Redweek T/s Exchange - need to pay MF's in advance?

Also, it could be that you don't have to prepay Orange Lake maintenance fees in order to deposit into RCI only, but it could be an Orange Lake rule that you have to prepay maintenance before depositing into other exchange companies such as Redweek and/or the independents.

Orange Lake is not affiliated with II so it's a non-issue there.

phill12 wrote:

peter685 wrote:

Well, it seems that sometimes it can take a while to get the unambiguous facts!

I have spent the last couple of weeks exchanging phone calls and emails with Resort Services at Orange Lake.

The bottom line - and I have this both verbally and in writing by email - is that Orange Lake does not require payment of maintenance fees and taxes in advance when an owner deposits a week with an exchange company, no matter who the exchange company is.

They do require m/fs and taxes to be "current", meaning that they have to be paid up to date for the current year, (i.e., as of now, 2007) before releasing the week to the exchange company. This, I believe, is actually what they were saying in their reply to Marty's enquiry.

I've pointed out before in this thread, Marty says that it is only Redweek's requirement because it is a resort rule, which I have now found out it isn't.....

Pete

Pete this is what I stated in my earlier post!

Our resort collects in Jan and you do not need to pay 2008 to deposit your unit with II . We don't pay until Jan 10,2008 but have already traded for Maui in 2008.

There are resorts that probably require you are paid in advance to trade your unit but from what I can see this is a Redweek issue .

No need for Redweek to pass the buck with all this resort rules bull. Just state it is a Redweek rule and leave it there.

Yes, Phill, you did say that!

I'm interested now to see what Redweek's response is now I have checked out the resort's policy for myself.

Pete

jayjay wrote:

Also, it could be that you don't have to prepay Orange Lake maintenance fees in order to deposit into RCI only, but it could be an Orange Lake rule that you have to prepay maintenance before depositing into other exchange companies such as Redweek and/or the independents.

Orange Lake is not affiliated with II so it's a non-issue there.

Jayjay, if you look back, you'll see that Orange Lake told me that it doesn't matter to them what exchange company it is - Orange Lake don't require advance payment of fees and taxes, period!

Pete

Ah, search me, I don't understand the discrepency then.

Thank you for bringing this to our attention about the upfront maintenance fee payment. I've gotten clearer direction now and sometimes it's a resort rule, but it's ALWAYS our rule. We require the maintenance fees to be paid for the year deposited so there's no risk of the owner defaulting later, and us losing the reservation we've made for an exchange guest. So, no, we cannot accept their Orange Lake weeks into our exchange system without paying maintenance fees in advance.

Thanks, Marty

marty8084 wrote:

Thank you for bringing this to our attention about the upfront maintenance fee payment. I've gotten clearer direction now and sometimes it's a resort rule, but it's ALWAYS our rule. We require the maintenance fees to be paid for the year deposited so there's no risk of the owner defaulting later, and us losing the reservation we've made for an exchange guest. So, no, we cannot accept their Orange Lake weeks into our exchange system without paying maintenance fees in advance.

Thanks, Marty

Well, Marty, thanks for clarifying that, but quite frankly I'm really not too impressed that it took all this carry on for you to finally come up with Redweek's real position on this matter. I'm not quite as direct on these things as Phill was in his post of Sep 5th, but he perhaps has a point there!

I'm not a particularly experienced timesharer, or exchanger come to that, but, while otherwise I think that Redweek's new exchange system looks really good, I'm just not inclined to give my home resort the benefit of having my fees in the bank anything up to 2 years in advance - that really is not attractive to me.

I know that it's not only Redweek that insists on this, so it looks like if I don't use RCI, I'll be renting out.

Sorry, Redweek - I'm out.

Pete

Marty,

How does Redweek deal with the 1 in 3 year rule that Orange Lake has with RCI if you have no written agreement with any resort?

Thanks

Chris

peter685 wrote:

marty8084 wrote:

Thank you for bringing this to our attention about the upfront maintenance fee payment. I've gotten clearer direction now and sometimes it's a resort rule, but it's ALWAYS our rule. We require the maintenance fees to be paid for the year deposited so there's no risk of the owner defaulting later, and us losing the reservation we've made for an exchange guest. So, no, we cannot accept their Orange Lake weeks into our exchange system without paying maintenance fees in advance.

