As of September 1st this year, Distinctive is making some changes to its membership plans and increasing prices. On the whole the changes give members more flexibility in their usage of the club homes.

The club is replacing its current "Lite" 7 night membership plan and instead will offer pre-paid membership cards for 2 weeks, 3 weeks and 4 weeks of usage. The non-refundable cards will have a four-year life and be priced at $30,000, $40,000 and $50,000 respectively, with no annual fees. Robert Good, Senior Manager of Distinctive Holiday Homes USA told us that many members were joining at the Lite level and then upgrading after their initial trip. With the cards people can use the club homes without any long term commitment, and then decide if they want to join at one of the other membership levels.

“We introduced the idea of Pre-Paid Membership Cards to cater for those who may wish to test out the Destination Club concept or may not be sure when they will next holiday” says DHH founder and CEO, Nick Wood. “The Cards are also perfect for those who do not want to commit to an ongoing annual payment."

This is similar to the One Key model, which offers pre-paid cards with 15, 25 and 45 "One Key Nights". Although One Key just changed to a points based system, so that different homes require different points at different times.

At the same time as it's changing the entry level plan, Distinctive is adding a new plan for avid travelers offering 63 nights per year at Distinctive homes. Members on this new plan will be able to reserve homes up to 3 years in advance (whereas the clubs other plans allow 2 year advance reservations). The plan is priced at $499,000 initial fee and $49,900 annually.

The other membership plans will all see price rises as of September 1st, with initial deposits rising between $10k to $50k and annual dues going up between $1,000 and $5,000.

Members children over the age of 23 will be able to use the homes without the member being present, so that they will effectively be treated as a member. Distinctive already allows some of each membership plans nights to be used by other (more distant) family members without the member being present, and adult children will no longer need to be counted against these "Extended Family Nights".

Reservations will also be able to be made for up to 21 nights in a row (currently the club allows up to 14 nights in a row). Which is very much at the high end of what any destination clubs allow.

The other change is in the number of nights that a member can carry forwards or backwards from one year to the next. Up to three weeks can be used in this way as detailed by membership plan in the table below. This is a very uncommon feature amongst the destination clubs, and provides a lot of flexibility.

Distinctive Holiday Homes is also still offering its "Trial Membership". This allows a trial stay at the clubs properties for a minimum of 3 nights, that have to be booked within 90 days of departure. The price is just $1,500 per night, so is lower than the new card options above.