When did I write the last entry? Ha.. Quite long ago. Mm.. So maybe I should try to write something longer today. Erps.. Hope you will not be too bored by it.
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There are many vocation clubs allowing some kinds of time-sharing holiday, staying in luxurious resorts, promising this and that. I am not not-believing in them, but that kind of holiday style might not be what I like all the time.
Anyway, I wonder if you have attended any of their presentation, the kind of presentation that tries to persuade you to be part of them?
In the past, I only heard complaints and complaints from those who had attended. Some of the strong reasons being
- Poor presentation
- Long duration. 2 hours at least??
- Hard selling tactics. If we say no, they send another better presenter to attack.. They may even ridicule us (or at least make us feel so) for rejecting their excellent offers.
- Expensive membership fees. I shall give you a feel of how expensive later.
- Not much reputation in the first place.
and so on..
Recently, I was contacted by an employee from one such clubs. I was invited to attend one of their presentations. From so many negative remarks that I’d heard about all these, naturally I would have declined. But silly me, itchy backside I think, said yes instead. Many of my friends might have stopped me or think that I’m siao. Haha..
I thought of trying it out, as the person contacted me sounded rather professional and sincere. Besides, this time round, it wasn’t any kucing kurap name. It’s Mariott.
I have some experiences to share about it. I am only talking about Mariott, the one I’d just attended.
Before I begin, I must declare I am by no means their spoke-person. Besides, my account need not be 100% accurate, but should be more or less there. Here is merely a written summary account of what I've gathered (based on my weak memory).
Their basics..
- Office in the heart of Orchard Road, Ngee Ann City to be exact.
- Clear, sincere and one-to-one presentation.
- They keep to the promise of 90-min presentation.
- No hard selling. Mariott doesn’t allow that also. Even if we say no at the end, they can still smile and shake our hand and even escort us out to collect a gift, as a token of their appreciation for taking our time out to listen to them.
- About the gift. They are quite generous about this. Either $100 Takashimaya vouchers, or $120 worth of NETS credit (to be utilized at many popular stalls), or a night stay at a certain 5-star hotel in KL for 2, or a night stay at Ritz-Carlton in Singapore for 2 (with a nominal top up of about $88. Mm.. A night at Ritz-Carlton is easily about $400 or even more).
- They provide complimentary car-parking coupon.
- They provide free flow of finger-food and drinks.
- The experience lives up to the good name of Mariott.
Their luxurious experiences promises ..
- With the membership, you must only choose to stay in 5-star (or better) hotels/resorts/apartments, with big names like Ritz-Carlton, Mariott, Hyatt, etc.
- They are part of the Interval International. So with the membership, we can also access to more than 2200 luxurious hotels/resorts/apartments around the globe under the wing of Interval International.
How the membership works (in general)..
- We must first buy points from them. Let’s say we decided on the 40,000 point-per-year package. By the way, the minimum is 30,000 point-per-year.
- We can use these points to access about 4 clubs and about 60 luxurious resorts around the world. I know the numbers “4” and “60” aren’t big numbers. Pretty restrictive, in fact.
- But all these 40,000 points can be converted to 200,000 Mariott Reward Points (MPs, for short).
- MPs can then in turn be used in a few more thousands of hotels/resorts/apartments.
- MPs can also be used in (almost) any travel-related activities, like white-water rafting, cruises, etc.. just name it, it can be done.
- With 200,000 MPs, what are we actually getting? As an illustration purpose, with that amount of points, we can travel to anywhere in Asia for more than a week, for 2, including airfares. We are talking about staying in 5-star hotels or better and we are not talking about traveling on budget airlines either. We are talking about traveling luxuriously! And guess what? I think we can still have about 30,000 to 40,000 MPs left, depending on our destinations.
- The room reserved for such high-end hotels can easily house 3 to 4 people. Some bigger resort-style rooms can house up to 6 (or even 8).
