If you are a non SVN member who owns at Sheraton Broadway Plantation, you have to prepay your MF in order to make a reservation for the following use year. This only applies to SVN member weeks if they are depositing in II, not ones booking home resorts or even star option reservation. I don't believe it applies to other voluntary non SVN owners at other resorts. Just an annoying quirk for non SVN SBP owners.
The ARDA-ROC is a political action committee that lobbies US lawmakers on behalf of owners, so they say. Since it is a political action committee, it would be illegal for them to collect this fee from foreign owners. So this is why you don't see it in Europe. I believe it was DRI that got in trouble a few years ago because they were adding it to all their bills and foreign owners were paying the fee which violates US finance laws since these PACs donate money to candidates.
Not mandatory, but as you say, the DRI bills make it look that way. If you only pay the maintenance fee and not the ARDA fee, then you show a balance due on your account unless you make the effort to call and have the fee taken off your account. I'm sure the majority of folks just pay the full amount "due" most likely unknowingly or feeling it's not worth the hassle. It's very deceptive, like many of their practices. I'll make the effort to call DRI and have the "voluntary" fee taken off my account. There ought to be a regulation that they can't do this. Hey, ARDA or ARDA-ROC; want to help a timeshare owner out on this one? Yeah, I didn't think so.
Thank you for the clarification.
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As I've said previously, there are things they do that clearly benefit owners but in general, these are things that also benefit developers/management companies and the benefit for owners is done vicariously. They may or may not be a benign dictator but saying ARDA is for the timeshare owner is basically the same statement as saying Steve Weisz (Marriott), Ken Potrock (DVC) (etc) are for the timeshare owner. They are but only up to a point. When I see clear efforts on their part that would pit them against the developer/management company (including their own) and in favor of the members, that's when I'll be a believer. IMO a donation to ARDA is a donation for lobbying to benefit those timeshares companies which may or may not benefit the individual owner.I guess I don't understand why ARDA-ROC is considered to be contrary to owners if their views and actions are not ALWAYS in contrast to those of ARDA? If that's the benchmark then sure, you can say ARDA-ROC is fairly useless. As far as questionable companies being included among the membership ranks, there I agree with you that both ARDA and ARDA-ROC could do more to screen their membership and disallow the apparent fraudsters. But that inclusion doesn't reflect an automatic approval by ARDA-ROC of questionable practices (much like the acceptance of certain political operatives in party PACs doesn't always reflect total agreement with the party.
Take a quick look at the "Core State Issues" found by clicking the "Legislative Issues" tab on ardaroc.org for examples of what they're doing. According to the summaries only one of the four highlighted issues is jointly supported by ARDA and ARDA-ROC, but all four are/would be beneficial to owners. If you want to dig deeper there's historical content that plays out the same metrics.
No doubt ARDA-ROC can, and should, do more for owners. But the negativity towards it on TUG always surprises me considering that if we worked with them to make it better, the collective power of TUG users' knowledge born of experience and ARDA-ROC's influence could do us all a world of good.
While sort of the same thing, the other thing I ask is whether the person contacting me is a volunteer, works for the company or is a paid solicitor. Another issue for some companies is that there is a double layer of admin costs, ie United Way. And lastly, most of the pass through organizations fund things against my ethics, UW again comes to mind. OTOH, UW funds things that could not do the fund raising themselves plus there is a considerable amount of community pressure that falls onto owners/directors of companies within a community related to UW and thus is passed on to their employees.
