Paying maintenance in advance at Paradise Kings Club, Paphos

My husband and I have owned a "Blue" week at Paradise Kings Club in Paphos for about the last 5 years. As it is classed as an RCI Gold Crown resort, we bought it in order to be able 'bank' this week so that we could exchange for holidays at different times in other countries. We have recently been told by RCI that the management of Paradise Kings Club will no longer agree to weeks being 'banked' until the maintenance fee for the year being banked is paid. This means that as we wanted to bank 2010 and 2011, we would have to pay the maintenance fee 2 years in advance!!! I asked RCI why they were not challenging the management of PKC about this new, unpublicised rule and they said it wasn't up to them!! I have spoken to the Management Services of PKC in Cyprus and they were most unhelpful. When I asked why we hadn't been informed of this change, I was told that they hadn't informed anyone. What impressive customer relations!! I pointed out to the person on the phone that there was no way I would be giving them my money 2 years in advance. I said I would sell them back my timeshare, but, surprise,surprise, as they haven't finished building the complex, they're not buying any back. Please be warned, don't listen to RCI if you are considering buying here - you can't bank it if you aren't going to pay maintenance in advance. I hope PKC aren't expecting next year's maintenance to be paid, cos they're out of luck!!!

The overwhelming majority of resorts require that maintenance fees be paid before depositing as it should be ... I can't even imagine all the headaches that could come up if the fees weren't paid before depositing.

THis is nothing new in the timeshare industry. IN fact one of my timeshares had me pay the MF when I called to book my week for 2010.

II will not take a TS for deposit if the MF hasn't been paid.

Our main issue with this is that when we originally purchased the week, we weren't expected to pay maintenance in advance, and were not informed that the rules had been changed.

marianl15 wrote:

Our main issue with this is that when we originally purchased the week, we weren't expected to pay maintenance in advance, and were not informed that the rules had been changed.

Rules change all the time concerning resorts ... they probably realized all the headaches involved with owners not paying maintenance fees before depositing.

Could someone out there tell me where you can own that doesn't require you to have MF's paid for the year, before you bank. I've been with RCI since 1996 and have gotten so weary of them sounding surprised when I say I can't bank my unit next year because I haven't paid my MF's yet. I haven't even received the bill yet!!! Idiots. Between that and them wanting you to extend your membership even when it doesn't expire for 4 more years. How hilarious. I'm always sitting around the house here wondering what else I can get 4 years ahead of on my payments. I love timesharing. I just hate everything that goes along with it.

scotts320 wrote:

Could someone out there tell me where you can own that doesn't require you to have MF's paid for the year, before you bank.

I am certainly NO friend or fan of RCI (I despise RCI, in fact), but I can still easily understand a resort policy of not being able to "bank" a week whose maintenance fee for the deposited year has not yet been paid. Many resorts will allow you to pay in advance if you choose to do so, even long before bills are issued. Habitual "exchangers" (among whom I personally do NOT number) do so all the time.

If you think about this objectively, from a business perspective, if someone could "deposit" a week whose maintenance fee is not yet paid, and then obtains and uses a week in "exchange" --- but then later fails to pay their maintenance fee to the resort for the "deposited" week, then the resort won't allow ANYONE (...including RCI) to assign or occupy the unit that year. So, in that hypothetical scenario, the "deposited" week would not be able to be used by RCI at all, either to rent out themselves (...which they would likely do if it's a really good week) or to offer to a RCI member as an "exchange" (...if it was a "weaker" week, which doesn't have very good rental potential). In that scenario, RCI would have just "given away" a week as an exchange (... "given" meaning besides the $169 exchange fee RCI previously collected), but left unable to do anything at all with the originally "banked" week, now "held hostage" by the resort for unpaid fees.

In other words, RCI is understandably not enthusiastic about risking any member getting "free" use of an "exchange" week while RCI itself potentially gets left "holding the bag" of a deposit which RCI then cannot later either rent out or assign to a member as an exchange. Equally understandably, no resort will allow use or occupancy by ANYONE of any unit week whose fees have not been paid on the unit for that particular use year.

scotts320 wrote:

Could someone out there tell me where you can own that doesn't require you to have MF's paid for the year, before you bank.

We formerly owned at Orange Lake Country Club in Kissimmee FL and we did NOT have to pay maintenance fees before depositing however that was many years ago .... don't know if the rule has changed or not ..... we sold our OLCC week.

However, OLCC was the only resort out of 9 that we previously owned that we didn't have to pay main fees before depositing.

Can anyone advise me how we can sell our tomeshare week? Is there a particular company to use? There are so many worrying stories about getting ripped off when trying to go down this road

marianl15 wrote:

Can anyone advise me how we can sell our tomeshare week? Is there a particular company to use? There are so many worrying stories about getting ripped off when trying to go down this road

This posting is not relevant to the topic actually under discussion here. However, if you conduct a "search" (see the "button", above right, under "I want to...") you will find dozens of posted suggestions and advice addressing the topic of your interest / inquiry in great detail.

The bottom line is that this is a VERY tough economy in which to sell almost ANY timeshare (it's difficult to even GIVE some of them away these days). In any event, you are likely going to have to advertise on your own, on a number of different sites, asking a highly competitive price. You may end up having to offer to give it away for free ---and even then you may find no takers. There is no "magic bullet" and no "miracle company" exists, no matter what you read or hear...

Hi My husband and I also purchased a blue week at Paradise Kings Club. We were promised we could resell it to them if we we were not happy. We tried to cancel it we were told by Paradise Kings nobody would buy it. We are now overdue on our maintance fees but we have never used our week. We are not going to pay them any more money as our blue week is paid for. Lets see what happens? Regards Lynne Durham

We do pay our maintainance on time every year, but would like to sell the week. We were in Cyprus last Sept and went to PKC to see if they would buy it back at a much reduced amount. The sales people were most unhelpful and said that until all the flats etc were sold, they were not interested. I have spoken to the Timeshare Hypermarket about selling and they assure me that they could sell it, but it would cost approx £150 to register with them. My husband says no, pouring more money into it. If you are an RCI member and don't pay your maintenance, I have heard they do send in bailiffs, but I do agree that its worth trying.