TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums St. Maarten - St. Martin La Plage owners

Just wondering how many just get on the airplane and arrive trusting that your room is there waiting for you without complications, or who calls a week ahead just to make sure they haven't rented your unit?

Supposedly a timeshare can't rent out or put someone in a fixed week unit without your consent. We always email ahead just to make sure our BBQ gas tank is full on our unit patio.

That sounds good thanks.

The operative word in that sentence is "supposedly". We certainly know that ANY timeshare would never do anything unethical or illegal, etc..

It's the way contracts are worded

...and we KNOW that timeshare management companies would NEVER violate their contract. ...right... I know personally of a WHOLE OWNER at Royal Palm that Diamond rented out her unit without her knowledge or consent.

Could be their contract was worded different as a "WHOLE OWNER" but a timeshare is a right to use for a certain unit at a certain time for a fixed week owner. It's theirs period for them to use.

WHOLE OWNERS own the whole unit.. Period.

Right. But who knows what the wording is in their contract if they aren't occupying it at that time. With our WHOLE OWNER condo up in the mountain there is a certain amount of time that it has to be made available for rental by me.

No. Royal Palm sold some units that the people owned the whole thing. You don't know this? You own a couple of WEEKS in a unit at Flamingo. The person involved had a contract that said they own the WHOLE YEAR, NO ONE COULD STAY IN THEIR UNIT EVER without their consent. Period. Diamond let someone stay in her unit. She ended up putting a LOCK on her unit so they could not do it. If you own somewhere else, I don't know what your contract is there but Diamond definitely rented out her unit, without her permission, in violation of her contract.

That's awful.
Maybe Diamond didn't know though.
Could have been the reception just trying to make some extra money.

At the reception desk if a guest pays cash on check in, a dishonest employee could tuck the guest away without anyone ever knowing.

Anything is possible, I suppose, but I wouldn't bet the farm on it..

With La Place, I have never called them, My 2 weeks are there for me...

I own 4 fixed weeks at Flamingo and have never been denied my unit or weeks. Only time that could happen is if it was damaged as it is with Irma. I was also told by Diamond management that nobody could use our unit if we didn't show up without prior approval from me. If we elected to keep it vacant it was our choice. I can't comment on your friends situation as I don't own there nor know all the details of their arrangement with Royal Palm.

We never had a problem when we still had timeshare. Our weeks in our units were ours! Period! Although there was one time very early in when they contacted us and asked if we would like to exchange our weeks or be willing to accept a lower floor unit since some dignitary of major importance was staying at Mullet Building 90 and for the safety of that person they were closing the upper floors of the Towers by island government mandate.

We have been going to LaPlage now for 30 or so years...and have NEVER called to confirm our reservation...So far...have never had a problem checking in.... They also will not rent out a room, without permission from the owner. It is YOUR week or weeks.....and unless you are sure you are not going to be going there...the rooms will sit.

Carol...a HUGE difference between Flamingo/Royal Palm, and most of the others. LaPlage is run by Spaddarro......NOT a huge conglomerate like Diamond that runs hundreds of other resorts throughout the world. When it comes to LaPlage...i WOULD bet the farm on it!!!

I think that Flamingo/Royal Palm is fairly consistent with most other timeshares in SXM, which is that you really can't depend on management to be honorable. LaVista is an exception and probably LaPlage. Until Irma, one could put the Towers in that category. Now, not so much.

With you not being an owner at either resort you are basing your comments on hearsay and not actually experiencing it. Fixed weeks are protected for the owner of those weeks. Period.

You specifically referenced LaPlage in you question - as a 20 year owner I've never confirmed ahead of time and never had a problem. Once while I was there I asked about renting some additional time to extend my vacation and was told they couldn't possibly do that in case the owners did show up - even mid-week. I have a lot of confidence in the integrity of La Plage's management.

When we were at Divi every year about 9 month out they sent a form requesting confirmation whether or not we'd be using our unit and that failure to pay MS by a certain date meant they could use our unit.

One doesn't have to be an owner to know what goes on.

"they couldn't possibly do that in case the owners did show up"
I have received a like answer when I had requested a room extension at Flamingo coming earlier than my weeks started. I respect them for that.

Like the 2 other RI LaPlage owners have responded, in my 15 years of ownership I have never heard of an owner who found that someone else was using their unit during their week. Like others, I have asked if I could come a day earlier or stay a day later only to be told that such arrangements must be made with the other unit owner. If the TS owns the week, there is a per-night rental program that is available. The only occasion for which a unit owner contacts RI in advance is if they are renting or allowing a 3rd party to use the unit owner's week. And, unit owners can and do make private arrangements to switch units to accommodate a special request. For example, my neighbor owns two consecutive weeks in different units. We have a long standing arrangement where I stay in her owned unit so that she does not have to change units for her 2nd week of her stay..

That is the way our Timeshare at Flamingo works too for fixed week owners. We can extent our week for 3 days front or back at a special owners rate but there is no guarantee to which room you'll be put in. Usually rooms that are in resort or point inventory are made available for this program.

Not an issue at RI La Plage, very well run. But if you feel better reach out to them do it, they are easy to deal with.

Besides whole owners at Royal Palm there are also whole owners at Atrium and Sapphire that I know of.
T

It appears to be very common for fixed week owners at RI LaPlage not to double-check (and of course, they really SHOULDN'T have to....) their reservations. We exchanged into there once, and there was a lady at the check-in desk who had miscalculated which week she owned (I think maybe it was a leap year) and was going on and on about how she had come this same week for xxxxx years and why wasn't her unit available.

I really felt bad for the front desk staff who kept repeatedly trying to explain to her that her week was actually the previous week and it had gone unoccupied because she hadn't shown up. And that the unit was occupied by its rightful owner for the current week.

So, even as a fixed week owner, I would still call to be sure that I had my plane tickets booked for the correct week because I'm just a touch OCDC. But that's just me. And this situation was on her, not the resort.