Finally another update! First booking!

So sorry for not posting an update in so long but really I have had nothing to say more than what I already have.  We have not done any travelling since back in February 2012.  A few have emailed me asking for more information and I apologize for not responding but everything I have posted on this blog is everything I know.  Now however I will have new material for you.  This post will cover my booking experience and relate additional information I learned as a result.  I will then probably make a post regarding research I will do on my specific destination (I am one of those over-research anything kind of people).  I have been informed a concierge will be contacting us a week or so before our travel so will post on that experience and finally I will likely have a few posts regarding our experiences during our stay.

To recap ... I have a week deposited with RCI that we have not yet taken advantage of and we are continuing to pay our RCI membership,  I believe I have until June of 2015 to either use this week or pay for an extension.  I have no updates on RCI at this time except to say I am still enthused about being a member to this and am looking forward to using them.

So on to my booking experiences ...
WARNING: I am trying to relay all I learned as well as my experiences and this post is very long.  I will summarize at the end a few key points for those who don't want to read all my ramblings.

We procrastinated, debated, hummed and hawed, changed our mind numerous times, and finally decided we were going to try and use one of our membership weeks for our vacation plans this year.  I went reading through the agreements and discovered that one of the restrictions of this membership is it is limited to a Saturday to Saturday booking so given hubbie's vacation window that meant we could take one week from December 6 - December 13.  From my understanding if you want to travel outside of a Saturday to Saturday booking it will result in multiple membership weeks to do so.  I cannot confirm or deny whether the privilege club is willing or able to be flexible on this as we decided to just work within the Saturday to Saturday restriction.

For a destination that was another debate.  Hubby seemed unwilling to want to use our membership to travel to Mexico as he sees many last minute and good deals on travelling to that country.  Also, since we were already at the Jamaica resort where we purchase our membership we were leaning to travelling to the Dominican Republic.  For this trip we will be taking our 9 year old along so we were looking at a more "family friendly" destination.  An acquaintance of ours that lives in the Dominican recommended that probably the best family destination would be at Punta Cana.  We decided we would like to try a resort in the Don Pablo Collection.  Most of these are adult only so that left the Luxury Bahia Principe Esmeralda as our first choice.  The membership guide recommends having a few preferred destinations and dates in mind when calling for our reservation.  Our dates were pretty fixed so we decided we would try for Luxury Bahia Principe Esmeralda with a second choice of Grand Bahia Principe Punta Cana.  We finally decided on all this the morning of October 13th; this was really short notice in my mind so had fingers crossed.

We called in at 2:30 pm mountain time.  Their published hours of operation are Mon - Fri 8:30 - 5:30 eastern.  A recording answered asking our preferred language ... there were lots.  #1 for English.  Then I listened to elevator music for a couple minutes.  I had read how difficult it is to get a hold of anyone to book a reservation so was pleasantly surprised when I connected to a real person within minutes.  I stated I wanted to make a reservation and the person I was talking to (who I will further refer to as "the rep") asked for my contract #.  Tip #1 when calling in ... have your contract number handy.  This poor guy was very patient while I went digging to be able to provide him with my number.

I asked for my first preference of Dec 6 - 13 at the Esmeralda.  The rep did the search and said no membership week bookings were available but he can put in a request with the resort for a preferred rate room; they would respond within 24 - 48 hours of this request.  I then asked for a search to be done at the Punta Cana ... none available.  We searched for some more of the Dominican resorts and again ... denied.  I then asked if Jamaica had an opening and again fail.  He said he knew a cancellation had come in earlier that day for Jamaica so hunted down that cancellation and unfortunately it was for the Luxury Jamaica which is adults only so that was out.  He explained that there are a number of rooms set aside for membership week bookings and they are offered on a first come first serve basis.  By putting in a request at the resort for a preferred week, this gives the resort the option of honoring a club member preferred week if they have the inventory available.  As I am trying to book a week only 7.5 weeks before travelling I totally believe this is an understandable predicament.  At the end of all the searches I asked him to put in the request for a preferred week at the Esmeralda.  He said he would either email me the results of the request or to call him the next day and gave me a good time to get a hold of him.

He did ask if I'd looked at the Privilege Collection airfare and if I'd be looking at booking our flights through them.  I had said that I had looked and had found more appealing choices elsewhere.  He congratulated me on this and didn't pressure me at all.

