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Holiday Property Bond (HPB)

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Aspatria
Aspatria Posts: 35 Forumite
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in Savings & investments
Does anyone have any experience of Holiday Property Bonds, are they a good investment?
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  • ColdIron
    ColdIron Posts: 9,174 Forumite
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    From the main page, I assume you have read this

    • HPB provides holidays for life. As it is an investment product, however, it is subject to charges, your capital is at risk and you may not be able to cash in during the first two years.
    • You should only invest in HPB for its holiday benefits
    • Although you can surrender your investment back to the company after two years or more you should not expect a full return of what you have paid
    Is this consistent with your expectation of 'a good investment'. If you are looking for a holiday home it would be worth comparing them to other holiday home providers
  • fwor
    fwor Posts: 6,812 Forumite
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    In your previous identical thread:

    http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=5786847

    the fifth post by pogofish was directly relevant. It answers your question (as does one of the other replies).

    IMO the answer is no. As an investment alone HPB does not seem to make sense. As a means of getting access to a certain type of holiday property, perhaps it does.

    I met a friend at the HPB Braithwaite site last year and it looked very nice indeed. It suits him well and he is happy bond holder. But it would not suit me, as I don't choose to holiday in that type of "manicured" resort.
  • Alice_Holt
    Alice_Holt Posts: 5,980 Forumite
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    If you are looking for an "investment" that will generate sizeable losses which can be used to offset your CGT gains (from more sensible investments) for tax purposes, then I suppose they might have a place in your portfolio.

    Possibly then, and always assuming you would enjoy the holidays it offers access to.
    Alice Holt Forest situated some 4 miles south of Farnham forms the most northerly gateway to the South Downs National Park.
  • IanSt
    IanSt Posts: 366 Forumite
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    In my opinion they are definitely not an investment if you're thinking that you'll make money on what you put in. But having said that, the MIL does hold some of their holiday bonds and we have had some nice holidays with them at reasonable prices, so it might be worth your while if you wanted to use them for that aspect.
  • AlanP_2
    AlanP_2 Posts: 3,268 Forumite
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    In-Laws have been members, a better term than investors in my opinion, for about 15 -20 years now and take 2-4 holidays a year with them.

    We have 3 booked against their account (points free) for 2018 and my Brother-In-Law has another.

    Have never had a bad experience at one of their sites, and membership provides access to a couple of hundred Tenancy Properties as they call them (not owned by HPB, they just act as Booking Agent).

    We use these a fair bit as they are always points free. Had one last year in Scotland that was £1500 p/week on holiday let sites and only £800 p/week through HPB.

    It isn't an INVESTMENT Bond it is a HOLIDAY Bond.
  • Seronera
    Seronera Posts: 343 Forumite
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    You can't offset losses from an investment bond against CGT. Sorry !

    I've been an HPB menber for over 30 years. I said all I have to say on other threads and you will be relieved to know I'm not going to repeat what I said in 2016. Nothing has changed since then.
  • Murmansk
    Murmansk Posts: 944 Forumite
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    I have some relatives who are always saying how good HPB is but that's as a way of having holidays in nice places, NOT as an investment.
  • dealer_wins
    dealer_wins Posts: 7,334 Forumite
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    Booking holidays direct will beat timeshares, holiday plans, caraven scams and any other holiday schemes 99.999% of the time. The 0.0001% it doesnt is when your rich parents own a villa and you only have to pay for your flights:rotfl::rotfl:
  • AlanP_2
    AlanP_2 Posts: 3,268 Forumite
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    dealer_wins wrote: »
    Booking holidays direct will beat timeshares, holiday plans, caraven scams and any other holiday schemes 99.999% of the time. The 0.0001% it doesnt is when your rich parents own a villa and you only have to pay for your flights:rotfl::rotfl:

    Sounds like HPB is for you then as they own their own properties and you can't book unless you do it via them :beer:

    They also offer access to "tenancy" properties that are owned by others and some of those can be booked via other routes. Went to one via HPB a couple of years ago at ~50% cost of going direct, going to a different one later this year where HPB worked out 15% more expensive.
  • Malthusian
    Malthusian Posts: 10,980 Forumite
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    AlanP wrote: »
    Sounds like HPB is for you then as they own their own properties and you can't book unless you do it via them

    Properties on tiny islands where they're the only holiday property available and there are no rival holiday firms offering the same thing? Firms which don't have to price in the administrative and compliance cost of running an investment opportunity alongside a holiday business?

    While there are individual holidays that may be cheaper booked via a holiday property bond, the bond is only a good purchase if you can consistently get discounts on holidays sufficient to justify the upfront cost and loss of flexibility. The aggregate of comments from people who have HPBs suggests that on average it costs the same or less to book direct.
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