Presentation report
Well, I've now done my first presentation with Vidanta.
I scheduled it for 10:30 Friday since we would be homeless after 10AM checkout of our 2BR and needing something to do before checkin to the 3br presidential in Punta.
We were picked up at building 3 in a special Vida golf cart and taken to register and meet our sales person at the lower floor of the Santuario. We then proceeded to Del Lago for breakfast. With 4 adults and 3 kids, breakfast took forever and we broke 2 dishes along the way. We left $200 pesos in tip.
We then strolled to Grand Bliss to the presentation floor and watched the 7 minute promo video for Cirque. Our sales person was new - 2 months into the job coming back to work with an 8 month old son. I actually wish I had gotten someone much more experienced because I did want to walk out with some better info, but it was apparent quickly that she was not well enough versed on the product and the context of available products in timesharing to discuss in detail. Her spiel was rote and knowledge of how to use her own product was limited.
Her first offer was for a Grand Mayan, and I quickly told her I had no interest in owning at that level and basically just wanted their info for GL, 3BR loft or at least a master suite. I told her we needed a kitchen and that we were interested in seeing their display suites for the lofts.
She had to get a sales manager then as she said she wasn't authorized to sell that to me.
Nick came by, a caucasian man who looked early 50s, bald and very tanned, and introduced himself. Said he'd been doing with with Vidanta for over 20 years. I told him that I was on the presentation to do research on a potential future purchase at the GL level as my kids would soon be in school and we would have less flexibility to trade in on shoulder season. He scoffed and said, "Oh, that's new. Around here we just call it low season when nobody wants to be here." I chose not to take the bait as the satisfaction of only paying $1100 CAD all in (MFs, trade fee, and membership fee at II) for a 3 BR presidential suite in "low season" suits me just fine.
He asked about my current ownerships, which I told him about in great detail - triennial week 14 4BR lockoff at Wmsburg Plantation and 2BR gold float SDO biannual, both of whichI told him I got for a dollar off Ebay after lengthy research and searching and was not interested in trading in. He said actually he could give me almost $30,000 trade in value for it as he would also get a tax write off in doing so - this was interesting to me. He flat out told me that Vidanta has a US holding company that wants to PCC my timeshare as they have some sort of tax advantage in doing so - not just in the optics of giving me that amount off my purchase price, which I know is completely arbitrary. He told me the value they placed on the current timeshares in my portfolio is based on some formula applied to the developer pricing.
I told him about how we were taken in on our honeymoon with a purchase that in no way reflected what we were verbally sold in our presentation, and that we barely managed to get out of that situation by pure luck and with the help of tug, and that's why I now know what I do about timesharing. He actually scoffed when I told him about TUG and said, all those guys just say that timeshares are worthless and are professional presentation attenders who make a living on the presentation bonuses, which is why they are now limiting access to their presentation and moving away from pulling vacationers on the street. He said street pulls result in a 37% purchase rate, and ambassador stays result in a 66% purchase rate. I defended TUG and told him that this community is a source of immense knowledge and experience with timesharing and that he could learn a lot from reading through member remarks here.
He said it would not be fair to offer me the ability to purchase at GL as they had many members already in line to upgrade to the GL level and they don't let people just buy in at that level, but if I was serious he would see what he could do. I said, I just want to see the loft and get a price tag on it. So he told her saiesperson to take us up to the showroom floor and show us the 2 GL units - the studio loft and the 2 BR villa. Well, we had already stayed for a week in a 2 BR villa, so I said please take us to the lofts as that's what we really came to see. It took her a while to find it but we did have a boo at the Kingdom of the Stars 2 BR and the Kingdom of the Sun 2BR - cute but not much to cause it to stand out as a new product.
I was disappointed in the studio loft as the ceilings were not actual height in the display suite and the kitchen was extremely limited - would not work for our family of 4 in the slightest. When we came back down I asked for pricing on the 2br master suite. With golf and the ambassador program, she said it would be $383K lol. After backing out a week into the rental pool and dumping golf she came down to $199K for a week for 100 years and a bunch of other stuff.
I told her I would never trade out, and was only interested in the benefit of actually staying in the suite, not the travel account (bc you can't use it for airfare or car rentals), referral / ambassador program, golf, or any other window dressing. I said I also wanted pricing on the 3BR loft. At this point she pulled Nick back in who said he couldn't offer me the loft unless I was serious about buying today as he would need to pull a lot of strings. I said was not going to buy today but wanted pricing as part of my research for a possible purchase in 2 or 3 years. He would not give it to me, but that I should come back in two years and apply to work for him. He said he liked that I had done my research and was detail oriented an clearly knew his product and he wanted me to work on his Cabo operation. It was clear that he knew I was not there to buy today and that I was talking circles around our salesperson, so he just said to our salesperson, send these guys back to their vacation, we're done.
And that was it for us - stroll back to Santuario, one more guy trying to get me to buy for $17,000, then $5000, and when I said I don't want anything but GL, they gave me my goodies and sent me on my way. I don't think we were with them for anything more than 2 hours, lengthy breakfast included.
When we got to GL 1, our room was ready and our kids desperately needed a nap, so that was that. In a way I was disappointed, as I said, I really wanted to get more knowledge of how Vidanta works and how they position their products, but I frankly already knew more than our sweet noob salesperson, who was a lovely gal, but it was kind of a waste of time in that regard. Breakfast was lovely though, and we thoroughly enjoyed the ceviche, fresh juices and crepes.
Also, everyone, you were right. The 3BR presidential suite in Punta is no dump, and though I was crushing hard on the loft, I am not in any way disappointed to be staying here so near the ocean and the punta pools, which are my faves.
Sorry for the wall of text, I just thought I'd put in everything I remembered so I can compare notes with myself for next time.