Thanks, Marty

Well, Marty, thanks for clarifying that, but quite frankly I'm really not too impressed that it took all this carry on for you to finally come up with Redweek's real position on this matter. I'm not quite as direct on these things as Phill was in his post of Sep 5th, but he perhaps has a point there!

I'm not a particularly experienced timesharer, or exchanger come to that, but, while otherwise I think that Redweek's new exchange system looks really good, I'm just not inclined to give my home resort the benefit of having my fees in the bank anything up to 2 years in advance - that really is not attractive to me.

I know that it's not only Redweek that insists on this, so it looks like if I don't use RCI, I'll be renting out.

Sorry, Redweek - I'm out.

Pete

We're sorry that you feel this way, Pete. With anything new there is a learning curve. We hope you will reconsider in the future.

Marty

peter685 wrote:

Well, Marty, thanks for clarifying that, but quite frankly I'm really not too impressed that it took all this carry on for you to finally come up with Redweek's real position on this matter. I'm not quite as direct on these things as Phill was in his post of Sep 5th, but he perhaps has a point there!

I'm not a particularly experienced timesharer, or exchanger come to that, but, while otherwise I think that Redweek's new exchange system looks really good, I'm just not inclined to give my home resort the benefit of having my fees in the bank anything up to 2 years in advance - that really is not attractive to me.

I know that it's not only Redweek that insists on this, so it looks like if I don't use RCI, I'll be renting out.

Sorry, Redweek - I'm out.

Pete

You know, I honestly dont know why Orange Lake allows their owners to deposit their weeks into RCI before paying maintenance fees (I realize they do, I perviously owned there), but what if someone bails out on paying their maintenance fees after having already deposited their week into RCI a year or more earlier. This would seem like a logistical nightmare for RCI and Orange Lake.

I wonder how the above scenario is handled? I'm really surprised that Orange Lake hasn't recanted this. I even wondered about it when we owned there.

chris460 wrote:

Marty,

How does Redweek deal with the 1 in 3 year rule that Orange Lake has with RCI if you have no written agreement with any resort?

Thanks

Chris

Hi Chris,

I know you have had some email exchanges with Kylie about this but thought I'd answer here for other's benefit as well.

We have been notified that some resorts, such as Orange Lake Country Club, have a 3-in-1 rule with RCI that prevents a NON-OWNER from exchanging into the resort more than one time within a three year period. This appears to be a rule between the resort and RCI that does not apply to us. If it applied to us, they would need to give us/DAE notice, and they have not. DAE has a good relationship with Orange Lake and has never had any trouble processing reservations. To their knowledge, there are NO resorts with this rule that they are restricted by.

Thanks, Marty

My resorts won't accept prepayment of exchange fees. I've already deposited a week with Redweek (as this wasn't clear at the time of deposit). Is my deposit now cancelled and will my week be returned to me, or what? The resort won't accept payment in advance of issuing the invoices (they're due in April).

davidd320 wrote:

My resorts won't accept prepayment of exchange fees. I've already deposited a week with Redweek (as this wasn't clear at the time of deposit). Is my deposit now cancelled and will my week be returned to me, or what? The resort won't accept payment in advance of issuing the invoices (they're due in April).

Hi David,

We contacted DAE about your deposit and your deposit was approved by Broome Park, so you are all set.

Thanks, Marty

marty8084 wrote:

davidd320 wrote:

My resorts won't accept prepayment of exchange fees. I've already deposited a week with Redweek (as this wasn't clear at the time of deposit). Is my deposit now cancelled and will my week be returned to me, or what? The resort won't accept payment in advance of issuing the invoices (they're due in April).

Hi David,

We contacted DAE about your deposit and your deposit was approved by Broome Park, so you are all set.

Thanks, Marty

Marty,

There seems to be some inconsistency here between what you have said to me and what is happening in practice in this instance.

Do I understand this correctly, that you are accepting David's week for exchange without the maintenance fees for his week having been paid in advance? From your reply to him, the deciding factor seems to be that the resort is approving the deposit.

Pete

Thanks Marty for your reply. But is this not the case with most resorts - at least the ones in Europe that I know of - that provided the owner is not actually in arrears with maintenance payments, the resort will normally guarantee the exchange? I know DAE (in Europe, at least) does this and, as you're obviously (and sensibly) making use of their inventory, you should be aware that nobody who has deposited with them will have pre-paid their annual fees.

