# Diamond Resorts Las Vegas based



## melhed (Jan 23, 2012)

Two actions of interest: CEO was quoted in a Vegas paper as saying that if anyone was unhappy about their ownership in one of his resorts he would be glad to refund their money. I'd stand in line for this.

Secondly I received an assessment to pay my portion of rebuilding a timeshare complex that I had no idea I owned or had any responsibility to rebuild after it collapsed due to faulty construction.

Anyone have any thoughts about this?


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## dougp26364 (Jan 24, 2012)

melhed said:


> Two actions of interest: CEO was quoted in a Vegas paper as saying that if anyone was unhappy about their ownership in one of his resorts he would be glad to refund their money. I'd stand in line for this.
> 
> Secondly I received an assessment to pay my portion of rebuilding a timeshare complex that I had no idea I owned or had any responsibility to rebuild after it collapsed due to faulty construction.
> 
> Anyone have any thoughts about this?



If your house falls apart, who's responsible for rebuilding it? You own it, you rebuild it. Same with a timeshare. You own an interest in the property and, you pay the fee's associated with maintaining that property.

The problem with some properties is that HOA's don't put enough aside for future repairs, refurbishments or catasrtrophic events. Sunterra had to know about the water intrusion yet they continued to underfund the resorts cash reserve. DRI got caught with the hot potato on this one. 

I know owners are yelling at DRI but they should be upset with the prior management companies that put them in this position in the first place. Sunterra was, IMHO, one of the worst management companies for timeshares. They had no interest in maintaining their resorts. Their only interest was in keeping MF's low in a misguided attempt to drive additional sales. A resort could be rotting to the ground around their owners and all Sunterra would have cared about is making another sale. Once you were an owner, the only interest you held for them was making additional sales. I can't tell you how many Sunterra owners I read who bragged about owning such an inexpensive timeshare but they could exchange into the very expensive timeshares like Marriott. I was even told I was a fool for owning Marriott timeshares. I should own Sunterra, which was so much more inexpensive, and trade into the well maintained and more expensive resorts. 

Sunterra is the management company that hung owners out to dry but DRI is getting all the blame for correcting past mistakes. If things were allowed to continue on the path they were on, owners under the Sunterra banner would have paid thousands for timeshare interests only to be left holding the bag when the resorts began to fall apart for lack of adaquate maintenance and repairs. It had already begun to happen when Sunterra filed for bankruptcy protection. Sunterra principles are now safely hidden behind the protection of a bankruptcy ruling. Owners, that's you and me, are the ones left paying for their misdeeds. That is unless the owners want to file bankruptcy along with Sunterra as well.

In the end, all resorts managed by DRI will be brought back up to industry standards and will be resorts owners can be proud to stay at rather than points as trade bait to get into the nicer resorts. DRI resorts will set a standard that others want to exchange into rather than exchange out of. Owners will know that when they make a reservation using DRI's THE Club, the resort they reserve will be as nice as their home resort or, as nice as any other resort offered for exchange by I.I.


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## pedro47 (Jan 24, 2012)

Doug you are right on point with your assessment on Sunterra; case in point Powhatan Plantation... Sunterra did not do any improvement at this resort. Except the purchasing of living plants to keep the native down during their annual meetings.

M/F fees were to low to maintain the massive number of units as this resort.


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## M&JJ (Jan 26, 2012)

Keep in mind that DRI also includes The Suites at Polo Towers.  It was not that long ago that a special assessment was required here to upgrade the suites.  At the same time the owners lounge was closed.  This is over and above what is in my opinion a very significant maintenance fee.  (This year's MF are in excess of $1,100.)  In my opinion, it was mismanagement by DRI of the ongoing MF that lead to the special assessment and removal of benefits that owners used to have.


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## dougp26364 (Jan 26, 2012)

M&JJ said:


> Keep in mind that DRI also includes The Suites at Polo Towers.  It was not that long ago that a special assessment was required here to upgrade the suites.  At the same time the owners lounge was closed.  This is over and above what is in my opinion a very significant maintenance fee.  (This year's MF are in excess of $1,100.)  In my opinion, it was mismanagement by DRI of the ongoing MF that lead to the special assessment and removal of benefits that owners used to have.



We own two weeks at Polo Towers and are well aware of the SA to refurbish units. I had been upset with the HOA after Mr. Cloobeck stepped away from active participation because I felt they were not collecting adaquate reserves to avoid such an instance. Turns out I was correct and the HOA failed their owners.

Currently MF's include an amount to make up for deficiencies in past collections. The HOA is on track to eliminate that shortage in another couple of years. I was pleased the MF's did not increase for one of our weeks and was only 4.9% for the other (we own both Villa's and Suite's). I was anticipating an additional 7 to 7.5% increase every year until the shortages had been made up. 

I still feel we are not putting enough into the cash resrve funding. Our HGVC collects around $150/2 bedroom unit and our Marriott ownership is collecting over $400 for our 3 bedroom ownership. Polo Towers is still collecting less than $100 for cash reserves. My fear is, if they don't collect enough, we may see another SA in the future. My belief is that cash reserve funding should be around $125 to $150 per 2 bedroom unit. However, this is based more on what I see collected for our Marriott and HGVC units than any hard financial data.

As to the owners lounge, I'm still upset about that as it was a benefit we enjoyed greatly. On the other hand, I spoke directly with Stephen Cloobeck and the lounge was a HUGE money loser. If you think your MF's are high now, keeping the lounge open would have only made them worse. 

What I'd love to have seen was the Logo Shop convenience store moved into that location and also to have seen them selling coffee, pastries and maybe even have some sort of Pizza Hut Express or sandwhichs. I felt it would have increase business to the Logo Shop/convenience store and would have maintained the lounge for owners to enjoy that magnificent view.

