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Sunterra CVS - Mistake?

R

Raymer

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Well, I headed to an update meeting at my Sunterra home resort of Greensprings Plantation in Williamsburg, Virginia, solely for the purpose of getting $200 off my next year maintenance fee. We have 9,000 SunOptions and usually have a hard time using them all every year. Our maintenance fee has also been increasing by about $50-80 each year. I've thought in the past about just selling my timeshare but the market never looked very viable. I don't want to stick my kids with the maintenance fee in perpetuity.

Doing the presentation I was shocked to learn that if you sell your Sunterra timeshare, you can only sell the deeded week you purchased and the points you own are not transferable. Where was I when this was explained back in 1999 or more likely was never explained. During the ensuing heated discussion, it sounded like the only way to be able to sell points was by joining the Sunterra Club Vacation Trust. Of course to join, you had to purchase additional points. It seemed somewhat prudent to me that if I did decide I wanted to sell my points somewhere in the future, I could get out from under my timeshare obligation through participation in this trust. The buyer of the points would then be able to use them by joining Club Sunterra.

So I bought the points and joined the trust. Has anyone else done this? Was this a good move or did I get taken again?
 
SunTerra, ShmunnTerra.

Raymer said:
Was this a good move or did I get taken again?
Click to expand...
I don't know if you got taken again, but it sure sounds like you paid full freight for more timeshare -- after paying full-freight previously for your 9,000-points stake in Club SunTerra (not that there's anything wrong with Club SunTerra). So it goes.

For us, the non-resalability of Club SunTerra points was the deal killer for us any time -- i.e., every time -- we've taken a SunTerra timeshare "owner update" stealth timeshare sales presentation. That's not to say we would have sprung for what SunTerra was selling in any case, in that we don't buy anything new except toothbrushes & underwear, & certainly not timeshares.

By contrast, we eventually caught on that we could by into RCI Points resale -- so we did.

Later, we caught on that it's also possible to buy resale into FairField timeshare points. But by then we were already into RCI Weeks & RCI Points with more points banked than we knew how to use before they got stale, so there was no point in buying into FairField no matter how a great a resale bargain we might have been able to find.

Meanwhile, SunTerra has been bought out by Diamond Resorts, which is in the process of consolidating & amalgamating & unifying & renaming the SunTerra timeshare empire. A reported benefit of that for Club SunTerra members is the ability at some point to do exchange reservations & floating-week timeshare reservations on-line.

Still, the bottom line is that because of the way Club SunTerra works, we can't buy into it resale & if we owned Club SunTerra points we couldn't sell'm to anybody (only whatever underlying SunTerra timeshare property we had that our points would have been based on).

However that may be, there are plenty of satisfied Club SunTerra members out there, enjoying their home resorts & the other timeshares in the SunTerra network, plus exchanges into other people's timeshares via their access to I-I that they get as a fringe benefit of Club SunTerra membership. Who am I to say it's not worth it ?

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.​
 
AwayWeGo said:
I don't know if you got taken again, but it sure sounds like you paid full freight for more timeshare -- after paying full-freight previously for your 9,000-points stake in Club SunTerra (not that there's anything wrong with Club SunTerra). So it goes.

For us, the non-resalability of Club SunTerra points was the deal killer for us any time -- i.e., every time -- we've taken a SunTerra timeshare "owner update" stealth timeshare sales presentation. That's not to say we would have sprung for what SunTerra was selling in any case, in that we don't buy anything new except toothbrushes & underwear, & certainly not timeshares.

By contrast, we eventually caught on that we could by into RCI Points resale -- so we did.

Later, we caught on that it's also possible to buy resale into FairField timeshare points. But by then we were already into RCI Weeks & RCI Points with more points banked than we knew how to use before they got stale, so there was no point in buying into FairField no matter how a great a resale bargain we might have been able to find.

Meanwhile, SunTerra has been bought out by Diamond Resorts, which is in the process of consolidating & amalgamating & unifying & renaming the SunTerra timeshare empire. A reported benefit of that for Club SunTerra members is the ability at some point to do exchange reservations & floating-week timeshare reservations on-line.

Still, the bottom line is that because of the way Club SunTerra works, we can't buy into it resale & if we owned Club SunTerra points we couldn't sell'm to anybody (only whatever underlying SunTerra timeshare property we had that our points would have been based on).

However that may be, there are plenty of satisfied Club SunTerra members out there, enjoying their home resorts & the other timeshares in the SunTerra network, plus exchanges into other people's timeshares via their access to I-I that they get as a fringe benefit of Club SunTerra membership. Who am I to say it's not worth it ?

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.​
Click to expand...

Not worth it. When did you purchase the new timeshare. ?? You can buy Sunterra points on the resale market cheaper. Then you can join the club. However, I heard that Sunterra may stop that. I do not know if this is true. Maybe someone at TUG has more info. When Sunterra was sold, changes were going to be made. Maybe you could sell your points on ebay or one of the other sites. Good luck.
 
Raymer,

A couple of questions:

1. Do you have time to resind?
2. Did you convert your deed to CVS?
3. How many points did you buy and what did you pay.

Spence the expert on Sunterra is no longer able to post on TUG but I think I can do a good job explaining how things work. It would help to have the answers to my questions. Especially #1.

PS. I'm a very happy Sunterra owner
 
Raymer said:
Well, I headed to an update meeting at my Sunterra home resort of Greensprings Plantation in Williamsburg, Virginia, solely for the purpose of getting $200 off my next year maintenance fee. We have 9,000 SunOptions and usually have a hard time using them all every year. Our maintenance fee has also been increasing by about $50-80 each year. I've thought in the past about just selling my timeshare but the market never looked very viable. I don't want to stick my kids with the maintenance fee in perpetuity.

Doing the presentation I was shocked to learn that if you sell your Sunterra timeshare, you can only sell the deeded week you purchased and the points you own are not transferable. Where was I when this was explained back in 1999 or more likely was never explained. During the ensuing heated discussion, it sounded like the only way to be able to sell points was by joining the Sunterra Club Vacation Trust. Of course to join, you had to purchase additional points. It seemed somewhat prudent to me that if I did decide I wanted to sell my points somewhere in the future, I could get out from under my timeshare obligation through participation in this trust. The buyer of the points would then be able to use them by joining Club Sunterra.

So I bought the points and joined the trust. Has anyone else done this? Was this a good move or did I get taken again?
Click to expand...

Rescind your new purchase, but don't sell your older points because you won't get much out of your deeded week. What you have now is valuable and you can use it to your advantage. There are many people who can help you use those points to grab Hawaii weeks or something else and rent it for a profit, so why sell? I think you should keep the points and leave the legacy to your children. Heirs will get the points.

We own 19 weeks of timeshare and our kids are all grown and gone, and they use some of our weeks and travel with us. Our kids will never consider our ownership as a burden because they know what timeshare can do, as they have been around it all of their lives. Give them a chance to own it but outline the way to get rid of it, if they so choose, at a later date. There is a wonderful bit of advice here on TUG under the advice section on how to sell a timeshare. Share that info with them and keep your ownership. I know you will benefit much more by owning than selling. :)
 
Big Bux Don't Necessarily Buy Big Benefits.

bobcat said:
You can buy Sunterra points on the resale market cheaper. Then you can join the club.
Click to expand...
. . . join ClubSunTerra by paying a big honking conversion fee for the privilege of using those resale points, right ?

Or, if not by paying a conversion fee then by paying full freight for more SunTerra timeshare property as an alternate route into Club SunTerra, correct ?

I've never heard of getting into Club SunTerra on any kind of low-cost basis. The closest thing to it I've heard about is haggling with SunTerra to get them to include resale conversion privileges as part of the full-freight purchase contract they want me to sign. Thanks. But No Thanks.

Meanwhile, after taking the (resale) timeshare plunge in 2002 & the (resale) points plunge in 2005, we have a total of some $5,500 tied up in 4 (resale) timeshares. By contrast, the cheapest full-freight deal any timeshare company has offered us across those little round tables with the Muzak blaring in the background has been approximately double that -- for their smallest alternate-year unit.

I am sure there can be valuable perks & benefits that go along with paying timeshare companies full freight to buy timeshares from them -- Club SunTerra, VIP Status, Gold This, Platinum That, & I don't know what-all. Taking all that into consideration, we're still content with our lots cheaper "used" timeshares -- not that there's anything wrong with those. (Plus, all timeshares are used by the time anybody actually shows up & checks in. So why pay a premium for "new" timeshares that are no such thing?)

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.​
 
Reply to Questions

Regarding the questions posed:

1. Do you have time to resind? - yes, still have 6 days
2. Did you convert your deed to CVS? yes
3. How many points did you buy and what did you pay. bought minimum 2,000 points needed to join the Trust at $2.50 point

The intent of my actions was not to obtain additional points - I know I could have purchased these on the open market. I wanted the capability , if needed, at some future time to be able to sell something associated with this timeshare investment and get something out of it. As it was, I would have to be selling a white week only, no points transferrable, at Greensprings and from what I saw the market was saturated. I don;t know what people are getting on the open market for just selling points (which as explained to me yesterday you can only do from the Trust) but it has to be of some value other than vitually nothing. The purchaser of the trust points if already a Club Sunterra member, pays a $250 transfer fee. If not a member, purchasing points from the trust enables them to join by just paying the current Club Sunterra annual fee.
 
Raymer said:
The purchaser of the trust points if already a Club Sunterra member, pays a $250 transfer fee. If not a member, purchasing points from the trust enables them to join by just paying the current Club Sunterra annual fee.
Click to expand...
No one here has ever reported the information you state above. If you buy a resale Trust contract all you can use is the 21 Trust resorts and you do pay the $151 annual fee but in this case it is a Trust fee and not a Club fee. A new owner will have to pay to join Club Sunterra. As far as a current Club owner adding a Trust contract for just $250... collective experience here would indicate that that is not true. You have gained little in converting everything to Trust, I'd recommend you rescind and go back to what you had. have you found this forum?
 
I agree with Joe Mid. Rescind. You have not made your timeshare any more valuable. I purchased 3,000 trust pts this year for $800 plus closing fees from Holiday Group. For a current owner to convert for $250 has not been my experience either. Sunterra will require the current owner to buy more from Sunterra to convert to Club. Since your original 9,000 pts are in Club you may be better off booking Hawaii and trying to rent on Redweek. You should be able to get approx. $1500 for the week. That would more than cover your MF. You will not get much on the resale market and now have just spent an additional $5,000.

Please let us know what you decide.

Eileen
 
Just to let those of you who responded know, we submitted our cancellation of the additional purchase of points and transfer to the CSV trust; rescinding our contract within our allowable time.

Thanks to all who responded and helped us make an informed decision.
 
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