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Re: DRI offering PT's owners Sunterra conversion (by Doug P.):

I think it really will depend on how each owner uses their unit(s) and how many units they own. If an owner tends to stay at PT's on a regular basis, only exchanging at the most every other year, it would be pretty hard to see spending another $3,000 plus $151 more each year in club dues to gain internal exchange privledge's through Sunterra. If you only own one unit you'd never make the numbers work out as the $151 club dues each year is greater than the $135 exchange fee through I.I. Most units in PT's only exchange as the full two bedroom unit at this point while a few units (Great Divides Plus) will exchange both the one bedoom and studio LO portions. Of course, if you own a one bedroom the numbers would never work out as you could only exchange that one bedroom unit.

On the other hand an owner of the standard two bedroom unit could stretch their usage to two exchanges a year using SunOptions points and I.I. With SunOptions you're in a points based exchange system and I.I. takes your points for the exchange rather than your unit. It takes 6,500 for a peak season 5 star 2 bedroom unit and 5,500 points for a 1 bedroom high season 5 star unit. Owners that could not exchange that studio unit in the past were only getting the one exchange out of their unit plus the AC I.I. had been offering (added fee's to exchange those). It's a high price to pay to get that extra exchange from I.I. IMO but I can see some owners finding value in doing that rather than buying another timeshare and paying additional MF's on that new timeshare.

I had been leaning heavily against making the change but, in the end we decided to go ahead with it. There were several reasons for making the change

1. We havnen't stayed at our units in PT's for 2 or 3 years and don't plan on staying there anytime soon. We've been exchanging the units.

2. If we end up with to much timeshare and not enough time off to use it, I can exchange our points to pay our MF's. It still comes up a a little under $100 short of paying both MF's (as they stand now) but it's easier than trying to rent those units to cover MF's. It would be a last resort type of move but, if there's no other option at least I wouldn't be out the full $1,559 in MF's I pay every year (Fee's conversion for 26,500 points would be $1,550 plus the handling fee)

3. SunOptions offers services such as cruise exchange and airline miles. Again not a great deal money wise but could help offset traveling expenses if I didn't need to use all my points for my exchanges. I looked at all the personal usage and exchanges I've made since first purchasing in '98 and, if the option had been there then I've left at least 4 round trip airline tickets lying on the table.

4. It turns our fixed week into a floating week (Suites only. Villa's already float). When we originally purchased that week 36 it looked like it would work for us. In the end, construction delay's and a changing lifestyle made it so we've never actually set foot in that unit. It use to be PT's would let us float that week more than 59 days out but that stopped when the resort reached build out state and many owners wanted to reserve their week. So we've been exchanging that week for the last several years.

The one major draw back for two bedroom owners is that they won't be able to effectively split their week and get two weeks vacation at Polo Towers. While suites weeks are given 12,000 po0ints for their unit, to reserve a 1 bedroom unit and a studio unit seperately would cost 15,000 points. Owners that have succesfully splitting their units or two weeks vacation at PT's in Vegas will lose that ability.

Likewise for those that have been using the split week option for a weekend stay and a week night stay. That option may still be available under SunOptions but it's at a premium. Although SunOptions generally allows for nightly stays for as little as 10% of the the amount of points required for a weekly stay (1,200 points/night). the rub is for weekend nights (Fri, Sat) it would take 3,600 points. You wouldn't get a full 7 nights out of you points unless you were able to only use your unit on weeknight (Sun-Thurs), which, because of were we work we can.

For some owners it would never work out but for others like us I can get better usage by gaining flexibility. I don't see that I'm ever going to save enough to cover the full $2,995 conversion fee within the near future but the added flexibility ended up making it worth it for us.

The big item that pushed us towards the change though was how the exchange companies suddenly feel it's in their best interest to take deposits made for exchange and rent them out for profit rather than put them into the exchange pool. RCI has been going big guns with this lately and I fear that I.I. may follow their lead. At least with the mini-system of Sunterra I have the ability to do internal exchanges and not worry about what any exchange company might start doing in the future. If not for what RCI has been announcing (theri great rental program of timeshare units to the public) I might not have made the change. If I.I. moves in that direction my PT's units would become essentially worthless to me.