After this call I was a little crestfallen.  Thinking some more on it this didn't totally mean we wouldn't be going on a fabulous vacation.  It opened up the possibility of using our RCI week or not planning anything and just booking a last minute vacation.  Lesson learned ... leaving things to the last minute is not the best idea.  It's just that we spent a good deal of money on this membership and have had it for 2.5+ years and can't say if we think it's worth it or not.  I was feeling pretty blue.

Fast forward to the next day and I hadn't received an email.  I called back and even faster my call was answered by a different service rep.  I asked to speak to my rep to follow up on a reservation.  She asked for my contract # (I had it handy this time) and put me on hold for the rep.  I waited maybe 5 minutes this time to be speaking to him directly.  This was a peasant surprise because I was thinking if he was tied up with a call like mine from the day before I would be waiting forever ;).  He pulled up my file right away and said the resort was willing to honor my request.

I had a big conversation with the rep at this point.  I had so many questions as this would be our first trip using our membership.  He talked with me about all of my questions very patiently and willingly.  He said after a few trips I'd be an old hat and would be a pro at this.

My Q&A session with the rep:
Preferred week vs membership week ... what are the differences:  My assumption going in to this question was using a preferred week we would be experiencing a standard room experience and we would not be entitled to the membership benefits a membership week gave us.  He told me that as a club member we would always be entitled to the membership benefits whether we were staying with a membership week or a preferred week.  Upon our arrival we would be given a VIP bracelet straight away.  The only differences are related to the room and the rate.  In the room with a membership week there is a surround stereo system and either a playstation or a blueray.  Also, these membership rooms sounded like they were the absolute best locations (this I kind of inferred).  The rate difference is $72/day vs $91/day which really is not a big deal for us and this leaves my membership week for 2013 that I haven't used yet available to be transferred to RCI which opens up even more doors with them.

For those that aren't members and are curious, here are the membership benefits:

• Early Check-in, subject to availability
• Privilege Concierge "Pre Check In" Service
• Exclusive member identification
• Welcome drink during check-in
• Access to Privilege Beach, a reserved beach area for members only *
• Privilege Lounge for the exclusive use of members *
• Complimentary Internet at the Privilege Lounge
• Complimentary long distance phone calls at the Privilege Lounge
• Premium Alcohol at Privilege Lounge and Privilege Beach
• Privilege Concierge
• Discount on Excursions (the rep said 20% discount ... probably varies)
• Reservation Priority at a la carte restaurants
• Unlimited reservations at a la carte restaurants
• Discount at nearby golf course
• Discount at Bahia Spa (the rep said 20% discount ... probably varies)
• Member-only events
• Late check-out, subject to availability
• Private airport transfer **
• Discount at Bahia lobby shop
• Access to Chauffeured Golf Carts ***
• Complimentary Safety Deposit Box

* Available at the Bahia Principe Punta Cana/Bavaro complexes, the Bahia Principe Riviera Maya complex, and the Bahia Principe Jamaica resorts - (the rep said they used to have a privilege beach for our resort but not any longer)

** Subject to exclusive member fee

*** Available at the Bahia Principe Punta Cana/Bavaro complex and the Bahia Principe Riviera Maya complex

Airport transfers:  I raised a concern that when booking through a travel agency they provided your transfers to the resort so what would I need to do to get to and from the airport to the resort.  He said for $80 US round trip they would send a private taxi for us and just make sure they get the details of our air transport so they know when to get this arranged.  I didn't ask for other options as I think this is likely what we will do but I got the feeling that when the concierge contacts us prior to our arrival this will be finalized.  At that time I may ask what other options are available.

Travel Agency Orientation:  Again when booking through a travel agency there is typically the orientation the morning after arrival where all the excursion companies show what is available so I asked what will be available for us as we aren't going through a travel agency.  The rep said the concierge will provide us with all the info about a week prior to our arrival and we can book them ahead of time at a discount (20% off I believe he said).

