Diamond Resorts-to-Sunterra conversion

[dougp26364]

Interesting. Just a month or two ago I was told that this was not going to happen and looky what's happening. Always good to know that PT's BOD/HOA has it all together isn't it. Welcome to our world Sunterra owners. DRI and they're great communication is now your management company as well.

Somehow I just knew the DRI was going to try to bleed PT's owners for more money out of this. IMO, it's not worth it. I've never had an issue exchaning my PT's units for Sunterra units going through I.I.

The one thing to keep in mind is that it can take a fixed week unit in the Suites and essentially turn it into a floating week. You should be able to book back into PT's using your Sunterra points for any week that's availalbe.

For us that's not such a good deal. I bought a unit that was location specific in the Suites. That being an 18th floor Skyview unit facing the strip. I don't think I want to give up that specific location now that something has finally been done with the HI Boardwalk and something far more interesting is being built on that lot.

Man I really wish I had saved that E-mail from Troy. I'd enjoy asking him that same question again but I bet I wouldn't get any sort of responce this time around.

 

[winger]

Interesting. Just a month or two ago I was told that this was not going to happen and looky what's happening. Always good to know that PT's BOD/HOA has it all together isn't it. Welcome to our world Sunterra owners. DRI and they're great communication is now your management company as well.

Yep, all these yrs I've own (maybe 10?), PLT has not been too steller with communications.

Somehow I just knew the DRI was going to try to bleed PT's owners for more money out of this. IMO, it's not worth it. I've never had an issue exchaning my PT's units for Sunterra units going through I.I.

My intent if to convert is not to necessarily get into Sunterra units, but the fact II Sunterra membership seems to have greater trading power over basic II membership (see posts on page one).

The one thing to keep in mind is that it can take a fixed week unit in the Suites and essentially turn it into a floating week. You should be able to book back into PT's using your Sunterra points for any week that's availalbe.

Yes, to get back into our 'home' resort Polo, we have the 12 mo Sunterra advantage. The one thing we like is the point system. We have even been contemplating selling our Polo and eventually possibly picking up a Worldmark membership...

For us that's not such a good deal. I bought a unit that was location specific in the Suites. That being an 18th floor Skyview unit facing the strip. I don't think I want to give up that specific location now that something has finally been done with the HI Boardwalk and something far more interesting is being built on that lot.

yep, that would DEFINTELY be on consideration - in your case, the City Center project will be an awesome sight when done in 2009(?). On our side, we don't really like coming to Vegas, not much to do for the kids and we don't gamble and summers (our week) is little too hot hot hot for us. Our tower 2 has a decent view, but not like if you are facing the actual strip. We have been exchanging for about 10 yrs now w/ our Polo and will continue to do so if we keep it. Thus, if converting into a floating week resulting in losing our fixed week and unit is immaterial.

I am going to have to dig around a little more to see how much Sunterra memberships really cost on the resale market :rofl:

 

[dougp26364]

OK, maybe I shouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater. In reading the Sun Options book there are some possibilities here. Of course there are questions that go along with the possibilities.

I'll have to look the Sun Options book over very carefully and then listen to what DRI is offering and what their taking before coming to a final conclusion as to whether it's better to stand pat or make a change. I've not been pleased with DRI in the past and I question if I would just be throwing good money after bad by giving them even more money for something I already own.

Winger,

What specific week do you own? There are different point requirements for different weeks. I wonder if all 1 bedroom suites weeks will be offered only 9,000 points or will owners that own weeks in different demand periods (according to the Sun Options chart) be offered more or less depending on if they own a mid season, high season or peak season.

The old Epic Desert Paradise takes 8,500 points for a one bedroom week in high season. Desert Paradise is not a five star resort and is not on the strip. It would be disappointing if a PT's peak season week only received 500 more points than Desert Paradise.

 

[winger]

...

Winger,

What specific week do you own? There are different point requirements for different weeks. I wonder if all 1 bedroom suites weeks will be offered only 9,000 points or will owners that own weeks in different demand periods (according to the Sun Options chart) be offered more or less depending on if they own a mid season, high season or peak season.

The old Epic Desert Paradise takes 8,500 points for a one bedroom week in high season. Desert Paradise is not a five star resort and is not on the strip. It would be disappointing if a PT's peak season week only received 500 more points than Desert Paradise.

