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| - As far as the property is concerned - It is a wonderful place to stay at if you are looking for A+ accommodations in a perfect area of Phoenix. many of the reviews you can read here do a VERY GOOD job of describing the rooms and the photos are accurate. The front desk and staff are all very pleasant and customer service oriented too.
Now I'll tell you about the bad experience. As a current timeshare owner here since its original build around 1998 (under Embassy Suites at the time), we want to make other current owners aware of the dishonest sales practices and misinformation the Starwood sales representatives at the Sheraton Desert Oasis are doing. We have thoroughly enjoyed being timeshare owners since this time until now. Our visit in February 2011 changed our perspective on the professionalism, integrity, and honesty of the "Ownership Update". It had been years since we have had the chance to visit our home resort and looked forward to an Owner Update. Yes, we did understand that sales comes into play sometimes during these meetings for updates of new features and changes of the timeshare program. The sales representatives introduced us to the new Starwood Vacation Network (SVN), use of points, options, and other choices with the newer system of which we were not a part of. We were quite excited and interested in the new flexibility and wanted to make the change from the traditional ownership we had. During this time we were told that original members we had missed the opportunity to change over to SVN. We were told that in order to move our current unit owned at Sheraton Desert Oasis, we HAD to buy another timeshare. Doing this was the only way to bring our membership over to the Starwood Network. We were kind of troubled about having to buy another just to get moved to points since we already had the biggest unit at this property. It really didn't make any sense. Of course they came back with what was seemingly more affordable - a small 1 bedroom biannual timeshare that would get us in and move our current ownership. We asked for them to list all the fees we would need to expect and was told outside of the biannual maintenance fees, we would only have to pay a fee if we had to use Interval International to make an exchange. At that point they left us in order for us to review and discuss our finances and decide on what to do. We both thought hard about this and decided we could manage the amount looking at the numbers we were presented and maintenance fee that we should expect.
On March 14th, we received a bill regarding the maintenance fee for the new ownership purchase (which was expected). On the bill was also an SVN membership fee that was assessed for the amount of $119.00. When I contacted Association Management, I was informed that this fee is a yearly fee to be part of the network (Not mentioned). Furthermore, when I contacted Owner Services to find out how long it would take to get our existing original ownership transitioned to the point system, I was told that it would cost $599.00 to do this AND WE DID NOT NEED TO PURCHASE another unit to get into the point system program. At no point in time, did they make an effort to give us honest information regarding how we could move to the Starwood Vacation Network point system, they did not tell us all the various membership fees for each unit, and possibly other charges that we haven't seen yet.
We are really disappointed and feel very deceived with the sales practice we experienced. Not only has our trust in timeshare sales been broken, but I feel a consumer protection against this type of failure needs to get placed into law (if it is not already). Equally important, we want to be certain that other current owners do not experience this deceitful practice. No telling how many other owners have been tricked to buy another unit when they could have simply made the change by calling Owner Services.
Unfortunately, the sales team there could not resolve our matter and claimed they knew nothing about the $599 option for current owners. Yet after sending several complaint letters/emails/etc in early April, we were contacted by the sales representative at Sheraton Desert Oasis to be told that he received an email that the promotion was ending soon (raises a question to integrity doesn't it?). Of course they could not forward that announcement, but we did receive an official email on April 28, 2011 stating that the option to change over would end on May 31, 2011.
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