# Is "The Trust" a good thing?



## clifffaith (Apr 9, 2016)

We heard about this Trust business for the first time today.  It seemed to make point useage not only more flexible (turning 30% of our points into $.30 to use towards cruises, etc) but also allowed conserving points by turning your own resort reservation back in at 59 days and rebooking same for half the points (as long as you had pre-purchased point insurance when the trip was booked).  Is there a down side to the Trust?  Does it make reselling points more difficult or cause problems if doing a deed back? Seems like folks that are members of newly purchased timeshare systems (like Club Intrawest) are being brought in as trust members, if I understood correctly.


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## SmithOp (Apr 9, 2016)

One of the downsides is you can only access inventory that has been converted and put in the trust, what if all the weeks in the trust at the resort you want to go are the least desirable?


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## clifffaith (Apr 9, 2016)

SmithOp said:


> One of the downsides is you can only access inventory that has been converted and put in the trust, what if all the weeks in the trust at the resort you want to go are the least desirable?
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPad Mini 4 using Tapatalk



Not sure what you mean.  Surely they can't be "pulling a fast one" around availability of inventory and limiting access.  I wondered if there is a downside to the trust for us, let me rephrase and ask what is the upside for Diamond, aside from making some more money of of us?

Our price quoted for moving into the Trust went from $52K which included buying 13,000 new points that we don't need especially after being taught how to milk more points out of the system, to $47K with a maintenance credit they pulled out of their ass, to $26K with a purchase of 2000 points and a claim that our Worldmark points could count towards the 50,000 points you have to have in one collection (our 61500 points are split 37000 in US, balance in Hawaii) before any points at all can be moved to the Trust.  And they weren't taking Worldmark in trade, but we could change Worldmark points into Diamond points whenever we wanted.  Which meant you did not really have to own 50,000 points in one collection before being able to join the trust.  

When we again declined we were handed off to the person that was going to get our gift for us, and of course she had another deal.  For $2995 (remember price started at $52K) she could get us 15,000 bonus points to use for 18 months AND move our poor, pathetic, split-into-two-clubs points, into the Trust.  OK, sold.

The big push was how our $10K+ In maintenance fees every year could be drastically offset by finagling more points and cash out of the system so that we are not paying out of pocket for  cruises, hotels, car rentals.  And we can work the system by canceling reservations at 59 days and then simultaneously rebooking at half the points as long as we'd purchased point protection when making the original reservation.  If we make the effort to do the work even half as efficiently as we were shown, I do see a benefit to the Trust.  But the $3K we spent today doesn't pay many sales staff salaries.  So what's in it for them to have me massaging points?


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## RichardL (Apr 9, 2016)

IMHO  If the timeshare group is urging you to buy something or do something just say no.  They give something with one hand, but take more with the other hand, and you aren't even aware of it.


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## SmithOp (Apr 10, 2016)

There are three types of owners right?  Deeded weeks, points, and trust points.  Ask them if they all reserve from the same inventory pool, or if they are separate based on ownership type.


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## youppi (Apr 10, 2016)

clifffaith said:


> When we again declined we were handed off to the person that was going to get our gift for us, and of course she had another deal.  For $2995 (remember price started at $52K) she could get us 15,000 bonus points to use for 18 months AND move our poor, pathetic, split-into-two-clubs points, into the Trust.  OK, sold.
> 
> The big push was how our $10K+ In maintenance fees every year could be drastically offset by finagling more points and cash out of the system so that we are not paying out of pocket for  cruises, hotels, car rentals.  And we can work the system by canceling reservations at 59 days and then simultaneously rebooking at half the points as long as we'd purchased point protection when making the original reservation.  If we make the effort to do the work even half as efficiently as we were shown, I do see a benefit to the Trust.  But the $3K we spent today doesn't pay many sales staff salaries.  So what's in it for them to have me massaging points?



You were already in the trust. In fact, in 2 trusts as per this post http://tugbbs.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1861696#post1861696 where you said: "We have two "lumps" of US points (24500 + 12500) and three lumps of Hawaii points (3000 + 10000 + 11500). Best we can tell *each group of points corresponds to purchases we made during presentations.*"

In this post http://tugbbs.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1873609#post1873609 you said that you want to deed back 24500 US Collection points to reduce your MF.

And now, you bought the DRI Sampler (15000 pts for $2995) and moved all your 61500 points in the US Collection. I supposed it is the US Collection because you asked the same question on the Facebook group and you said that you were at the Riviera Beach Resort and Riviera Shores Resort in California.

You are hard to follow.