Other miscellaneous items:  The rep asked if we had a preference for which floor we'd be on as the resort will try to accommodate club member requests.  I specified we would prefer to not be on the ground floor but I'm thinking room preference will be more identified with the concierge contact.  The room booked does have our preference for two beds rather than a single king though.  I asked if we could check back sooner to the travel date to see if a membership room had become available ... since I am travelling with a 9 year old, having a playstation in the room does have it's appeal.  He said we could check but seeing as December is the start of the busy travel time he doesn't think it's likely but it wouldn't hurt to try as you never know.  He did add a request to my reservation that if a playstation was available during our stay we would like to have it.  He also said when the concierge contacted us they will ask our a la carte preferences and we have access to all 15 a la cartes for the entire bahia resort complex group so many choices would be available.

I am out of steam now so will wind this one up.  Come back for some more updates on our trip in the near future.

In Summary
Called the office during their published business hours and got through very quickly.

The reservation representative was exceedingly patient and answered all questions.

Was not able to book a membership week but did book a preferred week however we were only booking 7.5 weeks ahead of our travel date so lack of availability wasn't a surprise.

Bottom line ... cost of trip for the 3 of us (two adults, one 9 yr old) is $3714 US (works out to $1238 a piece).  I need to make mention that we really get soaked on airfare as we are flying out of Regina Saskatchewan.  One perk on the club's all inclusive fee pricing is the first child stays for free where generally it appears they charge 50% of the all inclusive fees for children.  I did do some checking what my vacation priced out to using some of the popular vacation sites and the pricing I came up with from there came at a minimum of $5000 ... and that would not include any of our membership benefits.

A couple updates: payment plan, RCI exchange power, member site

Well, it's been a few months since I last posted and I do have a couple updates.  No, I will still not be doing any travelling so I can't give you any feedback on that for a while yet.

First, regarding the payment plan.  We did take the payment plan and were contacted by the privilege club back in Octoberish with an offer of 5% off if we were to pay everything up by the end of the month.  It was still bad timing for us cash-wise so I turned them down.  The rep was very speedy in her contact with me as well as accomodating since she extended the offer for me for a while in case we could set anything up. 

I also have an update to report on the RCI exchange power my week received.  My last post I mentioned that I was a little disappointed that I received 10 exhange points for my deposited week.  This has now increased and is currently worth 15 exchange points.  This does open up quite a few more options for exchanging through RCI.  When I look at how many exchange points it takes to book into my home Jamaica resort, that has also increased to anywhere from 9 to 13 points.

Finally, I'll add a quick update on the membership site (www.bpprivilegeclub.com).  At the club website, there is a link for a member logon in the upper right of the page.  I had no success in the past getting into this member area but this is now working.  There is some worthwhile information on this site including this year's all-inclusive rates, updated member guides and such.  There is an account status link that has a separate logon that I didn't have success with so I think one of these days I'll call in and get that worked out.  Back when we signed up the salesperson was talking about a referral program and it just so happens the nephew just bought into a package so I want to check out if there is any merit to the referral program or if this was just additional BS.

That will be it for now.  I just wanted to through in a super quick update since it's been a while.

PS I would love to hear about your experiences if you've actually used any of your package.

RCI Weeks Deposit

Hey all,

I finally got around to depositing a week of our membership into RCI.  As the hubby just got a new job we aren't too sure if we will be able to do any traveling any time soon so we just kept it to the single week.

I phoned the privilege club this morning.  They have an answering system where you pick your language and wait on hold until a representative is available.  I was anticipating a long wait and was pleasantly surprised by a very short wait.  I had my privilege club membership number ready for the rep but didn't have my RCI number ready so I caused a delay while I went online to look it up. 

The representative was very pleasant and helpful.

I confirmed I wanted to deposit one week and was told the week would show up in my RCI account in the next 24-48 hours.

I had tried calling a few time prior to this call and always received a message that they were closed and listing the times they were open but not mentioning what time zone.  The answering machine had stated they were open Saturday morning but I didn't have any success reaching anyone.  Before leaving this call that did go through I confirmed their business hours and was told 9-6 Mon-Fri eastern time.

Six hours later, I checked RCI and the week was there.  It was quite exciting to have the exchange offerings opened up to look at rather than being restricted to the Last Call and Extra Vacations.

I had used RCIs deposit calculator previously and was expecting around 18 points for my deposit so was a little disappointed with the 10 points it was assigned although it's looking like those 10 points can get me almost any vacation I would want.  On a whim I looked up my home Jamaica resort and it's exchange points are 5 so ironically I think I could use my one deposited week to stay at my home resort for 2 weeks.

