Exclusive Lifestyle Passport

[pinkcandy]

Hi

Has anyone heard of this company, if so, do you know if it really is as good as it sounds or is it more like if it sounds too good to be true then it is??

Thanks

[dzug]

It's as BAD as it sounds - Club La Costa = scam.


They want you to pay �3 or �4K or more up front and then an annual membership fee for .... well for nothing really. They call it 'membership'

[buildersmate]

The dreaded word TIMESHARE springs to mind.

[olivia01]

yes i have and am having experiance with them...me and my partner attended their meeting in may and received �50 vouchers for m & s and our holiday details.

weve sent of �29.50 per person for 4 people and have had the details back already confiming booking etc...we are now waiting for where we are going...we have chosen tenerfie and specified our dates so its a waiting game really...

i have checked on foums and see various reviews of the company but the people who arre slating it havent actually been on the holiday and the people saying its good have so it seems worth a risk for �29.50pp to hopefully get a cheap holiday.

especially with times at present regarding money...i myself would rather risk losing �29.50 to get a decent holiday then not go on any holiday....

do waht you thinks right.... I AM.

[olivia01]

the timeshare thing isnt what they make it out to be tho...the hotels are nice and in nice places etc....but once you sit and work out the cost its not worth it.

just go to the meeting...get the vouchers and the holiday and dont think too much else about it...there are people who will say your stupid for goin on the holiday but its your own choice and i say go for it...

just dont go for the timeshare !!!!


keep saying no...they get the message...go prepared.

[mondo1]

I agree with olivia01, my wife & I have recently returned from a 2 1/2 hour presentation where they were asking for 14k for a 59 year timeshare. We told them we could not afford it at present and we were given �50 argos vouchers plus the ELP voucher for our trouble. So far not heard of anyone who has redeemed this successfully so would be interested to hear the outcome of olivia's "test case" as I am seriously considering sending my 4 x �29.50 for a week in the med. as far as I am aware offering holidays by timeshare companies is not a new idea and if they are thinking of tying us to more sales pitches in spain / portugal etc then they are in for some serious disruption form my 2 under 5's.....

[yasyes]

We won our holiday for one week for 4 people from Club la Costa so we went to the presentation and they said 2 hours - it was 5. then we were weak and signed up for costa lot holidays (timeshare, several locations about 9k if i remember right for 1 week holiday every year. plus you have to pay a maintainence fee that is used to keep the properties in good condition) so the next day i cancelled everything and went to pick up my free holiday anyhow . I wanted to see if it is real so I chose my holidays despite strict rules such as can only chose 1 destination and have to have 10 weeks between. i sent it 1 week later but next day, recorded delivery, with my booking fee cheque you have to get it back to them before the 2 weeks is up. A week later and of course after the deadline it came back to me guess what!

Adressee Unknown!!!

At least we got an M&S voucher from the presentaion but i have not used it yet so who knows if it is real??

I shall be contacting trading standards and letting people know. dont waste your time

[jo-jo1]

I have just been contacted today about a holiday I can claim... I said I was dubious and I was thinking timeshare, but I am assured this is not the case. Do they try to sell you a timeshare at the meeting in this country or when you are on holiday? As soon as I am told I have 'won' something over the phone alarm bells ring. On the other hand I would love to go on a cheap holiday in the sun. I feel stupid for agreeing to a meeting next week and I think if we book something I will be worrying about what may lie ahead.

[brown81]

hi everyone,im just in the process of deciding weather to go for a holiday from this company.yes we had to sit in a very long and boring presentation for 3hrs and it was all about timeshare which will cost �10.000 for 1 holiday a year for 60! (if the company last that long!!!!) but we got �25 vouchers after heavy sales tactics but they do give in eventually.anyway we didnt get our choice of tenerife we got costa del sol in january! and there is hidden �49.55 per person taxes which is paid when you send confirmation. so to sum up-they give you what they say just not what you expect or ask for! .but if they think im sitting for another 3hrs on my holiday listening to how wonderful their resorts are they can forget it! be interested if anyone else got the wrong destination!?

[domino28]

I got the phone call while I was off work with a fractured knee. ''i had won a FREE holiday'' I knew there would be a time share catch and spoke to some friends who actually went away to Costa Del Sol and said it was nice and they did not get too bothered. Plus I would get a �25 voucher so thought I would give it a go as you had a choice of 3 holidays.

We were told it would be 2 hours. 4 hours later and we said no for the tenth time and he went to get our free vouchers for our choice of holiday.

My parents have an appartment in the south of Spain but the rep assured me i could choose Tenerife or Portugal, so we paid the �29.50 each as it had to be done within 2 weeks. I was worried that they would try and send us to Costa del Sol as that is the only place people i have spoken to have been sent.

We had to give 4 avaiable dates 8 weeks apart. I then received a letter few days later saying we could go to Costa Del Sol in Feb and they wanted a further �49.95 each for airport taxes. I was gutted. the only place i didn't want to go was the south of Spain and was assured that would not happen. Plus another �100!!

I spoke with Exclusive Life Style Passports, and they said in my terms and conditions they could send you wherever they wanted due to the dates. I asked to go to Tenerefie at any avaiable date but they said it could not be done.

