Really gratefull for all the advise. So if I understand correctly.... It IS possible to buy a deeded week in the Whiski Jack complex (in a building that is listed in Whiski Jack Resorts Annual news letter) WITHOUT it qualifying as a tradable week within the Raintree Vacation Clubs other resorts? If this is this case, would a timeshare advertised as "Raintrees Whiski Jack" be false advertising if it did NOT qualify for trading ?
I believe so. There are many units that Whiski Jack sold before Raintree appeared, and unless and until the owners have joined those units to Raintree, those units operate exactly as they did prior to Raintree appearing.
Raintree is probably the most confusing multi-resort system around. Before you assume it's false advertising, you should consider that perhaps some owners don't know exactly what they own. When all of the correspondence you see says "Raintree", your resort website it at the Raintree web site, your annual statements say "Raintree", and you've sat through owner updates that tell you all about how "Raintree" has acquired "Whiski Jack", it's not surprising that many Whiski Jack (and Club Regina owners as well) think they own a Raintree timeshare.
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A couple of other Raintree comments.
First, as regards their points system:
When Raintree was formed Raintree set up the gem levels to identify trade power and value of weeks within the system. Then they decided to offer a points system and to accomplish that they hooked up their system with RCI Points, tying RCI Points to the gem levels. At that point you could use gem levels to do week for week exchanges within Raintree, and if you wanted to trade through RCI you were in the weeks system. Or you could upgrade to "Raintree Vacation Club powered by RCI Points" which turned your gem level into points. You could use those points in RCI Points, and you could also book less than week long stays within Raintree by using points.
At some point, without telling owners, Raintree simply converted the entire Club to RCI Points at no cost to owners who hadn't paid for the upgrade to RCI Points.
Second, as regards Raintree operations:
Raintree is without doubt one of the worst operations at communicating with owners. A good example is the situation cited above in which they simply migrated the whole system to RCI Points, with nary a word to owners about what was going. I was totally confused when I talked to a phone rep and he he started talking about points in my account and doing four and five night availabilities. I had no idea what he was talking about. Eventually I was able to piece together what happened, when I realized that I had access to everything about RCI Points that had been pitched to us during an "Owner Upgrade".
Third, don't let this scare you off from Raintree.
Where confusion reigns, those who have correct information have a distinct advantage. If you are willing to invest time in understanding the system you have a distinct advantage in the Raintree resale market. You can easily identify properties that are underpriced because the owners don't really know what they own. Similarly, you will easily know properties to stay away from because the owners don't own what they think they do. You will know what questions to ask of owners.
Needless to say with all of this, you should never consider buying any Club Regina/Whiski Jack/Raintree property unless you have the opportunity to confirm ownership details (using the phone number I gave above).