As it is now, when we go to Vegas (and we haven't been back to Vegas in 4 years), we utlize either our Marriott ownership or our HGVC ownership. Typically we prefer our Marriott ownership as it has a roof top bar with a magnificent view. Our Polo Towers ownership has been converted into THE Club and we use our points to reserve at other DRI resorts around the country.


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## AKE (Jan 28, 2012)

From my understanding of how a Club Resort works, the maintenance fees are pooled for all the resorts in a specific collection and as such, you may be paying for the upkeep/renovation of a resort that you personally don't own at but it is in your collection of resorts.  If you have a lower-end resort being brought up to a higher standard  then this is great but if you have a well-maintained resort then you are contributing to the upgrading of all the lower class resorts in your collection. Obviously resorts which have a SA fall outside of this as they need significant work done which can't be paid for by the pooled maintenance fees. Any correction to this?


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## pgnewarkboy (Feb 5, 2012)

AKE said:


> From my understanding of how a Club Resort works, the maintenance fees are pooled for all the resorts in a specific collection and as such, you may be paying for the upkeep/renovation of a resort that you personally don't own at but it is in your collection of resorts.  If you have a lower-end resort being brought up to a higher standard  then this is great but if you have a well-maintained resort then you are contributing to the upgrading of all the lower class resorts in your collection. Obviously resorts which have a SA fall outside of this as they need significant work done which can't be paid for by the pooled maintenance fees. Any correction to this?



I believe this is only true if you own part of a trust.  I own deeded weeks and joined the club but I am not part of the trusts.  I am not responsible for a special assessment unless it is specific to the property  I own.


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## dougp26364 (Feb 5, 2012)

DRI has at least two forms of ownership with three different reservation methods:

1. Deeded weeks (use your week or exchange with an outside exchange company, RCI or I.I., depending on the resort)

2. Deeded weeks in THE Club internal exchange system

3. Trust interval ownership

Only the trust interval ownerships "pool" MF's and SA's for the group of resorts in the trust, then divides the cost per owner. Owners of deeded weeks or deeded weeks in THE Club are responsible for the MF's and SA's at the resort where their deed is recorded.


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## AKE (Feb 7, 2012)

I am guessing that points 1 and 2 are leftover from Sunterra (or earlier predecessor) days and that DRI now only sells points in collections.  Is this correct?  I also heard that soon the Hawaii collection will require more points than the other collections so people who bought in other collections will now not be able to get the same number of vacation days in Hawaii as they did previously.  Has anyone else heard this?


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## dougp26364 (Feb 7, 2012)

AKE said:


> I am guessing that points 1 and 2 are leftover from Sunterra (or earlier predecessor) days and that DRI now only sells points in collections.  Is this correct?  I also heard that soon the Hawaii collection will require more points than the other collections so people who bought in other collections will now not be able to get the same number of vacation days in Hawaii as they did previously.  Has anyone else heard this?



DRI use to sell fixed weeks and floating weeks. Now, I believe they only sell trust interests.

Rumors often aren't worth the time it takes to repeat them. I would be very surprised, based on how trusts are set up and function, that there would ever be any point increases at any resorts or trust groups. The only point increases I'm aware of are where unsold inventory is converted, and then sold, as deluxe units. But that's new inventory, not existing inventory.


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## dwojo (Feb 7, 2012)

AKE said:


> I am guessing that points 1 and 2 are leftover from Sunterra (or earlier predecessor) days and that DRI now only sells points in collections.  Is this correct?  I also heard that soon the Hawaii collection will require more points than the other collections so people who bought in other collections will now not be able to get the same number of vacation days in Hawaii as they did previously.  Has anyone else heard this?



  I own trust points in the US collection. The way my contract is written DRI must do extensive upgrades to require more points for an entire collection. They do have the right to increase weekly point values for special events. DRI has found raising maintenance fees to be easier than playing with point values so far. Raising points required in a collection would mean that members or that collection would need more points as well and what would happen to deeded owners who converted?


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## RN2012 (Feb 12, 2012)

DRI recently purchased Tempus Resorts (which went bankrupt).  We owned Tempus resorts: a week at Mystic Dunes, FL and EOY week at Dunes Village, Myrtle Beach.    In Jan 12, they offered points for the weeks in The Club, but we keep the deeds and continue to pay the maintenance fees for the 2 resorts.  In order to receive these points; however, we had to purchase additional points in the U.S. Collection.  The price was offset by them taking the deeds for 3 other properties we wanted to get rid of.  Hadn't heard about of Cloobeck's buyback offer for unhappy owners.  Interesting.


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## pebbles13 (Feb 24, 2012)

*mystic dunes query*

 hello, 
we're in the uk and altho informed by email that DRI took over the managaement of Mystic dunes last summer, have real no understanding what that meant to us. or how it affected us.  we own the deeds from 2008 to a 3 bed appt lock off., as a gold member. when we purchased it was for any weeks as long as availabilty. that was what attracted us. With no points system. we have not received another communications from DRI.
 Looking at our members area/preferences onthe DRI site it says we have week 49/season silver and 5250 points...what are these points for?  can we only now use week 49?
i know its may seem strange, but for thelast 2years my partner has had a brain tumor and for a year we were consumed with all the hosp appts/treatments and worry so this timeshare wasn't our priority, now backtracking things that have lapsed. 
Over here DRI name is mud, over increased maintenance charges & no way of getting out of the share. (even when u die & we dont want to burden our children with an annual fee of something that is going to be a luxury that they cant afford) so as its unlikely we will be using our share to swap & travel the world (as our was our intention in2008) due to the tumor (long haulflights not recommended) we were hoping to get rid of it if we could too. but cant see a way out. any ideas

thnx


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