Any Festiva Owners Out There?

[bayougrannie]

Hi, I am looking for Festiva Owners that may help me with ?s. Has anyone anything to say about how they run their system ? I have read about MF goes up Does it level off after a certain time? The unknown is scary since Fesrtiva is planning a take complete takeover of our timeshare condo.

 

[bobpark56]

Points owners here

We are now in our 6th year as Festiva points owners (6000 points/year). The membership has worked well for us, except for a couple of $200 special assessments that were, I think, targeted at catching up on deferred maintenance at resorts Festiva had acquired.

We have used our membership primarily for trading with Interval International, and we have found Festiva units to be good traders. So no regrets here. We bought while staying at the Church Street Inn in 2007, and we have since stayed at Rangeley Lake and for a 3-night owners' special at Banner Elk. Other than that, we have no experience at Festiva resorts themselves. We would go back to the Church street Inn, and we might go back to Rangeley Lake. But at the moment, all future plans involve trading, as we are not particularly enthusiastic about the location of most Festiva Resorts. But as long as they trade well, we remain happy campers. Our most recent trade was a 1BR Festiva unit (3600 points) for a March 2014 2BR week at Marriott's Marbella Beach Resort...to couple with a week at Marriott's Playa Andaluza in Estepona, Spain we obtained through DRI.

Our 6000 points give us a bit more than 3 stays every 2 years, usually trading up from a !BR deposit to a 2BR stay (we tend to travel in off-peak seasons).

Hoe this helps,

--Bob Park

 

[mark1154]

Festiva Customer Service/Maintenance Fees Very Questionable

My wife and I are deeded owners of a week at Charleston's Church Street Inn. If it weren't for dealing with Festiva, this would be a terrific experience. Charleston is wonderful and the Inn is very well kept and has gracious hosts.

Festiva has deplorable customer service (for owners) and their Maintenance Fee has brought a great many questions to my mind. There are items on the Maintenance Fee list that are very hard to explain, even for the Festiva Rep who I finally got on the line after two holding sessions of 15 & 35 minutes. I even left a message for them in the morning that they never returned.

Who are the people who set these fees and what rationale do they use? Here are some items that their Rep had a great deal of trouble explaining: Insurance (for whom and what?), Bad Debt Allowance (I've always paid on time), Reserves (of what, for what?). These and a bunch more add up to over $700, which I and 50 other owners pay every other year for a one bedroom. Pretty good clip of money when you do the Math, right?

If it weren't for the fact that we've had some nice vacations (stayed at Church Street Inn one time and traded the other weeks) I'd try to sell our timeshare.

I've complained about the way Festiva does business before and I see no improvement. Those of us who are deeded owners are 2nd class citizens to them.

All I can say is GOOD LUCK! By the way... Be prepared for them trying to hustle you into other properties!

 

[planzfortomorrow]

I bought a resort in Orlando that is now managed by festiva. It's a EOY, and I've only owned it for 2 years, so not much experience to go on. The maintenance fees were what I expected them to be for 2014. The charges for your resort don't necessarily sound out of line. Reserves would be for any unexpected repairs and/or planned upgrades. insurance would be for any type of damage. Bad debt for all the other owners who don't pay, etc

 

[tschwa2]

Who are the people who set these fees and what rationale do they use? Here are some items that their Rep had a great deal of trouble explaining: Insurance (for whom and what?), Bad Debt Allowance (I've always paid on time), Reserves (of what, for what?). These and a bunch more add up to over $700, which I and 50 other owners pay every other year for a one bedroom. Pretty good clip of money when you do the Math, right?

Most of these items are fairly standard in MF's. You should be able to request a copy of the the following reports:
• Financial Audit
• Approved Budget
• Board Meeting Minutes
• Annual Meeting Minutes
• Collection Policy (if applicable)
If they won't mail them to you ask if you can make an appointment while you are at the resort so you can inspect and make copies of these yourself. Festiva definitely keeps tight control and is not very owner friendly but it does have legal obligations to which it must adhere.

The documents should explain what kind of insurance the building has- flood, hurricane, fire, etc. It is possible they break down paying for health insurance separate from the other compensation the resort employees get but it is more likely to mean insurance for the structure.

Bad Debt Allowance- just because you have always paid doesn't mean everyone else has. If they base the budget on 51 intervals per unit and 10% either don't have owners (HOA controlled) or the owners of record aren't paying than the other 90% that are have to pay the fees for the 10% that are not paying. This also may include the cost to go after non paying owners including costly forclosure legal costs. Many timeshares have 5-30% or higher bad debt. The more seasonal resorts are likely to have higher off season defaults.

Reserves- everything in a timeshare has a useful life span, from the roof, to the paint job (indoor and outdoor), carpet, bedding, appliance, etc. Obviously not everything is replaced every year. The financial audit breaks down the useful life into ranges. So if they think it will cost $500,000 to replace the roof and it has a useful life of 10-30 years, they may collect 1/20th of the cost every year divided by the intervals so the money is available when it needs replacing. The same goes for everything that isn't replaced yearly.

I've complained about the way Festiva does business before and I see no improvement. Those of us who are deeded owners are 2nd class citizens to them.

I think Festiva tries to make almost everyone feel like second class citizens not just deeded owners. If your deeded you are made to feel like everything will be better if you convert to points. If you have a small amount of points you are made to feel like everything will be better if you are have elite status. If you have elite status, everything will be better if you are a higher elite.