I don't think that's a very good place to be...

So, I think that John's advice should be taken to heart.  Own at a property with a strong HOA board that has some control over what MFs will be, or you could be in a world of hurt...


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## dougp26364 (Mar 9, 2011)

FWIW, I have not read in probably over a year of anyone who has been able to pay the joiner fee of $2,995 to get a resale week into THE Club. I also haven't heard reports of anyone who has said that such a joiner fee is waived if you buy direct from DRI. I suspect that opportunity has passed and that one must now buy a minimum number of trust based points to get any resale week into THE Club.


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## timeos2 (Mar 9, 2011)

dougp26364 said:


> FWIW, I have not read in probably over a year of anyone who has been able to pay the joiner fee of $2,995 to get a resale week into THE Club. I also haven't heard reports of anyone who has said that such a joiner fee is waived if you buy direct from DRI. I suspect that opportunity has passed and that one must now buy a minimum number of trust based points to get any resale week into THE Club.



When I specifically asked our DRI Representative if it was still available the answer was an unqualified "yes".  I haven't heard of them pushing it at all recently but if you ask it's still there and a good deal IMO.


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## troyandcarol (Mar 9, 2011)

Thanks guys, I appreciate all of your replies. I think I am going to hold of spending $999 to get the one time use points and the two 7 night dream vacations that I still have no idea what they are?? We are keeping are eyes open for some other things that might work but thanks again


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## d2r4s (Dec 20, 2013)

*DRI the club or owning weeks outside of the club?*

I would be interested in peoples expierence with whether to keep weeks out of the club, or put them in.  It seems that the club maintence fees are more than the weeks ownership.  I  have been told in presentations that over time the club dues will be less than the weeks dues as more people put there weeks into the club.

Looking to hear others expierence.

John


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## RuralEngineer (Dec 20, 2013)

*Deed and Trust*

I own but a deeded week, 11,500 points, and U.S. Trust, 10,000 points.  The maintenance fees on the deeded week are less.  I have no loss of benefits by owning both this way.

Stephen


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## Bill4728 (Dec 20, 2013)

dougp26364 said:


> FWIW, I have not read in probably over a year of anyone who has been able to pay the joiner fee of $2,995 to get a resale week into THE Club. I also haven't heard reports of anyone who has said that such a joiner fee is waived if you buy direct from DRI. I suspect that opportunity has passed and that one must now buy a minimum number of trust based points to get any resale week into THE Club.





timeos2 said:


> When I specifically asked our DRI Representative if it was still available the answer was an unqualified "yes".  I haven't heard of them pushing it at all recently but if you ask it's still there and a good deal IMO.



The above quotes were from March of 2011

Does anyone know what DRI is willing to do to get resale weeks into  "the club"?


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## T_R_Oglodyte (Dec 20, 2013)

d2r4s said:


> I would be interested in peoples expierence with whether to keep weeks out of the club, or put them in.  It seems that the club maintence fees are more than the weeks ownership.  I  have been told in presentations that over time the club dues will be less than the weeks dues as more people put there weeks into the club.
> 
> Looking to hear others expierence.
> 
> John



Sales person lies.  The same ownership held outside the club will always be less than the ownership held inside the Club. The annual fees will be identifical, but the Club membership will have the added annual Club membership fee. So it will be more expensive.  But if you are happy doing exchanges through II you can decrease the Club fee by the amount of the II annual fee since Club membership includes membership in II.

****

To figure it all out, it helps to understand how fees are determined.

First is that ownership at a resort is represented by deeds.  The Board of Directors for the resort sets fees for the resort, and assesses each deed owner accordingly.  If the owner is an individual, that is what the individual pays for their annual fees. If the owner is one of the trusts, then the trust has the obligation to pay the fees.

Moving to the trust level, the trust receives those assessments for all of the deeds that it owns.  It tallies up all of those assessments, then passes those on to the members of the trust in proportion to each members ownership stake in the trust.  (That's done by calculating fees per point.)  Then the trust adds a trust maintenance fee on top of that.  So in most cases owning something in deed is going to be cheaper than via trust because the deed avoids the trust maintenance fee.  One situation though where a trust could be cheaper than a deeded ownership is where the deed is at a resort that has significantly higher annual fees than most of the resorts in a strust.  In that case, owning points in a trust that includes units at the resort could be cheaper than owning a deed at that particular resort.

Moving on the Club level, as a club member you pay all of the fees that are associated with your ownership (whether deeds or trust), plus the annual club dues.


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## pedro47 (Dec 20, 2013)

To the OP, The Club membership would allow you to exchange into over forty (40) DRI resorts, manage resorts, or affiliated resorts for no exchange fees.  If you have enough points for the exchange and all fees all paid for the year.

Do not hold me to forty (40) resorts number could be more or less resorts.


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## RuralEngineer (Dec 20, 2013)

*resale*



Bill4728 said:


> The above quotes were from March of 2011
> 
> Does anyone know what DRI is willing to do to get resale weeks into  "the club"?



i did this recently.  combined accounts bringing resale points together with club.  required purchasing additional 2500 points.  also brought in two units to club select.  if you bring resale units into the club don't forget to also bring in deeded units to club select.


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## Rent_Share (Dec 20, 2013)

What is you definition of recent ?

Was it part of a conversion of a recently acquired group ie: MGV ?

What sales office ?

Any restrictions on what resorts can be brought into club select ?


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## T_R_Oglodyte (Dec 20, 2013)

RuralEngineer said:


> i did this recently.  combined accounts bringing resale points together with club.  required purchasing additional 2500 points.  also brought in two units to club select.  if you bring resale units into the club don't forget to also bring in deeded units to club select.



FWIW - the last time adding units to Club Select came up in one of our updates, we were told that policy had changed to that a property could be deposited into Club Select a maximum of five times.  The policy was not being applied retroactively, so units that were brought into Club Select prior to the new policy were not subject to the deposit limitations.


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## artringwald (Dec 20, 2013)

I have a deeded week that came with Club membership when we purchased it. Since the Club fees are now over $300, I have considered dropping it. I haven't because we've really enjoyed the flexibility of using the Club points for various lengths of stay, even as low as two nights. The Club membership also includes free membership in II and we've taken advantage of last minute II rental deals. If we always booked in one week blocks, the Club membership probably wouldn't be worth it.


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## RuralEngineer (Dec 20, 2013)

What is you definition of recent ?     6 months ago

Was it part of a conversion of a recently acquired group ie: MGV ?     no

What sales office ?     

Any restrictions on what resorts can be brought into club select ?

they should be decent units.


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