retroryan

We finally made the decision and joined Private Escapes. With all the DC's being fairly similar it was a hard decision. What it came down to for us was several things:

1) PE's policy on membership refunds is 80% of the then current market rate. Even if it is not a great ROI, at least it is a little.

2) Financial Transperancy. They willingly provide us with audited financial summaries.

3) The dept to income ratio on their homes is around 50%. That is lower than the other DC's we looked at. Although I am not an expert, this does seem to provide a more solid finacial situation for the company as a whole. I would rather see this in a DC than larger houses with more leverage.

4) Jim, a membership director, went out of his way to help us as we researched the company and reviewed the contracts. We had a lot of questions and Jim answered them all for us.

We are very excited to be part of the club!

Thank you,
Ryan

NeilGoBlue

Congrats!

Desties

Ryan, welcome aboard.

There are at least three of us fellow PE members here, though I trust several more come by in lurk mode.

You can spend hours exploring the PE members only website and not see it all, including the ever-growing sections for tips and reviews from different properties, but you'll find that sometimes you'll have questions that just aren't answered there.

That's why we're here, when we're not busy asking questions ourselves!

Again, welcome.

DC4MS

Congrats.

Please keep on posting about your "new" experience as many readers will be interested and we look forward to your trip reports.

smtravelor

Welcome to PE Ryan. I am mostly a lurker on this board, but want to say that I agree with you that Jim Pippin at PE is outstanding. We started out with PE Premiere and have since upgraded to Platinum. So far, our experience has been very positive and my family has become very spoiled by the care taken of us by the escape planner and local hosts. The properties are great and you will have some great trips.

Bourne

Contrats and welcome to the DC world of travel...

__________________
The Nile is a river in Egypt......

kddpac

Ryan-
Congrats on making a decision!! We are still torturing ourselves with the same decision between HCC and PE. Did you join as a preview or did you end up biting the bullet for the full membership?? It is my understanding that the preview membership is always 100% refundable and therefore the 80% of the current value refund does not apply. Am I correct?

Desties

That is right. The preview membership is 100% refundable. The caveat there is that you can convert it into a full membership within the first year at the terms of the original deal (after that, you can still convert to a full membership, only it will be on the current terms with your $50k initial deposit going towards that).

That would make it pretty sweet for folks getting in pre-merger. You put up $50,000 today. Let's say that the $105,000 goes up to $130,000 in a year (and I have no idea how that will work, since the unlimited PE plan will only go to those grandfathered in pre-merger. In other words, I don't know which UE Premiere plan the "80% of future value" will be pegged to). Anyway, in this hypotehtical case of $130,000, you can just pay the $55,000 balance to get in at the old rate (anytime before your first year anniversary). Since 80% of $130k is $104k, it's practically the 100% back if you redeem. The rates can go even higher, of course. Or lower.

retroryan

Thank you to every for the great help!

We joined as preview member, exactly as Desties described. Jim was great to help customize the plan to fit are families needs. We also had a tough time deciding between HCC and PE. In the end we feel the personalized service of PE is worth it since we have a big family.

kddpac

Ryan,
I was told by my membership representative it PE (it is not Jim) that there was no way to customize a PE membership and that all members are treated equal. That is one thing I really like about HCC and Heath willing to do everything he can to accomidate us. I am having a different experience than you had while discussing things with my PE representative. He doesn't want to give me much info without a deposit and made it very clear that he would not customize a membership. If you don't mind me asking, what types of things were you able to customize with your preview membership? It might make my decision easier if I felt like there was any flexability with PE. In my experience so far, PE has appeared a lot more "rigid" than HCC. Thanks!

vineyarder

Congratulations & welcome aboard! Have you picked your first destination yet?

__________________
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Living in a vacuum sucks!

retroryan

kddpac - Sorry that you have had such a different experience with PE. I sent you a private message with my contact info. I will talk with Jim about this, I also sent you his contact info. We didn't have to put any money down until we where satisfied with the terms of the contract.

vineyarder - Unfortunately all are savings went into joining, so we will be staying stateside That is o.k. because there is a lot of great properties in the west. We are thinking of La Costa this summer and a winter vacation to Steamboat. What are you favorite places?

Thanks,
Ryan

Bourne

We compared HCC and PE a year and half back and chose HCC as it was a better deal for us.

If personalized serivce(onsite concierge) and capital preservation/appreciation are the top two items on your list, I beleive you have made the right decision.

In the end, any DC will provide you with great options to vacation.

__________________
The Nile is a river in Egypt......

Kagehitokiri

if youre talking about the cost of airfare, you might watch spirit airlines for deals to punta cana and turks & caicos.

willmyclubmakeit

what have the PE leadership team been telling you about the continuation/grandfathering of unlimited memberships and options to convert to post-merger UR membership status. What do you think the advantages and disadvantages of conversion will be? How many reservations can you have on the books on the unlmited basis and for how long out? Same for holidays?

Desties

There have been assurances that most -- if not all -- of the terms will be grandfathered in, but as all negotiations go we will have to wait and see what the final product looks like.

We all know that a final decision is coming soon, and that's not me leaking any info from the PE side as much as UR pointing out in the May 1 and May 8 press releases that the deal will close this quarter.

As for how many reservations one can have in the books, the number is 28 nights (I don't know if it was more for older members). There really are no timeframe restrictions (I even have one out to late 2010). Obviously the further out you go, the less nights you can use up in the near-term, so it allows each member to customize their priorities.

As for holidays, the only two weeks that can't be booked at any time are the Christmas and New Year's weeks. There is a lottery/allocation system to dole those out early in the year. Everyone eligible submits preferences. Those that aren't granted their choices move up in priority for the following year's allocation.

Obviously there are some things like the holiday allocations and the timeframe that will have to converge somehow to match what UR is doing.

LTTravel

Interesting what they will do with this. As far as I can tell, this is the scenario

-With PE you can book as far out in advance as you want except for Christmas/New Years.
-UR you can book up to 2 years in advance including Christmas/New Years.
-PE has no holiday restrictions except Christmas/New Years.
-UR has restrictions on the number of Holiday reservations.

I see PE members giving up some of their flexibility otherwise they will never get Christmas/New Years because all the UR members will grab them 2 years in advance.