I could be wrong but I think all Polo Suites 1 BD peak are 9000. 1BD Villas Peaks are 10500. I believe Peak-Peak (like new yrs) are a little more for both. I wished I made a xerox copy of that points/sun options page

 

[PeelBoy]

There are advantages of joining Sunterra:

1. Access to their European resorts without exchange fees, if Europe is on your radar.

2. Less SunOptions to trade via II. Your PT week trades for a week via II, but you can stretch your SunOptions to one and a half to three or four weeks, depending on your skills manipulating these points.

3. No fee to book into any Sunterra resorts.

4. Corporate accounts have heavy priority, so you will see more availability with II.

The key is the conversion fee. If it costs you $2995 or $5000 for 2000 points plus conversion, forget it. With that kind of money, I can keep shopping at ebay to enrich my portfolio.

 

[dougp26364]

The key is the conversion fee. If it costs you $2995 or $5000 for 2000 points plus conversion, forget it. With that kind of money, I can keep shopping at ebay to enrich my portfolio.

Can you buy Sun Options resale on E-bay if you don't already have a Sun Options account? I thought Sunterra had put a stop to that, allowing the resale buyer to buy the week but not the Sun Options points package forcing them to either buy more points from the developer or pay a conversion fee.

 

[winger]

There are advantages of joining Sunterra:

1. Access to their European resorts without exchange fees, if Europe is on your radar.

...

The key is the conversion fee. If it costs you $2995 or $5000 for 2000 points plus conversion, forget it. With that kind of money, I can keep shopping at ebay to enrich my portfolio.

Good four pts, peelboy, which is my interest in the conversion.

In your last point "The key is the conversion fee. If it costs you $2995 or $5000 for 2000 points plus conversion, forget it. With that kind of money, I can keep shopping at ebay to enrich my portfolio" please clarify what I can that maybe better off economically - remember that I am NOT currently part of Sunterra, which is the reason I am contemplating converting. I rarely come to Vegas and same for the future. Purchased mainly to exchange.

I tried looking on eBay but am getting confused w/ the seemly large variety of choices out there. Some are deeded, some not, some included just a few resorts, some not, etc...


To clarify the offer I was given...the entire out of pocket costs are:
- to convert to 9000 sun optionsis $3000 (yes, it is $2995, but I am rounding the $ up)
- to convert to 10500 sun optionsis $4000 (this $ is also rounded up, and includes a Suites-to-Villa upgrade, which really does not matter to me since it turns into a floating week...but when I pass the deed onto my heirs, they get a different unit than what I already own)

 

[PeelBoy]

Go to Timeshareforum - Sunterra page. Spence has provided excellent explanation of all Sunterra products and their pros and cons.

You will get advantages (2), (3) and (4), buying resale trust sunoptions. You can exchange to Sunterra's European resorts only if you are a full member, so you have to spend $2995.

In my humble opinion, if you are not a Sunterra member, the best bet is to purchase resale sunoptions to trade within the 19 resorts or via II, and forget their European affilitation.

For $3000, you can buy from ebay 6500 to 10000 points. A few others and myself are bidding on ebay regularly, so there is competition. I always bid $1000 for 6500 points. If I get it, great. If I don't, I would wait for another bus to come.

 

[dougp26364]

I've thought about this a good portion of the last night and this morning. For us, I think we'll just sit tight with what we have. I've been reasonably successful with our exchanges, I'm not overly thrilled with the quality of the Sunterra resorts we've seen and prefer to trade into different systems and the domestic exchange fee for I.I. is less than the $151/year club fee's Sunterra charges.

At the present time I've pretty much recieved what I require in exchanges using my PT's weeks and then some on occasion. A few years ago I would spilt my 2 bedroom unit and almost always could get a one 1 bedroom for the studio (2 bedroom units in overbuilt areas sometimes, esp. in shoulder season when we like to travel) and a 2 bedroom unit for our 1 bedroom deposit. Throw in the AC's that I have to let co-workers use because I own more than enough and I think I have all I really need without spending another $2,995. Maybe if the fee was considerably less (<$1,000) I might give it more consideration but to toss another 3G into something I already own and do well with seems foolish to me.

If I were more impressed with the Sunterra resorts I've seen or stayed at I might be more inclined to lean towards the conversion. However, I'd rather attempt to trade into resorts we like better. I can do that as I stand now without having to pay an additional $151 to Sunterra.

The final straw for me is my lack of faith in DRI. Sure they say they're going to upgrade some of the Sunterra resorts and it's been reported that they've already stopped taking reservations at one resort that does not meet their "high" stanadards but, I've seen DRI make promises before and have difficulty delivering on them.

