DH & I sat thru a Marcus Vacation Club presentation...now I love my DVC even more!

[AJKMOM]

For 6 years, my wonderful step-mother gives us a week at an RCI condo in exchange for a week in Williamsburg she can't use. Whenever I call, sometimes a year in advance, I can NEVER get anywhere I ever heard of. We would like to stay at a beach anywhere in the summer--none available.
We have stayed many nice places, but not where we wanted, with RCI. Bottom line with RCI is the same as Disney, buy where you want to stay. In our case, we never found an RCI resort we would want to go back to, but can't wait to go on our second trip "home" to BWV.

 

[bwvBound]

Originally posted by bounceytigger
Oh, one more piece of interesting information--A person HAS to pay an exchange fee of (currently) $139 per week, for every trip they take thru this Marcus Vacation Club/RCI. And this fee WILL go up over time. (Our sales rep told us that is how RCI makes their money.) The maintenance dues were about 35% cheaper than ours, I'd say, but at least we don't have to pay a $139/weekly fee everytime we go to WDW or anything in the Disney collection. Now our $75 II fee doesn't sound so bad compared to $139!

I would have a difficult time believing that an RCI exchange fee ($139) would have to be paid for each vacation stay. Indeed, it would be required for resort stays outside of the Marcus Vacation Club ... but an MVC owner using their own home resort week (Grand Geneva?) should be able to book directly w/out the fee. Even if the week is ceded to RCI Points (a specific RCI program) - the owner may book their own resort week w/out added fee.

Keep in mind that Marcus Vacation Club is not RCI -- only a resort program affiliated with RCI. To some extent: RCI is to Marcus Vacation Club as Interval International is to DVC. The relationship is slightly different ... but not by much.

Edited: I have no actual experience with Marcus Vacation Club. I've edited the above text to "soften" the approach a bit.

 

[bigsmooth]

I own a week down in Cabo which trades into RCI. I could not be more unimpressed with RCI. Others may disagree, but after trading around a bit it seems to me that any resort can 'buy' their Gold Crown distinction. So definitely own where you want to go, don't own to trade, unless you want to always trade into areas that are oversaturated in the number of condos that exist. Places like Hawaii and CA are not oversaturated.

I also grew up with ownership into a resort that traded into RCI, where my parents owned a place that they owned forever with no expiration. One thing I saw with the condos that you can own forever is that there did not seem to be an impetus to really improve ther resorts. So they aged over time. I've wondered outside of new construction how the existing infrastructure would be improved? Seems like you could do it, assuming owners all agreed to deal with a spike in fees for a certain period. With an expiration date looming, the property manager has a big incentive to maintain the property well, so the property is more valuable when it reverts to their control.

I'm looking foward to owning at DVC (buying in Oct) for the reason is that it is a place I'd like to go to frequently. That being said, I am curious on the overall trading value for the on occasion trade. I've seen mixed feedback on that topic on that board, but that again is highly dependent on the destination.

 

[idofabric]

Wow! Great info. It has answered a lot of questions I have had...
We own 3 weeks/17500 points at Sunterra- 2 different locationsl, and have for about 5 years. Never had any trouble getting in to a Sun. resort- and we never know more then 6 weeks out when we can go on vaction, most of the time I call 4 weeks out. At that point in time we use 1/2 of the normal points we would be charged to stay at the resorts. Ex, Cypress Point, Orlando, May 2004 3 bedroom for 10 people booked in April was about 4000 points, if I had called earlier it would have been 8500 points. This was for 8 nights.
However we tried to exchange with II in Aug 2004 for an Oct 2004 onsite OKW stay.HAHAHAHAH it went through and it cost $129. BUT that was only for a search... the stay I saw was not there it was a mistake...acording to II's tech dept. and we do not have an onsite place to stay. Sun. got us into EVC for no $ and less points....

Each time you use II to exchange points it cost. To do a search it cost , and if they don't find a location/time for you, you must cancle 7 days befor you were to leave. This is stright from Claudett and Lissette in the Interval Internationl (II) customer ser. dept. as of Sept. 8, and today, Sept 13.

So I have learned from all of you - buy where you want to stay the most.
Thanks as always! athene

 

[MickeyCrazed]

Originally posted by bounceytigger
The 2nd salesman said his brother owns at DVC, and he "guaranteed me" that after I did my DVC tour in December (he apparently still believed my fabricated story at that point), that there was NO WAY I'D want to sign up with DVC.

You should have said, "Well, since your brother obivously doesn't think he made the correct decision by purchasing DVC, I'd be happy to buy his points -- at a discounted price of course."

 

[bounceytigger]

Originally posted by dis-happy

I guess I'm one of the few people who sees a benefit regarding the expiration date. This might sound weird, but I like knowing that it, and the maintenance fees required, will have a final end and no more obligation. Do you ever read about those people who have a timeshare, it's horribly run and managed, maintenance fees march on and upward when they can't use it and can't sell it? At any price, not even give it away??? They are indentured forever to the maintenance fees.

Good point! I never thought about that before!

Originally posted by Coach Rick
by 2054 at the age of 97 (if I am blessed to still be kicking) I doubt I will want to travel to WDW. I am sure my grandchilderen will enjoy it, but by that time they can buy their own while I am eating strained carrots. LOL

Too funny!!!! If you were my grandpa and you gave me your DVC, I'd grow my own carrots for you, and any other vegetable you wanted to eat strained at age 97!!!! LOL!!

Originally posted by BwvBound
I would have a difficult time believing that an RCI exchange fee ($139) would have to be paid for each vacation stay. Indeed, it would be required for resort stays outside of the Marcus Vacation Club ... but an MVC owner using their own home resort week (Grand Geneva?) should be able to book directly w/out the fee. Even if the week is ceded to RCI Points (a specific RCI program) - the owner may book their own resort week w/out added fee.

Yes, good point BwvBound. I did a poor job explaining that part! You are correct, a person would NOT have to pay that fee if they stayed in the one-&-only available Marcus resort (located in Wisconsin.) I guess the downside to DH & I in this case, was that the actual Grand Geneva resort didn't appeal to us hardly at all, (it was basically a country club'ish place---which I'm sure many, many people would LOVE, however!)....so if we personally bought into this program, we'd only be doing it to utilize the RCI portion of the ownership. Which in turn would mean spending that $139 per week of travel. (I clarified that with the salesperson too....did we have to pay the $139 EACH week, even if it was a 2-week trip to the same destination? And he said yes, it is a "per week charge".)

Originally posted by idofabric
We own 3 weeks/17500 points at Sunterra- 2 different locationsl, and have for about 5 years. Never had any trouble getting in to a Sun. resort- and we never know more then 6 weeks out when we can go on vaction, most of the time I call 4 weeks out. At that point in time we use 1/2 of the normal points we would be charged to stay at the resorts. Ex, Cypress Point, Orlando, May 2004 3 bedroom for 10 people booked in April was about 4000 points, if I had called earlier it would have been 8500 points. This was for 8 nights.

Actually, our sales person did mention a similar feature to us with RCI...where you get "discounted trips" if you book within 45 days. We thought that part sounded pretty nice....and wished DVC did something like that!!! (We won't hold our breath on that one ever happening, however!)