# Gold Advantage



## Judy (Feb 2, 2009)

This morning, as I was making my daily search for an exchange on your website, I noticed a promo for your new membership program, "Gold Advantage".  Although I read what information I could find, I still have a couple of questions:

1. Why are some exchange weeks marked "Gold Advantage"?  Does that mean that only Gold Advantage members can confirm those weeks?

2. Don't the "Priority Request" and "Advance Notice of Availability" of the Gold Advantage membership program effectively devalue the weeks already deposited by other members since we will now be last in line for exchanges?


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## stugy (Feb 2, 2009)

Also, What is the cost of this "Gold Advantage?" 
Pat


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## Judy (Feb 2, 2009)

From the DAE website:

_All of these benefits are now available to you for $89. BUT sign up in February, 2009 and join for an introductory price of only $39 per year._


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## Corky (Feb 2, 2009)

Does signing up for Gold Advantage give you an advantage in booking bonus weeks?  Is there a larger inventory?  Will a Gold member see the inventory sooner?

Do you have to deposit a week in order to join Gold Advantage?

Thank you.


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## chubby (Feb 3, 2009)

Hi all

We have just got this Gold Advantage with DAE too the rules in Australia are
You get the inventory 14 days before regular members
10 % off domestic exchange
10% off international exchange
10% off bonus time
And $1000-00 off some tours if you exchange your week for the tours

We as old members get what they call Foundation Gold Members it gives us complimentary membership for 12 months and then the fee will be $33-00


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## Judy (Feb 3, 2009)

Ask DAE Representative,

Please respond:



Judy said:


> 1. Why are some exchange weeks marked "Gold Advantage"?  Does that mean that only Gold Advantage members can confirm those weeks?
> 
> 2. Don't the "Priority Request" and "Advance Notice of Availability" of the Gold Advantage membership program effectively devalue the weeks already deposited by other members since we will now be last in line for exchanges?



And also, would you please answer this question, posted by another member on the Exchanging forum:



			
				regatta333 said:
			
		

> Does this mean Gold members get advance notice of availability at a particular resort, even if a regular member has a pending request for that resort and the Gold member does not?
> 
> In other words, if a regular member has the only request pending for a specific resort, and the inventory becomes available, will he/she have to wait until Gold members have been notified of it and decide whether or not they want it?


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## Corky (Feb 3, 2009)

Just read this on the "Europe" forum:

<<gold membership 

With regard to DAE membership types, those do not apply universally. For example, a gold membership is not even an option in the USA. The membership types I believe are confined to the UK and possibly Australia and NZ.>>

Is that true?


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## beanb41 (Feb 3, 2009)

Gold Membership is definitely available downunder. I am a foundation member until Feb 2010.


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## Ask DAE (Feb 3, 2009)

Thanks for the questions! 

First, I want to thank all those who have already jumped on board with Gold Advantage. We have sold quite a few in just a few short days! 

Now, What is Gold Advantage membership and why has it been introduced? 

As most of your know, DAE has always and will always offer a 'free membership' option, where Timeshare Owners can join, request an exchange before having to deposit their time upfront, search our online exchange system and book bonus, exchange and rental transactions, research and review resort and destination articles and information, and use all the other great resources available with DAE's free membership.  For many Timeshare owners, this option is exactly what they need because they only use our services once in a while - it's perfect for their needs.

On the other side of the coin we have some members who don't transact with use us on a regular basis; they use the larger exchange companies for the majority of their transactions. However, because of our free membership, they regularly search our available inventory, and 'cherry pick' only the really great resorts or weeks!  This, of course, has been seen by many of our loyal members as a bit of a disadvantage. 

Our intention has been to create a membership package that rewards members who transact with DAE a few times a year to exchange, purchase bonus and rental weeks for themselves or their family and friends, purchase travel insurance, or take advantage of the other services we offer. 

