# Questions about DRI resale after buying sampler



## dboeger1 (Aug 18, 2021)

Hello, first time poster here. My wife and I had a free stay with sales presentation at Diamond's Lake Tahoe Vacation Resort about 2 months ago. It was more or less our first experience with timeshares (we had actually done the same sales presentation at the same property to get the free stay package in the first place, so it was kind of annoying that we had to do it again). We were tempted by the idea the first time around, but I had obviously heard all kinds of bad things about timeshares before and was not willing to commit to such a large purchase on the spot without doing more research. Unfortunately, I did not discover TUG until now.

Well, the 2nd time around, we again declined all the permanent ownership options, but we ended up buying their 2-year "Sampler" package. Essentially, we have 2 years to use up 15k sampler points, which appear to be similar to regular points in value but with more restrictions to try to sell us on full ownership, of course. We also got an extra one week vacation bonus offer through some partner organization. Overall, we paid $2,500 for the package, which in my mind seemed reasonable for everything included, as that could be a good 4+ weeks of vacation depending on how we use it. There are no additional maintenance fees, and if we do upgrade to full ownership after the 2 years, the $2,500 gets deducted from the sales price. The only package we would even remotely consider that they gave us was the cheapest 5k annual package at $10,000, so basically another $7,500 on top of what we already paid, but honestly, we're unlikely to do the upgrade.

I guess my first question is, does this sound like we got screwed? Has anybody else done one of these Sampler packages? Just based on the offers we received and some of the resale pages I've found on here, it seems to me that even just 2 years worth of maintenance fees for a package in the neighborhood of 8k points (7.5k per year plus a little adjustment for the one week thing which is hard to compare apples to apples) would be in the ballpark of $2,000-$2,500 anyway, so I feel like what we got can't be that bad.

My second question is, when it comes to DRI resales under the Marketplace section of TUG, I'm a bit confused because the listing titles all seem to indicate points packages similar to those we were offered at the sales presentations, but then they also have a specific resort, and when you click on the ads, they show information about a single resort. Is that just a quirk of the web site, or are those points actually limited to a single resort? We were actually quite intrigued by the whole points program, and would not be particularly interested in a single-location timeshare, as we prefer to vary up our destinations, so if I was looking at resales in the future, I would probably limit myself to points programs. Has anybody purchased a resale points program, or can anybody confirm whether or not they are available? If so, would we be crazy to even consider upgrading from our sampler package? It seems to me like similar packages to the one we would be upgrading to are more or less free, so we'd basically be saving the upgrade cost.


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## awa (Aug 18, 2021)

It depends on where you want to end up, points-wise.  We’ve found that quite a bit is negotiable when you’re sitting on the sales floor. You could pick up some (free) resale points before your next stay and then negotiate a small developer purchase to bring them into the club. There are lots of posts about making “dirty” points clean.
The posts in the marketplace are not good indicators of what’s available to buy. Some people own deeded weeks, but even people with points have to advertise a specific resort and week because that’s how the marketplace works. I’ve often wanted to advertise “points to wherever you want to go in the Diamond system” but it doesn’t work that way and I can understand that.
You have time to figure things out before you book your sampler points. I would have a plan ready well in advance so you can apply that $2500 to your purchase, if that’s what you decide you want to do.


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## dboeger1 (Aug 18, 2021)

awa said:


> It depends on where you want to end up, points-wise.  We’ve found that quite a bit is negotiable when you’re sitting on the sales floor. You could pick up some (free) resale points before your next stay and then negotiate a small developer purchase to bring them into the club. There are lots of posts about making “dirty” points clean.
> The posts in the marketplace are not good indicators of what’s available to buy. Some people own deeded weeks, but even people with points have to advertise a specific resort and week because that’s how the marketplace works. I’ve often wanted to advertise “points to wherever you want to go in the Diamond system” but it doesn’t work that way and I can understand that.
> You have time to figure things out before you book your sampler points. I would have a plan ready well in advance so you can apply that $2500 to your purchase, if that’s what you decide you want to do.



