Report Abuse

I have read with interest this topic and others online and will add my experience for whatever it is worth. My wife and I purchased 360 points at Rancho Banderas for $7,600 in 1999 when the resort was in its construction phase and consisted of the pool, restaurant and oceanfront models. Much was promised. 360 points entitles us to one summer week in a one bedroom unit. (This has not changed since we purchased.) My family of 5 spent our first week at RB at Easter 2000 in Unit 104 (by using bonus points and borrowing points from the next year), the prime 3 bedroom ocean front unit with the private spa. We were pleased with the experience. My children commented that it was the best place we'd ever stayed. Most years we have exchanged our RB use week with Interval International. The week has always traded very well. In early 2002, we received an offer from RB to prepay 10 years worth of maintenance fees and the Cash Back America offer for a 100% rebate in 4 1/2 years, so we accepted the offer. We dutifully followed all the Cash Back America instructions to the letter and submitted the final paperwork in September 2006. Our rebate claim was rejected due to the company's claim that we failed to submit a credit card receipt for payment of the maintenance fees. While I dispute that this was indeed required, I did not pursue the issue further because I deemed it to be a lost cause. The Cash Back America program was, clearly, a fraudulent scheme. Interestingly, though, our payment of 10 years of maintenance fees in advance in 2002 has insulated us from the increases in the maintenance fees to date. I don't look forward to our maintenance fee bill in 2012. In Spring 2002, I attempted to reserve 3 days of use in late July 2002. No time was available. During the next year, I speculated that RB had been underbuilt and oversold. We were able to reserve 3 days of use in the Summer of 2003. We attended a sales presentation at which we were offered an additional 120 points for about $10,000 with the Cash Back America scheme offered to include both the additional $10,000 and the original $7,600 purchase price. Not knowing how the Cash Back America offer would work out with regards to our prepaid maintenance fees, we rejected the offer and made the comment that RB was the most difficult of our multiple timeshare ownerships to manage because it appeared the resort was oversold and underbuilt. The salesman quietly agreed with us and indicated that groundbreaking was to occur the next week for an additional 200 units. The only additional unit which has been constructed since that time is the one penthouse unit. The only other time we have stayed at RB was for a week in late August 2009. The resort was much the same as it had always been including the furnishings and kitchen which needed some updating. Overall, we enjoyed our stay. Selling at RB appeared to have stopped. My son and his wife stayed at RB in 2008 on an Interval International exchange and enjoyed their week. RB is a unique experience, on the bluff overlooking the Bay of Banderas. It is beautiful and is on the best beach on the Bay. The resort's isolation makes for a relaxing stay, but also makes you subject to the resort's quirks. We own timeshare weeks with 5 different companies, perhaps because of our equivalent of a "midlife crisis." Timesharing is not an investment, but has opened our horizons to some wonderful vacations. Maintenance fees everywhere we own have gone way up over the years. RB's maintenance fees started out the lowest of any resort we owned. Rancho Banderas clearly has its problems. The slick developer has clearly overpromised and underdelivered. As RB timeshare owners, we have probably been defrauded to one extent or another. However, with the resort in Mexico, the developer in Canada and most of us in the US, it is likely unrealistic to think we could achieve legal justice. If I might speculate, the more than doubling of maintenance fees in 2007 was likely the result of being a bit low to begin with and having more owners default, than purchased, thereby spreading the maintenace costs among fewer owners, with some fraud and mismanagement mixed in. I strongly suggest that you reserve time at RB early in your use year or trade your time with an exchange service. If you don't think the maintenace fees are worth it, let it go. Buyer's remorse is common in the timeshare business. You are not going to get your money back. For those of us defrauded in the Cash Back America scheme, we should remember that if it looks too good to be true, it likely is. My wife and I own time at RB until 2047. We will enjoy it as long as we can afford it and not worry about things we cannot control.