# [2012] Tried to Deposit Sands of Kahana Week with II - Another Resort was substituted



## littlestar (Sep 8, 2012)

Hi All,

My sister tried to deposit her Sands of Kahana week with II and was instructed by II that she would have to call her resort management company and have them deposit her week for her.  Well, she did that.

When she logged into her II account she saw a resort called Maui Beach Vacation Club deposited.  She doesn't own Maui Beach Vacation Club, she owns at Sands of Kahana.  What's the deal with this?   Does any other resort management company do this?  I've heard of float owners not being able to pick their week to deposit, but I've never heard of a different resort entirely being deposited for what you supposedly own. ??


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## budmeyer12 (Sep 8, 2012)

Okay.....you may not have gone through a recent owners presentation...and this might not be the answer to your question...but I suspect my recent experience with the new owners at Somerpointe resorts ie the old consolidated resorts might have something to do with it. Somerpointe is changing exchange companies to RCI...they are going to dump 80% of their inventory into RCI......your resort at SOK is part of the that inventory as my 2 ts in Las Vegas.....you will no longer be able to stay at your home resort unless you trade thru RCI is what I was told. Somerpointe wants to convert your weeks to points and the cost to do this is, at least for the 2 ts we own, is going to be 5990.00 each. The price to convert is somewhat negotiable.
I suspect they have already begun to dump inventory to RCI and what they have left is what you got. I dont know if this is legal and we may have no choice but I am not going to like it....I personally want to stay with my weeks and stay with II. I am going to post something on TUG next week and see if anyone else has been thru an experience like this. 
Have you called the resort to see what happened. Let me know if you have any updated information


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## littlestar (Sep 9, 2012)

No way will my sister pay to convert her Sands of Kahana to RCI points. She's already paid extra money to settle a land lease issue for Sands of Kahana.  

I'm sorry, but resort management cannot *make* you convert to points to use a deeded week that you own.  That's ridiculous and sounds illegal to me.  I hope you laughed when the sales weasel told you that.

My sister actually had a reservation at Sands of Kahana made, but wasn't going to be able to make it to Hawaii and so decided to deposit it with Interval.  In the past she has called Interval and was able to deposit her Sands of Kahana with II herself.  She has a long term platinum membership with II and has no interest in joining RCI. 

We were just surprised to see a completely different resort from what she owns deposited into her Interval account.  Very strange.  I guess on the bright side at least they deposited a 2 bedroom Maui week into II and didn't try to deposit a studio instead.


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## dougp26364 (Sep 9, 2012)

littlestar said:


> No way will my sister pay to convert her Sands of Kahana to RCI points. She's already paid extra money to settle a land lease issue for Sands of Kahana.
> 
> I'm sorry, but resort management cannot *make* you convert to points to use a deeded week that you own.  That's ridiculous and sounds illegal to me.  I hope you laughed when the sales weasel told you that.
> 
> ...



I don't believe they can force you to convert to RCI points or terminate your rights to occupy your home resort. Sounds like sales weasel talk for, "I don't have any better way to sell this than through fear" to me. 

As far as substituting an entirely different resort for exchange deposit, they may or may not have that right. You'd have to read the contract signed and probably higher legal representation to get that sorted out. Even if they don't have the legal right to substitute a "like" week for the one requested, I sure they're guessing most won't go through the expense of highering an attorney to fight them in court.


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## littlestar (Sep 9, 2012)

dougp26364 said:


> I don't believe they can force you to convert to RCI points or terminate your rights to occupy your home resort. Sounds like sales weasel talk for, "I don't have any better way to sell this than through fear" to me.
> 
> As far as substituting an entirely different resort for exchange deposit, they may or may not have that right. You'd have to read the contract signed and probably higher legal representation to get that sorted out. Even if they don't have the legal right to substitute a "like" week for the one requested, I sure they're guessing most won't go through the expense of highering an attorney to fight them in court.



Thanks. You should have seen our faces when we logged into II and saw that Maui Beach Vacation Club week sitting in her account -    What the heck? My sister called Consolidated right back (or whatever they're called now???) and they said it didn't make any difference since they gave her a 2 bedroom Maui week and all 2 bedrooms should trade basically the same.


