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Re: Class Action Against Diamond Resorts? (by Mark W.):

I am a DRI member at the ‘Club’ level with 10,500 points/year. Between 07/29/2017 and 08/04/2017, we stayed at the Polo Towers in Las Vegas, NV. On Wednesday, 08/02, we attended an ‘owner update’ in which DRI agent Benito wanted to know how we were using our current membership, and what issues/concerns we had. We listed the following: 1. Had plenty of points (10,500) on an annual basis, but could not use them for the resorts we desired during our vacation windows of opportunity. 2. Concern over the rising maintenance ($2142 in 2016). Benito asked, “What if you could vacation at the resorts you wanted, and not have to pay any annual maintenance?” That certainly attracted our attention, since it would address our 2 chief concerns, so he went on to highlight the main features of a $3995 20,000 point ‘Sampler’ package: • Upgrade to next higher level with 20,000 points for 2 year trial (Silver status) • One ‘special reservation’ per year, with access to destinations and inventory not available to our current membership level • Use of a DRI credit card (Barclay Bank) to offset annual maintenance fees at rate of .20/dollar charged That seemed reasonable, because to cover the $3000 (if upgraded to Silver level) at .20/dollar spent would require total charges of $15000/year, which seemed feasible.

We were sold a ‘Sampler’ package for $3995, with the instructions that we could start booking reservations for 2018 after 14 days. After the requisite waiting period, I logged in to the DRI website, and saw that I had to choose between my regular Club membership or the newly-activated ‘Sampler’ membership. The following is what I discovered: • In our Club membership, we had access to over 200 destinations, with 146 resorts in the U.S. With the Sampler, we could only access 34, which did not include any of the destinations we wished to try. • The reservation agent knew nothing about the ‘one special reservation/year’, and didn’t think it was associated with any level of membership • After signing up and accessing my online account for the DRI CC with Barclay Bank, I discovered that the actual accrual rate turned out to be .02/dollar charged, NOT .20! This means that in order to offset a $3000 maintenance fee would require $150000 in charges, which is grossly unreasonable.

In summary, we are now left with an additional 20,000 points that we can’t use over the next 2 years, due to non-availability of the promised destinations, and non-existence of the ‘special’ reservations. Additionally, we can’t recoup more than a tenth of our annual maintenance fees even using the DRI credit card to its fullest, due to the grossly-exaggerated point earnings promised. The above is just another example of how Diamond sales agents distort the truth in a custom fashion in order to best accommodate customer concerns/needs. Since the purchase, Agent Benito has not responded to any text messages.