When we purchased our Skyview unit, we were promised I.I. certificates that would act as an exchange unit until the Skyview units were complete. It took two years longer to actually complete those units and we only recieved that promised certificate for the one year. After complaints they gave owners an unused week from their inventory (probably developer weeks) to use in exchange but it took complaining to get it done.

The last SA to convert the tennis courts to the childrens water park took longer than what they promised (they were asking for the renovation SA before work started on the fist SA). The current construction from this last SA for unit renovations was supposed to start last March and be completed in 18 months. It hasn't started yet and now they're telling people that it won't be various owners.

Distrust and not enough value for our needs is what will keep me from converting my weeks. That doesn't mean that it's not right for everyone, just that it doesn't appear to fit our plans at the moment.

 

[winger]

couple of updates

With the conversion membership:

Both for the sunterra options and membership (the $2995 or whatever the conversion fee is) 'entrance fee' is transferable at no cost - meaning heirs do NOT have to re-pay to continue enjoying sunterra. In the CC&Rs for Sunterra, Page 20, Article 9.1 it mentions a person may transfer to his heirs at no charge. The only charge maybe cost in transferring the deed.

The deed can be decoupled from Sunterra at anytime - but you'll lose the upfront conversion fee. No cost to decouple.

The points listed in the current SunOptions Booklet to exchange into II resorts are fixed; BUT if II decides to increase SunOption requirements to exchange at their resorts, then Sunterra will 'credit' your annual SunOption allotment for II-requested exchanges to make up in full for the increase. - I am trying to get this in writing...

You lose your current 60 up-to-days upon check-in guarantee of getting our week at Polo if we convert to Sunterra? But the advantage is you will now be able to make reservations at Polo 12 months in advance thru Sunterra with the Home Resort Advantage (instead of pre-conversion 60 days).

For internal (Sunterra, Polo) exchanges, there are NO nominal fee in addition to the $151 annual sunterra membership.

We can purchase sunoptions from private individuals or Sunterra for one time use (meaning NOT to add to your annual sunoption pts) if we are short of points for a trip. But details are scratchy as Sunterra are working out the rules now - est time is less than one month before rules (including cost if purchased from Sunterra) on this are set. I got this from a sunterra rep on site helping w/ the merger process.

 

[winger]

We have given this some thought and may acutally end up converting our Polo week to 9000 annual Sunterra pts/sunoptions. for $3000 b/c of our currrent travel needs (we are keeping our deed, of course).

Two questi0ns:

1) The rep now says we canNOT add annual sunoptions to the acct unless it is directly from Sunterra, both for one-time purchases (if I am short some pts for a trip) AND for increasing my annual allotment (I think this is considered buying another member's contract???).

Anyways, is there something specific in the contract/purchase agreement I need to look for that states this?

2) Is it legally binding for an officer of Sunterra/Diamond resorts to add an addendum letter to the contract for items specific to our purhase? For example, right for us to use our specific polo suites or villa week if we give Sunterra 12 month notice (basically, not giving Sunterra our rights to use for that one year) ?

Thanks.

 

[Suzy]

How much is the conversion fee to convert 2 Polo Towers two-bedroom units, a 1-br ocean view at Kaanapali Beach Club, and a 2-bedroom unit at the Plantation Resort in Branson? Is it cheaper to have a couple of units converted all at the same time?

Suzy

 

[winger]

How much is the conversion fee to convert 2 Polo Towers two-bedroom units, a 1-br ocean view at Kaanapali Beach Club, and a 2-bedroom unit at the Plantation Resort in Branson? Is it cheaper to have a couple of units converted all at the same time?

Suzy

Not sure... but to upgrade-then-convert my 1bd to 2bd suite then to Sunterra costs $7100 for 12000 sunoptions. If you want the rep's name and #, pm me and you can call for info this yourself.

Suzy, maybe she was incorrect, but my friend owned embassy/Kaanapali Beach Club before the sunterra takeover recently, and they offered her a $0/free conversion from float week (EOY) to sunterra pts. Can you check if this is still the case w/ your Kaanapali BC resort?

 

[Paul.In.Alaska]

.

Two questions:

1) The rep now says we canNOT add annual sunoptions to the acct unless it is directly from Sunterra, both for one-time purchases (if I am short some pts for a trip) AND for increasing my annual allotment (I think this is considered buying another member's contract???).

Anyways, is there something specific in the contract/purchase agreement I need to look for that states this?