So a free holiday would end up costing �80 each plus 4 hours of your time. Honestly do not bother unless you want to go to Costa Del Sol and have some slimey saleman all over you for 4 hours of you time!

[corbyfood]

Just wanted to let you know our experience with club la costa. We went along to the presentation in Birmingham yesterday afternoon and never before have i been subjected to such a hard sell. I'd been told beforehand that the presentation would last around 2hrs. I informed the rep. of this as half way through the presentation which was 7 minutes of a very uninformative video ( how can Jenny Bond be happy to endorse this company?) and nearly two hours of pressure, pressure, pressure, I was ready to slit my wrists. tell us how much it costs we kept asking. reply was i can't tell you until you tell us you are interested. Imagine going to John Lewis's and saying you want to buy a tele and yes you'll have that one please and no I don't need to know the price. he also said we could not receive the free holiday unless he was allowed to finish his presentation. we were addament that we were not staying beyond the two hours and did eventually receive our vouchers and 'holiday'. You're duped from the start with this 'free holiday'. You're lead to believe it's at club la costa accommodation, you're lead to believe there is no hard sell (naive on my part, I know) and you're lead to believe that it will cost only 29.50 plus airport taxes. When we received the holiday form it was going to cost us 400 ( for four of us). You're probably not going to get the destination you want at the time you want so stay clear of this scam. I too am thinking of contacting trading standards and does anyone know jenny bond's address? If it's too good to be true it probably is!

[Benoi15]

Our experience is very similar to Brown 81 - we received neither our preferred destination (Tenerife) nor our preferred week. Then there are the various hidden charges... Avoid like the plague!

[essex1]

The free holiday is defeinitely NOT free. Hidden charges, taxes etc are sent to you in stages after you give the original �29.

They ask that you're totally fexible with dates as they commit you to slots that suit them. This is also true of location. My first choice was Portugal but suprise suprise, i got Costa del Sol. It seems that costa del sol is the only place anyone ever gets.

They do stipulate that the couple at the presentation must go on the holiday but as my wife became preganant recently, she cannot go. 4 people were booked to go away and will now miss out cos this compnay is totally inflexible. Its not a matter of they cant ammend the booking to allow 3 people to go. They simply dont want to.

The 2hr presentation is only useful cos of the vouchers you get, and they are real, I've already used my �50 at argos.

My recommendation is get the vouchers and run. As far as the "Free Holiday" is concerned, Avoid Avoid Avoid!!!!

I wont even discuss the ridiculous timeshare deal, i trust most people have enough sense to make their own minds up.

[turtle7]

just been spun over by this lot and have lost 4x £29.50 plus i feel like a mug!!!!dee

[fsimpson]

If you are a teacher or have children in school FORGET IT. You have to choose 4 different dates and only one can be in the school holidays. They say they give priority to teachers but they don't. I paid them £118 and got no holiday!!!!

[angie59]

I am so glad I found out more about this free holiday malarkie!!!!!!!!!!! I too was subjected to a 3hr presentation by Club la Costa and even though the sales assistant was a very nice person, I told her I had already been duped because I asked the girl on the phone, before I travelled 2hrs to the destination to be presented with my holiday award, would I need to attend any sort of time-sharing selling fiasco!!!? I was told there would be nothing like that, I would be presented with my free holiday and arrange dates etc. Needless to say, it was nothing like that. I got my vouchers and £25 is still not enough for 3hrs of my time!!! I got as far as choosing dates on my 'request' and I use that term very loosely, form, e.g. Tenerife Oct 2010, Feb, April and June2011, but as I can see from other victims, Costa Del Sol seems to be the main resort used by this company. I will not be sending any money and now I will look for a cheap wee holiday for me and my girls.
Many thanks to everyone who took the time to write about this company.

Cheers,

Ang.

[angie59]

Hi there,

I too have been duped from the minute I took the phone call telling me i had won a free holiday!!!!! I told the girl that I didn't want to make a 2hr journey to the place I was to be awarded with my holiday only to be greeted by a hard selling time share holiday presentation. Well low and behold that's exactly what I got. £25 of voucher is not worth, 3hrs of my time plus 2hrs travelling to the 'award ceremony' and back - totalling 7hrs of my valueable time.

From the reviews I have deduced that my free holiday to Tenerife is really pie in the sky!!!! I got as far as filling in the 'request form', and I use that term very loosely indeed, when I thought I would do a little investigative work on the company. Now I reaslise that the so called free holiday is a scam, a carrot dangled to make you attend a time-share presentation. Anything that sounds too good to be true usually is!!!!!!!!!!!! From the reviews no-one seems to get the destination they want, everyone goes to the Costa del Sol.

Reading the reviews has given me food for thought, and I will not be going ahead with any booking or sending of money. I must admit, I was told about the airport taxes at the presentation by Club La Costa, but even though, I walked away from that place feeling defliated and rather agitated.

Even exclusive lifestyles passport website looks a bit iffy i.e. limited information and the same information being used for most of the so called frequently asked questions. Basically, I felt the company was keeping it's distance from potential clients so as not to answer any of the real questions you want to ask, if you know what I mean. Even the testimonals seems very shallow and non descriptive.
I will be steering clear of this company.