Shell Vacation Club

[llum_99]

I am in negotiations with a family member to 'take over' a Shell Vacation Club points program. Total Shell points in a year is 12,000. Annual costs are fairly high- almost $2k.

From my investigation so far, it appears that the 12,000 points is quite a bit, when comparing the Shell grids on what it takes to go on vacation, etc.

Can anyone comment on Shell Vacation Club? How easy is it to trade? How 'powerful' are the Shell points? How is the 'short-notice' success rate w/in Shell?

I get very confused when looking at the RCI points grid as they're on a different scale than the Shell points.

Just trying to make sure I don't get into something that is so restrictive that I cannot use.

Thank you for your input.

 

[Bill4728]

I am in negotiations with a family member to 'take over' a Shell Vacation Club points program. Total Shell points in a year is 12,000. Annual costs are fairly high- almost $2k.From my investigation so far, it appears that the 12,000 points is quite a bit, when comparing the Shell grids on what it takes to go on vacation, etc.

Good - 12K pts is enough to do 2 weeks at most all Shell resorts during platinum season.
Bad- 2K MF is a huge amount for 2 week vacationing a year. This is the main bad point of shell vacations "High MF" their fees are twice similar TS companies MF and twice the MF of the non-shell units in shell managed locations.

Can anyone comment on Shell Vacation Club? How easy is it to trade? How 'powerful' are the Shell points?

You can use your shell point to reserve at all the many shell locations, which makes Shell points very good. I'm not sure how long before check-in you're allowed to make reservations. or how hard it is to make these reservations.

I get very confused when looking at the RCI points grid as they're on a different scale than the Shell points.

Shell points and RCI points have nothing to do with one another. The RCI points needed are not relevant, Shell charges you Shell points to access all RCI locations outside of the shell network.

Good Luck

PS shell points are generally considered to be a good price at $1.00 /point so this package is worth about $12K.

 

[JanB]

IMHO - Shell Vacation Club has some beautiful properties in desireable locations. I have no personal experience as a SVC owner, but, from what I've read here on TUG, many SVC owners are very happy with their ability to access SVC resorts, air travel, car rentals, hotels, etc., without having to trade through RCI. I believe Shell maintenance fees are on the same scale as Marriott, Hilton, and Westin and the quality of most their resorts are also. Not sure of their trading power with RCI, but would think they would be good.

That said, I HATE THEIR PRESENTATIONS and avoid them like the plague (they want me to turn over my deed and pay them to do it!) Also, I am very skeptical of owning "a piece of the Club" rather than a deed. If the club goes under, you have nothing!......But, if I could buy resale at a bargain basement price - "who knows what lurkes in the hearts of men (and women)

 

[rbrougham]

I own SVC and have been very pleased with the resorts. I own other fixed weeks and floating weeks as well, but greatly prefer the points system. Being semi-retired, I have the option of traveling during mid-week (lower point cost) and like taking three and four day trips.

The reservation window varies depending on your "home resort." You can book more than a year in advance at the home or nine months in advance for other resorts.

Shell negotiates the conversion of SVC points into RCI through the 800 number. I've not used that service, so I can't tell you how well it works.

 

[oulmanpe]

Membership Termination

Can anyone tell me if there is any legal way to terminate a Shell Vacations Club membership? We have a deeded membership in one of the S.F., CA clubs. We only have 1500 points per year and I feel were given a huge misrepresentation of what we could expect to get for our points. Now we pay more in annual maintenance fees then we have ever gotten out of the club. Our original 'mortgage' loan payment is paid off so I am willing to give the thing away, I just want out!! Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Hoc]

I just want out!! Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

List it for sale on ebay for a dollar. Someone will bid, and you'll get something near fair market value for it.

 

[oulmanpe]

List it for sale on ebay for a dollar. Someone will bid, and you'll get something near fair market value for it.

Thanks Hoc. I've contemplated the Ebay route as well. I would rather find a legal way to just cancel my membership agreement and quit claim my deed, but I'm sure it is near impossible.

