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Vidanta takes vistana units as equity

kastis

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Hi,

Does anybody has any experience using Vistana weeks as equity for Vidanta. Vidanta promised to get rid of our weeks in Vistana, we like the idea of getting rid of all maintenance fees, and pay as we go at Vidanta,
Did anybody got into Vidanta this way? We still have time to change our minds.
 
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T-Dot-Traveller

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Hi,

Does anybody has any experience using Vistana weeks as equity for Vidanta. Vidanta promised to get rid of our weeks in Vistana, we like the idea of getting rid of all maintenance fees, and pay as we go at Vidanta,
Did anybody got into Vidanta this way?

You can likely get “ the same deal” without a trade in .
There are multiple threads in the Mexican Forum .
 

T-Dot-Traveller

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Yes - look for threads in Mexican Forum .

It is mostly “ smoke & mirrors “ - to remove objections to buying .
You can probably get the same deal without a trade in .
 

Eric B

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It also probably won’t effect your Vistana ownership....
 

kastis

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Thank you,
Does it mean we could get better deal ? We ok with trading vistana, we got 10k vidanta dollars to cover transfer fees and we do not mind escaping Vistana maintenance fees, was just looking if somebody got through this process and if it works, last thing I would want to buy Vidanta and still have Vistana weeks
 

tschwa2

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Vidanta will take (not really but they say they will) almost any timeshare and say they are giving you equity. They don't actually take the weeks, they hand that off to a third party which may require fees and doesn't guarantee anything. You will probably (around 85% chance) still own the Vistana week and have to take care of getting rid of it yourself. Vidanata doesn't really give you anything, that they wouldn't give someone without a timeshare, it is just a shell game to make them think they are giving you something for your timeshare. Also there are usually a lot of restrictions on Vidanta dollars. I don't think you can just use them for anything at the resort.

Lots of people have been through the process and more end up not getting rid of their other timeshare through buying with Vidanta then those that do. So if you don't want both, you want to sell, or give away your Vistana yourself.
 

VacationForever

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Vistana now accepts deedback. The Vidanta's use of third party usually ends up with nothing good happens to the owner, basically, you will still be "stuck" with your Vistana timeshare after purchasing Vidanta's. Easier to just hand it back to Vistana.
 

T-Dot-Traveller

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Hi,

Does anybody has any experience using Vistana weeks as equity for Vidanta. Vidanta promised to get rid of our weeks in Vistana, we like the idea of getting rid of all maintenance fees, and pay as we go at Vidanta,
Did anybody got into Vidanta this way? We still have time to change our minds

Read the threads -
If you wish to rescind - do so through Vidanta Member Services .( not sales )
If still at resort in Nuevo Vallarta - it is located in Grand Bliss / near elevator of sales floor .
Appt is needed .

You can also rescind & then negotiate with members services / they will attempt to get you to keep the contract anyway.
The trade in is transacted thru a transfer / disposal company that works with Vidanta .
Read the details of your paperwork
 

kastis

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We are still at resort, hence will be canceling tomorrow.
Do we need separate cancellation for equity trade-in aka "equity value agreement" which is with timeshareresalemarket.com? Or contract cancellation would cover that ?
 
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goaliedave

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Hi,

Does anybody has any experience using Vistana weeks as equity for Vidanta. Vidanta promised to get rid of our weeks in Vistana, we like the idea of getting rid of all maintenance fees, and pay as we go at Vidanta,
Did anybody got into Vidanta this way? We still have time to change our minds.
I did this in Mexico but with Palace Resorts, I got $30K for my 3 Vistana weeks. Their 3rd party reseller called and offered me to retain the Vistana so I did.

Sent from my SM-A505G using Tapatalk
 

Eric B

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I did this in Mexico but with Palace Resorts, I got $30K for my 3 Vistana weeks. Their 3rd party reseller called and offered me to retain the Vistana so I did.

Sent from my SM-A505G using Tapatalk

That's a fairly common twist on the equity trade-in for Mexican timeshare sales; the 3d party reseller will offer the option of paying them to retain the timeshare ownership you traded in. They still want you to pay their original "processing fee" and generally ask for an additional fee to let you retain the timeshare. Given that you are saving them the effort of trying to resell a timeshare, which is generally not always a simple thing to do, and the fact that you have no contractual obligation to anyone to sell the timeshare (see other threads on the subject), this is generally a bad idea and just free money for them. With Vidanta, the sales are actually handled by a separate corporation (Vida Vacations) that touts the timeshare trade in scam; when Member Services, which is actually a part of the Vidanta corporate entity does the closings on sales they have a purchaser verify a number of items about the purchase over the phone with a representative from Vidanta corporate headquarters and the trade in is never mentioned in order to distance them from that aspect of the sale (amongst others).