With that, I can answer the two major questions that have been posted: 

1.	What does 14 day advance booking availability for members to book new inventory mean to Free Members? . 

This benefit allows Gold Advantage members a 14 day advance booking window for newly acquired inventory. We have, over the past few years, developed a process that is getting deposited inventory into our inventory pool faster than ever before. Resorts are clearing these deposits for us faster and easier the longer we work with them and our in-house systems keep improving. Given that, we thought we would offer a premium membership opportunity to allow members a crack at booking this newly acquired inventory sooner than the rest. This does not impede anyone from booking this inventory. We display it all as available, a member simply upgrades to the Gold Advantage Membership for $39 and can book it or simply wait until it becomes available to the general member base.  

2.	How does the Gold Advantage Priority requests impact my current pending request? 

First of all, it doesn’t affect members who already have requests in the system – we are treating all existing requests as Gold requests. But moving forward, Gold Advantage requests made will carry a priority in the queue for fulfillment. This benefit simply puts a priority on requests placed by a Gold Advantage Member. This is just like an amusement park priority pass! Some folks pay $80 per person to get into the amusement park – some elect to pay an extra $50 to bypass long lines in the amusement park. Regardless, we also consider how long ANY member has been waiting for a requested week to come in as well as whether or not the member has a deposit in our system against those requests. While inventory matches in our request system are processed by a machine, fulfillment is managed by humans – our exchange counselors. And our intention is to not short change any member… free or paying. We simply want to create more benefit for a premium member package based on member feedback over past years. 

Besides these two new benefits for Gold Advantage members, there us much more!  Gold Advantage members also get: 

10% off of every exchange 
10% off of any bonus week purchase 
Discounted Cruise Product
Escorted Tour Product
Golf Discounts
Hotel Discounts
Recreation Discounts
Online and In-Store Retail discounts
Dining Discounts
Movie Discounts
And 24 Hour Phone Concierge Services including; Replacement of Medication and Eyeglasses, Emergency Cash Transfer, Interpretation/Translation services Worldwide, Medical information, Medical Referral services, Emergency message relay Embassy and Consular Services

While we know Gold Advantage will not be for everyone, it has not been introduced without a great deal of planning, trial and customer feedback.  This program was first introduced to our European members a couple of years ago, and has been in operation to our Asian members for the last 12 months.  After further refinement, it is now being released for the benefit of all our remaining members worldwide as at the beginning of February 2009.  

Thanks again for the inquiry! It really lets us know if we are missing critical pieces of information as we release these types of product options!


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## stugy (Feb 4, 2009)

Why is it we just accept whatever RCI changes bring, but question an independent company like DAE without getting more information??  I went ahead and bought the Gold Advantage for $39 for the first year.  I will save $10 on each exchange and can still get cancellation protection.  What better deal for $20.   You get your exchange fee back plus your week back.  So you lose nothing.  With RCI you pay $59, get your week back with full power and then can use the $59 toward future exchanges.  But if you paid for an international exchange, you still loose the $199.  So I am sold on DAe and will continue to use them for most of my exchanges.  I will probably let my RCI run out.  At this point, it's not that great anyway with them renting the prime spots.  I think that DAE is moving forward and I don't want to be left behind.
Pat


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## Judy (Feb 5, 2009)

I am sorry that DAE did not choose to grandfather its current US members into Gold Advantage, as it did for its Australian members.  That would have been fair to those who already banked weeks with DAE in good faith. Treating all existing requests as Gold Advantage is not sufficient.

As a long time customer of Donita's Vacations Unlimited and Dial an Exchange, I am very disappointed.


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## gorevs9 (Feb 5, 2009)

stugy said:


> Why is it we just accept whatever RCI changes bring, but question an independent company like DAE without getting more information??  I went ahead and bought the Gold Advantage for $39 for the first year.  I will save $10 on each exchange and can still get cancellation protection.  What better deal for $20.   You get your exchange fee back plus your week back.  So you lose nothing.  With RCI you pay $59, get your week back with full power and then can use the $59 toward future exchanges.  But if you paid for an international exchange, you still loose the $199.  So I am sold on DAe and will continue to use them for most of my exchanges.  I will probably let my RCI run out.  At this point, it's not that great anyway with them renting the prime spots.  I think that DAE is moving forward and I don't want to be left behind.
> Pat



But the real question is when are the going to the Platinum membership?  
It reminds me of the old _Frazier_ episode where Niles and Frazier went to an exclusive Spa, but only had the Silver membership .


