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Timeshare Consumers Association

Holiday clubs are booking systems for which you pay a large joining fee to enable you to book holidays at prices which are generally no cheaper than on the Internet or High Street.

February 2007 is the Office of Fair Trading "Scams Awareness" month in which they advise consumers NOT to accept invitatiions - at home or abroad - to holiday club presentations.  At home or on holiday. And, on 26 May 2008, the law chnages - see here - which should stop the holiday club frauds in the UK

The enticement may be when you are at home or when you are on holiday :-

• a scratch card on the street
• a telephone call offering to buy your timeshare - ending with "you need to come to our offices etc.."
• a telephone call offering low cost holidays
• a telephone call, possibly claiming to be from RCI, inviting themselves into your home under some pretext

Key reasons for avoiding membership of a holiday club:

• lack of certainty that you will get anything, let alone what is promised. If the club goes "bust" tomorrow, you have lost everything
• the lies told by salesmen to get their commission
• the lack of any "club" structure to enable members to influence how the club is run
• the inability to check what the club can offer until after all the money has been paid (the Scots phrase "buying a pig in a poke")
• no time (cooling off period) in which to check salesmens claims
• they take a deposit so as to  lock you into the contract
• there is no "second hand" market to enable you to recover some of the capital sum when you want to "get out".
• the cost of taking holidays in the club  is generally no cheaper than in the open market (teletext, internet or high street)  - the membership fee is therefore worthless.
• many purchase agreements appear to be void in law, lacking certain essentials of an enforecable contract

Holiday clubs come in three flavours  -  recognising which flavour you are involved with is almost impossible:

Bogus

with neither a formal structure nor an administration service, they have no arrangements for delivering the promised holidays. In legal terms they simply do not exist. Run by unsavoury people with criminal records they eventually “disappear” having stolen a LOT of money. The majority of holiday clubs fall into the “bogus” category.  Many thousands of consumers are defrauded every year.

Fraudulent

a superior version of the bogus club – where a formal structure may have  been established (usually a limited liability company or proprietary club) and a small administration service has been set up. These clubs last longer than the bogus ones – because they initially appear to provide a service – but close down when complaints about failure to deliver the promised holidays get too great. Many tens of thousands of holiday club members have already been “left in the lurch” when their club disappeared.

Established

where a legal structure exists, an administration service is in place, and members do get holidays – but generally not where, when or at the price promised by the salesman. Although very poor value for money, they may survive for a number of years.

An increasing number of holiday clubs are Internet based - booking of holidays can only be done using a website, often based in the USA. These internet clubs are no more reliable than their "land based" cousins.

Holiday club salesmen tell lies for a living. Typically:

• lies about where in the world you can take the promised holidays
• lies about the time of year you can take the promised holidays
• lies about the quality of accommodation
• lies about the costs of the accommodation
• lies about the savings they offer fro flights etc.
• lies about who endorses the club -  Disney, Marks & Spencer  and other highly respected organisations.

Those holiday clubs that DO provide some holidays usually  operate by renting spare timeshare or hotel accommodation. They find it near  impossible to rent periods in high season (ie. school holidays when most holiday makers want to go away) and places in high demand (the very places you want to go).

And claims that they are members of ABTA or IATA (even if the claim is true) does not provide any comfort as the joining fee and the membership fee is not covered by the bonding schemes run by these two respected organisations.

Holiday clubs that do provide holidays either:

• pay a full rental fee (which they pass on to you with an uplift) which is exactly what you could do for yourself using the internet or teletext.
• Or they book timeshare weeks on the understanding that you attend a timeshare presentation (6 hours of sheer hell) from which they receive a commission if you buy.

Update  - July 2006.

The Office of Fair Trading announced that they are in negotiation with five holiday club operators to introduce a Code of Conduct covering:-

• Truthful marketing by all marketing outlets for the clubs
• A cooling off period (probably 10 days)
• Fair complaint handling procedure.

The clubs involved are:-

• Club Class Holidays
• Design Vacation
• Full Circle Holidays
• Elite Holidays
• Timelinx (DWVC) – who did not attend the initial negotiating meeting.  But see here

And the Office of Fair Trading are also collecting information about dodgy holiday club marketers and operators. Details are here.

TCA Advice - AVOID  becoming a member of a holiday club.

• If you do not get an unconditional written 14 day cooling off period - walk away.
• If any attempt is made to take any money during the cooling off period - walk away
• If you do not get the opportunity to take the purchase agreement away to read it before signing - walk away
• If all the verbal promises made to you are not in writing - walk away.
• If you are not given, in writing, detailed examples of places, times and prices that are available to you - walk away
• If you do not get written proof (bonding, trusteeship etc.) that club will honour all the promises for the full period of membership - walk away
• If you feel the need to use a lawyer to help you get out of a holiday club contrcat (and get back any money paid) talk to any solicitors here

If you want to see what happens to your money when you buy into a holiday club - click here

 

If you are enticed to sign up then please read   How to cancel

February 2007