BobP,


i NEVER HEARD of a time share that couldn't of been traded and most time share purchases are not through the exchange companies but usually the places are affilliated with one. Did you join RCI? I know I used to see the Cottages listed there and I'm assuming thats where you own since its the only french time share. Or was. I dont think I'd want to own one if I couldnt exchang e it. Isn't that about half the benefit of owning one.

Anon, As I stated I didn't purchase with RCI and we're not interested in trading. I prefer our location in Anse Marcel. We also prefer Pres week period for our vacation time.I don't have to worry if the time we want or place isn't available similar to the RCI experience. I'm happy to be locked into that time and place.I don't feel its half the benefit because I always get what I want.With RCI you have to pay fees and make reservations. If the time & place is booked already with RCI your out of luck, right.Inaddition I purchased this TS 3 yrs ago as an experiment to see if we will benefit over paying to stay at a hotel in Anse Marcel or Orient.Considering the amounts we paid to stay at LaHabitation & the Esmeralda yrs ago I'm about even now.good luck.

OK...now I understand Bob. You actually could trade with RCI if you felt forced to but because you have the perfect week and love the area you're in which you feel safe, there's no need to join RCI to trade to another T/S or another country. But this is what both Pat and I were trying to explain...if we felt that we could not return to SXM for reasons of crime and that it was just getting too dangerous for us, we could in fact join RCI and then trade off our T/S for another place. We might not get the exact time of year based on availabilities but bottom line is that we could if we felt the need so T/S's don't hold any of us back from moving on which is what you originally implied. In fact I believe that I can comfortably say that all three of us feel VERY safe in our surroundings and that is the reason we aren't moving on and that the fear of crime tends to be felt much more where there is sparse population and very poorly lit roads surrounding individual villas.

My point is that although the lure of the villa and the French side's countrified appeal is strong, so too is the fear factor becoming stronger due to recent incidents. I certainly would never rent a villa although they are certainly appealing. The reason for me is that I would feel way too isolated in an area of land I am unfamilar with. If the villa were down the block from my house here in NJ, I'd say sure...why not because I know the neighborhood and the people. But to go to a property that is not familiar without the comfort of many others within extremely close proximity will never ever appeal to me.

I remember when a friend of ours bought a small cabin up in New York State. The cabin was down a dirt road just off the main drag. You could not see the home from the road and if help was needed, no one would hear. At the time, all I could think of was how wonderful that must be... Well, the friend went up after the winter to open the cabin and the entire inside had been trashed with horrible and sadistic graffiti written all over the walls. It seems that strangers had decided to make this their home and then moved on after who knows how long. Can you imagine what may have happened if she had decided to go back while they were still there? After hearing that story, I decided that I would never ever purchase nor rent any property that wasn't amongst a group of homes with people I knew and could trust to watch over each other and our property. I feel the same way about villas and villa types of resorts. To me, they may be beautiful to visit but not to stay.

But I am not naive either....Sure, give me my timeshare with hundreds of wonderful, happy, and content people with courteous staff and I will return year after year and never feel afraid but I think I can safely state for the 3 of us that if ever we are told not to venture past the property line to visit other parts of the island, as much as we love our resorts, we refuse to be a zoo animal who is locked up, fed well, given the comforts of home, but not given any freedom to roam...well, that's when we're outta there. N'est pas?

[www.vrbo.com]

Life is not a child's game of follow the Leader. Instead, life is more about finding one's own purpose in life....your life's plan, and then making a positive difference on earth.

re: John
I am getting a little confused by your John/Vickie posts. Is this John or Vickie? Thanks!

Long story (Gert may remember back a few years why I changed names)..but consider me Vicki.

PS...there is another John here but is followed by an initial... that is not me...

[www.vrbo.com]

Life is not a child's game of follow the Leader. Instead, life is more about finding one's own purpose in life....your life's plan, and then making a positive difference on earth.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/08/2008 07:53PM by John.

Thanks, vicki/John.

That's pretty much the same thing that I was trying to get at but you did the hard work and did it well, I might add.

So I guess we all agree in that, regarding our timeshares, to date we're all very happy with what we have and have no intentions of trading them and moving on - at least not now.

Again, thanks for the clarifications.

Respectfully,

pat

John/Vicki, This purchase had NOTHING to do with RCI.I purchased threw the management someones unit & week who needed to sell.I can't trade with RCI because my purchase has nothing to do with that company.I deal directly with the manager of the complex.On occasion we've been able to use Maggie's RCI membership to add vacation days to our purchased week. We haven't had much luck going threw RCI to book our TS. Its a small complex and has mainly guests from France who book during the season.We will probably drop her RCI membership because of the difficultly we have trying to book there with them.Last yr we stayed at the Towers during our Nov/Dec trip because we couldn't reserve our TS with RCI because they said it was unavailable.

