Club Seasons worth £2950.00..

Citril

Tigger1 wrote: »

1. The 'prize' is said to be worth £3750 at 2007 rates - see my first message. But who (in their right mind) would be paying this money in any case?

Comfortable but not as good as Craigandarroch - our favourite British timeshare so far. Will let you know when we have booked and been (back) to Clowance.

Ummmm .... we paid £3500 approx for our Timeshare in Arran!!! But we have been holidaying at the Auchrannie (you would love it if you like Craigandarroch!) for decades with the family so had already spent £1000's as a family group there. Hence we got our own, after a good couple of years or weighing up the pros and cons!

Scarlet_Freckles

Hiya
Been a member for years but not posted much Prefer to read all your useful comments! However, when I got my recorded del this morning, I googled the company and up came good old MSE.

Yeh, I've won a£3750 prize.....WOOO......I am an old cynic!! I do my research, and I do have a place in France on lease with an option to buy, which is working out fine, but I am mindful of any cons.

From what I have read on here (and I haven't read everything, it would take months..:rotfl: ), it's not worth it as a long term option. However, we do have friends in Scotland, and I am thinking taking it up for a year would be a cheap way for us to stay up there, as their place isn't big enough.

For those of you who have done it, just for the first year, would you do it again, and are there any pitfalls I need to look out for?

Cheers for your help!

Doombar_3

Hi, All;

I can already imagine the responses this will attract, but I genuinely HAVE a use for these things...

We didn't in-fact get an invitation in the post as most of the posters seem to have, a friend of ours did. We asked them to arrange an "Invitation" to clubseasons which they were told would get them a £50 voucher and for the record - it never materialised. No great surprise there.

Our reason is simple... We live just outside Camborne in Cornwall and really there's not much going on down here. In particular leisure facilities are thin on the ground and not of a very high standard. YES - Cornwall is a popular holiday destination and NO - I wouldn't want to live elsewhere to gain access to better facilities. Like many natives of the area, 99% of the time I enjoy the tranquility of living in the country and shudder at the thought of living (or even visiting!) the city areas (Truro barely qualifies as a city in my books, but I only go THERE around Christmas time!...).

The thing is, I live a few miles away from one of the Seasons sites - Clowance. Clowance was only purchased by Seasons about 18 months ago and - as it was always a timeshare site, that meant that I simply couldn't access the facilities it has. I went there many years ago to see what it had to offer and if there was a way of getting access to the facilities without paying the thousands it would take to get into the timeshare and there simply was not.

Now though - we have the "Club Seasons" membership and yes - we have to pay the maintenance, but we now have open access all year round to everything Clowance has to offer. For us with three young boys that means access to a really not very busy swimming pool heated to a much more acceptable temperature than the local offering (dont get me wrong, I grew up here and used the Carn Brea leisure centre as much as anybody in the area as a kid and loved every minute of it! - but it has its problems and the temperature makes it uncomfortable for toddlers after a very short time...), along with tennis courts for the eldest, Jacuzzi and Sauna for Mum and Dad, a boating lake for fun during summer with a fantastic lawn for picnics etc. and a golf course. Not to mention a good bar and absolutely superb restaurant - if you know the area then you will know that these are VERY thin on the ground in Camborne / Redruth - we are surrounded by towns with restaurants owned by Rick Stein, Jamie Oliver and a number of other celebrity Chefs, and there are some amazing seafood places around Falmouth, Penzance and St. Ives; but if you have to get a babysitter for the evening, adding a couple of hours for travel to the time and you find yourself clock-watching - it just makes life difficult.

Take into account that the maintenance fee is actually LESS than a year's membership to lower quality facilities locally for ONE of us for a year and I think it's a steal.

The downside of-course is that unless you buy into the scheme we will lose all this after three years and we have been told that unless we buy in NOW we wont be offered again near the end of the membership, but we all know they wont turn your money down. It will be more expensive, sure - but they'll "deal" then too if we find that we can justify it on the basis of access to Clowance alone... (We've done the math and can see that overall we wont be saving any money on holidays - potentially we will be sure of good accomodation but that's really all it will do for us except for gaining access to Clowance)

We have just actually taken our "free" week at Clowance - which may sound ludicrous as it is just down the road from where we live, but from our perspective it makes perfect sense. We can still take the boys to school / nursery, I took time off work so we just had "Us" time which is REALLY hard to come by with three young 'uns.

I'm not saying that this is for everyone, but if you live local to a Seasons resort and are considering or already have membership to facilities similar to those you are / considering paying for (Gym, etc.) it really might be worthwhile - at least for the 3 years proposed in the "Prize" (which we all know is just another form of marketing). BTW access is removed after 3 years because for the first 3 years they throw in "Country Club" membership which you will only get back if you actually BUY something from them additional to paying your maintenance).

Dont know yet if we will take it any further than just club seasons, but thought I'd give you my perspective.

If your tendancy is to flame a poster, please dont waste your time. I googled seasons to see what others were saying about the scheme and got the general mesage loud and clear here; my opinion is surely as valid as anybody else's?

- Richard.

Doombar_3

Hi, All;

I can already imagine the responses this will attract, but I genuinely HAVE a use for these things...

We didn't in-fact get an invitation in the post as most of the posters seem to have, a friend of ours did. We asked them to arrange an "Invitation" to clubseasons which they were told would get them a £50 voucher and for the record - it never materialised. No great surprise there.

