We have investigated the interaction between vesicles based on dimyristoyl phosphatidic acid (DMPA) and a polymer, such as poly(2-vinyl pyridine) (P2VPy), on the basis of both partition and binding models. The resulting association curves are non monotonous being three regions clearly evidenced. The electrostatic and steric origin of the attractive or repulsive interactions are analyzed as a function of pH, ionic strength and temperature using the fluorescence spectroscopy technique. We emphasize the importance of differentiating the ideal definition of the binding constant from the theoretically evaluated including the activity coefficient, gamma, to take into account shifts from the ideality of the polymer in both aqueous and lipidic domains. Furthermore, we propose an equation relating both models that predicts fairly well the experimental data.