Bob, we didn't purchase through RCI or II either. We purchased just like you, through management for the first and through the association for the second. I think you don't realize that as long as your unit is a timeshare, you can put it up for exchange as long as you join RCI or II and put your unit up for exchange (not that we woould put it is an option you probably don't realize).

[www.vrbo.com]

Life is not a child's game of follow the Leader. Instead, life is more about finding one's own purpose in life....your life's plan, and then making a positive difference on earth.

John
I remember very well why you changed your name LOL

[barcann.livejournal.com]

Thank goodness that is over with! That's what sent me over to the other board for a time. Now that you are moderating, I doubt we will see the likes of that again, hopefully.

[www.vrbo.com]

Life is not a child's game of follow the Leader. Instead, life is more about finding one's own purpose in life....your life's plan, and then making a positive difference on earth.

John and BobP,

My best understanding of this whole issue is that as long as your timeshare property is affiliated with a timeshare holding/trading corporation such as RCI or II, you can join them for trading purposes regardless of where or how or from whom you purchased your timeshare. I'm not certain either of these two companies are in the business of actually selling units. For that I think you may need to go to a timeshare resale broker such as Holiday, RedWeek, TUG or a gazillion other concerns that do specialize in t/s resales. I think our friend Ray of Stmartinrentalweeks.com has units that he sells at Caravanserai as a timeshare broker but he also allows unit listings on his website for sale through the individual owners and lastly, there are e-bay connections for listings of resales also.

And Vicki, there are some timeshares that are affiliated with multiple exchange companies - doesn't Royal Islander use a few? I know Marys Boon does - or at least did at one time. And lastly, I could be mistaken, but LaVista may or may not belong to any exchange company - for some reason I think not but very possibly I'm mistaken on that one. Since we're not members any more, I don't ever check the RCI site but I do see LaVista units periodically on E-bay, RedWeek and other companies of that nature.

Our original unit bought 20 plus years ago was purchased directly from The Towers with no broker involved in the purchase and part of the deal was they (The Towers) gave us our first years membership to RCI as part of the deal. We renewed it for perhaps 8-10 years before it dawned on us - duh!! on my part - that we really didn't want to trade our unit and go elsewhere, so we dropped out of RCI. Now, just like you Bob, we make our arrangements directly through The Towers, either utilizing the actual week/unit we bought or sometimes we do an internal exchange for a different week at The Towers. If the units we own are not in use when we do the internal exchanges we get to stay in them and if they are, then we stay in whatever The Towers offers as long as we're satisfied with the exchange. And they've always been very good to us about the units so it's never been a problem doing it that way.

We have subsequently purchased two more week - one in the resale market through Holiday Resales and one through E-bay but all at The Towers. I have the option to rejoin RCI (since that's the only exchange company The Towers is affiliated with) and do external exchanges around the world or just continue doing the same old thing I've been doing - using my Towers weeks/units as I own them or doing internal exchanges and letting The Towers handle the details for me.

If I'm not mistaken, Bob, you own at the Cottages at Longvilleure (sp??) and from what I've gathered, you only want to come in your President's week timeframe so it would be silly for you to join an exchange company but if you wanted to, I'm betting you could, since The Cottages is often offered as an RCI exchange. And the bottom line would be that you could then exchange all over the world if you so chose or continue using your Presidents week on the French side. Knowing how much you love that timeframe on the French side of the island, I think I know what you'd choose.

Respectfully,

pat

Hi Pat...that was the other one I mentioned but abbreviated... Interval International.

And I believe that both are associated with RI but I dropped II when our timeshare got destroyed by the last hurricane. They could have cared less and did nothing to help us relocate. I believe that RCI did help their customers during that time. RI credited us our yearly maintenance fee due to the storm so we stayed at Sapphire instead.

And just like you (although it didn't take 20 years...) since we decided that we loved RI and would never trade, it made no sense to keep sending them money for absolutely nothing.

[www.vrbo.com]

Life is not a child's game of follow the Leader. Instead, life is more about finding one's own purpose in life....your life's plan, and then making a positive difference on earth.

Vicki,

Look for a private message.

pat

LaVista is an RCI Gold Crown resort. We got a year's free membership when we purchased, but didn't renew it when we expired as we have no intention of ever exchanging.

I've maintained my RCI membership to get extra vacations and for some inexpensive extra days in st. Maarten to use for getting cheaper air fares on week days.