Timeshare free holiday prize?

jaxxx · 4 April 2005 at 10:22PM

Has anyone taken up the offer of a free holiday (which you are told in a phone call you have won after completing some survey that you don't remember doing) with the company Sunterra? It appears we have to attend a presentation for an hour and a half in this country to "meet the company and find out more about your holiday" and if we can sit through this we get a luxury 4 star 7 night holiday in Spain, Tenerife, Menorca or the Algarve for 2 people including flights and car hire for £34.50 per person valid for 18 months. Has anyone suffered the presentation and managed to do the holiday unscathed? I know all the timeshare scams, but I'm tempted to give it a go and just wondered if anyone out there had experience of this company.

blindman · 5 April 2005 at 12:05PM

Not with Sunterra, but with Travelquest (who are now called Atlantis Vacations)

Some info from here might be enlightening.

We sat through the presentation and almost had to fight to get out early, though we did manage it.

I pestered the company for the "free" holiday and eventually got a voucher that let me pick:-

1 3 destinations I wanted to go to
2 3 Airports from where I'd like to fly
3 3 Dates I'd like to go.

All at a cost of about £150.00 for "Admin fees"

I sent off the form and waited.

Got an offer about 4 months later to go to:

1 Nowhere I asked for
2 Not even close!
3 Rainy season and not the dates I'd asked for.

and also the flight was the following day!

I never assumed I'd get my moneys worth (or even get it back) so no surprise there.

We did manage to get 5 days in a Mansion in France at a reasonable price so long as we went to a one to one interview about properties.

When the guy said "Are you interested" at the beginning of the interview I said "No" and he said "fair enough" and let us go to enjoy our stay.

So a small recompense for a dodgy deal.

Have fun, but don't buy any Timeshare!

zico_2 · 5 April 2005 at 12:09PM

Hi jaxxx
If you have nothing better to do one day and want to be put under LOTS of pressure go along. My brother has been and I have also. Very hard sales and very rude when you don't buy!! I am thick skinned!! My brother is actually getting the holiday, but you need to be able to go anytime. He did get a local airport and he is in Scotland.
It might be worth putting Sunterra into a search engine and see what comes up. They have had a lot of publicity, mostly bad!! in the last couple of years.
Basically you buy points for holidays, but your initial outlay @ £7k will not get you a fortnight in summer school hols, you would need to spend about double that!!
One of my husbands colleagues bought points for £7k at a presention and found out he needed more for the holiday he wanted and managed to get more on ebay, for a fraction of the cost!!

rchddap1 · 5 April 2005 at 12:23PM

I've been approached for one of these come to a talk and get a voucher for a free holiday things. As it turned out we couldn't go to any of their talks as we were doing other things on all of the dates that were suggested ... shame. Had great fun with the company concerned though. Kept them talking for over 1 hour and ended up getting the guy on the other end of the phone extremely confused. I had nothing better to do, and it was their phone bill. Besides, whilst I was talking to them, this individual couldn't be trying to coerce anyone else.

Ted_Hutchinson · 5 April 2005 at 1:05PM

Club La Costa promo - genuine or scam?

UK timeshare 3 night trial breaks From£29

The above two threads contain some useful comment.
I spent quite a bit of time talking to SUNTERRA Members at Wynchnor and everyone I spoke to was happy with the service they were getting. Those who live near a Sunterra facility in the UK were best pleased as they used the annual membership fee as a cheap gym subscription and used the golf,swimming and gym every week.

For the basic points allocation some folk were getting one break away while other more canny folk were getting 4/5 breaks.
Some folk commented that the selling of extra points in Spain was aggressive but others said the issue had been dealt with.
I didn't buy. I can see no reason why the conditions of sale shouldn't be made available before sale rather than after.
I can see nothing to stop the organisation selling more points that holidays available, it seems they have every incentive to do so.
I cannot see why the conditions for ending the contract cannot be more readily available.
We had a good 3night break in excellent accomodation for £29. The presentation lasted about 90 minutes, I don't think it was high pressure selling. He simple explained how the system worked and what it would cost. The only thing which could be called pressure was the indication that the basic points would cost £8000ish if I signed up before I left but to a new buyer turning up on spec these points would cost £12.500. But I took that with a pinch of salt. No further contact has been made by them and they were very pleasent when we left.

Timeshare free holiday prize?

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