I went through the same thing on a Vidanta purchase several years ago. After reading about others' experiences and being contacted by the 3d party reseller, I examined my "trade in agreement" with a more critical eye and came to the realization that it was completely unenforceable against the 3d party, who wasn't any part of the original transaction anyway. When they contacted me, I contacted Vidanta Member Services and had them "void" the "trade in agreement" - which they were happy to do because there are no "tax write offs" or any other benefit for Vidanta from "timeshare trade ins." IMHO, the "timeshare equity trade in" is just a sales ploy involving smoke and mirrors that doesn't really effect the price you are paying, but allows the sales folks to justify "reducing" the price they agree to sell to you at when you won't buy at an inflated one; I believe there are many here on TUG that would agree with that assessment.

I have met folks that actually went through the "timeshare equity trade in" and wound up still owning the timeshare 8-10 years later. I've also met people that complained about the "trade in" to Vidanta Member Services and somehow managed to have it transferred from their ownership. I've also discovered what happens to timeshares that are "traded in" - one avenue for the 3d party is to try to give it away for free via Timeshare Nation. If it is a desirable one, it will go quickly through their as they don't charge for the timeshares they transfer or the closing costs or transfer fees. I am currently waiting for the transfer of a free WorldMark account through them; those go very quickly when they are posted there, as do a few others. When I agreed to take that one and got the details of who the transferring party would be, I looked at the website for it and found that it was a corporate entity that existed to deal with disposing of timeshares that were traded in. If you look at the current inventory of Timeshare Nation, however, you will see a number of timeshare ownerships that have been on there for years without changing hands and you will see examples of resorts that have quite a few ownerships. Great place to get a timeshare inexpensively as well as to research which ones might have some value as resales as opposed to which ones you'll have to pay to get rid of when you're done timesharing.
 

kastis

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Great info, i wish i knew all beforehand.
Anyway, we rescinded contract yesterday and got refunded initial deposit on cc (still waiting refund to go through, never knew refunds on credit cards takes much longer than initial charge).
The process was straightforward, still took 2 hours. We went to membership services as advised here. From there we were led to another building for meetings with some sales VPs.while in the process we got another 2 offers where each was 50% less than previous price.Guys were not pushy and really polite. Once we declined offers, we were driven to santorium bar building, where refund was to be processed. There "developer
not sales" people made another 2 offers, long story short, during cancellation, initial price of 40k went down to 2.5k. Now i understand why people go through cancellation to get better offer :)
Anyway, we declined and had to come back after 2 hours to pick up refund transactions print outs, apparently refund was done in corporate offices.plus people in mexico 'takes their time' with each task :)

Looks like Vidanta really desperate to get people into their resorts, im assuming they dont care much for actual share price, as long as you will be coming there and keep spending money in the resorts
 

Karen G

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Great info, i wish i knew all beforehand.
Anyway, we rescinded contract yesterday and got refunded initial deposit on cc (still waiting refund to go through, never knew refunds on credit cards takes much longer than initial charge).
Thanks for letting us know. Glad it all worked out for you.:)
 

tschwa2

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Great info, i wish i knew all beforehand.
Anyway, we rescinded contract yesterday and got refunded initial deposit on cc (still waiting refund to go through, never knew refunds on credit cards takes much longer than initial charge).
The process was straightforward, still took 2 hours. We went to membership services as advised here. From there we were led to another building for meetings with some sales VPs.while in the process we got another 2 offers where each was 50% less than previous price.Guys were not pushy and really polite. Once we declined offers, we were driven to santorium bar building, where refund was to be processed. There "developer
not sales" people made another 2 offers, long story short, during cancellation, initial price of 40k went down to 2.5k. Now i understand why people go through cancellation to get better offer :)
Anyway, we declined and had to come back after 2 hours to pick up refund transactions print outs, apparently refund was done in corporate offices.plus people in mexico 'takes their time' with each task :)

Looks like Vidanta really desperate to get people into their resorts, im assuming they dont care much for actual share price, as long as you will be coming there and keep spending money in the resorts
They imply that the 40k offer is the same as the 2.5k offer but at least 70% of the benefits of he original offer would be cut and you end up with an exit program that still isn't worth the 2.5k for most folks. If they really were offering the same contract for that it would probably be worth it.
 

T-Dot-Traveller

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Great info, i wish i knew all beforehand........
The process was straightforward, still took 2 hours. We went to membership services as advised here. ....... long story short, during cancellation, initial price of 40k went down to 2.5k. Now i understand why people go through cancellation to get better offer ......

Looks like Vidanta really desperate to get people into their resorts, im assuming they dont care much for actual share price, as long as you will be coming there and keep spending money in the resorts

Thanks for posting - and giving a straight forward version of the process .

The final offer of $ 2.5 K - probably was more of an access package ( exit package ) and likely would not have
had as long an ARP for advanced reservations as the initial offer .
That said : the average selling price. - [of a Vidanta full ownership contract with registered weeks ] - is probably
nowhere near the initial $ quote .

I also fully agree that occupancy levels are very important to the hotel side of Vidanta .
The dollars generated by Vida Sales is IMO used to build and expand the Vidanta resort system properties .

Also - if you are still at the resort - please tip the staff to the best of your ability / it is always an important part
of the income of all resort staff in Mexico .
 
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