Great Escapes Vacation Club

[SeemaRavi]

I posted this int the NEwbies board, but got no replies, so i will try here.

Has anyone ever heard of Great Escapes? They claim they are not a timeshare and are a Vacation club?

any info?

THANKS!!

 

[theo]

A few thoughts...

Has anyone ever heard of Great Escapes? They claim they are not a timeshare and are a Vacation club?

Never heard of 'em, but in most (...maybe all) vacation clubs you have a "membership" rather than an "ownership" (but all certainly will still have annual fee obligations). The actual usage itself is certainly "timesharing" in any and every other possible sense.

The questions you need to ask of this (or any other) "vacation club", getting answers in clear and specific detail (and preferably in writing) are:

--- exactly what resorts do they have access to (i.e., inventory),
--- in what particular seasons or weeks?
--- details of the actual reservation and confirmation procedure and, last but not least...
--- the annual costs of the "membership" to you.

In my experience and observation, most people who sign on with "vacation clubs" end up reporting being very disappointed with what / where they can reserve --- and when. Disney Vacation Club may be a noteworthy exception, but DVC is really an entirely different (and much more expensive) animal than other "vacation clubs" in the first place...

P.S. It's your choice and prerogative, but this inquiry would likely get much more exposure and response over in the "Buying, Selling, Renting" forum, rather than in the "US-Eastern" (geographically specific) forum...

 

[jules54]

Yes i have heard of great escapes. I bought a membership in 2000. it cost over 5000.00 for lifetime. Not what they promised. Do Not BUY. If you have already and can cancel please do it NOW. No inventory prices keep rising. They do not tell you they charge a yearly fee for a travel club which is over 200.00 so you must pay that each year over what you paid for the club. Each condo you wish to rent cost between 299.00 899.00. The club touts the late minute hot deals, but those are few and far between that work for you when you need them. I did use the club for Cancun and used the free trip to Hawaii I got when I bought the membership. Keep in mind the free trip cost over 5000.00.
Last year I quit paying the yearly fee. I own about 19 weeks of timeshare resorts. I have made a small business out of my hobby, but Great Escapes was of no benefit to my portfolio.
If you still are interested in this travel club. Give me a email and I will transfer my ownership to you for whatever the costs of transfer are.

Julie

 

[JudyS]

A lot of these "travel clubs" are ripoffs where you pay a lot of money and own nothing. They promise discounted resort weeks, but they are just buying surplus weeks that you could have gotten without them, and reselling them (possibly at a mark-up.)

Whenever you buy a resort product, it is important to know what you will own. With most travel clubs, the answer is nothing.

 

[theo]

Not true "across the board"...

They promise discounted resort weeks, but they are just buying surplus weeks that you could have gotten without them, and reselling them (possibly at a mark-up.)

I'm not a big fan of vacation clubs, but I do have some experience with at least one. There are different "flavors" of vacation clubs and there is no accurate "one size fits all" collective description or summary.

For example, Perennial Vacation Club (based in Nevada, if I recall correctly) owns all of their resorts outright (...6 or so of them). They don't "just buy surplus weeks" at all. The downside is obviously the limited number of facility locations, but I enjoyed my "membership" for a few years --- had bought it cheap resale, reserved whatever / whenever I wanted without difficulty, and later sold it for about what I had paid. I never chose to "exchange", but that was also an option which would have further expanded the available "inventory".