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## clifffaith (Apr 10, 2016)

No, no points were moved between the two collections and unless we were flat out lied to we were not in the Trust because that is a fairly new program.  And yes, we are hard to follow, because we have a love hate relationship with Diamond -- love the travel, hate the maintenance fees, and we are trying to make it work better for us.  Cliff asked about the Trust on Facebook, I don't know if he got any responses there since I don't do Facebook.  Was hoping to find out if anyone else had opted into the Trust.  Just remembered something else we were told -- no more special assessments (like the water intrusion we got nailed with at Poipu a few years ago).  Trust members are absolved from having to share in special assessments.


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## SmithOp (Apr 10, 2016)

*Is &quot;The Trust&quot; a good thing?*



clifffaith said:


> Not sure what you mean.  Surely they can't be "pulling a fast one" around availability of inventory and limiting access.  I wondered if there is a downside to the trust for us, let me rephrase and ask what is the upside for Diamond, aside from making some more money of of us?




The upside for Diamond is they can keep selling the same resorts without having to build new ones.  First they sold deeded weeks, when those all sold they had owners convert them to points to get into collections.  Now they are selling trust memberships to allegedly make it easier to use and save money.  Its all smoke and mirrors and you are a salesmans dream mark, you think spending more money will somehow save money.

PS: check this thread for more info on deed/points/trust, specially #7.

http://www.tugbbs.com/forums/showthread.php?t=240484


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## artringwald (Apr 10, 2016)

clifffaith said:


> Just remembered something else we were told -- no more special assessments (like the water intrusion we got nailed with at Poipu a few years ago).  Trust members are absolved from having to share in special assessments.



Trust members still have to pay for special assessments, but the effect is not as dramatic. The trust owns deeds just like individuals. If there is a special assessment, the trust has to pay, and your fees will increase. If the trust collection is made up of many properties, the assessment won't impact the fees as much as it would for individual owners, BUT with many properties there could be more special assessments. Owners at Poipu had to pay big time, but there's not likely to be another special assessment for a long time. However, the Hawaiian Collection has other properties that could possibly need a special assessment. If the HOA keeps enough in the reserves, and keeps up on the maintenance of the property, special assessments are less likely. DRI is one of the companies that tends to manage properties properly in that regard. When an HOA or management company neglects reserves and maintenance, major renovations could necessitate a special assessment.


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## clifffaith (Apr 10, 2016)

So in other words, we could be on the hook for MORE special assessments because Branson got mowed down by a tornado and there are Branson owners in the Trust?  So a Branson owner's share of the assessment is lower because he's now sharing his portion with Trust members, but we as non-Branson owners now have to chip in?


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## clifffaith (Apr 10, 2016)

clifffaith said:


> No, no points were moved between the two collections and unless we were flat out lied to we were not in the Trust because that is a fairly new program.  And yes, we are hard to follow, because we have a love hate relationship with Diamond -- love the travel, hate the maintenance fees, and we are trying to make it work better for us.  Cliff asked about the Trust on Facebook, I don't know if he got any responses there since I don't do Facebook.  Was hoping to find out if anyone else had opted into the Trust.  Just remembered something else we were told -- no more special assessments (like the water intrusion we got nailed with at Poipu a few years ago).  Trust members are absolved from having to share in special assessments.



I've now seen Cliff's Facebook post and replies.  Owner Stan Cornelius says they got the same Trust story and bought more points in order to move all his US Collection to the Trust.  Then he called corporate only to be told his points were already in the Trust.  SIGH.  So now the question is were we told to not call corporate because the person answering the phone likely wouldn't understand our question and we'd get wrong information,  or because corporate understands all too well what's going and we've just been sold lies rather than truths.


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## awa (Apr 10, 2016)

I think what you're calling "the trust" was explained to us as the "currency program" or the 30/30 program.  It seems like you've got a lot of different elements mixed in there together.  The currency program was explained to us as the ability to use your points for up to 30% of the cost of a cruise or hotel room at 30 cents per point.  Getting access to that single program was interesting to us, and I'm sure you could manage to get it without adding all of the other things you're talking about above.


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## youppi (Apr 10, 2016)

clifffaith said:


> I've now seen Cliff's Facebook post and replies.  Owner Stan Cornelius says they got the same Trust story and bought more points in order to move all his US Collection to the Trust.  Then he called corporate only to be told his points were already in the Trust.  SIGH.  So now the question is were we told to not call corporate because the person answering the phone likely wouldn't understand our question and we'd get wrong information,  or because corporate understands all too well what's going and we've just been sold lies rather than truths.



I suggest that you read all papers that you had signed. If you had moved all your US points (24500 + 12500) and three lumps of Hawaii points (3000 + 10000 + 11500) to the trust than you had moved everything in one 61500 points US Collection sale contract. If this what happened then if you want to deed back some points in the future then you must deed back all your points or nothing.


