Is this fishy?? Exclusive Lifestyle Passport

mdr001

My wife and I went to a Club La Costa 'free holiday' presentation, no pressure (but took 3 hours). Did get voucher and details for free holiday. Sent in 'request for dates' to Exclusive Lifestyle Passport Ltd. They sent reply back confirming correspondence and 2 X £29.50 booking fee. Problem is they can't even copy correctly from forms we sent in, and have got my wife and I surnames wrong. I am going to write a letter to the MD of company telling them nicely what a bunch of w**kers they are - almost tempted to ask for my money back!!! They did not give a professional image of themselves - it did not instill a sense of confidence in the company.

boobintroll

Hi, I have received a call offering the same holiday to europe for up to 6. I was then told that because I am seperated I do not qualify as this is for couples only & did i want to give it to a friend or family member ? I am very suspicious as I looked at the website !!!!!!! which I am supposed to have entered a competition but I am quite sure I didn't. Has anyone actually been on a holiday with this company please ? I am new so I hope I have posted this correctly !!!

Master_Nagus

First post, so hi! Use the site pretty regularly and thought I'd get a bit more involved.

I too have just received a call from Exclusive Lifestyle Passport informing me that we have won a free holiday for 4 in Austria, Spain, France or Turkey. Instantly, I'm suspicious!

But I followed it through and got a very similar response to previous posters. Pay only a £29.50 booking fee and attend one of their 'meetings' where we would have an 'appointment' to organise our 7 night holiday (which they say is valid for 18 months)

I asked if any literature was available and told not at this stage because everything is provided when we meet them, and there's no way round that because they need to see our id's / passports etc - I don't like it but that's kind of acceptable. I openly said it sounded too good to be true and asked if there was website I could look at. The girl put me on hold (!) to find out the web address -www.exclusivelifestylepassport.com but I can't access it, which doesn't inspire confidence!

I said to her as well that the offer sounded like dodgy timeshare. Far from being offended she launched straight into a sales patter asking if I was interested in timeshare. When i gave a blunt no, she said no problem and no obligation.

The other thing is we 'won' this holiday from doing a survey in Oldham when visiting family, but we live in Norfolk. The events are only held in Liverpool, Leeds and Birmingham, so a few Argos vouchers won't cover our expenses. We could go when next in the area, but I'm dubious.

I'm confident I can resist all selling for 2/3 hours, but I'm sceptical that it will only cost £29.50 each and if I go on a holiday, the last thing I want is hassling while I'm there!

Any feedback / experiences welcome

svenforkbeard

We too have been subject to the Club La Costa hard sell and smell a rat. Two weeks after entering a prize draw which was not due to be drawn until 9th. May we are sitting in a room of 50+ people with a 20 something Sports Science graduate asking personal questions in the run up to the great offer of a lifetime's holidays for only £11,995, or £13,300 if we do not sign today.

Of course, we said NO. GrimsbyScouser is the only contributor to this thread who has said that they are going on the "free" holiday - have you been GrimsbyScouser? What did you think?

We're quite happy with the £50 John Lewis vouchers.

svenforkbeard

GrimsbyScouser wrote: »

Went to a Club Costa promotion today and get our £50 voucher after 40 minutes of arriving. They had people backed up in the foyer who probably looked more like buyers than us so they let us go. Can't say it was a hard sell as we didn't stay long! Maybe if they think you are a likely candidate and had no one else to interview they would try harder. I think they has guessed straight away we were just there for the vouchers and cheap holiday. Any on to the holiday vouchers; Anyone had experience of the Exclusive Lifestyle Passport holiday experience? I have two weeks to make up my mind whether to go or not, and spend £29.50 up front per person to book. I guess the catch is its another timeshare outfit who 'know where you live' so to speak if you went.on the hol. I'd be prepared to put up with one hard sell but if it was all week then I might not do it. If anyone has any experience of one i'd like to know.

Since last post we have decided that cheap hol is worth the risk. Its through an outfit called Ambassador Holidays, its another arm or Club La Costa by the looks of it. Have carefully chosen holiday dates so we avoid dates too close to November or December as weather may be bad. Anyway looks kosher so far as have received confirmation of 'booking' if thats the right word, hotel, airport and dates all TBA. We figured that at about £300 all in for a holiday is cheap by any measure so will put up with one days hard sell. I'll update this thread when more details arise.

GrimsbyScouser - please see my post today. Did you go?

pennylane99

work colleague just returned from a week in Spain through Club la Costa

they enjoyed it..

they were to attend a "presentation" for about 2 hours, which actually turned out to be about 6 hours...

apart from that they had a great time, and would do it again for a cheap holiday...

cwp500

Better advice; look for a cheapo last minute holiday on teletext or the internet.

At least you know you wont be pestered to death by timeshare scam artists anxious to relieve you of more money.

time share cons are notorious for breaking promises and not keeping faith.

Please dont part with a penny.

Limana68

We also attended Club le Costa presentation at leeds a few wks ago, after filling out a survey in York , it lasted 2 hrs and it was hard sell, but we stuck to our guns, and collected our £50 voucher and holiday coupon, but we decided not to go with holiday as we have 2 kids and they cant guarantee dates or even the destination you want for your holiday, so we decided not to bother, too much hassle,

Li

grahamliv

Well!!!
My wife and I have been on the Club La Costa (exclusive lifestyle passport) cheap holiday trip…

Well we arrived in the Costa Del Sol site and were given our keys to our two bed apartment overlooking the pool and thought..woooooooooooooo hooooooooooooo this is fab J

We thought we have taken the risk and guess what it had paid off, we had a call to say that we have been invited to a free buffet breakfast with a club la Costa chap. Sounds all to good well it happened we were met by this big Scottish guy who escorted us to the table and said help yourself, well being a bit peckish we did and several visits to the buffet counter, later he said as part of your visit you need to spend an hour having a look at what Club la costa has to offer..so we went with him for a tour and were showed some wonderful places we could stay on the resort and then ended up in the marketing suite where we were subjected to a hard sell again. We had pointed out that we were not interested in purchasing anything and were happy to go along…30 min’s later they gave up on us and then released us back into the sun to enjoy the rest of our cheap holiday!!
What to watch out for…

They will want you to take out there insurance that bumps up the cost, you will need to watch out for hard sell in the resort..apart from that go for it don’t let them break you down and enjoy the sun and a cheap holiday..

grahamliv

Well!!!
My wife and I have been on the Club La Costa (exclusive lifestyle passport) cheap holiday trip…

Well we arrived in the Costa Del Sol site and were given our keys to our two bed apartment overlooking the pool and thought..woooooooooooooo hooooooooooooo this is fab J

We thought we have taken the risk and guess what it had paid off, we had a call to say that we have been invited to a free buffet breakfast with a club la Costa chap. Sounds all to good well it happened we were met by this big Scottish guy who escorted us to the table and said help yourself, well being a bit peckish we did and several visits to the buffet counter, later he said as part of your visit you need to spend an hour having a look at what Club la costa has to offer..so we went with him for a tour and were showed some wonderful places we could stay on the resort and then ended up in the marketing suite where we were subjected to a hard sell again. We had pointed out that we were not interested in purchasing anything and were happy to go along…30 min’s later they gave up on us and then released us back into the sun to enjoy the rest of our cheap holiday!!
What to watch out for…

They will want you to take out there insurance that bumps up the cost, you will need to watch out for hard sell in the resort..apart from that go for it don’t let them break you down and enjoy the sun and a cheap holiday..