My wife Mary and I had a very interesting meeting last evening regarding a conversion of our two fixed weeks at the Atrium to points under the I.I. system. I must say the presentation was a bit odd, in that, we were visited by a sales person hired by Festiva at our home in New Jersey, and the man had no idea where our timeshare was or any information regarding the Atrium specifically, only that part of his sales pitch was that the special assessments would keep occuring. It was a bit confusing but what I could surmise was that Festiva wanted us to abandon our deed, enter into a deed "in trust", pay a "one time, right now special offer" of $2,990. plus some legal fees (if we decide to o this later it would cost $8,990. plus...). What we would recieve in return was 4300 points to be used at any I.I. resort. If I wanted to stay in my unit I would have to commit to it 13 months in advance and that would cost me the 4300 points.

Part of the enticement to do so was that there would never be any special assessments in the future under this program.

My immediate concern and when asked, it was not answered, what if say 50% of the owners made this conversion, what happens to the rest of us when an assessment is necessary? I have many other questions, which I will not get into at this time, but I ould like to know if anyone else has been through this sales pitch or can shed some light o what is going on. The Atrium seems to be spiralling out of control and I am concerned about my investment.

Thanks for listening, Dimitry

Run, do not walk, away from this.

Annie

This really sounds like extortion.

We have a time share in Sedona, Az that we trade through RCI for time in St Maarten. We also were approached to relinquish our title in exchange for "x" amount of points.

My concern has always been - What happens when they decide to change from the "points system" to another system? I would then be holding worthless points and they would have my time share.

No Thanks !!

~~ Once you've slept on an island, you'll never be the same ~~
2008 St Maarten Pics

I own at the Atrium and was also contacted about relinguishing my fixed week to a point system. ABSOLUTELY, UNEQIVOCABLY NO WAY!!! Are you part of the class action suit against Festiva to protect you temporarily (hopefully for the long run) against Festiva's assessment fees?

My wife and I are going to talk to the Towers about upgrading to a different unit next Tuesday. It will be interesting to see if they attempt to push us into the point system.

I see what "daisy" says aboute converting and on the face of it, remembering Divi Littles" explanation, I don't see any real advantage to the purchaser.

I'll let you know their sales pitch if they have one.

Frank

Frank,

Just so you know in advance, I know that many properties on St. Maarten are either/or but The Towers at Mullet Bay is NOT a points property. They are strictly weeks and don't participate at all in the points market. So, if you own a week, a week is what you've got.

Are you trying to upgrade your unit permanently or just for this trip? They're not into doing real deals lately, and in fact, for a while they had a moratorium on any sales at all, but if you can find a resale unit you can get some incredibly unbelievable prices. Someone I know personally was able to purhcase a seventh floor one bedroom for under a thousand dollars including the transfer fees but this was through Holiday Resales and NOT through The Towers.

Respectfully,

pat
:-) :-)

We had a similar thing happen to us. Our Timeshare was recently bought out by New England Management Services I guess which is owned by Festiva. They are making 2.4 million dollar renervations at the resort and they indicated that we either need to convert to a point system and give up our deed to the resort and would in turn become a deeded "trust" owned by festiva. He presented the same information it would cost 2,990 to make this exchange to the point system.
Our question is why is it necessary to pay a fee to enter into point system when we already own a deed and a secured week. He made it sound like the point system was much better than the weeks. I do not feel comfortable giving up my deed so easily. He also went into the special assessments fees which he indicated could be anything Festiva deems is necessary.
I and my husband have no knowledge on this could you please respond with some helpful information. We enjoy the week we have and always go to the same resort we never desired to enter RCI to go other places.

I would NEVER convert my week to points. I just deposited my week for 2009 into RCI. No SXM for us this year! Now, hopefully we can find something decent to switch to. Anyone have any suggestions for a good place to switch to? I was looking at Puerto Rico, Tybee island and Massachusetts so far. I really dont know where I want to go!!