# No More Free Upgrades for Platinum



## AmexBlack (Jan 3, 2014)

Platinum for Diamond have to pay $50 per upgrade.  Not worth it!  It use to be free, now you have to pay for your upgrade.  This will discourage everyone to not want to upgrade, let alone encourage them to upgrade to Platinum.


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## dougp26364 (Jan 3, 2014)

One more exmple of why you should never buy based on the promise of benefits that are NOT guarenteed. 

Benefits are always nice, but the can often be changed. Witness frequent flyer programs and hotel rewards programs.


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## csalter2 (Jan 3, 2014)

*DRI Makes the Rules*

The Club can giveth and The Club can taketh away.


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## gjw007 (Jan 3, 2014)

It looks like they changed the cost for gold as well (higher).  Looking to see what other changes.  The free upgrade was the only real feature that platium had that i liked

When i went to a presentation last year they kept saying that new benefits would appear for 2014 (but never tell me what they were) and of course, i needed to upgrade.  So now i can see them.  Some are interesting but nothing to even make you think of upgrading and the one most interesting, they now have added a fee


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## pgnewarkboy (Jan 4, 2014)

In any business it is unwise to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.  Keep squeezing the goose and you choke it to death.


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## dougp26364 (Jan 4, 2014)

pgnewarkboy said:


> In any business it is unwise to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.  Keep squeezing the goose and you choke it to death.



Except in timeshare.  Those who have already purchased are stuck. Those who have not don't know any better. The only thing you might damage is selling additional points to current owners. Even then the sales office will put a spin on it so as to minimalize any potential impact.


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## pgnewarkboy (Jan 4, 2014)

dougp26364 said:


> Except in timeshare.  Those who have already purchased are stuck. Those who have not don't know any better. The only thing you might damage is selling additional points to current owners. Even then the sales office will put a spin on it so as to minimalize any potential impact.



I agree but there are limits even for those that are stuck. If you run out of golden eggs you just can't pay and the timeshare company has lawsuits instead of money to maintain the properties creating a downward spiral. All this hurts sales.


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## csalter2 (Jan 4, 2014)

*Poor Salesman*

I  remember when I came close to buying additional points to go to platinum. In fact, I came to this site to see if it was worth it because of the free upgrades the salesman kept pushing. I think it was doug2364 who asked if I was really going to use how many thousands worth of upgrades. I took that to heart and stayed with the points I had.  Now about four or five years later I am really glad I did not bite. 

Those poor salesman are going to have difficulty in trying to get people to go to platinum. The benefits are just not worth it in my opinion.


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## dougp26364 (Jan 4, 2014)

There will always be a "new" angle that they'll be selling. 

Recently we sat through a HGVC owners update. They're pushing current members to upgrade to their elite status and convert HGVC, convert HGVC points to HHonors points and use those points for all inclusive vacations.

I asked if the program would be guaranteed for life or could Hilton make changes to it's HHonors program in the future. Sort of killed the sales interview right then and there. It was an objection neither he nor his manager could overcome. Their only recourse was to say it was "unlikely" Hilton would ever make any changes, which got quickly blown out of the water since Hilton had recently devalued their own program.

Marriott use to do the same thing with their timeshare weeks, suggesting owners convert the weeks to Marriott Rewards points up until the point they devalued the program so much that it became ridiculous the exchange an expensive MF timeshare week for a few Marriott Rewards points. Now they're on to the next angle with Destination Club points. 

There's ALWAYS the next great thing. Just make sure it's guaranteed in writing before thinking of it as a reason to buy. DRI has been making yearly changes, IMHO devaluing the membership and increasing the fee's. Eventually I can see ourselves leaving THE Club and sticking with our deeded week ownership and, eventually getting rid of those deeds as the fee's continue to increase to a point where ownership makes so much less sense than renting.


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## RuralEngineer (Jan 5, 2014)

dougp26364 said:


> DRI has been making yearly changes, IMHO devaluing the membership and increasing the fee's. Eventually I can see ourselves leaving THE Club and sticking with our deeded week ownership and, eventually getting rid of those deeds as the fee's continue to increase to a point where ownership makes so much less sense than renting.




Maintenance fees have increased.  There have been some changes but the flexibility of the Club and Points in general have been great.  Club Select has also been a great benefit.  I just recently learned about renting points within 14 days.  That is a nice perk the cost per point is significantly less ($.09) then my cost per point ($0.136).  

There is an effort to create a luxury / status level with Gold and Platinum but the costs are too high for new owners IMHO.  The hotel chains are going after the luxury traveler so the business drivers exists.  The idea of using points as vacation currency is nice but in practice does not appear to make economic sense.


