RiverDog
Guest
We attended an owners update yesterday at the Westin Los Cabo Resort. It had been several years since we attended one, but we wanted to learn more about the new Abound program. Plus we got $150 resort credit and a 40% discount on whale watching. We own two weeks at Lagunamar, and this is our first time in Cabo. Our last update took place at one of the Florida resort, and they pushed hard to get us to trade our weeks at Lagunamar for Sheraton Flex points (and pay more in the process of course) and even went as far as using fear tactics saying ownership in anything in Mexico was risky. That was a terrible experience which made us avoid updates for the last several years.
I was expecting similar pressure to trade our two weeks in for Adventura points (since I understand there isn’t much of Lagunamar in their inventory) but that topic never came up. Instead we were offered an Adventura package which consisted of 67,000 EOY StarOptions (starting in 2024) for approximately $15k + 560 MF/yr with an “incentive bonus” of a choice between 300,000 Bonvoy points that never expire or 67,000 StarOptions that expired at the end of 2024. The initial price they showed was approximately $21k. After passing on that they offer us their “special resort pricing” which dropped it down to approximately $17.5k. While we were left alone to “discuss” that price they came in and said that they just got a unit back from someone who was upgrading so they had the ability to offer us (and another couple who we’e supposedly also looking at the same EOY package) some special pricing while they had the unit in house. That is when they reduced the price down to approximately $15k. We said no, and left after the survey/return package sales attempt (5 nights for $1,695 + $99 processing fee).
Given some of the changes taking place and claims that no resale units brought back into the system will be included in Abound, I’m wondering if I passed up an “OK” offer to increase our ownership and have it included in the new program.
I was expecting similar pressure to trade our two weeks in for Adventura points (since I understand there isn’t much of Lagunamar in their inventory) but that topic never came up. Instead we were offered an Adventura package which consisted of 67,000 EOY StarOptions (starting in 2024) for approximately $15k + 560 MF/yr with an “incentive bonus” of a choice between 300,000 Bonvoy points that never expire or 67,000 StarOptions that expired at the end of 2024. The initial price they showed was approximately $21k. After passing on that they offer us their “special resort pricing” which dropped it down to approximately $17.5k. While we were left alone to “discuss” that price they came in and said that they just got a unit back from someone who was upgrading so they had the ability to offer us (and another couple who we’e supposedly also looking at the same EOY package) some special pricing while they had the unit in house. That is when they reduced the price down to approximately $15k. We said no, and left after the survey/return package sales attempt (5 nights for $1,695 + $99 processing fee).
Given some of the changes taking place and claims that no resale units brought back into the system will be included in Abound, I’m wondering if I passed up an “OK” offer to increase our ownership and have it included in the new program.