Sunterra Holiday Club

[tigwig]

Are any of you ab's members of this holiday club? If so what do you think of it? We have just joined a trial membership for 3 years which works out cheaper in the long run than what we pay for our holidays normally. I would like to hear anyone elses experiences good or bad please.

[vehelpfulguy]

It only works out cheaper of you get the holidays you want. Wait and see what you get offered next year, and how much it costs you.

Some horror stories about Sunterra here (although some are a year or two old)

In fact if you read the horror stories in this first append below you may wish you HADN'T bought into Sunterra.

http://www.topix.net/forum/city/las-vegas-nv/T JUE2VVOV9T857URJ

http://www.timeshare.org.uk/vogas/

http://www.timesharetalk.co.uk/forum/topic.asp ?TOPIC_ID=349

http://www.scambustersuk.com/

[tigwig]

thanks for your answer but do you know this for definate? I have read the horror stories and they are years old and what we have been sold is 9 weeks of holiday for 3 years which works out considerably cheaper than what we pay for holidays now. I would really like to hear from people who are members as they know the score not by people who are reading negative opinions because from what I can gather it has changed now and ours is not points based at all

[buildersmate]

I don't know what you have been sold but if you are paying for it as you go and if you are NOT locked into a long-term commitment, whereby you are committed to pay a fee per year for upteen years, than that sounds promising. There have been major problems at Sunterra Europe, including tax evasion on a grand scale. There are also loads of unhappy owners in Sunterra resorts who can't get out of their contracts and can't get the holidays they want either. There are various court cases going on. I am a timeshare owner (but not Sunterra) and I follow the industry quite closely. There is massive oversupply or timeshare in Europe, particularly at the low quality end and many people have been pursuaded to buy points to uplift their trading power. The big lie about this is that the supply has to be there to meet the demand and if lots of people believe they have 'bought' a better holiday by acquiring points there are more people chasing the smaller number of better quality resorts. That's why the model just doesn't work.
You may be able to make it work for you - I can still (but its much harder) - but just don't buy into a long term commitment. HTH.