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## dougp26364 (Jan 5, 2014)

Using points for reservations is one of the guarenteed benefits. The flexibility of points is very nice. However, $319/year is becoming to high a price to pay for to little flexibility when compared to simply exchanging through II if, and this may be a big if for many, you don't mind taking 7 night vacations that begin/end in Friday,Saturday or Sunday. This issue is magnified at the lower point ownership levels. 

8 years ago membership fees where, I believe, $139. That was probably to low and service was pretty poor. In those 8 years time service has become very good but there's been a bunch of rarely utilized benefits (Interval Gold comes to mind) and the price has climbed to $319. When compared to other programs I'm familiar with, that's an awfully steep curve for fee increases and, IMHO, is putting the program at risk of becoming irrelevant for the majority of members. At this rate, in another 8 years we can expect club fees to reach $700/year. 

Currently club fees amount to approx 25% of the MF's of the typical 2 bedroom timeshare with DRI. That's a pretty expensive extra fee and, what's worse is it's not an all inclusive fee. Members still must pay additional transaction fees or, increased points requirements (short stays, booking arrivals on non-traditional arrival days) on some reservations. 

Yes the flexibility is nice but, at what price?


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## fluke (Jan 5, 2014)

*Looking at the footnotes/fineprint*

Besides the price increase I noticed this sentence at the end of the footnote:

"One upgrade per reservation up to a 7 day increment."

I have never noticed this before and I am assuming it is new.  I have only used the upgrade on greater than  1 week reservations.  Using a single (at the time $99) upgrade on a 2 week KBC reservation a couple years ago saved me 6000 points.

I am assuming this means if I have a 14 day reservation I would have to use 2 upgrades and pay 2 upgrade fees.


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## RuralEngineer (Jan 5, 2014)

fluke said:


> "One upgrade per reservation up to a 7 day increment."




Good catch.  Yes the upgrades have real value.  The club really has value for larger point owners.


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## AmexBlack (Jan 5, 2014)

*Maybe New Tier*

I bet their strategy is this:

Charge Platinum for the upgrades and create a new higher Tier called Black Platinum, where the free upgrades are given again.  That way they have something more to sell.  Next level may be 75,000 points.  This will make people buy 25,000 diamond points at $6.00 for $150,000.  No one is going to spend that much more money.  

The club dues are going up because they are traded on Wallstreet.  

"Our higher club revenue is primarily driven by an increase in annual club fees, a higher number of club members and higher collection rates. Our total club members were 183,110 and 154,987 as of September 30, 2013 and 2012 respectively. "  From Quarterly Report.  

In order for Diamond Resorts to show growth, they need to increase the club dues at the opportunity cost of the owners.


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## pgnewarkboy (Jan 5, 2014)

dougp26364 said:


> There will always be a "new" angle that they'll be selling.
> 
> Recently we sat through a HGVC owners update. They're pushing current members to upgrade to their elite status and convert HGVC, convert HGVC points to HHonors points and use those points for all inclusive vacations.
> 
> ...



If you leave the club, I assume you could only trade your weeks for other weeks but not be able to use points on interval?


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## dougp26364 (Jan 5, 2014)

pgnewarkboy said:


> If you leave the club, I assume you could only trade your weeks for other weeks but not be able to use points on interval?



Leaving THE Club means leaving points. Since we own deeded weeks, we'd be trading in the weeks exchange system of II or SFX. most likely we'd divest ourselves of these weeks.


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## TheWizz (Jan 6, 2014)

I don't like the way the Club Fees keep rising either.  I own deeded weeks at Fall Creek (2BR) and two deeded weeks at Polo - one Suites (2BR) and one Villas (1BR).  I have 30K points.  I wish I had all deeded weeks at Polo since I pay about the same MF for the 1BR Villas as I do for the 2BR at Fall Creek and the Villas is worth ~2500 more points for the same $$.  

I gave back ~6K "Club Points" a few years back (the last year they allowed this before Poipugate).  I did so because the rate of increase for Club Points MFs was rising at at much higher rate than the deeded points were.  I went to an Owner's Diamond Event last year in Vegas where they gave the hard press for me to upgrade to Platinum for ~$2 per point ($40K!).  And this was after I told that moron the day before that I gave back 6K points because the MFs were too high.  

If I can't use my points in a given year, I have booked a cruise for my points and taken the $2700 I get back and then cancel the cruise to basically get my MFs.  With the current MFs and Club Dues, it is no longer a wash, but is still pretty close.  I like some of the new Luxury Selection homes they are offering around the world.  Many are out of reach, but some are "reasonable" in the 3-6K points per night range for large homes, many with 5-6 bedrooms.  I'd be curious how many weeks per year are actually available at these places and how hard it is to rent them.  I could see renting one of these places along with some friends and splitting the costs to cover my MFs.  

I'm with Doug, if I get out of the The Club at some point, I'll divest my deeded weeks at DRI completely as there would be no point to keep them w/o the Club benefits.


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