I did a bunch of reading on this site last night (*after* I signed a contract .. :-/ ) and I did read the article that said if you're even asking the question you should probably rescind. And while that (plus reading through a lot of complaints) has me leaning this way, my situation is a little more complicated, so I was wondering if anyone had advice. I'll try to give the short version.
I've been a Pacific Monarch Resorts owner for a number of years, though I never really made use of my timeshare. I've been wanting to get out from under that for a while. DRI bought Pacific Monarch about 2 years ago, and I *thought* that as a result of that my ownership just converted to Diamond, and in fact my payments switched to Diamond.
Then Diamond called and offered one of the their free vacations if you sit through a tour, and it happened to line up with a planned vacation so I figured why not.
During the course of the "tour" (which wasn't a tour, it was a 1-on-1 sales pitch) I discovered that I wasn't actually a Diamond member and that due to the bankruptcy purchase of Monarch they were offering me a special deal to buy into Diamond. Now initially I was not really interested in going further into a hole that I already wanted to get out of, but as the numbers started coming up, it started to seem like it might be a way to actually start making use of my time share and save me from having to try and get out of it.
The deal they offered me, all told, was basically that for "only" $15K more I would get 8,000 points total if I gave up my (deeded) ownership with Monarch and joined the US Collections Trust. This also included lifetime THE Club membership and they threw in a one-time 4,000 points. And for the next 2 years I have the option of buying more points at roughly half the price ($3.86 per point) of the claimed going-rate of over $8 per point
Ostensibly, the normal price for 8,000 points is close to $60K, and you would normally only get 5 years in THE Club and then you would have to pay $3k to continue that. So on the surface it seemed like a good deal, and I do like to take vacations, so it seemed like this was a good way to finally put my old timeshare that I never used to good use. Plus, at least according to the sales pitch, I could use my points for airline, rental cars, etc. so the likelihood of my points wasting away because I couldn't use them didn't seem likely.
But now I'm reading all sorts of complaints about fast-escalating maintenance fees; there were all the complaints about the special assessment on the one Hawaii property; people complaining about never being able to book things; and most people generally considering DRI a scam and only fools would buy into it.
I did the purchase in Florida, and by state law I have 10 days to rescind/cancel the deal. The deal was signed yesterday so I have 9 more days. If I cancel the deal, the special conversion offer will no longer be available. I will still have the (basically worthless to me) Pacific Monarch property.
I'm really torn on what to do. The conservative side of me thinks the risk (paying even more money for something I may not end up being able to effectively use, and being saddled with even higher maintenance fees) is not worth the reward. The optimistic side of me thinks this could be a good way of finally putting my old timeshare to some use and keep me from the headache of trying to unload it.
Any thoughts?
I've been a Pacific Monarch Resorts owner for a number of years, though I never really made use of my timeshare. I've been wanting to get out from under that for a while. DRI bought Pacific Monarch about 2 years ago, and I *thought* that as a result of that my ownership just converted to Diamond, and in fact my payments switched to Diamond.
Then Diamond called and offered one of the their free vacations if you sit through a tour, and it happened to line up with a planned vacation so I figured why not.
During the course of the "tour" (which wasn't a tour, it was a 1-on-1 sales pitch) I discovered that I wasn't actually a Diamond member and that due to the bankruptcy purchase of Monarch they were offering me a special deal to buy into Diamond. Now initially I was not really interested in going further into a hole that I already wanted to get out of, but as the numbers started coming up, it started to seem like it might be a way to actually start making use of my time share and save me from having to try and get out of it.
The deal they offered me, all told, was basically that for "only" $15K more I would get 8,000 points total if I gave up my (deeded) ownership with Monarch and joined the US Collections Trust. This also included lifetime THE Club membership and they threw in a one-time 4,000 points. And for the next 2 years I have the option of buying more points at roughly half the price ($3.86 per point) of the claimed going-rate of over $8 per point
Ostensibly, the normal price for 8,000 points is close to $60K, and you would normally only get 5 years in THE Club and then you would have to pay $3k to continue that. So on the surface it seemed like a good deal, and I do like to take vacations, so it seemed like this was a good way to finally put my old timeshare that I never used to good use. Plus, at least according to the sales pitch, I could use my points for airline, rental cars, etc. so the likelihood of my points wasting away because I couldn't use them didn't seem likely.
But now I'm reading all sorts of complaints about fast-escalating maintenance fees; there were all the complaints about the special assessment on the one Hawaii property; people complaining about never being able to book things; and most people generally considering DRI a scam and only fools would buy into it.
I did the purchase in Florida, and by state law I have 10 days to rescind/cancel the deal. The deal was signed yesterday so I have 9 more days. If I cancel the deal, the special conversion offer will no longer be available. I will still have the (basically worthless to me) Pacific Monarch property.
I'm really torn on what to do. The conservative side of me thinks the risk (paying even more money for something I may not end up being able to effectively use, and being saddled with even higher maintenance fees) is not worth the reward. The optimistic side of me thinks this could be a good way of finally putting my old timeshare to some use and keep me from the headache of trying to unload it.
Any thoughts?