Interval's Gold Membership program.

[skimble]

I was pretty excited to find out I had a gold membership program included with my Lawrence Welk Villas week. I called today to spacebank a week from another resort I own at, and they wouldn't accept it, saying I would need to open another account. This account is ONLY good for Lawrence Welk trades.

Our maintenance fees pay for this membership, and it's a significant cost. Unless I trade my Welk week every year, what use is the membership? (other than booking bonus weeks.) What a ridiculous practice!! We pay for the membership through our maintenance dues, EVERY year, yet all owners have the option of using it, or even banking with another exchange company. So, in the end, how many actually utilize this service? 20% maybe?
And, one would think Interval International would be wanting to get my weeks into their system for exchange. Doesn't that strengthen their market share overall?

 

[kapish]

I read on TUG a while back, if you extend your membership, they would let you add additional resorts into your account. Sounded like a pretty good deal to me ...

 

[davhu1]

I read on TUG a while back, if you extend your membership, they would let you add additional resorts into your account. Sounded like a pretty good deal to me ...

I did that yesterday. Added another unit free by extended for 2 more years. Otherwise they change a fee (I think he said $39? if I was not extending)

 

[Bill4728]

Gold Memberships are not and have nothing to do with your II memberships!!

II has one membership, the regular II membership. The gold membership is a completely different add on which gets you almost nothing except small discounts on your II get-a-ways.

If you need to extend your II membership because you bought another TS that great, but do not waste your money on the gold membership.

 

[pcgirl54]

I added my week at no cost when I renewed. Otherwise it's $39.00 to add a week unless that increased. Since I would have needed to renew our annual membership in a few months anyway it was worth renewing another year.

II Gold features I would not use except maybe the Entertainment book discounts. Rarely do getaways.

 

[KenK]

I don't see the entertainment coupons on the II site anymore...or the cruise section.

But everyone is right...unless you want to use a lot of getaways........Gold isn't worth it. They also used to give you gold membership in Hertz, but now I think thats free anyway.

 

[Kola]

"From everybody according to his means, to everybody according to his needs" - remember who said that ?

Savings on four getaways this year already paid 2/3 of II 3-year Gold fees.
Expect to be well ahead by the end of the period. Off-season getaways to some destinations represent over 50% saving compared to the actual cost of exchanges.

K.

 

[acesgame]

I think the problem is what I have encountered. As part of my "fees" with grande crowne I get an II membership (first year was gold, regular after that). Unfortunately, they wont let me add my other ts because it is a corporate account (read: grande crowne doesn't pay what individuals pay) and you can only use the ts of the corporation on that account. It's a rob job but what are you going to do.

 

[borntotravel]

We had the same problem. Our first timeshare is with Sunterra, and we own points. Our Interval membership is paid by Sunterra (I'm sure from our maintenance fees). Unless we are exchanging on-line, we have to do all our "interval international" business through Sunterra's 800# (doesn't seem right, does it). So when we purchased our timeshare in British Coumbia, I had to open another account, but since I pay this membership, I can add additional timeshares, shoudl I desire.