Trade in my two timeshares towards Diamond points? Pros and cons..love to get ur opinion

[sdp1969]

Hello Tuggers,

I wanted to get everyone’s opinion on my situation. I have a South African timeshare that I bank yearly with RCI with a maintenance fee of 500 /yr and a Mariott Grand Vista 3BR lockout platinum season which I pay 1600/yr maintenance. Both bought resale for about 6K combined. I went to a Diamond resort where I heard a presentation. Their pitch is that I can use Diamond points and go to over 450 resorts all over the world through a single Diamond website instead of having to deal with Mariott/ RCI/ II. In fact, they said they could probably buy both my current timshares and apply that towards the purchase of the Diamond points. I am waiting to hear back from them concerning their offer. They said that 15K points would get me multiple vacations per year even if I needed 2-3 bedrooms (as long as I schedule it 6-12 months ahead of time). I realize that the Grand Vista is a very top level resort and Diamond may not have something in that league but that is actually OK with me as long as Diamonds resorts are very nice. I will take a small drop in quality if it means my selection of resort goes WAY up and the ease of scheduling is much easier. I would no longer have to pay the RCI and II fees and would get rid of the African / Mariott maintenance fees as well. Obviously the Diamond timeshare would have a maintenance fee. Also, I was reading where I can buy points aftermarket and convert them to worldwide points by buying more points directly from Diamond which will be discounted if they give me fair trade in value for the two timeshares I have. So if I buy 10k points aftermarket for a song then they give me 2.5-5k (my guess) for my two timeshares then I purchase 5K points for 10K (2 dollars a points)..then the whole transaction only costs me 5-7.5K ouf of pocket. Is my logic off somewhere? I see a lot of complaints on tug about Diamonds maintenance fees but I don’t see any issues about their resorts themselves being poor or unavailable.


Really appreciate everyone’s input,


Steven

 

[Panina]

Hello Tuggers,

I wanted to get everyone’s opinion on my situation. I have a South African timeshare that I bank yearly with RCI with a maintenance fee of 500 /yr and a Mariott Grand Vista 3BR lockout platinum season which I pay 1600/yr maintenance. Both bought resale for about 6K combined. I went to a Diamond resort where I heard a presentation. Their pitch is that I can use Diamond points and go to over 450 resorts all over the world through a single Diamond website instead of having to deal with Mariott/ RCI/ II. In fact, they said they could probably buy both my current timshares and apply that towards the purchase of the Diamond points. I am waiting to hear back from them concerning their offer. They said that 15K points would get me multiple vacations per year even if I needed 2-3 bedrooms (as long as I schedule it 6-12 months ahead of time). I realize that the Grand Vista is a very top level resort and Diamond may not have something in that league but that is actually OK with me as long as Diamonds resorts are very nice. I will take a small drop in quality if it means my selection of resort goes WAY up and the ease of scheduling is much easier. I would no longer have to pay the RCI and II fees and would get rid of the African / Mariott maintenance fees as well. Obviously the Diamond timeshare would have a maintenance fee. Also, I was reading where I can buy points aftermarket and convert them to worldwide points by buying more points directly from Diamond which will be discounted if they give me fair trade in value for the two timeshares I have. So if I buy 10k points aftermarket for a song then they give me 2.5-5k (my guess) for my two timeshares then I purchase 5K points for 10K (2 dollars a points)..then the whole transaction only costs me 5-7.5K ouf of pocket. Is my logic off somewhere? I see a lot of complaints on tug about Diamonds maintenance fees but I don’t see any issues about their resorts themselves being poor or unavailable.


Really appreciate everyone’s input,


Steven

I am a definite no to this scenario. It is a waste of your money. I always see Diamond on eBay for free. Your Marriott Grand Vista might have resale value, amount depends on when you own but even if it doesn’t you can find someone to take it for free. As far as your South Africa one I don’t know much about it but I would suggest giving it away for free and pay a year or two of mfs and closing costs.

I have always had success gifting my timeshares to others here on the tug bargain section and tug marketplace. I have given 9 away in the last year with a little effort. I did not list anywhere else but if I didn’t get takers I would have offered them on Redweek and eBay.

