Destinations International

Does anyone have any experience with this company? Their web site is www.divacations.com Their website looks better than the Royal marketing group. But they are one of the places that wants an up front fee $275.00 and a 10% commision on the rental of yoour timeshare. I checked the BBB which indicated the had only one open compliant and had several that had been settled. Of the four companies I looked at DI had the best rating.

Although they sent me their contract, I have not given them any money. Their contract really does not guarantee anything except that your money will be theirs as soon as you give it to them.

If anyone here has had any experience with them, please post here whether good or bad. This information will be available for all members of Redweek to make better informed decissions about who and what companies to do business with. I for one, like to make informed decissions.

Les

lesc11 states in part: >> I for one, like to make informed decisions.<< ========================================

As do most intelligent people. My two cents' worth on your topic follows, to accept or ignore as you see fit:

1. NO upfront fee company can rent anything, anywhere, ANY better than you can do on your own, without them. In the Internet age, access to the worlwide pool of potential buyers and / or renters is essentially exactly the same for everyone. On those (admittedly few) occasions when I have chosen to rent out weeks which I own, I have had no problem successfully doing so without EVER considering the involvement of any of these upfront fee parasite companies. Advertising on reputable sites is inexpensive (RedWeek, MyResortNetwork). On other sites of lesser stature, advertising is even FREE (Bidshares, Craigslist).

2. BBB rating means little or nothing. ANY entity willing to pay the BBB a "membership fee" can join. Filing complaints with BBB against a company is difficult (BBB provides lots of hoops, hurdles and other obstacles for the complainant). If/when a company still manages to develop a bad reputation anyhow, they simply change their name to a brand new name and get a brand new "clean slate". Accordingly, a "good" BBB rating means little or nothing. It would not surprise me much if "Destinations International" turned out to be a reincarnation of a previous entity of different name.

It's your timeshare to do with as you see fit and your money to spend. I will simply state in conclusion that I have NEVER yet seen ANY seller or "landlord" on ANY timeshare related site EVER report "Boy, I sure am glad that I gave my money to {insert any company name here} upfront fee company. It was money well spent."

Just want to say thanks for ken1193's posting aboubt renting your timeshare yourself. Makes sense.

We got this place from the timeshare we bought in Mexico. The amount we paid back in 2007 was $200 I believe. They said that Mexico was a hot spot, especially since our timeshare had multiple locations we can go to without any extra fees (Cancun, Cabos, Puerta Vallarta, Mazatlan, Accapulco and a few others). They said they would rent out our timeshare and take a small (10%) percentage. We have a 1 bedroom timeshare. It has been 6 years and they have not rented it out yet. They said a few things, like no one was looking for just 1 bedroom, they want 2 or the economy has less people traveling or the drug wars in Mexico have people not wanting to go. According to them, when we first started our place was somewhere around 10th on the list. The last 3 it is now 1st to get rented out. I find it hard to believe they cannot rent it out, even to those more "friendly" areas. When I try to call, I just get an answering machine.

lesc11 wrote:

Does anyone have any experience with this company? Their web site is www.divacations.com Their website looks better than the Royal marketing group. But they are one of the places that wants an up front fee $275.00 and a 10% commision on the rental of yoour timeshare. I checked the BBB which indicated the had only one open compliant and had several that had been settled. Of the four companies I looked at DI had the best rating.

Although they sent me their contract, I have not given them any money. Their contract really does not guarantee anything except that your money will be theirs as soon as you give it to them.

If anyone here has had any experience with them, please post here whether good or bad. This information will be available for all members of Redweek to make better informed decissions about who and what companies to do business with. I for one, like to make informed decissions.

Les

All they want if your upfront fee.

We paid $275 to Destinations International about 7 or 8 years ago and have never had a single rental as a result. Each year I ask them for an update and they tell me how I am crawling up the "list" to the number one spot, where I've been for several years now. I found out about this "business" from Grupo Mayan, where we made the mistake of a lifetime due to misrepresentation of the Grand Mayan as a great rental opportunity. I can only say: DO NOT BUY TIMESHARES AND DO NOT SIGN UP FOR RENTAL BUSINESSES.