Over the last few months I have looked around the RCI website quite a bit but I see I need to train myself up on how exchanging actually works.  There is a lot of info on their site, it's just going to take some time to go through it.  Once I figure all that out I'll post a bit of a cheat sheet/quick start on this blog. 

I'm pretty disappointed that I won't be able to post any actual travel experiences on the plan for quite some time but with hubby's new job both finances as well as time are at too much a premium these days.  If anyone out there can share their experiences I would be happy to post them on here.

*Note about RCI.  So far I have received 2 sales calls from them which is 2 too many in my opinion.  The first call was an RCI cruise special and the second was a deal on extending our membership.  During the membership call the sales person made a comment that hadn't occurred to me.  The sales lady pointed out that my membership will be running out in less than a year and a half so I'm limiting my search window.  It hadn't occurred to me that I may need to buy into RCI even more before even using their services but this may be a possibility.

Contacting BPPC and RCI and a small update

Just because there are so many reviews stating the club is difficult to reach, I sent off an email to the club asking about wholesale airfare.  I used the email address listed in the package documents.  I kind of expected this may have been an exaggeration from our sales pitch so wasn't really expecting much.

It took about a week and a half for them to respond but what the guy told me was that their Air Department re-opens in April but until that time, they are quoting the lowest market value.  He said that I'd need to call their service desk with exact dates to get their airfares.  I'm quite interested in finding out just what kind of flight pricing they can get us.

On tripadvisor I got in touch with someone who bought the package last April.  They used one of their Bahia weeks in November with another coming up in April and they are very pleased with the service they are finding from being a member of this club.  They haven't used their RCI membership at all yet so they had nothing to comment regarding it.  It sounds like they booked their own air as well.  This person also made comment to the fact that in the beginning they had no trouble getting in touch with any club staff but now it's pretty tough.  They were thinking that the uptake may have been unexpected and they aren't properly staffed right now.

I also sent an email off to RCI to ask for our membership info prior to receiving the package and in a few days they sent it to me.  I spent quite a bit of time fooling around on their site now in the member section and there does seem to be some pretty interesting vacations available.  In particular, I am liking their Last Chance Vacations.  It appears the trade in value for our weeks are pretty good so that's reassuring.  We still have another 5+ months until I can actually throw a week in though so we'll see what happens then.

Since the scoop on the timeshare scene is pretty new to us, I've also found a pretty good time share user group where I'm learning all about the ins and outs of timeshare exchanges and stuff.  It's the Timeshare Users Group (www.tug2.com).

I can't believe we bought into this on our first ever trip but am so optimistic for how this will shape our vacationing future!

In the beginning ...

***UPDATE 2015/03 This post is a little inaccurate.  It reflects what I understood at the time but I have subsequently learned more.

Upon arriving home from our trip to Jamaica staying at the Gran Bahia Principe, I found there was not very much information about the Privilege Club.  We did make this purchase and have the highest hopes it was a good one.  Since there is so little information, I am starting this to record our experiences with this program.

I do wish that prior to visiting a Gran Bahia this type of info popped out at me.  I still believe we will get value from this purchase but I like to be a little bit better informed upfront.  I may have been able to negotiate for a bit better of a deal I think if I had been.

Googling the club provides a number of negative remarks regarding their sales tactics.  I have heard multi-level marketing and scheme thrown about quite freely.  Based on these comments, I have also seen numerous people trying to "buyer's remorse" their way out of it (which by the way is specifically noted in the contract and sounds tough to do).  I believe your local laws allow for backing out of these deals within a certain time frame (days) and the company seems to be very difficult to get a hold of in a timely manner.  Looking at these comments closer, none of them are dissatisfied customers; just people providing uninformed advice.  The very few comments I found from experience members were they were very please with the perks.

As I am a researcher by trade I believe I can relate some unbiased information from the start that may clear up a few things.  We purchased on Feb 15, 2012 and were told it will take a couple months for all our information to arrive so the following info will be a little sketchy as we are a little in the dark about all this as well.

