Demeure Waives Annual Dues Increase For Ultimate Escapes Members

By: Destination Club News
Date: October 27, 2010

Demeure's two hour webinar presentation last night was most enlightening, touching on nearly every component of membership, including a one hour question and answer session with CEO and Founder Peter Schwartz. One new piece of information that was disclosed by Schwartz was that Ultimate Escapes members transferring to the club would not be charged a price delta on their annual dues as was originally planned.

According to the original model, Ultimate Escapes would pay 115% of the total of their 2010 annual dues and nightly fees for each year of their five year agreement with Demeure. Over the past week, Schwartz and the rest of the Demeure leadership team have deconstructed costs and have determined that this 15% increase is no longer necessary and that members will be able to pay the same annual dues and nightly rates at Demeure as they did at Ultimate Escapes.

This dues only structure is set up where members will pre-pay their dues annually into a trust account that is allocated explicitly to cover the cost of the member's travel for that year. For example, if a member paid $10,000 in annual dues at Ultimate Escapes, they would pay the same amount at Demeure. As they traveled with the club, the per night cost of the residence they were visiting would be pulled from this trust account.

Despite the abundance of information, the most critical issue for many members is still pending: the actual per night costs for each of the club's residences. Demeure has been working to determine these rates over the past several days and know the importance the values will have for members and pledge to release the figures by end of day today on their website. One of the key ingredients to the Demeure model, it will also help members determine exactly what they will be able to get out of membership

Unlike the traditional destination club model where members typically receive a preset number of nights to use each year, this option gives more flexibility to members. Members will be able to "spend" their credits on smaller, more intimate residences and travel more frequently or larger properties fewer times per year.

Check the Demeure website at 5:00 PM for these details and check back frequently for more details about the club's offer and other news coming out of the destination club industry.