Eric B
TUG Member
- Joined
- Jun 10, 2017
- Messages
- 5,869
- Reaction score
- 5,447
- Points
- 499
- Resorts Owned
- Vacation Village, Wyndham, WorldMark, Vistana, Vidanta, Flora Farms, HGVC Max, and some independents
This has been added to the text regarding Grand Luxxe Nuevo Vallarta in RCI (RB71):
VIDANTA owners can only confirm back to a VIDANTA resort equal to or less than the product or property acquired; Reservations that violate this rule will be cancelled (Example: Mayan Palace Owner can confirm the same or Sea Garden, they cannot confirm Grand Mayan).
The same warning is present for the lower level units in RCI. The higher level Grand Luxxe units in RCI still have the limitations preventing Vidanta owners from reserving them through RCI Platinum; they had been removed from the system for about a week, so I thought they might be changing those in some way that would avoid continuing to offend Vidanta owners.
In my opinion, this continues a very short-sighted attempt by Vida Vacations to incentivize buying their product because a rational person (i.e., you, the reader) should realize that they can continue to exchange into whatever level at Vidanta they want to only so long as they do not own anything with them. Love the resorts the hotel side of the house runs, but I find the self-defeating limitations on exchanges put in place by the sales side of the house annoying and insulting and would not recommend that anyone buy in with them so long as those limitations continue. We own at a high enough level that the RB71 limitation doesn't affect us, but the RCI Platinum exchange limitation does and eliminates a great deal of the value present in RCI Platinum when we paid for that level of membership with RCI. I understand that the idea is to limit the ability of Vidanta owners to exchange back into Vidanta using less expensive timeshares or into higher levels they don't own, but this also acts as a major red flag on the disadvantages of ownership (along with the discriminatory room assignment practices for declining sales presentations at check in).
Bottom line: If either RCI or Vidanta representatives read this, it might be worth reconsidering these measures because they create disincentives for people to either invest in the higher level of RCI membership or ownership with Vidanta. It would be better to consider the whole picture rather than the limited goals of portions of the organization and avoid offending your best customers and scaring off potential customers.
VIDANTA owners can only confirm back to a VIDANTA resort equal to or less than the product or property acquired; Reservations that violate this rule will be cancelled (Example: Mayan Palace Owner can confirm the same or Sea Garden, they cannot confirm Grand Mayan).
The same warning is present for the lower level units in RCI. The higher level Grand Luxxe units in RCI still have the limitations preventing Vidanta owners from reserving them through RCI Platinum; they had been removed from the system for about a week, so I thought they might be changing those in some way that would avoid continuing to offend Vidanta owners.
In my opinion, this continues a very short-sighted attempt by Vida Vacations to incentivize buying their product because a rational person (i.e., you, the reader) should realize that they can continue to exchange into whatever level at Vidanta they want to only so long as they do not own anything with them. Love the resorts the hotel side of the house runs, but I find the self-defeating limitations on exchanges put in place by the sales side of the house annoying and insulting and would not recommend that anyone buy in with them so long as those limitations continue. We own at a high enough level that the RB71 limitation doesn't affect us, but the RCI Platinum exchange limitation does and eliminates a great deal of the value present in RCI Platinum when we paid for that level of membership with RCI. I understand that the idea is to limit the ability of Vidanta owners to exchange back into Vidanta using less expensive timeshares or into higher levels they don't own, but this also acts as a major red flag on the disadvantages of ownership (along with the discriminatory room assignment practices for declining sales presentations at check in).
Bottom line: If either RCI or Vidanta representatives read this, it might be worth reconsidering these measures because they create disincentives for people to either invest in the higher level of RCI membership or ownership with Vidanta. It would be better to consider the whole picture rather than the limited goals of portions of the organization and avoid offending your best customers and scaring off potential customers.