First off, their sales tactics are horrible.  I was fed so much misleading information it is almost sickening.  Don't be angry with your sales person regarding this.  They are trusting the company fully and believe the propaganda they are fed.  I befriended our sales rep and although I was suspicious of what she was selling, I didn't want to burst her bubble as she was told she gets a membership to the club once she's worked there for a year and was so excited for it (3 months away).  We were escalated to sleaze bag #1 and then further to sleaze bag #2 who I believe were totally aware they were being misleading

Price: We repeatedly told them that although the concept appealed to us, it just wasn't the right time for us to commit ourselves to any more obligations.  The price kept going down and down.  What we ended up with was 8995 US for the package plus 875 US for the closing costs.  This was for the "Gold" package and included 30 membership weeks that can be exchanged in the RCI network and 30 preferred weeks that are Gran Bahia only.  We were also told that the Jamaican sales tax of 17.5% as well as the standard 400 per year maintenance was being waive "today only".  Arriving home, I don't believe there is a maintenance fee charged to anyone and that sales tax is always waived.  I am still okay with the dollars, just unimpressed with their pushy sales tactics.  I think if I would have been better informed going in, we wouldn't have bought this year but we definitely would have next year.  Our membership fee is 79 US per year and our RCI membership is paid for during the first two years.  We were offered financing at 18% simple interest.

Membership/RCI weeks:  This is where some of the sales pitch was most misleading.  We are interested in primarily traveling in Jan/Feb and not wanting to limit ourselves to Gran Bahia destinations.  We were told that our 30 exchangeable weeks can be used any time of the year but our preferred weeks we were limited to the May - June and Sept - Dec 20th time frame.  We felt this was doable.  We could travel to our hearts content with the 30 membership weeks and also throw in our Gran Bahia weeks in the Nov/Dec months.  After spending some time researching this and going through the contract numerous times, although it's technically true we can exchange our membership weeks for any time of the year, that's not exactly how the RCI network works.  We were also shown so many resorts/hotels we could exchange these weeks for and they mislead a bit on this as well.  The membership weeks we purchased are also Gold season weeks (wasn't aware until reading later) so will have a lower point value in the RCI network.  One of the destinations they teased us with was the Disney Animal Kingdom resort and without having any concrete numbers yet, I am anticipating one week at that resort will cost us numerous weeks of our membership.  This RCI concept and the 222 US per week promise is what really sold us and where we really felt we'd see a bargain.  Again, although I now believe I was completely mislead, I still feel we can make out good on this purchase.  There are numerous other benefits of belonging to the RCI network ... in particular the extra vacations ... that still make this look worthwhile.

More BS:  There was so much other unsubstantiated promises made that never found their way into the contract nor can I find any information about on the internet.  We were given gift certificates to do our departure from the Montego Bay airport in the Mobay Club.  We went; it was quite nice.  We were told that the Gran Bahia had these clubs in a number of the airports servicing their resorts and that our membership would provide free access to these clubs.  I can't find anything confirming this so am assuming lies.  We were also told that as a privilege club member we would not have to wait for the resort bus but would be greeted at the airplane with a private taxi that would whisk us to our destination post haste ... it's looking like this feature is at an extra cost.  Another big story (bs) is that our rooms would be privilege club suites in separate buildings with separate bedrooms from the living area's.  From what I'm understanding this is a complete fabrication as well.  We still will get standard rooms just with a few perks.  The last promise I am still up in the air about but I'm assuming is lies is we were told we would have access to wholesale airfare pricing which should save us 20 - 30 percent ... just check it out on their website.  Although the website does say that online options will be available in the near future, this is not supported in my mind.  Oh, and another thing was they talked about earning referral points that we could use to pay our all inclusive fees but we weren't provided any info regarding that in our take home package????

The truth and nothing but the truth:  What I do believe to be accurate from the sales pitch:
- the in-room safe is free
- we have express baggage check in at the airport
- unlimited al-a-carte with reservations made for us prior to arrival
- maybe slippers and bathrobes
- maybe turndown service in our room (who cares)
- express check in at hotel
- discounts at the Gran Bahia souvenir shop, excursions, golf (I think a whopping 10%)
- a welcome cocktail (another who cares)
- premium alcohol for free - we're flexible so this isn't a biggy as well
- I think this club has only been around for a couple years which would explain the sketchy info available online.  The future may provide way more info as well.

So, I'm sure I've forgotten a thing or two but for right now I think this is complete.  Our feeling is that either this is a great purchase or we blew 10 grand; give us two years.  I will keep updating this relating our experiences to hopefully better inform everyone else.  I'm not expecting our info in the mail for a couple/few months but from my understanding, I can call RCI in a couple weeks and get some more info from them at that point.