Vacation Ownership
Read Danvil Plans, Crown Regency, Nuskin and other Scams
“You have just won a FREE 4 days 3 night package for two including 2 children from Crown Regency Hotel.“, the caller congratulated me. I know there is always a catch to freebies. They got my name from a “raffle stub” that I dropped at the Fil-Negosyo Expo 2006. The lady sounded a bit defensive “There is no catch. The gift certificate is valid for 6 months and you have the choice of staying in our Mactan or Davao Hotel. All you need to bring is a valid ID. You don’t even have to bring cash, credit card or a checkbook“. Something about the “too-good-to-be-true” call piqued my curiosity. This must be a new marketing gimmick which I needed to experience. When I relayed the news to my husband, he immediately thought of a time sharing scheme. When we arrived at the reception area, we found out that we could only get the gift certificate after listening to a 90 minute audio visual presentation. I couldn’t imagine why it would take that long to view the hotel features.
So the catch is this. No, it’s not time sharing. It’s a club membership of sorts. The guy introduces the concept of a dream vacation and the expenses it entails. But with an investment on a lifetime Club Ultima membership, your vacation expenses are not lost forever. One can avail of discounted hotel rates around the world including the Philippines. Their partnership with Interval International is very appealing.
Interval International is celebrating its 30th year leading the vacation ownership industry as the exchange company of quality and innovation. Interval has a global network of more than 2,000 affiliated resorts in over 75 countries, and serves its developer clients and nearly 1.8 million member families, worldwide vacation owners, through 28 offices in 19 countries. The company provides a variety of exchange services and year-round travel-related benefits to enhance members’ vacation experiences.
The concept of vacation ownership is really great. Among other benefits, the Individual A membership comes with a 7 day stay for $138 in any member-hotel in the world for 4 adults and 2 children, a 15-20% discount on plane fare etcetera. Here goes the catch, for the Individual A membership it’s 210,000 pesos ($3,900) for lifetime use and one can get all the benefits right away after downpayment. They will even give you terms for the 30% downpayment and 2 year terms for the balance.
Here goes the catch: The above price for the membership is valid only today as IN that afternoon. Whoa, hold on. This is something that has to be discussed and thought of. We’re not buying apples and oranges. We have financial goals. Here are my thoughts:
Why are they pressuring us nicely to “impulse buy”? Vacations are not the highest priority in our list as of the moment.
Is this company reliable? Club Ultima has been in business for almost 3 years. It would have been great to hear of testimonials from existing members although they claim to have 3800 family members already. So maybe the owner, Mr. King is known as the Motel King magnate in Cebu before he ventured into five star standards hotel. In fact, they nearly bought one of our properties in Cebu but backed out when they saw 4 family members died. He’s definitely liquid.
Anyway, so now we know why it took 90 minutes to get our free gift certificate. Sales Talk was the agenda. That was a good one. Instead of spending millions of pesos on billboard or glossy magazine ads or brochures, a personal “talking brochure” yielded positive results in membership.
We got our gift certificate alright. But we have to pay 4,000 pesos ($75.00) booking fee a week before we check in either to their Mactan or Davao hotel. And air plan fares are not cheap. I know we need to take a break now and then but a vacation in the Philippines and outside of Luzon Islands is not affordable. It’s even cheaper to take vacation packages to Thailand, Hongkong and other Asian cities. Oh well, maybe we might buy a Club Ultima membership once the Makati hotel rises up in Arnaiz Avenue. In the meantime, our vacation in Europe is just a dream within the next 5 years.
Technorati Tags: vacation ownership
Filipina mom) and my journey to a "new normal" after the death of 
It’s similar to the marriot hotel time sharing. I wonder if it’s really worth it. It’s a great idea actually.
It’s a great concept only if one has excess money or have plans to travel within the next 2 years.
my parents had a similar situation as yours about 4 years ago, when they received a letter saying they were selected to have a vacation to Hawaii for free. so they went to a hotel to claim the prize but as always there was a catch. The catch was they have to buy thousand dollars worth of company products before they can go to Hawaii. haha… I was laughing at them by even bothering at going to the hotel, making a fool out of themselves. hehehe….
naku, i went through this thing too. i got the free accommodation certificates (yun lang naman interes ko makuha kaya ako nagounta) but was not able to use them. at least, they were really given as promised.
Mike: it’s a marketing ploy but the fixed costs are paid through buying the product
Connie: I might be able to use the Hotel accomodation in Cebu since we have properties there and sometimes will need to do business. Yes, they were given as promised naman.
kelan kaya ako matawagan sa teleono ng ganyan to claim my Free accomodation in a plush hotel.. ill just get the gift check and wont listen to their blabbering. hehehe
i remember dati ang Club Panoly may ganyan din…
Thanx a lot for the info on the crown regency promo… Believe or not, there is another company promoting the same thing…puerta del sol…i also declined to go…
two years ago someone called us up to drop by crown regency hotel in mactan to get a freebie (1night stay in a hotel.) i dont know where they got my number. we dropped by one day at the hotel without knowing what were getting into. so, after blah, blah, blah, offering this membership we’re told that the offer is good for one day only. we ended up agreeing to give down payment/deposit for individual b account (12 nights free). we paid the balance for two years and started to pay monthly dues this year. we haven’t really had a chance to avail of the facilities yet, i just hope this is really a good thing. a good investment i hope
What happen to your investment? I just signed up 2 days ago, and thingking to pull it out.
hi there!
i got the same offer from Villa Anna Resort (Anna Dizon owns that resort). As I saw the website of Villa Anna, I was enthralled by the resort photos so i decided to get the invites. My husband and I were going to use it for my birthday this month. So off I went to Batangas City where their office is located. I was exhumed in a 5-hour traffic! good thing I didn’t bring the car with me; otherwise, it would have been hellish. anyways, so there we were (i met my husband at the bayan because he came for a visit to his parents who live there) at 5:30 pm excited with the FREEBIES and all when they introduced us first to their 90-minute talk. that was like, we want to eat coz i am dead-hungry na and there they were telling us the freebies will be given after the presentation. and well, that presentation was a sceheme to lure you into availing the HOLIDAY Package. darn! so we ended up wasting precious time there. I did get the freebie…but what the heck? was it worth it? i don’t think so because there was still 800 pesos to pay for reservation. ha!
@jogasarus- it’s really a marketing ploy. I didn’t avail of the freebie either. Not worth it
Thank you for writing this blog. Received the same call and was also wondering what was it all about. Too good to be true!
Thank you very much for this blog. This helped us alot. God bless
great that you worte about this. i received the same call from puerto del sol and did not go. this morning i got another call from crown regency and wanted to go… but thougt about researching it first. i decided to obey my husband and not go… good thing. it will just waste my time. besides, you’re right. The Asian tours we had are waaaaay cheaper.
Thanks and God bless!
Jesy