| Subject: FIXED WEEK v POINTS |
Author:
Dave
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Date Posted: 05:46:07 11/22/04 Mon
Just back from Costa del Sol having taken advantage of CLC's cheap week, with a presentation and I thought I would share our experiences.
Firstly we had a great apartment ( fridge, freezer, washing machine, dishwasher, satellite tv, dvd player and a large welcome pack), but then we would, wouldn't we, seeing as how CLC wanted us to change to points.
Has a free breakfast followed by the tour and hard sell. We made it clear over breakfast that we were not happy with CLC and I asked the rep why should I give up a fixed week that I had paid good money for, only to have to pay even more money for the dubious honour of owning points that did not guarantee me the restore I wanted when I wanted it. The rep fluffed around this point, but stated points would give me more weeks of holiday and access to special offers such as two weeks for the price of one.
Had the tour of some of the Marina del Sol apartments ( all far superior to anything we have at Paradise and therefore begs the question why are our fees so much higher than many resorts). This was followed by the hard sell, during which a "manager" came over and stated that our week at Paradise was worth 810 points, but we needed to open our account by buying a minimum of 400 points.
Prior to this we had been told by the manager that had they not bought the Paradise Club it would have folded within two years, such was the state of affairs. He added that CLC had quickly bought up every week that was available on the open market and 85% of Paradise was now under the points scheme. As a result there was no need for CLC to control the other 15%, but they had been asked by our committee to keep the scheme open until the end of the year so that everyone had a chance to convert to points.
I found this strange because they had provided us with a very cheap holiday (apartment and flights) while if I beleived him, oblivously there was no need for them to do so. I told the manager that in my view they has only bought the right to manage the resort and that CLC did not own the bricks and mortar. He did not dispute this, only said, I am entitled to my opinion.
Getting back to the points issue, we were told that points were currently priced at £25 per point, but that this would rise to £30 a point in the new year and that points would continue to rise next year. Now the cost of the 400 points we were required to purchase would be £7,500 as a special offer. This would give us 1210 points, which they would increase to 1710 for 2005 only, if we paid £1000 there and then by credit card.
We told them we were really only interested in one week of timeshare per year and after a further calculation the price dropped to £4,500, with as decrease in the number of points. The final offer was 910 points for £2,500. Had we accepted any of these offers, there was an annual membership fee of £149 ( to arrange holidays etc.) and the cost of maintenence for the 1210 points was initally 49 pence per point £592.90, but would infact be only £474. So to change over to points would have cost us a maximum of £7,500 with annual fees of £623. Needless to say we declined.
So come on committee members give us the full story of what is going on at Paradise. Did you request an extension to a programme that CLC were relunctant to prolong? Do they own Paradise or just the management rights? We spoke to a former CLC employee at another presentation we decided to attend (holiday club) and she was perfectly clear that CLC own very little time at a large number of the resorts in their brochure and that the only reason our fees were being hiked up was so they could give the developers more money so resorts could be extended and up graded.
Dave
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