A bit of information I have worked with as a Sunterra member with SunOptions (points)... You can borrow up to the yearly amount of Sunoptions you have purchased from Sunterra or thfough a conversion such as you have done. I am sure you can always increase your points - they always want the money - by puchasing more time (points/ SunOptions) at a Sunterra Resort.

A side point... I have purchased "SunOptions" for Sunterra Resorts both as a deed and as a part of the Florida Trust (UDI). I could only use the points at the resort they were assigned to even as a member of the Club Sunterra. The Club is a part of Sunterra that allows the use of the points at the 100 or so resorts they own or have a part ownership in. To get these new eBay purchases into the Club to allow use of the points in all the Sunterra inventory requires some talking and paying the $2995. I did get around it a bit, however. I used some of my SunOptions I had as a Club member to schedule a stay at Lake Tahoe and attended one of there sales pitches. I stated I would purchase 5,000 more SunOptions at Lake Tahoe if and only if they would add all the additional points I had purchased on eBay to the Club membership. They did and I was happy with the transaction.

2) Is it legally binding for an officer of Sunterra/Diamond resorts to add an addendum letter to the contract for items specific to our purhase? For example, right for us to use our specific polo suites or villa week if we give Sunterra 12 month notice (basically, not giving Sunterra our rights to use for that one year) ?

The legal part I am not to sure of. What I can tell you is by converting the specific unit, you loss the ability to get back into that unit unless it is vacant when you check in, not when you make the reservation even if it is a year out. You probably will have priority over others in the Club and other users. Generally owners are given 13 months rather than 12 months to make the reservations.

So far I have been pleased with Sunterra. However, I have read on this forum that Sunterra/Diamond is selling or trying to divest themselves of Europe and some other resorts outside the USA. Too bad as I was planning on a trip to St. Martin

Good Luck

 

[winger]

...

For $3000, you can buy from ebay 6500 to 10000 points. A few others and myself are bidding on ebay regularly, so there is competition. I always bid $1000 for 6500 points. If I get it, great. If I don't, I would wait for another bus to come.

What type of pts/sunoptions are you bidding on for say $1000 for 6500 pts? And do you plan on folding these into your club membership by paying ClubSunterra some money (like $5000 for 2000 Trust pts) at a future date?

 

[T_R_Oglodyte]

…What I can tell you is by converting the specific unit, you loss the ability to get back into that unit unless it is vacant when you check in, not when you make the reservation even if it is a year out. You probably will have priority over others in the Club and other users. Generally owners are given 13 months rather than 12 months to make the reservations.

…

This depends on the means by which the connection to Club Sunterra is accomplished. A deeded property can get connected to the Club in one of two ways:

1. The deed is assigned to the appropriate Sunterra trust. In this case, the owner transfer full ownership of the deed to the trust in exchange for an undivided interest in that trust.
   
2. The deed is affiliated with Club Sunterra. In this case the owner retains the deed, but relinquishes their usage rights under the deed to Club Sunterra for as long as the affiliation agreement remains in effect.

Some of the differences among these:

• Trust owners are allowed to make reservations at all resorts that are part of that trust 13 months in advance. That is their Home Resort Advantage, and since they are owners in the trust, their Home Resort becomes all resorts in that Trust. That 13-month window is available only to Trust owners, so Club affiliated owners only have their ordinary 12-month reservation window.
• Conversion to the trust is permanent. Once converted, the owner cannot get the deed back. Affiliation with the Club, in contrast, can be terminated anytime. Since the owner never gave up the deed, the owner still has the deed and everything returns to the same situation that things were before the affiliation deal. The affiliation fee, of course, is non-refundable.
  
• For both types of ownerships, access to the larger Club Sunterra occurs by affiliating the ownership with Club Sunterra. It is this affiliation which can only be transferred to family owners, regardless of whether the underlying ownership is deeded or a trust UDI. When the affiliation is terminated, what remains is the underlying ownership - a deed if the property is still deeded or a trust UDI if the property was convereted (or the original purchase was a trust UDI).

HTH!

 

[winger]

UDI?

thanks for the clear explanation. what is a UDI? it sounds it is really more like a deed and affiliation relationship than a straight trust membership, correct?

 

[T_R_Oglodyte]

thanks for the clear explanation. what is a UDI? it sounds it is really more like a deed and affiliation relationship than a straight trust membership, correct?

UDI = undivided interest. It means that the interest you own in the trust cannot be divided from the interest of other owners.

