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Original Message:

Help for my elderly father in law - what to do with his Platinum Diamond membership? (by Michael B.):

I discovered that my elderly father in law was spent untold tens/hundreds of thousands of dollars getting to the "top tier" Platinum level of Diamond resorts.

In the last year alone, he paid them $100,000 USD to do the final upgrade! He is 81 and too sick to travel.

The impression that I have is that he also pays something like $10,000 a year in fees to maintain that level. My own simple math is that the amount he pays in annual fees is about equal to the amount of value he would receive from redeeming travel points. So basically his capital outlay is worthless.

A few questions: 1 - From all I have read, his membership cannot be sold. Is that true? 2 - Can we sell his points that have accumulated and any points he keep accumulating while he is still in the plan? 3 - I understand that he can "will" his membership to his daughters. However, if the "net value of the points versus annual fees" is not that good, we would not want to be stuck with the annual obligation. Does this make sense?

Any advice on maximizing the value that he has invested?

I'm half tempted to just cancel and walk away to save him the annual fees to stop the bleeding, but it would break his heart as he thinks he has "invested" into a great plan.

What am I not understanding?