 

[Egret1986]

Hello Tuggers,

I wanted to get everyone’s opinion on my situation. I have a South African timeshare that I bank yearly with RCI with a maintenance fee of 500 /yr and a Mariott Grand Vista 3BR lockout platinum season which I pay 1600/yr maintenance. Both bought resale for about 6K combined. I went to a Diamond resort where I heard a presentation. Their pitch is that I can use Diamond points and go to over 450 resorts all over the world through a single Diamond website instead of having to deal with Mariott/ RCI/ II. In fact, they said they could probably buy both my current timshares and apply that towards the purchase of the Diamond points. I am waiting to hear back from them concerning their offer. They said that 15K points would get me multiple vacations per year even if I needed 2-3 bedrooms (as long as I schedule it 6-12 months ahead of time). I realize that the Grand Vista is a very top level resort and Diamond may not have something in that league but that is actually OK with me as long as Diamonds resorts are very nice. I will take a small drop in quality if it means my selection of resort goes WAY up and the ease of scheduling is much easier. I would no longer have to pay the RCI and II fees and would get rid of the African / Mariott maintenance fees as well. Obviously the Diamond timeshare would have a maintenance fee. Also, I was reading where I can buy points aftermarket and convert them to worldwide points by buying more points directly from Diamond which will be discounted if they give me fair trade in value for the two timeshares I have. So if I buy 10k points aftermarket for a song then they give me 2.5-5k (my guess) for my two timeshares then I purchase 5K points for 10K (2 dollars a points)..then the whole transaction only costs me 5-7.5K ouf of pocket. Is my logic off somewhere? I see a lot of complaints on tug about Diamonds maintenance fees but I don’t see any issues about their resorts themselves being poor or unavailable.


Really appreciate everyone’s input,


Steven

"Is my logic off somewhere?" You asked and said that you "wanted to get everyones opinion on my situation."

You are giving Diamond Resorts, and timeshare developers as a whole, unwarranted credit for offering "fair trade in value" and working with you in an honest manner in order to pull off this transaction as you envision. It just ain't so.

Seriously? Going into one of their presentations and you're now considering purchasing from them? You're falling for their spiel? These timeshare salespeople will tell you absolutely anything to make a sale.

I agree with Panina. Ditch the two timeshares as she suggests if they don't work for you anymore.

Diamond may work for you. Diamond works for some here on TUG. There are many threads about Diamond Resorts on TUG. I never owned Diamond, and from the reading of threads over the years about how awful they were (not their resorts themselves); I knew I would never ever want to own a part of Diamond. Oooops, I didn't anticipate my resorts being acquired by them. That happened in 2015. It was a turning point for me in my 34-year timeshare adventure. You can get rid of your timeshares by selling them or giving them away. Panina has done it. I have done it. And many others have on TUG. Don't buy into the Developer BS.

There are several very savvy Diamond Resorts points owners on TUG that could tell you better than I if what Diamond is telling you is the real deal. I do not own Diamond Resorts Points. My weeks are traditional fixed deeded weeks.

 

[geist1223]

We are DRI Owners that are happy with DRI. We also own WMTC and Solaris. We have attended several sales pitches with DRI. We have never been pitched that DRI would outright buy our other timeshares nor would we want to part with them. What has been pitched is Club Select/Club Combination where on a yearly basis we could trade WMTC Reservations for DRI Points - 1 Bedroom WMTC Red Season for 6,500 DRI points or 2 Bedroom for 8,500 DRI Points. There is a fee for this. The fee goes down as your ownership in DRI goes up. These possible trades (even if you do not make them) count towards your status with DRI. So even though we do not outright own anything near 50,000 DRI Points we have Plantinum Status with DRI.

Buying resell DRI Points can have a real downside. If you do not get them converted to Regular DRI Points they can be only be used within their Collection - No world wide use. We have converted resell DRI Points (got for free did not even pay transfer fee) by buying DRI Points directly from DRI. Normally it is 2 to 1 - to convert 10,000 resell DRI Points to Regular DRI Points in your Collection you would have to buy at least 5,000 DRI Points from DRI at whatever price you can negociate.

 

[GT75]

Is my logic off somewhere?

I think where your logic is off is that you are considering this "deal" with only speculative information. Now for me to comment would only add to the speculation because I really don't have any facts either. However, my gut feeling, is telling me to be very leary of this "deal".

 

[tperez]

Our experience has been the same as what geist1223 said. Never heard of DRI actually purchasing weeks but they have the Club Select/Club Combo where you can trade your week in each year. We own MVC, Vistana and DRI (both developer purchased and resale). With our developer purchased DRI we enrolled some of our MVC and Vistana in Club Select. One thing we discovered, the first time we tried to use this, is that our ability to trade an MVC week for some DRI points had actually expired after 5 years. But of course they were happy to re-enroll the weeks if we purchased some new points, which we didn't. The weeks that are traded in are then available for DRI members to use with their points similar to II.

One thing to think about is whether you really need to requalify all resale points. We have our resale points in the U.S. trust and can get most places we want in the U.S. with those points. For travel outside the U.S. trust properties we use our Developer purchased points.

 

[artringwald]

We've been happy with our DRI ownership, but availability has been a problem. They may tell you that you can go to over 450 resorts, but most of those resorts are affiliates. DRI may only own a few units at those and booking can be difficult. It's not as much of a problem at the resorts that are managed by DRI, but I don't know exactly how many are. We've never had a problem booking our home resort, but we always book it a year in advance.