The fact that the interest is undivided means that if the trust were to dissolve for any reason, you have no claim to get back the deed that you contributed - if you could get your deed back your interest in the trust would be a divided interest.

An analogy is with a marriage in which all property owned by the partners before the marriage becomes common property after the marriage. After the marriage each partner has an undivided interest - if one of the parties they can't simply reclaim the property they contributed before the marriage - it can only be separated via a separate legal agreement.

Some other things to be aware of with a UDI:

• You no longer pay annual fees based on the fees of the resort at which you held your deed. Since the trust now holds a portfolio of deeds, the trust is responsible for those annual fees, and each owner then pays a fraction of those fees based on the size of their UDI, plus a contribution to the operating expenses of the trust. E.g, if your UDI constitutes a 0.01% interest in the trust, you would be responsible for 0.01% of the total resort fees paid by the trust plus 0.01% of the trust operating expense.
• If your resort has high annual fees, your annual fees after conversion could go down. Conversely, if your resort has low annual fees, your annual fees could go up after conversion.
• The trust could actually sell the deed you converted and your ownership with the trust would be unaffected. The trust could even sell all of the deeds associated with a resort - thus effectively severing the ties with the resort - and all trust members who joined through that resort would still stay with the trust. The only effect on trust members would be the ability to reserve at the resort. Note, though, that the trust by-laws would likely limit or prohibit the ability of the trust to sell deeds in the trust.
• You no longer have voting rights for the Directors for your resort. Since the Trust now holds the deeds, the Trust has the voting power.

Many of us believe that the last item in the list - the transfer of voting power from owners to the Trust - is one of Sunterra's prime reasons for pushing the trust. Although for fiduciary reasons the Trustee is not part of Sunterra, Sunterra is certainly going to make certain that whomever is named as the Trustee is going to be friendly to Sunterra, and the Trust by-laws and governing documents will limit the ability of Trust owners to select a new Trustee. Further, since the Trustee collects a fee reflecting the size of the assets under management, the Trustee has an interest in making the Trust friendly for Sunterra to continue to sell.

Put that together and it's easy to see that the Trust is a way for Sunterra to ensure continuing control of the Boards of Directors at resorts long after all of the inventory at the resort may have been sold. The Trustee is almost certainly going to vote the Trust shares as a bloc in accordance with whatever Sunterra recommends. Given how few owners actually return proxies, a voting bloc that represents as little as 10% of owners is probably sufficient to guarantee full control of a resort.

 

[bruwery]

So, if I'm understanding this correctly, the Sunterra system basically works like this:

Sunterra: Hi, we'll give you show tickets to sit through a 90 minute presentation.

Buyer: Okay.

Sunterra: Blah, blah, blah, give us $15,000, and you'll own a vacation property that you can exchange into any of several thousand resorts and travel all over the world. If you don't give us $15,000, your kids will hate you and probably try to kill you in your sleep.

Buyer: Okay. Sounds good. (Forks over $15k.)

Two years later:

Sunterra: You timeshare isn't very flexible. Give us another $3,000, AND the deed to your property, and you'll be able to reserve a week at any of the several dozen resorts within our system.

Buyer: Umm, I already paid $15k to allow me access to thousands of resorts. Why pay another $3k to give you back my deed, and allow me access to several dozen resorts?

Sunterra: Well, we've made our system intentionally confusing, unnecessarily complicated, and created very little helpful documentation so that you'll be too busy trying to understand the system to worry about whether or not the investment actually makes any sense.

Buyer: Oh, okay. Sounds good. (Forks over $3k.)

So, the developer is essentially selling people the same timeshare twice? Not only that, but with the second "purchase", you lose the deed to your initial purchase, and you can't transfer your "second purchase" to a new owner. Your nominal resale value has now become exactly zero.

Ye Gods. Sunterra apparently has some VERY GOOD sales weasels.

 

[Bill4728]

So, the developer is essentially selling people the same timeshare twice? Not only that, but with the second "purchase", you lose the deed to your initial purchase, and you can't transfer your "second purchase" to a new owner. Your nominal resale value has now become exactly zero.

NO this isn't happening. Look I personally don't like Sunterra but they aren't quite that bad.

If you buy from Sunterra. You get either a deed property or points in a trusts. AND with any purchase direct from Sunterra, you also get membership into Club Sunterra. This membership means that both you and your TS is associated with the club and can use points at any of the ~100 sunterra resorts. SO you don't ever have to buy more from sunterra unless you want more points.