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## clifffaith (Apr 10, 2016)

awa said:


> I think what you're calling "the trust" was explained to us as the "currency program" or the 30/30 program.  It seems like you've got a lot of different elements mixed in there together.  The currency program was explained to us as the ability to use your points for up to 30% of the cost of a cruise or hotel room at 30 cents per point.  Getting access to that single program was interesting to us, and I'm sure you could manage to get it without adding all of the other things you're talking about above.



Actually you can use points for 100% of your cruise, etc. cost.  But you can only turn 30% of your points into 30 cents per point.  So if you own 100,000 points, 30,000 of them (30%) can be converted to $9000 for cruise booking.  The other 70% can be redeemed at .10 per point.  And airlines can ONLY be redeemed at .10, never .30.  AND you can only do the .30 deal if you are a platinum member.  AND MAYBE that was platinum member with points in the Trust, but by now that part is foggy.


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## artringwald (Apr 10, 2016)

clifffaith said:


> So in other words, we could be on the hook for MORE special assessments because Branson got mowed down by a tornado and there are Branson owners in the Trust?  So a Branson owner's share of the assessment is lower because he's now sharing his portion with Trust members, but we as non-Branson owners now have to chip in?



Assume all the units of a resort are the same size. The HOA takes all the expenses, divides it equally, and bills each deed holder by the same amount. If there is a special assessment, the HOA divides that equally and bills the deed holders. To the HOA, the trust is just another deed holder although it may hold many deeds. The trust gets no special treatment, although they get many votes for the HOA board of directors, and can certainly influence decisions. When the trust gets the HOA bills for maintenance fees and special assessments, they add their own fees for managing the trust, and divide all the costs by the total number of points issued. If all the resorts in the trust had special assessments in the same year, the fees for points owners could jump dramatically. If only one resort had a special assessment, it would have some but not much impact on the fees for points owners. 

Most resorts should have insurance to cover tornadoes and hurricanes. In the case of P@P, the water intrusion problem was caused by poor choice of building materials. By the time the problem was discovered, the builder was bankrupt and insurance didn't cover it.  By now, everyone is done paying the special assessment, the last building will be repaired by the end of next year, and we can enjoy stays there without any construction disruption. 

When we stayed there in February, when we got tired of watching the waves, we just turn the other way and watch the construction workers.


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## clifffaith (Apr 11, 2016)

OP here.  For the first time we can say without a doubt that we were looked in the eye and lied to during a sales presentation.  We have had our suspicions in the past with various developers, this time there is no getting around the untruths.  


At Capistrano Beach they told us we needed to buy 13,000 points so that our US Collection came up to a total of 50,000 points in order to be in this "new" Trust.  Spent over 5 hours being told about how the Trust made probate easier, and allowed us to finagle points around to drastically offset maintenance fees.  Easily four times they went through the voodoo math at how spending $50K that day would give us more points for finagling and that we're going to spend $50K in five years anyway (our maintenance fees are $10K/year) so might as well spend it upfront and buy these finagle points to join the Trust.  

Many of you commented "you're already in the trust".  We figured maybe you just hadn't heard of this "new" program.  But those comments and the fact that I could not get it out of my head that the sampler lady told us we would be in the trust for just a $3K sampler purchase made us continue to try to understand what was going on.  I was up all Saturday night except for about 90 minutes -- wasn't fussing overtly about our presentation but for whatever reason I got almost no sleep which is unheard of for me.  Said to Cliff in the morning "something is wrong here, I really don't know what the issue is, but something is wrong.  They wanted us to spend $50K to join the Trust, but we just joined by spending $3K.  What the heck is wrong with this picture?"

Yesterday the sales team had already gone home by the time we wandered over, so we went over this morning to specifically ask the sales manager who'd played tag team with the sales person why we couldn't find any mention of the trust online, nor could we see anything online regarding turning points into cash for cruises, etc.  Please, just show us where we can read about the benefits of joining the trust.  WELL, I DON'T LIKE TO CALL IT A TRUST, SOME DO, BUT I CALL IT OLD SYSTEM AND NEW SYSTEM.  Um, Saturday you were explaining the benefits of the Trust to us.  Please show us where we can read online about the Trust.  WELL, IF YOU'D BOUGHT YOU'D HAVE PAPERWORK THAT EXPLAINED IT.  Yes, but surely you can give us some written information about the Trust.  Then he says, YOU ARE ALREADY IN THE TRUST.  But, but, you drew us a diagram of an umbrella with our Hawaii & US Collections safely nestled under the trust umbrella.  And you said we needed 13,000 more points because we had to be platinum in one collection to bring ourselves under the trust umbrella.  YOU ARE ALREADY IN THE TRUST.  But probate is easier under the trust, why was this a selling point if we are already in the trust.  (We don't have kids, don't care about probate, but wanted an answer). WELL, I CAN'T SPEAK TO WHAT THE SALESPERSON TOLD YOU.  

