The abdication of personal responsibility is just more sour grapes. Lifestyles doesn't tie you to a chair and force you to sign a contract. Anyone with two working legs can stand up and leave the sales pitch anytime they want. They can't get your money if you don't give it to them. Granted some may not be well suited to negotiate an expensive long term service contract but whose fault is that ultimately.
People pay too much for a new car these days for exactly the same reasons you outline.
I've been a member for 14 years, long before I moved to the DR full time. This type of club membership only makes sense, if you are going to use it often. It is not particularly well suited for the family that takes one or two trips a year. It's not ideal for someone who wishes to travel to a different country every time although through resort affiliations, there are a whole whack of resorts worldwide one can book themselves into.
The membership locks in your vacation pricing for the term of the membership. So the prices I pay in service fees for accommodations are those that were in effect back in 2005. Today's pricing is significantly higher as one would expect. If you are satisfied staying in a room purchasing access to villas may not be your priority. If you do not need or wish to be picked up by the Lifestyles jet, that may be a needless perk that doesn't appeal to you. There is a membership for everyone with a graduated list of perks and benefits. It's like the "make your own salad" concept back home. You add to your plate what you want, it gets weighed and you are charged accordingly.
If you wish an in villa butler/concierge you can have that. If you wish to dine at swanky restaurants without having to worry about noisy children, you can have that too. It's not for everyone but for those who wish to vacation often in the DR it can be sound decision if amortized over a long enough period of time and one is astute enough to bargain hard for only those benefits that are of use to them at a price that makes sense.
Sure some people have no business spending money they do not have for things they will not use. But whose fault is that really? If you can do basic math, and you have a reasonable knowledge of how much it costs to book a 1 week trip for the type of accommodations you would like to occupy, then it's pretty easy to determine if the cost of a particular membership level is a good deal or not.
For me, the Club has fulfilled their obligations under my membership when it is humanly possible for them to do so. I can reasonably expect to receive the service I paid for and should not expect a level of service that I did not pay for.
From my other posts it should be pretty clear why the club is structured the way it is. All the owners of the suites & villas expect to get paid. All the members expect to receive the benefits they are entitled to. All of the guests expect to be well looked after. The nonmembers who arrive believing they will enjoy the perks that I do because some travel website site makes mention of VIP perks should have realized that that definition of VIP in no way approaches what VIP means for top tier members.
90,000 members with various levels of entitlement can use Cabarete if they wish to travel to the North Coast and cannot secure a reservation at Cofresi. Lifestyles Punta Cana is there for those who find traveling to PC easier or cheaper. Lifestyles Cancun for those who wish to travel to Mexico. Lifestyles can keep Cabarete afloat when a different entity might not be able to accomplish the same result over the long term.
It is certainly not unheard of for business disputes to end up in court, but one just has to look at who seems to end up on top most of the time. If some purchaser make a mistake and sign a bad deal, that doesn't automatically translate into everyone getting taken to the cleaners.
But enough already. You have your opinion and others have theirs. You seem to have been able to avoid joining the Club and that's your prerogative. Just because it's not something you are interested in doesn't make it automatically a bad deal for everyone. I will admit my membership was much more valuable to me when I lived in a place with snow up to my shoulders 6 months out of the year but I still go to Lifestyles five or six time a year when I don't feel like making my own bed or cooking my own meals. My wife ensures that we get our moneys worth every year.
