This is crazy. Seems like no rhyme or reason. We have friends who purchased their first deed ever last December, a resale at Marbrisa, and then after the sale went through they were sent an email saying they were eligible to join Max and to click on a link, and follow the directions. They did so and a few days later they were actually in Max. They forwarded me the email and I clicked on the link as well, followed it all the way through to the end, where you finalize your decision, and then did not go through with it, but it looked like it may have worked if I wanted it to. Someone told them that the email was sent to them because Mar Brisa is an affiliate and not subject to the same restrictions as other resales? I’m not certain about that (although my understanding is that Marbrisa is owned by HGVC, and Grand Pacific and Seapointe are the two affiliates)
Anyway, I thought I would post my own experience. Two years ago in April, we purchased four Coylumbridge resale deeds. When the sale was complete and the points showed up in our account, we were a week away from traveling to Europe and staying in several locations using HH points but our HH account did not reflect us being Diamond level, as the addition of these deeds put us into Elite Premier territory and hence Diamond HH. I called every day, five days in a row to try to get it resolved, and finally the day before our trip, the person I was speaking to went away for a few minutes and then came back and told us it was a very simple fix and she also said, oh by the way, since you purchased in April, you are now also in Max. I told her from what I understood that would not be the case, but she insisted, and said it should show up shortly in our account. I was excited about this because at the time we actually wanted to join Max, so my wife and I made the decision to purchase two more Coylumbridge properties, based on this information, in order to become Centum level. Fast-forward to about six weeks later, after the sale of the last two deeds had been finalized and added, I was on the phone trying to find out why we were still not Max. I was told that whoever informed us was incorrect, and we were not eligible to join Max based on the fact that they were resale deeds (exactly what I had told them two months earlier). So we spent almost $10,000 extra, between sales cost, legal fees, cost to add to our account, and maintenance fees, based on the fact that an HGVC employee gave us misinformation. I went back-and-forth in emails with someone higher up and in the end she said their decision was final, and we were not in Max. I now feel that we dodged a bullet since I like the perks of EP more than what I see in Centum level max. And now, with the addition of DEX at Craig, and potentially at Coylumbridge, we appear to have the ability to book the same properties, and possibly book them further out, than Max. My current fear is that, since we are in the process of purchasing two deeds at Craig, we may fall into the same situation as others and be inadvertently placed into Max, which I definitely do not want.
! Fingers crossed it stays that way and some back end system processing doesn't kick in at some point... I'll report back if anything changes.