 

[nightnurse613]

Not sure but, I think when you sell it your membership is terminated???

 

[rickandcindy23]

Thanks Hoc. I've contemplated the Ebay route as well. I would rather find a legal way to just cancel my membership agreement and quit claim my deed, but I'm sure it is near impossible.

Sell it on ebay and have the bidder choose a closing company at their own cost. Timeshare Transfer is just $300 for the complete closing, including escrow. Definitely don't pay someone to take it off your hands because there is value.

 

[rbrougham]

Might be possible to add your ownership to an existing member at minimum cost. Understand about how hard it is to get value from minor point totals. What is the MF on your points?

Advertising of any kind is not permitted on these boards. Please refrain from doing so in the future.

 

[Bill4728]

Can anyone tell me if there is any legal way to terminate a Shell Vacations Club membership? We have a deeded membership in one of the S.F., CA clubs. We only have 1500 points per year and I feel were given a huge misrepresentation of what we could expect to get for our points. Now we pay more in annual maintenance fees then we have ever gotten out of the club. Our original 'mortgage' loan payment is paid off so I am willing to give the thing away, I just want out!! Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Shell memberships sell all the time for $1/point on Ebay. So I would expect that your membership is worth ~$1,500. There is a TS resale company in AZ which sells lots of Shell www.timeshareaz.com I'd talk to them.

 

[DeniseM]

Shell memberships sell all the time for $1/point on Ebay. So I would expect that your membership is worth ~$1,500. There is a TS resale company in AZ which sells lots of Shell www.timeshareaz.com I'd talk to them.

I talked to this poster and 1,500 points won't even get you a weekend in San Francisco and his MF is over $400. When you average it out, that's more than I pay for my Starwood MF for a 2 bdm. on Maui!

 

[Bill4728]

I talked to this poster and 1,500 points won't even get you a weekend in San Francisco and his MF is over $400. When you average it out, that's more than I pay for my Starwood MF for a 2 bdm. on Maui!

Shell has very high MFs. It is one of the worst features of the shell memberships. My MFs at a Shell managed TS in BC is very reasonable but the MFs for the same TS in Shell points would be amost double what I currently pay.

 

[oulmanpe]

Thanks to everyone for the feedback. There were a couple of questions regarding the MF. Mine are approx. $400/yr. I am in the CA home club region which includes S.F. and Anaheim. Best regards, Pete

 

[ShellGame2]

Shell Vacations Club - Ripp-Off Scam Warning

As a current Shell Vacations Club member, I am going to explain why you SHOULD NOT own a Shell Vacations Club membership. The program is riddled with ways to steal your hard earned vacation money.

http://shellvacationsclub.blogspot.com/

Removed Ad solicitation.
ouaifer, Moderator

 

[Bill4728]

Shell Vacations is no more of a rip off than any TS developer which sells their TS for 2 - 10 times more than they can be purchased via resale.

You said in your blog that 1,500 points sell for $9,000. But today there are many offers to sell shell points at <$1/pt. (or $1500).

Why are people paying SVC 6 times more than resale? People just will not research their TS purchases like they will research other big ticket purchases.
They will go into a TS presenation without any idea that they can buy the same thing for much less.

 

[CatLovers]

The Shell Vacation club is great, it's how you got your points that's the problem

Gotta agree with you Bill. I'm a very happy SVC owner but .... I bought resale (just like I bought all my other timeshares) at <$1 per point, and I love what it gets me. Sorry, ShellGame, I think you're upset because you got suckered into a slick timeshare presentation, and quite honestly, every single timeshare sales company is known for their slick timeshare salespeople.

It sounds like you've made the big mistake that brought lots of people to this board in the first place - they got caught up in the hype and glitz of the sales presentation. Since you're stuck with your purchase now, why don't you hang out a little bit longer and learn more about how to make the best use of what you've got. There are lots of great insights available from the people who frequent this board.

Btw ShellGame, if you really hate your SVC membership, you can sell it on E-bay, but you will get less than $1 per point for it. I still recommend that you figure out how to make it work for you instead!

