not the answer we were waiting for yet
Just below is the reply from Magaly P. from Resorts Advantage regarding my questions. The answer, to me, was unacceptable, summarized and paraphrased as "trust us. give us time. lots of time. someday we will provide you with more information, but nothing now". Perhaps others will interpret a differnt meaning to the answer.
Perhaps others are more patient. My ranting reply back to her and all the developer contacts that I had emailed also follows in this same post. Hopefully someone will provide us with more information.
So, first, here is the reply Magaly P. from Resorts Advantage:
Dear Mr. Faubert,
Greetings from Castles and Condos.
I inform you that we, Resorts Advantage, have been contracted by your Vacation Club to offer excellent customer service and support to their valued members. Resorts Advantage is a customer service provider in the U.S. for many different resorts worldwide, Castles and Condos being one of them.
Currently, we are still working towards retrieving all information regarding your resort so that we may better assist you.
I understand that you may feel frustrated considering this has taken some time, however, I can assure you that we are working diligently to be able to provide the service that you deserve as a valued member. Once we have received all information regarding your resort, I will gladly contact you.
I advise you that this may take some time and ask that you bear with us until we are able to provide you with further information.
Thank you for your understanding and continued support.
Kind Regards,
Magaly Peña
Member Services/ Atencion a Socio
Resorts Advantage
Here is the rant that was my reply. Perhaps someone else would like to reply next time, or ask the next questions, as my patience for being ignored is running low.
Dear Magaly,
Thank you for your quick reply.
But yes, I and other members are furstrated from lack of informative detailed communication
more than we are frustrated from delays in the project.
Thus the rant that follows.
There is no longer much trust in the Residence Club members I have met recently over email
with regards to what is being said or promised.
That is because no one is saying anything concrete other than
that the building at Castles and Conds will now not be ready until summer 2010,
which was a sudden change from even a week ago when maybe inventory would be ready in October 2009 still.
All of a sudden another 9 month delay. Not 3 months. 9 months. How long will the next delay be.
There were no good reasons provided, that construction had to halt because of lack of cash flow,
or that the developer has had to limit the pace of construction due to lack of cash flow,
or because there are legal matters to work out between partners (and how many years would that take)
or any other reason.
And how many more delays will later be announced as time goes on.
We need communication from the developers. Or from M Hotels if it still exists as an entity.
The communication does not have to come from you, but it could,
but only if it was clear who through you was making what announcements.
Resorts Advantage is (from our perspective) a customer liaison service provider amd messenger
and payments agency and booking services provider for the property owners.
It is not the company or companies that we have contracts with.
Someone has to keep members up-to-date on what went wrong and what construction progress is being made
so that we, not being there, know that there might be some hope that the complex will be completed.
Pictures weekly or bi-weekly or monthly of the contruction progress made will help.
And we also need to know what other promised membership privileges,
such as using M-weeks at other M Hotels developments,
are likely to exist when inventory is finally available.
Your answer to just wait while you gather information is unacceptable.
It could very well be seen as a delaying tactic.
You give no information as to how long the wait for information will be.
Why should those members that are not paid in full continue to pay monthly payments
if they don't know if they are just losing more money with every payment they make.
Why should we recommend others to buy if they ask us whether they should when we have no positive information.
If members who are not paid in full don't continue to pay monthly payments,
that put's more financial hardship on the developers,
and the projects thus get put in further jeapordy, and those paid in full, like me,
are more likely to lose their money if they don't get information and if they also don't take action.
Time is important to many members.
The longer we don't know anything, the more likely legal actions need to get started,
because delaying legal action longer and longer will just make it harder to succeed in any legal action.
Most of us yet don't want legal action. We want timely use of our memberships.
But some people want to act now. Most of us don't want to yet.
But we need a reason not to take that road.
We need to trust the developers and the information provided.
People can't wait forever and just hope hopelessly they will still own a worthy membership
and just watch their money disappear and never get anything back or anything for it.
Sooner or later the members collectively need to take action if there is no good communication.
You are asking us to trust you. But you are only a liason.
M Hotels or the various M Hotel developements are just one of your clients.
You have little to lose.
Your reputation is not on the line, because it is mostly not your problem,
and you can't do anything about it,
as it is the developers problem,
and you can always say it was the project that failed, not Resorts Advantage.
The developer's know some of the answers to some of the questions,
and you may also know some of those answers and are just not sharing that information.
For instance, in addition to our Residence Club memberships,
we should have had our Platinum Membership accounts serviced by Vacations Club already,
as though many members were not to get use of M weeks until next year,
they were to have access to their on-line Platinum Membership accounts for other travel deal searches.
Someone obviously knows that we either aren't getting them at all, or will get them at a later date and likely what date,
and could tell us either answer. You may not know that answer, but someone does.
The developer has not paid any funds to Vacations Club (they have told me this), thus no membership services from Vacations Club.
For instance, M Hotels is not mentioned on the new Enchantment Site web pages.
So tell me either that that resort will not be usable, or that you are renogotiating with the Enchantment and don't know it's status,
or that M weeks are still usable there when inventory is available for bookings.
Someone knows the answer to whether it is likely Castles and Condos will still be part of a collection of M Hotel developments,
or could at least tell us that the shared facility use is being renegotiated and is likely to be available,
or that M Hotels developments is no longer a collection of interchangable developments from a booking perspective.
We need some communication.
Not just for Resorts Advantage to say wait and see and trust us.
Resorts Advantage is not the developers.
Resorts Advantage is not M Hotels (or if you are, say you are).
Joe Faubert
