# Monarch to DRI



## post-it (Apr 5, 2013)

Friends of ours purchased Palm Canyon resort resale last year before the acquisition.  They just received their notice from Diamond that they’re now part of this system.  I just want to verify a few things for them:

1.	Since they purchased resale they only have access to this resort and need to trade it for other timeshare locations.
2.	Diamond will try to get them to buy into a trust.  Which trust would this be and that would mean for them 12 months out booking for those trust resorts vs. the 10 months so resorts out of the trust?  
3.	Does this put them right into the Club itself or are there other initial fees for this on top of the trust fees.

They originally purchased this for the purpose to trade it, but I see a number of these Palm Canyon resorts available all the time and not sure if it’s such a great trade at this time.  
They also have the Westin Maui 1 bedroom EOY which they did purchase from developer and have access to their system.


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## Bill4728 (Apr 5, 2013)

Prior to the takeover of MGV by DRI, there were two kinds of owners at Palm Canyon. 
-Owners at Palm Canyon
-Owners of MGV pts which allow access to all the former MGV resorts including Palm Canyon. 

I'll assume that your friends own the first kind of ownership. 

DRI will try and get all the owners ( both kinds) to buy into DRI. They have been doing this by offering to convert the current ownership to DRI "CLUB" ownerships for a significant investment ( not sure how much but heard it was a lot) And by getting current owners to buy DRI trust points and getting into the "CLUB" 

 I can see no reason to use Palm canyon for anything more than your friends wanted to do which was stay there or trade it. I'm an owner of MGV pts and found that Palm Canyon trades pretty well. Not Great but still pretty well. 

If they want to access DRI's "club" I'd buy a resale DRI US collection trust or a MGV membership. Both are basically being given away by current owners. In fact Currently there are 10 ads in the TUG marketplace given away DRI ownerships and another 7 ads giving away MGV ownerships. This isn't a full DRI "CLUB" membership but it is free and that seems a lot smarter to me than paying $5000 - $10,000 dollars to "upgrade" a Palm Canyon ownership to a full DRI "club" ownership which was seen by the many people trying to give them away is worth next to nothing.

Hope this helps


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## T_R_Oglodyte (Apr 5, 2013)

post-it said:


> Friends of ours purchased Palm Canyon resort resale last year before the acquisition.  They just received their notice from Diamond that they’re now part of this system.  I just want to verify a few things for them:
> 
> 1.	Since they purchased resale they only have access to this resort and need to trade it for other timeshare locations.


Their reservation rights now are the same as they were pre-Diamond.  If they could only reserve at Palm Canyon, that is still their situation.  If they were part of a Monarch mini-system, they will still be in that mini.  Same room sizes, seasons, points, whatever.  Nothing different at all.


> 2.	Diamond will try to get them to buy into a trust.  Which trust would this be and that would mean for them 12 months out booking for those trust resorts vs. the 10 months so resorts out of the trust?


Hard to say.  Diamond could add Monarch units to any of the Collections, or they could start a new Monarch Collection.  


> 3.	Does this put them right into the Club itself or are there other initial fees for this on top of the trust fees.


No - they will not be in the Club until they buy in.  Though it is possible that DRI might initially offer entry to the Club at a lower price than it would normally charge.


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## Bill4728 (Apr 5, 2013)

T_R_Oglodyte said:


> Diamond could add Monarch units to any of the Collections, or they could start a new Monarch Collection.


It appears that DRI is starting a new "Monarch Grand " collection with only the former MGV resorts involved and giving all MGV pts owners a 60 to one pt conversion. So if you had 133 MGV pts you'll have 7980 new DRI Monarch collection pts.  

This has not been officially announced but since MGV owners can now make their reservations online at the DRI website and I got a 60 to one conversion of my MGV pts And the points required for stays has also increased by the 60/I ratio  it seems true.


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## post-it (Apr 5, 2013)

Thank you for the great responses.  I think it's best to keep this as a trader for now, especially not knowing how much the maintainance fees will increase in the future.


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## dougp26364 (Apr 5, 2013)

Bill4728 said:


> Prior to the takeover of MGV by DRI, there were two kinds of owners at Palm Canyon.
> -Owners at Palm Canyon
> -Owners of MGV pts which allow access to all the former MGV resorts including Palm Canyon.
> 
> ...



Just a note but, unless something has changed, DRI won't allow a resale week into THE Club without some sort of purchase of developer priced trust points. DRI does an outstanding job of limiting the value of a resale week, so much so that the underlying weeks have no resale value on the open market. 

If you buy a trust interest, you're pretty much stuck with the resorts in that trust. From posts I've read DRI even makes it nearly impossible to trade a resale trust interest thru I.I. It's not a bad thing to buy a resale trust interest as you can get it for pennies on the dollar but, it appears to be best to plan on only using those resorts within that particular trust.

If you buy a deeded week on the resale market you have the use of that week and can easily exchange that week via I.I. but, DRI won't allow it to become part of THE Club without a purchase from the developer. Last I read that was something like a 5,000 point trust purchase.

Again, things could have changed but DRI is one of the tougher companies on resale buyers, which makes it one of the worst companies to buy at developer pricing as the interests have no street value when an owner wants or needs to exit the program. They just have to many poison pills protecting their interests and there's to many other programs out there that are easier on and provide better benefits for resale owners.

Personally, I don't care for trust based ownerships. Maybe I'm a little dim but I like my deed, my voting rights and the ability to transfer that deed and the new owners not have issues with usage or exchange via I.I. With DRI voting rights are more symbolic than anything else as the trust, which votes in a block, usually has enough voting power to do whatever DRI wants.

The one thing I can almost guarentee your friends is that DRI has a higher standard for their resorts and, they use owners money via MF and SA's to bring newly aquired resorts up to their standards. MF's typically go up substantially in the first couple of years but, you also see improvements to the resort following collection of those increased MF's. My stance has been that you'd better like the direction DRI is going because, as an owner, you're just along for the ride.

Not that this is really any different than nearly all other timeshares managed by large management companie. It's just seems to be a little more obvious with DRI.


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