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## Carolinian (Feb 7, 2009)

I bought it.  The system never asked for my credit card info.  When I backed up to see if I had gone past that, I got back to the first page and the price had changed to $49, so I presume that is the price per year going forward.  Even though I never did get any page to give payment info, I did get a receipt that I was a gold member.


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## Jimster (Feb 7, 2009)

*payment*

I called and asked about the payment aspect in that I also joined.  I was told that since I had a balance in my account that it was just taken from there at the rate of $39.


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## SharonD (Feb 9, 2009)

I joined because I like DAE and want to support them.  Also, some of the Gold inventory I've seen on the web page does look good.  I'm glad the "Sold" weeks were removed from the listings though!


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## Ask DAE (Feb 9, 2009)

Hello, 

The annual membership is $89. We are rolling out for a promotional price of $39 for February at least.

Thanks!


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## Corky (Feb 9, 2009)

I bought it in hopes that more New England timeshares will show up on DAE.


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## bobk (Feb 10, 2009)

Sharon from a different perspective I actually like that they show "sold" weeks.  It gives me some idea what week they have gotten in the past to exchange.  I know that the past is not the future ( unless you're on THE ISLAND in Lost), but it does give some idea of the inventory they have gotten.


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## Ask DAE (Feb 11, 2009)

Hello, 

We have decided to display this sold inventory in response to many inquiries we have had about the availability of very high demand inventory shown on our website. Because we fill a significant percentage of our exchanges as a result of requests, much of this inventory doesn't make it to the web site. 

We now show some of the SOLD inventory as an indicator to all our members and visitors to our site, that we do get great inventory, and a great way to get this inventory is to make a deposit and place a request!

Thanks for the input!


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## Ask DAE (Feb 11, 2009)

By the way, 

Hopefully by showing some history of these transactions we not only show members that we do fulfill these requests but also attract great, high value  deposits because members and prospective members see a greater variety of inventory that channels through DAE!


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## Corky (Feb 11, 2009)

I'm a GOLD member who has been searching DAE's bonus weeks.  Will any ADVANTAGE weeks show up there or do I have to deposit and/or exchange to take advantage of going GOLD and to see that inventory?

Help please.


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## Ask DAE (Feb 11, 2009)

Hello Corky, 

All bonus weeks are the same for Gold and non-Gold members. But Gold Members take an extra 10% off of the bonus week price. This happens automatically online or when you call in. 

Thanks!


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## Corky (Feb 12, 2009)

Thank you for clarifying.


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## beanb41 (Feb 12, 2009)

I must admit to being a little disappointed in DAE bringing in the "Gold Advanatage" programme. Too me DAE has now lost its point of difference and is now operating on a similar vein to RCI and II. I have been a member since the early days when Francis and Marc were banned from plying their wares at many resorts in New Zealand and Australia, but they survived initially because a few resort managers had confidence in the product and promoted it to their members. I remember the times when we put DAE brochures on our resort entertainment board because DAE were banned from the resort. Ironically DAE now own 50% of the Management company looking after the resort. In my view the Point of Difference DAE had over the big boys was the no annual fee and everyone was treated the same. Sadly as the company has got larger and more global that point of difference is going. I fear that over time "Gold Advantage" will become the norm. Whilst I have foundation membership for a year I will have to seriously consider whether renewing the membership is a benefit as the annual fee is greater than the discount on an exchange and in some cases greater than the discount on a bonus week. I would need both to cover the fee. Some years we dont take exchanges or bonus weeks with DAE. Owning at a resort managed by DAE I already have access to some of the benefits on offer.
I have been for a lot of years been a large supporter of DAE and their staff, who do a fantastic job, I am yet to be convinced that Gold Advantage will be to the  long term advantage of its membership.


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## Patri (Mar 17, 2009)

It appears that all weeks are available only to Gold Members for the first two weeks. Yet some of the depositors aren't Gold Members, and they still have to wait 14 days to pick a resort if one they like shows up. Doesn't seem fair. 
I don't care about necessarily getting on a request list (non-members can still get bumped) because like some, I prefer to pick from what is available for a new adventure.


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