One thing I do know is DRI sales reps have a terrible reputation for distorting information and telling outright lies. Unless you see the details in writing, you can't believe anything they say.

 

[easyrider]

An acquaintance of ours sold their Polo Towers Las Vegas for a Diamond Points membership a few years ago. They really didn't use the Polo Towers property every year and Diamond owns inventory in Polo Towers so the though was that they could still reserve Polo Towers with the Diamond Points membership.

The problem is that Diamond has limited inventory in many resorts making it almost impossible to make reservations at many resorts in peak times.

An example is Diamond bought inventory from Vacation International giving Diamond members availability to the small amount of inventory they own. If you look at Diamonds website a person could believe Diamond owns these resorts when they only own a few units at those resorts.

Bill

 

[nuwermj]

1) I realize that the Grand Vista is a very top level resort and Diamond may not have something in that league but that is actually OK with me as long as Diamonds resorts are very nice.

2) I will take a small drop in quality if it means my selection of resort goes WAY up and the ease of scheduling is much easier.

3) I would no longer have to pay the RCI and II fees and would get rid of the African / Mariott maintenance fees as well.

4) They said that 15K points would get me multiple vacations per year even if I needed 2-3 bedrooms (as long as I schedule it 6-12 months ahead of time).

1) If you look at the II resort directory, at least half, maybe a bit more, of the Marriott resorts are "Elite". Diamond has only one at the "Elite" level (Cabo Azul). Fewer than half of the 100 or so Diamond managed resorts are "Premier." If you look at the TUG ratings of Diamond's resorts, you will find that the averages are well below systems like Marriott or Vistana, and even Club Wyndham averages are higher. For example average the top 10 or top 20 resorts in the TUG ratings.

2) Diamond has about 100 managed locations and at these locations availability is reasonably good. The other 300 or 350 locations are "affiliates." Club Diamond has some kind of exchange relationship or rental relationship with these affiliates. Typically inventory is very slim at those locations (1 or 2 units), often in the slow seasons only.

3) Diamond's annual fees are, relatively speaking, very high. You might find you don't save anything. You will find a comparison with other point system here:

https://tugbbs.com/forums/index.php...nts-based-systems-to-dri.244394/#post-1974111

4) Not likely unless you travel in the mud season. I think a fair number is, on average, 7,500 points are needed for seven days in a two bedroom. You can look at the points tables with this link:

https://cmsprod.diamondresorts.com/sites/default/files/us-member-benefits-book-combined_10.pdf

 

[sdp1969]

Hello,

thank you all for your input. After reviewing the diamond resort points book I was surprised at the points cost of a one week stay with 2-3 bedrooms. We were led to believe that 15K points would get us multiple vacations a year at the best places. Now we know that places like HI for one week would take ALL the points and even less glamorous resorts would take about half the yearly points. In addition, now we know the out of the 450 resorts, 350 of them are affiliates with only a small amount of rooms. My journey with Diamond is finished. Again, thank you all for pointing out their lies and saving me alot of money!

Steven

 

[tperez]

We have travel flexibility (retired, kids out of the house, dogs gone) and find that Diamond is actually the best value of the three systems we own. We save dramatically by booking pointsavers and looking for the point "sales", which don't seem to be advertised. For instance my son wanted to go to a music festival in Las Vegas and when we initially booked 5 nights it was over 7000 points. We waited and eventually got the same reservation for under 2000 points. If you're in Northern California, it is easy to get reservations at Lake Tahoe Vacation resort for less than 200 points a night. This does require flexibility so wouldn't apply to everyone.

 

[SmithOp]

We have travel flexibility (retired, kids out of the house, dogs gone) and find that Diamond is actually the best value of the three systems we own. We save dramatically by booking pointsavers and looking for the point "sales", which don't seem to be advertised. For instance my son wanted to go to a music festival in Las Vegas and when we initially booked 5 nights it was over 7000 points. We waited and eventually got the same reservation for under 2000 points. If you're in Northern California, it is easy to get reservations at Lake Tahoe Vacation resort for less than 200 points a night. This does require flexibility so wouldn't apply to everyone.

What else do you own?

I’m curious what DRI is better than. I like staying at several DRI resorts but I dont own, I use Interval ACs. I have a December week in Sedona 2br that cost me $259.




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[artringwald]

Most years we use all our DRI points staying at the Point at Poipu or Kaanapali Beach Club. We wouldn't be DRI owners if it wasn't for those 2 resorts.

 

[chemteach]

I just recently purchased a Marriott timeshare. I also am platinum in Diamond. (sounds like an engagement ring!) I am much happier trading my (resale) Marriott timeshare in II than using Diamond. I am pretty amazed at what I can get with Marriott in II. I like Diamond a lot, but Marriott is more impressive.