Our reason is simple... We live just outside Camborne in Cornwall and really there's not much going on down here. In particular leisure facilities are thin on the ground and not of a very high standard. YES - Cornwall is a popular holiday destination and NO - I wouldn't want to live elsewhere to gain access to better facilities. Like many natives of the area, 99% of the time I enjoy the tranquility of living in the country and shudder at the thought of living (or even visiting!) the city areas (Truro barely qualifies as a city in my books, but I only go THERE around Christmas time!...).

The thing is, I live a few miles away from one of the Seasons sites - Clowance. Clowance was only purchased by Seasons about 18 months ago and - as it was always a timeshare site, that meant that I simply couldn't access the facilities it has. I went there many years ago to see what it had to offer and if there was a way of getting access to the facilities without paying the thousands it would take to get into the timeshare and there simply was not.

Now though - we have the "Club Seasons" membership and yes - we have to pay the maintenance, but we now have open access all year round to everything Clowance has to offer. For us with three young boys that means access to a really not very busy swimming pool heated to a much more acceptable temperature than the local offering (dont get me wrong, I grew up here and used the Carn Brea leisure centre as much as anybody in the area as a kid and loved every minute of it! - but it has its problems and the temperature makes it uncomfortable for toddlers after a very short time...), along with tennis courts for the eldest, Jacuzzi and Sauna for Mum and Dad, a boating lake for fun during summer with a fantastic lawn for picnics etc. and a golf course. Not to mention a good bar and absolutely superb restaurant - if you know the area then you will know that these are VERY thin on the ground in Camborne / Redruth - we are surrounded by towns with restaurants owned by Rick Stein, Jamie Oliver and a number of other celebrity Chefs, and there are some amazing seafood places around Falmouth, Penzance and St. Ives; but if you have to get a babysitter for the evening, adding a couple of hours for travel to the time and you find yourself clock-watching - it just makes life difficult.

Take into account that the maintenance fee is actually LESS than a year's membership to lower quality facilities locally for ONE of us for a year and I think it's a steal.

The downside of-course is that unless you buy into the scheme we will lose all this after three years and we have been told that unless we buy in NOW we wont be offered again near the end of the membership, but we all know they wont turn your money down. It will be more expensive, sure - but they'll "deal" then too if we find that we can justify it on the basis of access to Clowance alone... (We've done the math and can see that overall we wont be saving any money on holidays - potentially we will be sure of good accomodation but that's really all it will do for us except for gaining access to Clowance)

We have just actually taken our "free" week at Clowance - which may sound ludicrous as it is just down the road from where we live, but from our perspective it makes perfect sense. We can still take the boys to school / nursery, I took time off work so we just had "Us" time which is REALLY hard to come by with three young 'uns.

I'm not saying that this is for everyone, but if you live local to a Seasons resort and are considering or already have membership to facilities similar to those you are / considering paying for (Gym, etc.) it really might be worthwhile - at least for the 3 years proposed in the "Prize" (which we all know is just another form of marketing). BTW access is removed after 3 years because for the first 3 years they throw in "Country Club" membership which you will only get back if you actually BUY something from them additional to paying your maintenance).

Dont know yet if we will take it any further than just club seasons, but thought I'd give you my perspective.

If your tendancy is to flame a poster, please dont waste your time. I googled seasons to see what others were saying about the scheme and got the general mesage loud and clear here; my opinion is surely as valid as anybody else's?

- Richard.

mpython

Hi Doombar, welcome to MSE.

So is membership really £3750 like they say in the letters? if not, how much are you paying & for how long?

topoguide

Hello from a "newby"

i recieved today in a registered letter from clubseasons a prize to the value of £3750.

i was exciting telling everybody i was off to the Maldives etc etc then i googled...................................

So what shall i do, £218 Maintenance per year, can i fix the company to this rate or will it increase, i can afford it, but if the properties are 5* and in reach of Rynanair or Easyjet surely it is a "win" and i have good deal.?????

mpython

Hi topoguide, welcome to MSE.

It can't be a win if you have to pay the promoter to receive a prize.

I'd just throw the letter in the bin & chalk it up to experience. The £218 goes up and up (last year people said it was £156 and £179). You'll save yourself much more money by looking at the holidays forum elsewhere on this site.

pandapaws

:rotfl: Gutted!

I suspected it was a bit suss, considering I only signed up for myoffers last week, and certainly hadn't entered any competitions ending straight away! But they are clever - the recorded delivery and 0800 number make it look better than most 'you have won...' scams.

Still tempted to call them and have a bit of a wind-up - get their hopes up that they're going to earn some hefty commission, the way they briefly got our hopes up this morning that we had £3750 on its way!

Ta for all the info folks (and the laugh at the 'newbies' who've had brilliant holidays with this bunch!). :T

scaty

Perhaps we should have our 'I've had a seasons holiday letter' number. we can see how many people were sent this - the entry on my letter was -522085.

I did have a little sinking feeling signing for the letter aat the post office - as bf suggested it could be a summons:eek: (don't know what for but you never know....) then it turned to disappointment:o as the scammy feely took over.

Argh well, onwards and upwards to the competition section - for my daily fix.

us2notts

HI there,

I received a letter from these this morning,All nicely delivered by registered post.Stating I had won a competition on the internet in a prize draw number 527177.
I thought it was my 1st win in a competition ever,I couldn't believe that it was worth £3750,but thought some thing was a bit suspect,but as it was delivered in this way I thought it must be true.
while I called the free phone number I decided to check through this site(just incase).Its a good job i did,as from the posts it has shown it up as a SCAM.
when you call them you have to leave your name and number so they can reply,so if these MUPPETS ever do call me back they will get told exactly what they are.
Thanks everyone for the info:T
It would be interesting if they use the prize draw scam everytime.:mad: :mad: