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Timeshare Consumers Association

Timeshare Accomodation

- getting value for money

A summary

 Introduction


Timeshare accommodation has many attributes which make it superior to almost all hotel accommodation and puts it on par with the ownership of a holiday home, but without the cost or hassle.

Compared to hotels, timeshare accommodation is more spacious, is self contained for a whole family and is equipped and furnished to a high standard and almost all timeshare resorts have extensive free-to-use leisure facilities. All timeshare accommodation is self catering and comes as apartments, villas or lodges.

For many years the only way for holidaymakers to enjoy the advantages of timeshare accommodation was to buy a "right of ownership". But major changes in the industry over the past ten years now mean that timeshare accommodation is available through an ever increasing number of options.

Typically:-

This report looks at the main options for holidaymakers and draws conclusions about which options provide the best value for money in three typical scenarios.

The scenarios we have looked at are:-

A. Retired couple, seeking sun in the winter, staying in a studio apartment (sleep 4) in the Canaries for a week in January.

B. Couple with young children taking a week in a (sleep 6) apartment in Spain in June.

C. Couple with school age children who need to have a week in a (sleep 6) villa in August in Spain

Because timeshare accommodation standards range from good to excellent we selected a quality grade in, or next to, the top grade available. All prices are taken from resorts which are either RCI "Gold Crown" or Interval "Premium" - both quality standards where timeshare accommodation clearly shows its superiority over hotel accommodation.

Points clubs are now the most aggressively marketed sector of the timeshare industry and the top three companies in the points systems operate in very different ways, so we have included all three (RCI Points, Club Sunterra and Club la Costa Vacation Club) in this report.
 

Conclusions

A. The retired couple looking for a week in the sun in winter need look no further than rental with a wide choice of destinations and low prices available on the internet or teletext, and, occasionally, in the high street.

B. The couple with young children who want a week in June in Spain should first look at rental, which will be the cheapest if suitable accommodation can be found Alternatively a fixed or floating timeshare week (bought from a resale broker) may offer a better choice at higher prices.

C. For the couple with school age children holidaying in August the only certain way of getting timeshare accommodation is by owning a fixed week of timeshare in the resort and time period they want. All other options are "subject to availability" and booking cannot be guaranteed. Rental of August (and Christmas) periods is almost non-existent and what does exist can be very expensive.

Full report:-

To download the full report Right Click the relevant filetype and "Save Target As..."
January 2005