IF on the other hand, you buy from me. You get a deeded TS (managed by sunterra) but no membership in Club Sunterra. So you can't use points to go to the other club locations because you and your TS are not associated with the club. If you want to join and have your resale TS associated with the club, you must buy another TS or more points from Sunterra. And have a clause in the purchase agreement which says that the resale TS will also be allowed to associate with the club.


The kicker is that when you sell you can only sell the TS (or TS points) but can't sell the membership in the club. So your buyer will own just the TS and will not be a member of the club. This may not decrease the resale value if the TS is Poipu Point in Hawaii but may greatly decrease the value of a TS in a less desirable location.

Hope that helps

 

[dougp26364]

Like Bill said, the $2,995 is simply a joiner fee to have access to SunOptions points, not an attempt to resell you your own timeshare.

At this point, I can continue on as I have always done with my Suites at Polo Towers and my Villa's at Polo Towers units or, I can elect to join Club Sunterra, receive SunOptions points for my unit and enjoy all the benefits of internal exchanging through Sunterra, bypassing I.I. all together. As a side benefit it is believed by those who have joined Club Sunterra that their corporate account association with I.I. through Sunterra gives them stronger exchanging power within the I.I. system then they had prior to becoming members of Club Sunterra.

Essentially, you own a timeshare and now you are being offered the opportunity to use your timeshare ownership to join a club that will give you additional benefits that may or may not be worth the price of admission, depending on your own personal circumstances. The price is high enough that one must really look closely at their situation to determine if it's a worthy investment or not.

 

[T_R_Oglodyte]

As others have pointed out, they are not reselling you your timeshare. If you decline, you still own the timeshare you purchased. You can use it, exchange it, rent it, sell it - everything that every other timeshare owner can do.

Club Sunterra has additional advantages - specifically direct access to all of the resorts in Club Sunterra without going through an exchange company and some pretty sweet preferential access for exchanges through II (and II membership is part of your Club Sunterra membership - no additional fee to belong to II).

Example: we own a week at Po'ipu. Last year we bought a minimum increment of Trust points and affiliated our Po'ipu with Club Sunterra. Then our daughter announced her engagement and their desire to get married in the Caribbean. We quickly settled on Sint Maarten as a good location for a variety of reasons, one of which was the fact that I could easily switch our one week at Po'ipu for one 2-bdrm unit and one 1-bdrm unit at Sunterra resorts in Sint Maarten - i.e., a 2-for-1 swap.

And I could make that swap instantly by directly reserving at the resort. That is, I didn't have to go through an exchange company, where I would have to wait and hope that a couple of deposits were made for the right resorts with compatible check-in dates. I went on-line, canceled out Hawai'i reservation to get the points back, and reserved the time we needed on Sint Maarten.

Had we not joined Club Sunterra we wouldn't have been able to pull it off. Our best chance would have been to try to rent our Po'ipu week and do rentals on Sint Maarten - and it wouldn't have been nearly as advantageous for us.

*****

I'm not saying that Club Sunterra is for everyone. I am saying that Club Sunterra is a value added feature. Individual owners can decide whether or not that value add is worth the price. YMMV.

 

[bruwery]

But aren't you signing away your deed to join this club?

Here's where I'm coming from. In 1995, I went to a timeshare presentation at Polo Towers. They wanted $10,000, or $15,000, or whatever - I forget the figure - to buy a timeshare. The whole exchangability thing was a big push point for them - as it still is.

I didn't buy for various reasons.

If I had, I feel like they'd now be telling me "Hey, we lied. That whole 'exchange to wherever you want to go' thing isn't as easy as we made it seem, and by the way, fixed weeks stink. Points are the way to go, so if you'll pony up another $3,000 - and give us your deed - we'll give you some points and let you exchange within our system."

Am I wrong? To join the club, you have to relinquish your deed, right?
This brings me to another question. How do you get out of the club if timesharing is no longer feasible for you? You can't sell it, because the club's rights don't transfer, and you relinquished your deed. Are you stuck with MF's until the end of time?

 

[T_R_Oglodyte]

But aren't you signing away your deed to join this club?

Umm ......no. Reread post #41, paying close attention to point #2 and the second bullet point.

 

[bruwery]

Umm ......no. Reread post #41, paying close attention to point #2 and the second bullet point.

Okay, so why would a person convert to the trust? Why not simply go the affiliation route and keep the deed? What am I missing here?