Grand Vacation Con (The Grand Vacation Club (GVC))

Member Name: geoffburnes

Product:	The Grand Vacation Club (GVC)
Date:	08/03/03 (2953 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: None

Disadvantages: Inflexibility, Hype and mis-selling, Cost/difficulty with flights

We were foolish enough to be taken in at a GVC presentation. Whilst we were very wary of the "free" holiday scam, when we did some sums it all seemed to make sense at the time. The salesman assured us that the resorts were "all 5*", and that the fact that my wife is a teacher and we are therefore stuck with school holidays would not be a problem.

We've since experienced huge difficulties in booking anything at a convenient time. Unless you book around 12 months in advance for any dates within school holidays, there is nothing available. Even then, GVC are affiliated to a larger organisation, Interval International (II). I've just tried to book a week anywhere in Europe for any week in August, and only one resort (in Austria) is available. We had their "free" holiday (in Portugal), where the accommodation was good but definitely NOT 5*. During this holiday, they claimed that our booking problems were down to us having not bought enough points, and tried to sell us more. (Their sales techniques were laughable). We did have one good holiday with them, via an II hotel in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, but even here, we had to take almost the last accommodation available, and trying to synchronise reasonably-priced flights with the accommodation dates was a nightmare.

They claimed that you can sell your points to other members via the members' website - but they won't tell you the url. Every time we complain to them about mis-selling, they say it was an agency who misinformed us, and that they don't use agents anymore. (The experience of goclimbing in another review seems very similar to ours, nearly 3 years ago, so I suspect the DO use agents).

If you have young kids, are not tied to the school holidays and can take last-minute and late availability deals, then I can see how this might work. Otherwise, my advice if approached by GVC - tell them where they can stick their points!

Summary: