Need opinions re: DRI and Ka'anapali Beach Club

[melizzard]

Hi everyone,

We are in Maui, right now, at this resort. Much love! up until yesterday, we owned 2 weeks (not points) at the San Luis Bay Inn in Avila Bch, CA. Yesterday, we purchased enough points to bring us up to VIP membership with Diamond at this resort so our SLBI weeks are no more and we now own 15000 points at this resort in Maui. We love the flexibility of points and no more space bank deposits, etc., and how the whole thing is more streamlined. Plus we love it here and want to come here every year, unlike with SLBI.

So, can anyone tell me if paying $7300 to convert 2 weeks to points, with access to THE Club, with our home resort in Maui ... Was it a rip or a good deal? Once upon a time, we purchased with Sunset in Mexico and had to GIVE that condo away cuz no one wanted to deal with Sunset. Have I just done the same thing again? I still have time to change my mind in this country. . Since i now know about all of YOU, I can ask the real experts. So please feel free to opine.

Xxoo
Melissa

 

[dwojo]

DRI normally tries to get more money to convert so if you are happy with what you have you got a good deal. What collection are your points in?

 

[aliikai2]

It depends

If being in the Club and all that comes with is worth a lot to you, then you didn't do badly at all. If coming to the KBC and staying in an ocean front suite for a couple of weeks per year is your goal, you could by a couple of these on Ebay for under $1000 each and as legacy weeks they come with free parking. So, if the free paper and the free wifi that you get as your perks as a VIP and the Club access were you goal you did well.
Only you can decide whether it is worth what you spent. Greg

 

[melizzard]

DRI normally tries to get more money to convert so if you are happy with what you have you got a good deal. What collection are your points in?

I don't understand ... what is a collection?

 

[T_R_Oglodyte]

I don't understand ... what is a collection?

"Collection" = Trust. When you joined the Club you bought into one of their "Collections", and your home resorts will be the resorts that are in the collection. Most likely you bought into the Hawaii collection, which includes both current Hawaii resorts (and, supposedly a couple of added new properties that DRI is adding on Oahu and the Big Island), Jockey Club in Las Vegas, and one of the Sedona resorts. But it's also possible that DRI converted your deeds to the US Collection (which is the collection that includes San Luis Bay Inn) and gave you US Collection points instead of Hawaii collection points. If you want to get home resort advantage for Hawaii, you should be sure that your points are in the Hawaii collection.

 

[melizzard]

If being in the Club and all that comes with is worth a lot to you, then you didn't do badly at all. If coming to the KBC and staying in an ocean front suite for a couple of weeks per year is your goal, you could by a couple of these on Ebay for under $1000 each and as legacy weeks they come with free parking. So, if the free paper and the free wifi that you get as your perks as a VIP and the Club access were you goal you did well.
Only you can decide whether it is worth what you spent. Greg

Can't say for sure, but I think there's a little more benefit to switching from weeks to points besides just free wifi and a newspaper.

 

[melizzard]

"Collection" = Trust. When you joined the Club you bought into one of their "Collections", and your home resorts will be the resorts that are in the collection. Most likely you bought into the Hawaii collection, which includes both current Hawaii resorts (and, supposedly a couple of added new properties that DRI is adding on Oahu and the Big Island), Jockey Club in Las Vegas, and one of the Sedona resorts. But it's also possible that DRI converted your deeds to the US Collection (which is the collection that includes San Luis Bay Inn) and gave you US Collection points instead of Hawaii collection points. If you want to get home resort advantage for Hawaii, you should be sure that your points are in the Hawaii collection.

Yeah we're Hawaiian collection, I think. Maui, Kauai, Sedona and Vegas (Polo Towers)

 

[DeniseM]

Can't say for sure, but I think there's a little more benefit to switching from weeks to points besides just free wifi and a newspaper.

Be suspicious of everything you were told by the sales person - their one and only goal was to get more of your hard earned money. They will say whatever it takes to make the sale.

 

[tvandyke]

Hi everyone,

We are in Maui, right now, at this resort. Much love! up until yesterday, we owned 2 weeks (not points) at the San Luis Bay Inn in Avila Bch, CA. Yesterday, we purchased enough points to bring us up to VIP membership with Diamond at this resort so our SLBI weeks are no more and we now own 15000 points at this resort in Maui. We love the flexibility of points and no more space bank deposits, etc., and how the whole thing is more streamlined. Plus we love it here and want to come here every year, unlike with SLBI.

So, can anyone tell me if paying $7300 to convert 2 weeks to points, with access to THE Club, with our home resort in Maui ... Was it a rip or a good deal? Once upon a time, we purchased with Sunset in Mexico and had to GIVE that condo away cuz no one wanted to deal with Sunset. Have I just done the same thing again? I still have time to change my mind in this country. . Since i now know about all of YOU, I can ask the real experts. So please feel free to opine.

Xxoo
Melissa

I wouldn't give DRI a nickle. Just got hit with a huge assessment for my place in Kauai, no warning, three months to pay. I'm seriously thinking about turning my deeds over to one of those time share rescue places.....I'm tired of being screwed by DRI.

 

[melizzard]

Be suspicious of everything you were told by the sales person - their one and only goal was to get more of your hard earned money. They will say whatever it takes to make the sale.

Well from reading on here, seems like points outweighs the cumbersome method of obtaining, depositing, and exchanging weeks. Are you saying staying in weeks isa better thing to do? I'm confused.

 

[DeniseM]

Well from reading on here, seems like points outweighs the cumbersome method of obtaining, depositing, and exchanging weeks. Are you saying staying in weeks isa better thing to do? I'm confused.

What I'm saying is - what are you getting that's worth $7,000?

If you can't answer that question, then I'd rescind, and come home and research the whole thing on your own, so you can make an independent decision, with no pressure. If you decide it's a great deal after doing your own research, they will be more than happy to make you the same offer.

(If you want to own deeded ocean front weeks, you can buy 7 of them for $7,000.)

 

[DeniseM]

I wouldn't give DRI a nickle. Just got hit with a huge assessment for my place in Kauai, no warning, three months to pay. I'm seriously thinking about turning my deeds over to one of those time share rescue places.....I'm tired of being screwed by DRI.

Unfortunately - you will have to pay THEM several thousand dollars to take it - they don't take them for free.

Please consider giving it away on TUG at little or no cost to you -
http://www.tugbbs.com/forums/showthread.php?t=132509

 

[melizzard]

I guess what I would like is to be able to go where I want to go as simply as possible. The point wasn't to be able to travel more frequently. My hubby and I have just retired and are now on a fixed income, so though we have more time, we have less funds. So don't want or need more weeks to travel ... but would like simplicity, a home resort I want to visit again, and flexibility. Now, the mnx fees are about $800 more a year than what we're currently paying, but I would think most HI spots carry more fees than other US locales. I also know the mnx fees go up each year, which hasn't happened in a lonnnng time with my SLBI weeks.

We felt like it brought us up to a better status but just not sure if that $7000 pricetag was a reasonable amount to spend to wind up with 15000 DRI points. This way, we have converted our 2 weeks into THE Club and have more flexibility with it. Or so we thought ... but maybe not so much?

Yeah, I also asked about special assessments due to one I had been assessed with Sunset. They said that didn't happen with DRI. Guess that was a little misinformation.

Bottom line is we already own weeks ... 2 of them ... we either need to convert them to points or just use what we currently own. And that's where I'm torrn

 

[T_R_Oglodyte]

Yeah, I also asked about special assessments due to one I had been assessed with Sunset. They said that didn't happen with DRI. Guess that was a little misinformation.

The "no special assessments" is a semantic game that sales people in Hawaii. They use it to dissuade people from buying a deed instead of the Trust, and to motivate deedholders to surrender their deeds and buy into the trust. They've been using this pitch at Poipu for several years, ever since it became common knowledge a few years ago that a special assessment was pending at Poipu.

Here's how it works, using the Poipu special assessment. The Board of Directors at Poipu votes the special assessment, which is levied against every deed at the resort. Those owners who hold deeds see their special assessment directly, right in their mailbox.

But many of the deeds (close to half, IIRC) at Poipu are held in the Hawaii Collection trust. For those deeds the special assessment is due and payable from the trust.

The trust, in turn, simply includes the cost of the special assessment with all of its other costs, and includes it in the bills it sends to its owners. So the trust owners still pay their share of the special assessment. It just isn't labeled as a special assessment. Thus the sales people say, "Join the trust and you won't pay special assessments." It's true, but that's only because it's not broken out separately by the trust in its statements.

***

Since the trust owns deeds from many resorts the special assessment fees are spread among a larger ownership base, so a 15,000 point owner in the collection will face a much smaller charge than would a deeded owner owning a week of comparable value. But the flip side is that the owner in the trust will end up contributing to special assessments at all resorts in the trust. Over time, since almost all resorts needs special assessments for repairs and refurbishings, there's a good chance it all evens out in the end.

In addition, owners in the trust also pay a couple hundred dollar per year of additional trust management fee that gets added to their share of annual fees. It doesn't take very many years of paying that trust management fee to more than offset the difference in direct special assessment charges for the resort.

******

Note that the trust could as easily bill its members by showing normal resort charges, then adding the pro-rated portion of resort special assessments that flow to that trust owner as an additional line item in the statement. That wouldn't change trust income and expenses at all. But if the trust did that, the sales people could no longer say "The trust owners are protected from receiving special assessments." That's the exact line they tried to spin on us, and the salesperson treated me like an idiot when I challenged that statement. He conceded that trust member paid their share of the special assessment but insisted that they were not paying a special assessment because the trust was absorbing the special assessment into its cost structure.

 

[artringwald]

Control of the owner's association.

If you have a deed, you have a vote in the owner's association. Correct me if I'm wrong, but if you join the trust, you don't have a vote. If the trust gets more than 50% ownership of a resort, than DRI can do anything they want. Do you trust the trust?

 

[T_R_Oglodyte]

If you have a deed, you have a vote in the owner's association. Correct me if I'm wrong, but if you join the trust, you don't have a vote. If the trust gets more than 50% ownership of a resort, than DRI can do anything they want. Do you trust the trust?

I fully trust the trust - that they will do whatever DRI wants.

Actually as long as only about 10% to 15% of deeded owners return their proxies the trust effectively controls the resort when it has as little as about 10% of the deeds. Above 20% control is almost guaranteed.

So it really comes down to a question of whether you can tolerate being in bed with DRI. If you don't want that then you should cut your losses and get out. From the moment I bought at Poipu (even before Club Sunterra, the original trust, arrived on the scene) I figured that I was going to be on board with the developer, and my most meaningful vote was with my feet, not my proxy.

*****

If you're in the trust you vote for the Board of Directors of the Trust. If one were to really try to work through the system to change things, the Trust is realy the only thing that matters - to either try to swing the Trust election (good luck there), or to try to make a case that the trustee is breaching fiduciary duty. The fiduciary duty, if it can be made to stick, is probably the strongest hammer, as that would cause the trustee to strike an independent course from DRI - since they would be on the hook for financial damages resulting from the breach.

But all of that is just pie-in-the-sky. The main decision is choosing whether you want to continue to be in bed with DRI or not.

 

[melizzard]

We actually found out that our previous home resort (SLBI) has been acquired by DRI ... We didn't even know that till yesterdY as all of our literature still sez Sunterra. So I guess, even though we weren't previously in THE Club, we were already in bed with DRI ... But with weeks

 

[T_R_Oglodyte]

We actually found out that our previous home resort (SLBI) has been acquired by DRI ... We didn't even know that till yesterdY as all of our literature still sez Sunterra. So I guess, even though we weren't previously in THE Club, we were already in bed with DRI ... But with weeks

Sunterra was on the edge of bankruptcy seven or eight years ago when Diamond bought. There are few of us here who pine for Sunterra and their mismanagement.

 

[dwojo]

If you are pleased with your deal with DRI that is all that matters. My wife and I love the flexibility of the club. Our work schedules make midweek travel and less than 7 day stays more convenient for us. For us we do not want to go back to regular weeks they are too cumbersome.

 

[Kauaigrl00]

I wouldn't give DRI a nickle. Just got hit with a huge assessment for my place in Kauai, no warning, three months to pay. I'm seriously thinking about turning my deeds over to one of those time share rescue places.....I'm tired of being screwed by DRI.

Is that what the $3353.32 is for??? Of Course I can't get to the website, just what it stated on my email! OUCH -- since I can't get to the account what exactly is all this for? Is this the water intrusion?

 

[T_R_Oglodyte]

I wouldn't give DRI a nickle. Just got hit with a huge assessment for my place in Kauai, no warning, three months to pay. I'm seriously thinking about turning my deeds over to one of those time share rescue places.....I'm tired of being screwed by DRI.

Why would you pay thousands of dollars to a "timeshare rescue" company when you can do a voluntary deed surrender to DRI for free?

 

[melizzard]

Well, thanks for all the opinions! We just rescinded and we'll see how it goes