A very good example of this is Loch Rannoch Highland Club, in Scotland, that has a payment due date of 1 August each year - and not one single day earlier (I really don't know why, because they send the invoices out about a month in advance). As an owner of August and September weeks there, it would be impossible to deposit them into the Redweek program sufficiently in advance if prepayment of fees was a requirement. Yet these weeks would be regarded as highly desirable for exchange purposes (the quality of the accommodation there beats even Marriotts IMO). So I know for a fact that any weeks from this resort that are shown as being available after 1 August 2008 will have been deposited without prepayment of fees.

peter685 wrote:

marty8084 wrote:

davidd320 wrote:

My resorts won't accept prepayment of exchange fees. I've already deposited a week with Redweek (as this wasn't clear at the time of deposit). Is my deposit now cancelled and will my week be returned to me, or what? The resort won't accept payment in advance of issuing the invoices (they're due in April).

Hi David,

We contacted DAE about your deposit and your deposit was approved by Broome Park, so you are all set.

Thanks, Marty

Marty,

There seems to be some inconsistency here between what you have said to me and what is happening in practice in this instance.

Do I understand this correctly, that you are accepting David's week for exchange without the maintenance fees for his week having been paid in advance? From your reply to him, the deciding factor seems to be that the resort is approving the deposit.

Pete

Pete,

If the resort refuses pre-payment, they may still approve it to be transferred to us. It does appear that there are some European resorts where this is the case. Our general rule remains that maintenance fees need to be prepaid. So far we've only seen these issues in a few European timeshares.

We apologize about the confusion over all of this. We are learning as we grow.

Thanks, Marty

davidd320 wrote:

Thanks Marty for your reply. But is this not the case with most resorts - at least the ones in Europe that I know of - that provided the owner is not actually in arrears with maintenance payments, the resort will normally guarantee the exchange? I know DAE (in Europe, at least) does this and, as you're obviously (and sensibly) making use of their inventory, you should be aware that nobody who has deposited with them will have pre-paid their annual fees.

A very good example of this is Loch Rannoch Highland Club, in Scotland, that has a payment due date of 1 August each year - and not one single day earlier (I really don't know why, because they send the invoices out about a month in advance). As an owner of August and September weeks there, it would be impossible to deposit them into the Redweek program sufficiently in advance if prepayment of fees was a requirement. Yet these weeks would be regarded as highly desirable for exchange purposes (the quality of the accommodation there beats even Marriotts IMO). So I know for a fact that any weeks from this resort that are shown as being available after 1 August 2008 will have been deposited without prepayment of fees.

Yes, David, we have been discovering that some of the European timeshares are working a little differently when it comes to the prepaid maintenance fees.

Well, I've changed my mind! Redweek, I'm in!

I have in fact just been on the phone to Orange Lake and paid an estimate of my 2009 maintenance fees for one of my weeks there, and then I deposited that week with Redweek. It shows up now as a "Deposit in Progress". Looks like I'm first at my resort village to actually deposit here.

So why did I rethink? Well, the main reason was that having considered all my exchanging options, I came to the conclusion that Redweek gives me the only route into a points based exchange system with my present weeks, as I will not entertain Orange Lake's Global Access programme.

As I believe I said before, I did, and still do, see a lot of good things in Redweek's exchange system. The only part that was bugging me initially was this maintenance fee thing. But as I also said earlier, I have never exchanged a timeshare week before, so this has been a learning curve for me too.

So I now have 3 years to utilise my points. I hope that Redweek's exchange programme will develop and expand, and that we will see more actual deposits and less provisional weeks as owners become more confident over time in the potential of this alternative to RCI, II, et al.

Best wishes, Redweek.

Kudos to you peter :o)!

I know it's discouraging for some people that Redweek requires that maintenance fees be paid before depositing, but it's for the security of all concerned (re: should someone decide, for whatever reason, to not pay their maintenance fees after depositing). Can you imagine what a headache that would cause for someone that's already exchanged for that Orange Lake week? I honestly don't know how RCI handles Orange Lake's (or any other resorts) depositing before paying maintenance fees ... I would think it could be a nightmare situation.

If I owned an exchange company I would require that maintenance fees be paid before depositing.