Hawaii Weeks Time Share Rental

[ucsfdude]

I'm new to time share rental and will definitely post feedback once my rental is complete next year. There is a company called Hawaii Weeks owned by Gordon Gates that has several listings on red week. I contacted him about a rental (via email) and his requirement is 50% down, then rental is placed in my name and the remainder is due sometime (need to clarify how soon) before my reservation date.

Of course I did an internet search and found 2 reviews on tripadvisor, one is positive, and one is negative.
The negative review was from Jan 2017. That user stated she put 50% down on April 2016 and had a confirmation for a March 2017 reservation. Then in Jan 2017, she was contacted by Gordon and informed that the reservation was cancelled, 2 months before her trip. She got her 50% deposit back but was upset since she only had 2 months to find a replacement and I'm assuming the availability was less and cost was higher. Gordon replied to the post and claimed it was the owner that made the mistake and it was out of his control. He did state he gave her a full refund of her deposit and attempted service recovery to help find another unit for the same dates, but was only able to find her a smaller unit. She declined the offer.

The positive review was from August 2018. That user said she used Hawaii weeks and Gordon delivered as promised ("all worked out very well")and the price was reasonable.

My plan is to contact Gordon and talk to him on the phone and proceed with the rental. I'm just wondering if anyone else has had any positive or negative interactions with this Gordon fellow? Please let me know and I will keep you all posted on my experience.

Any advice or recommendations would be appreciated. Thanks!

 

[vacationtime1]

I wouldn't rent from someone with a 50% success rate in delivering the goods. Owners make mistakes all the time, but if Hawaii Weeks is a rental agency, it is its responsibility to do sufficient due diligence to confirm what they are renting (and what they want to earn a fee by renting) and catch errors such as the one described. The company may be honest (it returned the rental deposit), but that's not the point. And it may have been bad luck. But it is not a risk I would take. YMMV.

 

[taterhed]

Mauiredweek Hawaiiweeks timeshareresales and Gordon Gates have been discussed on this forum before.
GG was a member at some time.

There is some back and forth discussion of their rentals and resales from time to time.... you can google the above terms
They are not the 'new kid' on the block by any means.

You would have better results in the a different thread than this one.
Good luck.

 

[ucsfdude]

You would have better results in the a different thread than this one.

I think you are correct. This thread is probably better served in the Rentals forum rather than newbie one. Can Mod move this post or shall I re-post?

 

[ucsfdude]

I wouldn't rent from someone with a 50% success rate in delivering the goods. Owners make mistakes all the time, but if Hawaii Weeks is a rental agency, it is its responsibility to do sufficient due diligence to confirm what they are renting (and what they want to earn a fee by renting) and catch errors such as the one described. The company may be honest (it returned the rental deposit), but that's not the point. And it may have been bad luck. But it is not a risk I would take. YMMV.

Thanks for the feedback. Since I need specific dates, there were probably about 4 other individuals I could have decided to do business with;however, these are all individual owners (i think?) and I have zero history/reviews of these individuals online. So the alternative would be taking a chance on an owner with zero feedback. Had the reviews of Hawaii Weeks been in the reverse order (most recent review negative instead of positive),then I might have chosen this path. But I'm hopeful since the last data point was a positive one. Of course either way I will be posting feedback of transaction and experience. So maybe I'll be the tie breaking review (if I decide to post on trip adviser). Will keep you all posted.

 

[ucsfdude]

I just wanted to update everyone on this post. We got back from Maui Westin Resort Ocean Villas and I have to say I was quite impressed with the resort. When we arrived at 2pm, room was not ready (4pm check in time) but we were able to get lounge passes to change and use the pool. The front desk called me at exactly 4pm to state the room was ready. We got a top (6th) floor ocean view studio with King bed and pull out sofa bed. Everything was delivered as promised and I would not hesitate to use Hawaii weeks again. Next time I might splurge on a 1 bedroom instead of studio (more square feet and bigger balcony) or try a different resort.

The only negatives I have is that the ad for the timeshare I rented wasn't pulled from the website immediately it took a couple days for it to be removed so there could be some potential for double booking and cancellation if multiple reservations were booked at the same time. I actually emailed him to remind him to pull the ad, because I didn't want someone else to book the same time share rental. All email communication was answered in a timely manner and deposit via pay pal was smooth. I got confirmation info from Gordon and was able to verify it with the resort after placing initial deposit.