Interesting, I'm just now learning about all of this and it's making my head spin, haha. It's too bad Diamond forces you to buy direct for "The Club" membership, but hey, I guess they gotta make sales somehow. I've seen a couple of mentions about cleaning "dirty" points, but I haven't been able to find any specific examples yet. Is the idea to make a one-time points purchase to clean the entire resale contract, or do you have to buy points every year to repeatedly get the annual allotment into the club? If it's a one-time thing, that's very plausible, but if it's just a yearly Band-Aid, then really the resale and retail contracts are not the same thing. Not that this is an issue of course, given the dramatic price difference. And of course, all of this is subject to change with the recent acquisition.


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## awa (Aug 19, 2021)

It would be a one-time purchase, but as you say there are lots of reasons to hesitate at this point. I have a hard time recommending Diamond ownership to anyone, even though we’ve had good vacations (and given family and friends lots of vacations too with all our points).


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## FunnyFarm (Aug 22, 2021)

Check out the point values of prime locations and weeks. (there is a list here in the tug files)
The only way to get 4+ weeks of vacations is by using last minute trips at left over locations.

One ocean view week in Hawaii will use all your 15000 points ..............._if you could even get a reservation there._
We been told repeatedly there is no sampler availability for Poipu, Kaanapali or Cabo for all of 2022.

Our fabulous purchase offer was $10,000 (over and above sampler cost) for 5k points, _every other year,_ so apparently they like you more than us.

We are paddling in the same boat.
If you have better luck that us with reservations please post how you did it.


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## T_R_Oglodyte (Aug 22, 2021)

The sampler is not an unreasonable purchase, provided the locations are places that you are interested in and you can make reservations that fit your schedule.  Compare your sampler cost with the cost of what you might spend in a hotel room for the same period, and it will likely balance out when you consider size of unit, etc. 

+++++++

Consider - what I laid out above is exactly the reason why they sell the sampler.  They want you to taste the difference. They want you to ask yourself why you have been spending money staying in hotel rooms, when you could be staying in a one- or two-bedroom unit with kitchen and living room for about the same amount of money.

As for availability, it's also in their interest to have you be able to find availability.  It's not in their interest to try to sell you on the concept of timesharing, sell  you a sampler package, then have you become frustrated because you can't make a reservation that meets your needs and that aligns with their pitch.  If that happens, squawk.  Contact the sales office who sold you the sampler and let them know that you are not getting what you were led to believe.  

The bad deal is if you decide to follow up on the sampler by buying  points.  No doubt when they gave you the sampler, they gave  you an option to lock in a purchase of a certain amount of points for a certain cost.  That is the deal you should not go for, because you can almost certainly buy the same thing for vastly less on the resale market.  What you buy on the resale market won't be in the Club, but the money you save will dwarf the Club benefits. 

**********

Once you're on board, there might be a reason to pay some developer prices and come into the Club (we've done that), but deal with that down the road.


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## dboeger1 (Sep 1, 2021)

FunnyFarm said:


> Check out the point values of prime locations and weeks. (there is a list here in the tug files)
> The only way to get 4+ weeks of vacations is by using last minute trips at left over locations.
> 
> One ocean view week in Hawaii will use all your 15000 points ..............._if you could even get a reservation there._
> ...



To be clear, I meant that the points would be about 3 weeks and the extra 1 week bonus package we got would be the 4th. I know that Hawaii tends to require many more points, but we would probably be looking to take advantage of promotional deals when possible and maximize our vacation time (or just get more space in a cheaper location). We're not particularly picky about where and when we go, and even if we chose a more expensive destination, we'd be content knowing the relative value of that more exclusive reservation.

Wow, yeah, your purchase offer doesn't sound all that great, haha. The salesperson told us we were getting a particularly good deal because of the timing during the pandemic, although I don't know if that's true. It could also have something to do with the sale to HGV, maybe they were trying to offload inventory and boost conversion rates to make the company an attractive acquisition target. To be honest, our package for effectively an extra $7.5k is really not that bad just to get the club benefits, although as another commenter mentioned, when you can get non-club contracts for pennies on the dollar, the value of the club membership pales in comparison. I'm starting to understand the appeal of fixed-week/fixed-location programs, as there's no uncertainty surrounding what you have.


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