OK, fine.  Well if we are already in the Trust we certainly don't need a $3K sampler package to either put us in something we already belong to or to hold pricing on something we have no intention of doing.  Refund issued, handshakes all around, look forward to seeing you again.  (And Cliff muttering "lying sack of ..." under his breath). 

I will add that "Trust" and "Probate" were absolutely part of a sales presentation we started, but did not finish, at Palm Canyon in Palm Springs in February.  At about the 15 minute mark that guy gave up on us because the only thing I wanted to talk about was the abysmal state of the maintenance at our favorite Marquis Villas.  They'd moved us from MV to PC after I'd called the front desk at MV crying because there were cockroaches all over the suite we'd checked into the night before.  (Still got our Amex gift cards, however).


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## SmithOp (Apr 12, 2016)

*Is &quot;The Trust&quot; a good thing?*

and thats why the TUG mantra is, if a timeshare salesperson lips are moving he (or she) is lying.

Dont beat yourself up about it, I drank the developer kool-aid twice before finding TUG, go and enjoy what you have and stop going to "owner updates".


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## tjnevers (Apr 18, 2016)

*Diamond "Owners" 55 minute breakfast*

OK. Following this thread & we are definitely deeded owners of a 1 BR floating week at the Ridge Sedona Golf Resort....bought it resale quite a while ago. We have never joined the "Club" & are happy with just using our week every year.
One thing that's annoying is that every time we check in, they pester us to do an "owners update" & get like $150 Visa card for the trouble. My wife hates these & now I signed us up for the 55 minute breakfast & have  been promised that they are no longer hard sell & that the owners really appreciate having the new info. 
Here's my question.... is it worth the $150 + some other stuff to go through the hassle again? We definitely will not spend $1,000s for converting to the "Club" or a points system since we like our deeded week.
Any comments from recent attendees of the 55 minute owners update breakfast  deal will be appreciated. Thanks.


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## artringwald (Apr 18, 2016)

tjnevers said:


> OK. Following this thread & we are definitely deeded owners of a 1 BR floating week at the Ridge Sedona Golf Resort....bought it resale quite a while ago. We have never joined the "Club" & are happy with just using our week every year.
> One thing that's annoying is that every time we check in, they pester us to do an "owners update" & get like $150 Visa card for the trouble. My wife hates these & now I signed us up for the 55 minute breakfast & have  been promised that they are no longer hard sell & that the owners really appreciate having the new info.
> Here's my question.... is it worth the $150 + some other stuff to go through the hassle again? We definitely will not spend $1,000s for converting to the "Club" or a points system since we like our deeded week.
> Any comments from recent attendees of the 55 minute owners update breakfast  deal will be appreciated. Thanks.



For many years, when we go to Poipu they've been saying "no longer hard sell & that the owners really appreciate having the new info". Don't believe them. Is it really worth wasting several hours of your vacation time sitting through a presentation? You won't get any reliable info from sales people. If you want to know about anything new, log into your account and read the documents at:

https://member.diamondresorts.com/Hoa

There's no way it's an owner's update, it's a sales pitch. You won't get any perks unless your wife also attends. Just keep politely saying no, and you don't have to explain yourself. My wife always waits out in the car, or else they'll pressure her to attend too.


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## awa (Apr 18, 2016)

I think it depends on how good you are at saying "no".  We get owners updates pretty frequently and don't buy anything.  The food is never great, but it covers the cost of a meal for you.  If you have a long list of places you want to eat while you're there, don't waste a meal on the update.  We say stuff like, "we have a hard time using the points we have," "we don't have any more vacation time to use," "we can't afford to pay any more" and it seems to keep the pressure off.  Also, we seem really interested in the info about what we can do with what we already have.  "Oh, I didn't know that!  That will be great to try!"  And then you can say you're fine with what you own for now and you're going to try out the stuff you just learned about.  I'm not sure how you would deal with it if you own a deeded week, because they probably don't have a lot to offer you in terms of stuff you can do with your ownership.  We have points.


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## tjnevers (Apr 18, 2016)

Thanks folks. You have confirmed what I feared. Think I'll cancel the "breakfast." Don't need the hassle.


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## tjnevers (Apr 18, 2016)

Talk about hard sell. I just called the "concierge" to cancel my owners update meeting & naturally the girl asked WHY????. I told her to read the NY Times 1/22/16 article by Gretchen Morgenson & she could get a good idea why. She said: "I don't know what that is." I said, you mean you don't know what the NY Times is & she said she knew it was a newspaper. I said you say you no longer do hard sell, but this feels like hard sell right now & I'm not even in front of the salesman. I finally said "thank you" and hung up on her. Whew......


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