Holiday bond

mgdavid

jonesMUFCforever wrote: »

So is it timeshare?

sure looks and sounds very much like one, even if it is just about different enough to use another name.
It may not be an out-and-out scam but the dozens of posts on TA are enough to say steer clear to me.

Seronera

jonesMUFCforever wrote: »

So is it timeshare?

That depends on what you understand by the term Timeshare. I have always understood a timeshare to be the purchase of a particular week or weeks at a particular development. That week/weeks do not alter although you may be able to trade your week for a timeshare week elsewhere. You will also be subject to a management fee whether you use the property or not, and there is no guarantee that you will be able to sell your timeshare week should you wish to dispose of it. I am even aware of timeshare contracts that impose conditions in perpetuity so that in the event of your death your family is obliged to pay management charges ad infinitum unless you can find a buyer.

If that is what you understand Timeshare to be then the HPB is not Timeshare, but having said that, there are some aspects that owe their genesis to the Timeshare movement.

Basically you buy an offshore insurance bond, most of the properties are abroad so it makes sense to be offshore. It IS regulated and HQ is in Newmarket. Instead of buying stocks and shares to put in the bond they buy and refurbish or build new properties. The initial charges to you are really quite steep (25%) and some of the money goes into new property and the rest is used to provide income to help run them. You get allocated points depending on how much you have invested and these points are indexed each year so they do not devalue (there are one or two exceptions to that but its generally true). You use the points to book a property of your choice at a time of your choice...subject to somebody else not having already booked it on those dates of course. If you take a booking you are asked to pay a user fee for that week, which can be as little as £280 and as much as £500 a week depending on what sort of property you have booked. This user fee is supposed to be non profit and is used to pay for all the day to day services of running the place. At one time there was no user fee, but it was found that with inflation and reducing returns on investments not enough money was being generated to pay wages and gardeners and daily maintanance costs. You only pay a user fee if you use a property.

The only other fixed charge is a quarterly charge of £25 that used to be deducted from the fund, but which they now ask you to pay directly by DD. That is paid whether you use the property or not.

If you decide to sell the bond they will guarantee to buy back your bond, subject to some conditions, but you will not get back what you put in. A typical buy back would be roughly 2/3 of what you paid, so it is to be avoided if possible.

So is it a Timeshare......well not really though there are some superficial similarities. Its more like a club. Its not classed as a Timeshare anywhere I know

Is it an Investment in the sense of making money on your bond? No its not. The sheer expense of what they do, plus the directors making some money out of it means that it will never be an 'investment' as you understand it, so whats the point?

Well I suppose that what you are buying into are some really nice holiday locations, very well run by friendly helpful people who really do go the extra mile. Its not cheap as its not meant to be cheap, and not everybody wants cheap. Its been utterly hassle free for me over 27 years and I've never had a 'bad' holiday yet, though a few people inevitably have a less than perfect experience, thats inevitable.

In my view the only sensible way to approach the HPB is to buy with the intention of never ever selling it, and you can pass it on to the kids easily at no cost by having their names added as lives assured. The HPB encourages this as they get to keep the money. If nobody ever uses it again their only commitment is the £25 quarterly fee, so you don't get a £1000 service charge bill every year as you might on some Timeshares

Is it perfect...well no of course. Can you always get the week you want, no, unless you plan well ahead, but when we have wanted to book a holiday at relatively short notice (my previous work would not let me book way ahead) all I've done is ring HPB and say in effect "What have you got left in September?"..or whenever and as long as you are prepared to be flexible they will usually find you somewhere to go. I have often booked at four months notice, though it is taking a risk and they might just say "Sorry nothing left" and then you are stuffed.

The properties are usually very impressive and HPB have won some awards for their restorations of significant buildings that would otherwise have fallen down. Also, not to be forgotten is that the all year round nature of the bond means that the economies of some more far flung parts benefit greatly from the influx of out of season visitors that the HPB virtually guarantees. Some local chambers of commerce have sent very nice messages to the management and it certainly helps when the HPB plans a new development.

Maybe I've painted a highly rosy picture here, but most of it is good news. I'm not emplyed by them or paid by them or anything like that. I'm just a bloke who took a risk with a few thousand quid when I was 33 years old and wondered what the hell I'd done. I did then work in financial services so I had a better than average understanding of how it worked, but even so I had to be prepared for it all to go 'bang' as it was so new and untested. Well I'l soon be 61 and it hasn't gone bang, so I can safely say I don't think its a scam, though it does carry a risk, as everything does. What I can say is that even if it did go 'bang' tomorrow, whilst I'd feel mighty hacked off I wouldn't regret it. I actually think the bond is more financially stable today. It has no borrowings and it has something like 55,000 bondholders, only a very few of whom leave each year. You will struggle to find a really unhappy one I promise you, though there have been events within the HPB that I have been unhappy with. Thats life isn't it. I am now reconciled to what occurred.