 

[re991]

From my investigation so far, it appears that the 12,000 points is quite a bit, when comparing the Shell grids on what it takes to go on vacation, etc.

Can anyone comment on Shell Vacation Club? How easy is it to trade? How 'powerful' are the Shell points? How is the 'short-notice' success rate w/in Shell?

I've had great success trading with Shell. My understanding is that they pull in everything in the RCI inventory. I've gotten three trades considered difficult and one along the coast over a holiday week. I've got another timeshare that is rated RID. I dumped my RCI membership because I only got bad trades with my other timeshare and RCI.

For RCI Exchanges 12,000 points can get you about two and a half weeks red season in a two bedroom each year, OR 3 weeks in a one bedroom red season and 5 nights Sunday-Thurdsay in a studio in red season, OR two weeks in a red season two bedroom and one week in a red season studio and $60 in gift cards.

Although the dues are expensive it includes the RCI membership. The RCI membership only works with Shell points and you will have to pay for an RCI membership for any other timeshare. I've called Shell many times and rarely have to wait on hold. Shell does both the internal reservation and RCI exchange reservations so it only takes one call to shop for an internal reservation or an RCI exchange. RCI points partners is another department and requires a separate phone call.

There is a $129 annual club fee in the dues that includes the RCI membership. This makes the small accounts more expensive per night. It's best to go over 6,000 annual points because that increases the housekeepings from 2 to 4. Because the club fee is fixed the larger the account the less impact the club fee has on the per night cost.

Although the Shell dues are high and the points for the new Napa peoperty are high my cost for a week as a Shell member is 40-55% lower than the price on Expedia without including the taxes on Expedia. On average about half the price of Expedia. That's my goal for using my timeshare. About half price.

 

[kvp]

There is a $129 annual club fee in the dues that includes the RCI membership. This makes the small accounts more expensive per night. It's best to go over 6,000 annual points because that increases the housekeepings from 2 to 4. Because the club fee is fixed the larger the account the less impact the club fee has on the per night cost.

What do you mean by "increased the housekeepings from 2 to 4"?

We bought 1,250 points in March 2006 from Shell (before I knew about TUG) for about $8,000! Way too much money! We have the worst buyer's remorse from this purchase. We were on vacation in SF when we did the presentation. Don't even recall them going over the Right of Rescission. I looked for it when we got home, but by that time it was too late.

Just last week somebody bought 1,250 points on eBay for less than $200; and somebody got 2,500 points for about $500. I’m considering adding to my points, just trying to decide if I want to spend the money on maintenance fees. If I get 2,500 more points, with the 1,250 we already have; we’ll be paying a little over $1,000 MF for 3,750 points.
Being a Shell member makes it easier to get into their resort, obviously. I have been searching for Kona in Hawaii and Vino Bello in Napa. Couldn’t find anything through RCI; but the resorts were available through Shell. We love staying at the Shell Kauai Coast at the Beach Boy too.

Kathy

 

[CatLovers]

What do you mean by "increased the housekeepings from 2 to 4"?

Depending on the number of points you own, you are entitled to a certain number of housekeepings a year. If you go to the Members Only section of the SVC website and look under Club Fees, you can find out more. Essentially, you get two free housekeepings per year if you own less than 6,000 points - so if you vacation for two weeks, you'll get one housekeeping mid-week for each week. At 6,000 you bump up to 4, and at 12,000 you bump up to 6. Additional housekeepings cost more depending on where you vacation and what size unit you are in.

Sorry to hear that you bought your points from the developer. It makes the MF hit feel worse. The MF hit per point does go down after you own more than 2000 because anything above that is on a per point rate. So actually the more points you own, the cheaper it is per point. I know that a lot of people on TUG feel that the MFs are too high. I am in the minority in that I think they're actually very reasonable for what you get in terms of locations and quality of the resorts. I guess part of it comes from the fact that we own quite a few points, bought earlier this year, and so our MFs per point are lower.

PM me if you want more clarity on the MFs.

