DirtyDan

Anantara Vacation Club: Thoughts & Experiences?

I’m starting this thread under luxury hotels but won’t be upset if it’s moved because there’s a better forum heading for this topic….

I’m asking if anyone has experiences with the Anantara Vacation Club (AVC) and would be willing to expand upon the benefits of their membership, I would greatly appreciate it.

Here’s a synapses of my recent ordeal with them:

I’ve stayed at the Anantara Bangkok Chao Phraya property and enjoyed it. So I did something I’ve never done before and attended a timeshare sales pitch recently in Bali for the AVC. The Mrs. and I accepted their offer to stay for the weekend at Anantara Seminyak (Bali) at a reduced rate and listen to their pitch.

What I got out of the “no hard sales” sales pitch was this: It’s a timeshare where you purchase a set number of points (renewed annually until 2040) which are used at their various properties on various points per night redemption rates (quality of property & season, etc…). Dependent upon the volume of points you agree to purchase, it also comes with various tiers of status and benefits. A basic package allows the AVC member to use their points at the 5 AVC properties (soon to be expanded to 10), but a higher tier allows the member to redeem points at any Anantara property. A Diamond / Royal package ($155k+ USD) would also confer Hilton HHonors status of Gold / Diamond and allow the AVC member to convert AVC points directly to HHonors points at 1:14 (or 17 depending on which piece of literature you were reading). Points were also redeemable at RCI vacation club properties and another program called Registry Collection (which looked really sweet – luxury sailboat rentals or ski chalets, etc…).

There were a couple red flags that went up immediately. The first is that they did not actually put us up at the Anantara. Instead we were housed at the Club Villas around the corner due to the renovations currently undergoing their new property. A little disappointing this room switch wasn’t disclosed prior to our arrival as with the high walls and limited natural lighting we to likened the “villa” to a jail cell; not exactly the grand open vistas so prominently displayed on their website. The second warning sign was when we were told the purchase of any upper elite tier packages was only available the day of the presentation. The third and final deal breaker was that we never actually got any type of contract to review prior to them wanting the 10% deposit paid (0% financing if put on an American Express).

Needless to say, I did not go through with purchase.

Now back from Indonesia, I’m trying to research their sales offers (nothing of which I have in writing, remember). What seemed really decent was the fact that a high tier ACV member would also be granted HHonors Diamond status. But upon contacting HHonors and Hilton Grand Vacations, neither organisation could confirm any sort of agreement with AVC, which now makes me even more suspect about their claims of reciprocity between RCI and the Registry Collection.

On a separate note, after the weekend in Seminyak, we went up to Ubud for a few days to stay with the Viceroy hotel (SLH) and we were thoroughly impressed with this magnificent hotel. I strongly recommend you consider their wonderful hospitality if you're headed to central Bali!

TL;DR – Anantara Vacation Club offered the world in their sales pitch, do you have any experience with them?

Thanks for your time,
DirtyDan