I hope thats not too long. I'm perfectly happy if people say "Its not for me" or "I don't like it". Everybody is different, but its been around 30 years now and if it were a scam I think somebody in authority would have done something about it by now. Its not a scam, but neither is it a 'cheap' club to be a member of. Thats the best way I can sum it up.

jonesMUFCforever

One sentence would have done LOL

Seronera

jonesMUFCforever wrote: »

One sentence would have done LOL

Just thought I'd test your attention span;)

budgetflyer

So its like a points club. Ie CLC, Marriott, Disney, Macdonald Resorts etc
Good point. No annual maintainance
Bad point. Limited inventory.
Can you trade with RCI, II or Dial an Exchange?
Can you buy second hand?
One of the good things about Points/Timeshare is you can often buy second hand for as little as 10p in the £ of the price of going direct.
That initial saving can then fund many years of management fees.

antenna

So....you have "owned" nothing for 27 years.....as they say "there is no fool like an old fool".
This is Timeshare or Holiday Points,you will lose ten times more than you save.

callum9999

antenna wrote: »

So....you have "owned" nothing for 27 years.....as they say "there is no fool like an old fool".
This is Timeshare or Holiday Points,you will lose ten times more than you save.

I don't own any of the hotels I've stayed in either - have I been ripped off all this time?

Seronera

antenna wrote: »

So....you have "owned" nothing for 27 years.....as they say "there is no fool like an old fool".
This is Timeshare or Holiday Points,you will lose ten times more than you save.

I really don't follow your logic whatsoever. For about £6k (which is all I put in back in 1987) I have access to exclusive high quality no hassle holidays in superb well maintained properties at roughly £350-400 a week for life, then I can hand it on to the kids and they can enjoy the same for life. If I cash it in..(but why on earth would I?) I get between 3 and 4k back. Today you'd need to put about £10-12k in to get the same as I got in 1987....but thats inflation for you. Everything has gone up.

But I don't own 'nothing'. I own an offshore insurance bond with a value, whatever that is. I don't care what it is valued at as it makes no difference to my holiday entitlement or my successors entitlement.

I'm entirely happy for you to see it your way if you insist, but if you met a cross section of members they are substantially professional people and businessmen who are no fools when it comes to money, so I think its you missing the point not me. We do talk to other bondholders you know, and the positive comments outweigh the negative by a massive margin, in fact its rare to hear negative comment as the staff work so hard and are very friendly, right down to the gardeners as the horticultual side of the bond is superbly done

If it is so bad why do so few people leave the Bond? Its a tiny trickle that cash in. The largest single bondholder is the RAF Benevolent Fund that sends airmen past and present on respite or recuperation holidays. Other bondholders often donate unused points to them. You never know who they are of course, but they are there.

If you want to call it Timeshare then go ahead, but again I think you have got the wrong end of the stick entirely. Its far more sophisticated than Timeshare and the level of complaints is virtually nil.... unlike Timeshare where complaints are rife and people are locked into contracts they can't get out of..Surely you can see the difference.

If you are dead set against the Bond then I'm wasting my time, but most of the bias I see here is born of ignorance or suspicion of things you only partly understand, and thus draw conclusions that I frankly find bizarre. I spent 20 years in financial services and I can assure you I looked into it pretty closely before putting any money in. If you ask my wife and two kids (now 24 and 26) what they think of the HPB they all love it and they would think anybody who could find fault with it a complete nutcase. This is after 27 years as a bondholder, so I've had plenty of time to get disillusioned with it when all is said and done, and I'm not disillusioned at all.

Still..we are on the inside and know how good it is, and you are on the outside and don't know and can only speculate about what you don't know. Thats your choice and I'm happy with the status quo as I am sure you are. Just don't try and tell me I don't know what I'm talking about.

jonesMUFCforever

I'm still not convinced LOL
I Could PAY £300-£400 per week fo a holiday of my choice anywhere in the world without having to invest in a bond.

Great that it has worked for you - what will happen if you do not want to continue to us it and how many salebacks have been completed in last 12 months?

mgdavid

I still don't see what you are actually getting - are all these 'properties' just self-catering flats and houses?