- Even if we are not going for the trip, we can also book the accommodations on behalf of friends and relatives. We can book more rooms too. More points deducted lor.
- MPs left over can be carried to the next year.
- We can even borrow MPs from the next year. In other words, we can decide not to utilize the MPs in year 1. Fine. Then in year 2, we can advance the points meant for year 3. In other words, in year 2, we can have 600,000 MPs. Wow!
- Can you already imagine the savings???
But wait.. haha..
I forget to mention the points have a shelf-life of only two years.
Plus, if you realize, I haven’t talked about the fees/charges.
Any guesses?
Fees / Charges ..
Let’s work on the basis that we are buying 40,000 points from them annually and that these can be converted to 200,000 MPs.
We pay (in US dollars.. )
(1) USD960 (This amount is to be paid annually. I think we can view it as a kind of annual maintenance fees. This amount will change proportionally if we are buying more or less points from them.) +
(2) USD85 (This fixed amount is also to be paid annually. But this is optional, but without this, we cannot access Interval International.) +
(3) USD104 (This is the fees paid per conversion of the usual points to the MPs. We know it can be pretty restrictive if we don’t convert the points to MPs. The recommended practice is to keep the points for year 1, while we are in year 2, we apply for advancement of year 3 points, then convert together.)
So.. How much already huh?
Frankly, no worries, with this amount, we are definitely getting more. The saving is enormous!
But I’m not done with all the fees yet. As the saying goes 会员才有特权! Yes, I’ve not mentioned the membership fees.
On top of that there is a one time membership fees of
Again, this amount is a variable, depending on the number of points we are buying from them.
So, for that kind of luxurious life-style, we got to first pay equivalently about S$60,000 to qualify. Mm.. I think I know what is going through your mind now.
Some fine points..
- The membership fees, yes that hefty USD38,000 (like all usual club membership fees) is transferable. In other words, say after ten years, we decided not to be part of them, we can sell the membership away at the same price or even at a higher price next time, anytime. But you find the buyer yourself hor. They can help if you have problem doing that. Mm.. But their re-sale department has not really been set up yet.
- They are ever willing to assist us by paying this hefty amount by installment. Mm.. That will work out to be about $600 monthly installments for 10 years lor. Wa.. Citibank also give near to S$6000 cash rebates for this financial scheme.
- I think I can understand why they can afford to be quite generous in their gifts even if we say no. The presenter commented they usually have a hit-rate of 40%. In other words, for every 10 people they presented to, 4 will pick up the deal.
- Actually, S$60,000 is cheaper than most cars. After driving the car for 10 years, the $60k vanishes. But after 10 years of membership with Mariott, we may get back the full market value at the time of selling, if we so wish. We may also note that actually the membership fees of the club has escalated by about 40% for the past few years.
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If we have such spare cash to squander, then perhaps.. why not?..
Haha.. But I am totally out of their league man.
Just take the gift of appreciation and say thank you and bye bye lor..
It’s a learning journey for me anyway.
Hey, if you think the gift is attractive enough for you to listen to them for 90-min nicely in a comfortable environment, just leave me a note. I think I can make referral, so that you can be invited and get the same gift.
But there are some criteria they are looking for ..
- If we are single, we got to be 35 yr-old and above, having a monthly salary of $5k and above. (So that there is a higher chance that we can splurge.)
- If we are married, we ought to attend with our spouse. (They don’t under-estimate the power of a combined income.)
- If we are attached, we ought to attend with our partner. (Again, they don’t under-estimate the power of a future combined household income.)
- We should not have attended their presentation in the past 12 months.
** Actually, I see that they hardly check whether we are truly married or single. They don't ask for our official payslip to confirm our income level. Unless you are linked with Citibank somehow, they might know as they work closely with Citibank. In general, they just clarify with you verbally over the phone before they extend their invitation. :P
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有闲钱的人就是可以在更加优惠的情况下更加享受。
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