 

[mepiccolo]

I may be a little late posting here since I just got back from vacation, one week at the Shell Kauai Coast Resort at the Beach Boy and one week at the Westin Kaanapali Ocean Resort Villas. We own 2 bdrm OF at both resorts (or I should say for SVC we own enough points to get this once a year in Hawaii at any resort).

I will say this: My MF for Shell are lower than my Westin MF and believe it or not it seemed to me like we got more for SVC than we did for WKORV. I mean if you just compare Islands I would say Kauai is much prettier, if you compare the beaches it seems Maui is far superior for snorkeling, calm warm water, but I'm comparing resorts here. The SVC Beach Boy in Kauai is in excellent condition. The Hawaiian style furniture is exquisitely beautiful and in excellent condition and the kitchen was better stocked at the Beach Boy. There was even a pancake griddle! We were given coffee, plenty of paper towels, tp, windex and a couple of boxes of detergent (1 load). The plates were beautiful-Hawaiian themed, I believe every time I walked I saw housecleaning, maintenance or the gardeners working away keeping this place immaculate. Every day we stayed at the Beach Boy we loved it even more. We are even thinking of adding more points. The one time we called maintenance they were there within 2 minutes! (our sons played with the safe and messed up the code to open it). We could not say enough pleasant things about that resort-it so far surpassed our expectations as we had bought on the resale market sight unseen. There was always plenty of lounges right by the pool and they allowed you to move the lounges near your rooms (we were on the first floor) or down to the beach area. I don't think you could get any closer to the beach than this resort is. Anyway I'm getting a little carried away here but I will happily hand my check over for MF to SVC because I know that they use it wisely and maintain our home resort top notch. Oh yeah, and at mid-week cleaning they gave me more laundry detergent, more paper towels and even more coffee! Westin on the other hand....hmmm....no Windex, one box of laundry detergent, one thing of regular coffee and one thing of decaf. Mid-week cleaning NOTHING was replenished-not even tp. And the condition of the furniture is like the condition of furniture at a 2 star hotel-really in bad condition. What genius decided to put that kind of furniture at a beach resort??? The couches and chairs were stained. The can opener was broken. My sister was in the lock-off unit and all week long her door did not shut right-it was off the hinges and maintenance did not/could not fix it right so we just lived with it like that all week. The condition of WKORV has worsened so much in just the one year since we went last year we're bummed to think of what condition it will be in next year. I mean the place is only a few years old! So I also would like to complain about MF but not for our SVC timeshare-you come away from your vacation feeling that your MF dollar was well spent there.

 

[kvp]

PM me if you want more clarity on the MFs.

I was going to PM you, but I thought perhaps other people would be interested in more info since this is a SVC thread.

I probably could use more points as I borrowed points from this year last year; and if I want to use points today, I'll have to borrow from next year. I'm still watching resale points; so maybe I'll add more points to bring down the MF per point.

Thanks for the info!

Kathy

 

[CatLovers]

I was going to PM you, but I thought perhaps other people would be interested in more info since this is a SVC thread.

What questions can I try and answer? I certainly don't know it all, but I'm learning, and others on the BBS will chime in, I'm sure, as needed.

 

[myip]

How many points do you need to book Kauai Coast Resort at the Beach Boy Ocean Front unit?

 

[blr666]

See the following points for Beachboy:

Platinum 01-Jan - 07-Jan
29-Jan - 29-Apr
02-Jul - 14-Oct
12-Nov - 02-Dec
17-Dec - 31-Dec
Studio 700 600 450 3950
1BR 750 700 550 4550
1BR View 950 850 650 5550
2BR 1050 950 750 6250
2BR View 1100 100 0 850 6750
Gold 08-Jan - 28-Jan
30-Apr - 01-Jul
15-Oct - 11-Nov
03-Dec - 16-Dec
Studio 650 600 400 3700
1BR 700 650 500 4200
1BR View 850 800 600 5100
2BR 1000 850 700 5800
2BR View 1050 95 0 750 6250