Free Holiday - The Experience of a Young Family (The Grand Vacation Club (GVC))

Member Name: Mrics

Product:	The Grand Vacation Club (GVC)
Date:	20/05/03 (8800 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good for Couples, Flexible points system

Disadvantages: Expensive/ Unsuited to families, Painful sales pressure, Variable quality of resorts

We attended our presentation in Kent to receive our free holiday vouchers and experienced a high pressure sales pitch by a very annoying individual who tried to be over familiar and asked pointless questions about our children. We were told that if we did not sign up that day we would not be able to sign up at all. We weathered the storm, picked up the vouchers and left in some disgust. There is no way we would have given the rep the satisfaction of receiving a fat commission even if we had been interested.

The free holiday offer is not strictly free. We had to pay a £40 per person reservation fee. We were then given the following options;

1) Free flights and accommodation to one of five resort areas, but no choice as to where and when we left.

2) Free accommodation in a preferred resort area with a choice of departure dates and airports, with flights arranged through GVC. For every flight purchased, we got one free.

3) As 2), but we arrange our own flights.

In all cases, we have to take GVC's travel insurance.

We took the third option as with two children we needed the choice of dates, and I found out that the GVC flights were much more expensive than doing it ourselves.

We found their insurance quite reasonable.

We arrived at the resort, Benal beach (Costa del Sol) on Saturday evening and were allocated a dingy one bed studio which was not "luxurious", nor "four star", as promised in all the promotional brochures. Furthermore, Benal Beach is only part run by GVC, with the vast majority owned by Spaniards/ other timeshare operators. We complained immediately and to their credit, GVC moved us to La Quinta, close by on the Tuesday evening. Apparently they have received other complaints about Benal Beach, which made me wonder why they put prospective buyers there in the first place, after promising them far better accommodation.

We had to attend a second presen

tation on the Tuesday and we were quite honest about our complaints and that we could not be expected to consider a GVC timeshare until we had experienced the proper GVC product. Fortunately, this second presentation was "softer", but our problems and dissatisfaction with the first sales talk had already made our minds up.

The one bedroom apartment at La Quinta was far better, but too cramped for our family of four.

We also saw a third resort, Sahara Beach which would have been better for us as it had a paddling pool and play area.

Overall, we decided not to sign up for the following reasons;

We got the impression that the resorts are generally more suited to couples, retirees and older families. There is very little available for young children.

We were disappointed at the quality of the restaurants. We ate in three resorts and none were four star quality cuisine, but fine for burgers, chips and spag bog.

The entertainment was much more suited to holiday camp, mass market tour operator standard.

Families can only go in high (peak) season, which gets booked up as much as a year in advance. This means that for a family of four for a two week holiday you generally need far more GVC points than the entry level of 35-40 points. I think you need nearer to 75 points.

We were not convinced that timeshare saves as much as it is claimed, by the time you add on peak season air fares, annual maintenance charges, booking fees and the annual equivalent of buying the points. I am sure you can get package holidays in good named accommodation on a half board basis for not much more, if you shop wisely.

In summary, GVC generally have a good product but it is not suited to all. Sales techniques are patchy, and the hard sell will not work. Do not expect true four star luxury everywhere -Appearances can be deceptive.

P.S. Have since gone on another presentation for a free hol
iday. As a result, thought I would write a review on timeshare brokers in general. Its on the site!

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