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## budmeyer12 (Sep 9, 2012)

To change exchange companies like they are....wouldn't we as owners have to vote on that kind of thing? And since I have 2 deeded weeks, am I able to stay with II if I want to or just stay at the resort......these are just questions I have. Monday I plan to call and reserve my 2 weeks....and we will see how that goes. These people are slick.... and thanks to the many posts on Tug about the RCI system.....I had some idea where this presentation was going and how they were going to sell it. We are also Marriott owners and have used our consolidated ts's in Vegas to trade into Marriott.....so I have absolutely no interest in changing to RCI, especially for what they want to charge. I am pretty sure that the rest of the group we saw at the presentation where not sold on this either...I saw no one signing up.


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## DeniseM (Sep 9, 2012)

budmeyer12 said:


> To change exchange companies like they are....wouldn't we as owners have to vote on that kind of thing?



Just to change exchange companies?  No - within the last 2 years, DVC moved from II to RCI - no vote involved.


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## dougp26364 (Sep 9, 2012)

DeniseM said:


> Just to change exchange companies?  No - within the last 2 years, DVC moved from II to RCI - no vote involved.



But DVC is a completely trust based ownership system. This may.....or may not.....be different. DVC holds all rights in most instances and owners are just along for the ride. 

There are several examples of deeded resorts who have changed affiliation but weren't able to force all owners to abandon their original exchange company affiliation. There are mult. examples of dual affiliation. DRI (formerly Sunterra, Epic et....) would be one of them. If DRI could force all owners into I.I. I'm sure they would have done it.


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## BJRSanDiego (Feb 11, 2013)

*S a n d s of k a h a n a*



budmeyer12 said:


> Okay.....you may not have gone through a recent owners presentation...
> ...they are going to dump 80% of their inventory into RCI......your resort at SOK is part of the that inventory as my 2 ts in Las Vegas.....you will no longer be able to stay at your home resort unless you trade thru RCI is what I was told.




I realize that this is a bit of an old thread, but I just attended an owners update today and some things are clearer to me now.

Dumping inventory - - C R M told me that 80% of the owners use their own home weeks.  So I think that if C R M is "going to dump 80% of their inventory into RCI", that it is more like 80% of the 20% that is available for exchange.  While I could be wrong, I don't think that C R M can deposit more weeks than the owners are trying to exchange.   Except for selling weeks to RCI or II for use as last minute vacations or getaways for cash (or renting out through 3rd parties), they don't have a clear mechanism for getting the cash back.

C R M made a unilateral decision (with essentially no owner input) early in 2012 to (1) no longer allow owners (through II) to select the week that they want to deposit and (2) to discontinue (through II) allowing owners to do a "search first".  It finally dawned on me today what their apparent motivation.   It was all related to the dual affiliation with RCI.  They are trying to level the playing field in order to sell more $6K points conversions.  RCI d/n support a search first.  Now, C R M had directed II to do the same.  Also the technique of selecting the highest demand week to give yourself the highest trading power has also been taken away.  Again, to probably level the playing field with RCI.  With the RCI points system, they are working with AVERAGE trading power.  The RCI points for a 3, 2 and 1 br at the S O K are 98,900, 77,000 and 54,700.  But when searching in RCI, I saw that the points required to exchange into the S O K is between 48,000 and 115,000.   So the value of your week depends on seasonality (contrary to what C R M may say).

BTW, the number of average points assigned to the Kahana Beach is definitely less than the number for S O K for the same sized unit.  The S O K has the highest points of any of the C R M Maui resorts.  So, in approximate terms, if you would have received 77,000 points for the S O K and instead were credited with KB points, the KB points would have been worth something less.  I'm not sure of the exact amount, but there is a difference.  But (sadly) in "marketing" speak a $1400 mf is the same as a $1000 mf if someone else is paying it.

I don't think that the S O K vaction club is doing a BAD job.  So, I'm not intending on trying to "smear" them.  In fact, they are doing most things right.  But I think that they would benefit from a much better owner representation on their board.  In fact, they should recognize this and the associated value.  Having owner representation should not threaten their cash-flow model.  Right now 4 of the 5 directors are in somewhat employees of a parent organization.

My advice to S O K owners is to vote for a non-employee at next year's annual meeting.  Oh....you've got to do some research because the thumbnail that is provided omits where the candidates are employed.  You've got to Google that.  Also, you've got to pay attention to the proxy forms that you are sent.  If you check the more obvious box on the form you are probably giving all voting power to the mgmt co.   Unfortunately most owners don't respond and those that do don't read what they are agreeing to.

Keep abreast of things on the www.sokco.info site.   Give them your email address so that they have a way of updating you on items of interest.


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