Timeshare trial - Club la costa

pjran

simpywimpy wrote: »

You could buy an apartment in Turkey or Hurghada for the price of a lifetime membership. The annual fees are the same as they would be if you actually owned an apartment in these places (average £500pa)

Regardless of the 5 star accommodation, if you book late, there are always bargains to be had and would you really spend £1666 on a week's accommodation?

If you buy in Turkey or elsewhere for that matter then you have the headache of security, insurance, maintenance etc.

Milky_Mocha

This is all really useful information. Thank you so much.

I will phone them to cancel tomorrow. I have twelve days remaining to do this. They gave me their cell and landline numbers. Let's hope they answer! I will follow up my phone call with a letter delivered by recorded signed for delivery.

One of the issues I had with CLC is that those prices do not even include flights. Package deals would suit us better. If anyone knows of an online agent that specialises in luxury self catering accommodation but includes package flights at reasonable prices I'd be grateful for the link.

Thanks so much. This site is priceless.

costapkt

Make sure you get that letter of. Chances of cancelling on the phone are nil. Hope you have not paid them anything. If you have set up any Direct Debits cancel them .
You have made the right decision in not joining. Stick to a travel agent or do it yourself.

mobby-2554

costapkt wrote: »

Make sure you get that letter of. Chances of cancelling on the phone are nil. Hope you have not paid them anything. If you have set up any Direct Debits cancel them .
You have made the right decision in not joining. Stick to a travel agent or do it yourself.

I was just going to say the same thing.

Also get proof of posting.
Might even be worth getting advise from a solicitor,?
The couple I met did but they were out of the cooling off period so he couldn't help them!

That's why they were on holiday this year!

Let us know how you get on.

sweetpig

Hi I would like to add my comments on CLC. PLEASE PLEASE DO NOT BUY.
We bought a trial membership of five weeks. The first week was spend in Tennerife at the top of a hill. Drinks and food very expensive and one day was spent with them trying to make us sisgn up to points. Two weeks in India in disgusting apartments, even though RCI call it 5* it would have been cleaner to sleep on the beach. Two weeks back in Tennerife at the top of the hill again. We had to pay extra everytime we went and in India even charged for luxury tax about another four hundred pounds. CLC said to claim this back from RCI they said get stuffed. We have spent to much on these holidays it is unrealistic. We could never swap for anywhere we wanted eg, America. You are also pestered by them all the time wanting to sell you the points system.

TELL THEM TO STUFF THEIR POINTS WHERE THE SUN DOES NOT SHINE

blindman

Milky_Mocha wrote: »

This is all really useful information. Thank you so much.

I will phone them to cancel tomorrow. I have twelve days remaining to do this. They gave me their cell and landline numbers. Let's hope they answer! I will follow up my phone call with a letter delivered by recorded signed for delivery.

One of the issues I had with CLC is that those prices do not even include flights. Package deals would suit us better. If anyone knows of an online agent that specialises in luxury self catering accommodation but includes package flights at reasonable prices I'd be grateful for the link.

Thanks so much. This site is priceless.

I wrote a "report" on my experiences and thoughts on this thread (which is quite large now)

I found cancelling really easy. (post 142)

Leanne1812

I'm glad you decided to cancel. We were silly enough to buy into the whole timeshare dream holiday package. We bought in Orlando which seemed like a great place to buy as we'd never have any problem exchanging. Not true. It is a huge con, the lies we were told were unbelievable. You can exchange to a private yacht in australia, a log cabin with butler in canada. We really believed this would be so easy and no problem. (I know your probably laughing at how gullible we were, i'm laughing now but wasn't at the time.) In fact it was impossible, every time we tried to exchange there was nothing available. In the end we tried to sell, no-one wanted it even for free! Now that tells you something......We stopped paying the maintenance and they eventually repossessed.

You can have great holidays in fab accommodation without this milestone, just research and shop around. There's nearly always a bargain to be had somewhere.

vegasvisitor

My mother died earlier this year and had a timeshare with CLC, and I have had a fair bit of trouble with them. They replied to me at first, sending me paperwork to change it to my name etc, but never properly answering my questions or telling me how to surrender the timeshare! In the end I was so short of time I had to call them and demand the relevant forms, and emailed them in. I then started getting 'automatic' responses from a DIFFERENT email address days later (impossible to be automatic, eh?), saying I would not hear back for 14 days. Of course the 14 days passed without response so I emailed them saying my assumtion was that the matter was closed. They eventually replied and said it is cancelled.

So, I just surrendered it. Annual fees were over 2000 euros per year, and I don't think I would have had any hope of selling it. Of course a few companies said they could help if I paid them £500 upfront for advertising etc!

I'd say you're doing the right thing cancelling. Enjoy your own choice of holidays on your own terms.

toprobroy

Hi

I run the Members Independant Website and just want to say that on the whole, Trial Members do eventually find it difficult to get where they want, although some are happy...and it really depends on what your expectations are and what is available.

What is certain, is that you'll get Pitched to about the Vacation Points Club when you go on your first Hol, and be made an offer to get your Trial Money back. Many members who find this out from other members on our site, who will verify that, also cancel on the Cool Off period and sometimes buy direct from owners selling VC points from our site, at a fraction of the cost.

I hope that helps you a bit. I don't have the revenue streams that Martin gets from running his site at Money Saving Expert, so I rely on a £5 donation towards the costs of keeping our site up and running. There are over 3000 registrations now, majority of who subscribe. Its a truly Consumer Focused site as we are not supported by anyone other than the consumers, so the advice is direct from owner, and to date we've saved people over £1M according to the emails I personally receive. All agree, its £5 well spent on a research tool which also finds many bargains for many others.

Ciao!

mobby-2554

toprobroy

Sorry but could you tell me where to find Members Independant Website & what it is exactly?
I have just googled Members Independant Website & this is all it found;

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=Members+Independant+Website&btnG=Google+Search&meta=cr%3DcountryUK%7CcountryGB&aq=null&oq=

You say: Its a truly Consumer Focused site as we are not supported by anyone other than the consumers, so the advice is direct from owner, not owners?

Do you not have a web link?

This is what I see from your posts on here!

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=178441&highlight=

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?p=22514099&highlight=#post22514099

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?p=25334933&highlight=#post25334933

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?p=27241059&highlight=#post27241059

Milky_Mocha be carful!

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