Timeshare Woes. Review on Choosing the Best Hotel

BACKGROUND We have been timeshare owners for over 8 years now and have been witness to the shakeout in the timeshare industry. As owners of a week, we have experienced first hand how the industry works. We would like to share our experience in this note and would strongly advise all timeshare owners - present and prospective to read this carefully. BASICS Timeshare resorts typically have four types of units : Hotel Unit : Similar to a hotel room - accommodates 2 Studio Unit : May have a partial kitchen and accommodates 2 1 Bedroom Unit : Is like a suite consisting of 1 bedroom and a drawing cum dining with a pull out sofa-cum-bed for 4. 2 Bedroom Unit : Has 2 bedrooms and a drawing cum dining with a pull out sofa- cum-bed for 6 people. Each unit is sold to 51 different owners for 1 week each with 1 week reserved for maintenance. The price of the unit depends on the season which would be one of the following : Blue Season : It is the lean / low season for tourism (like monsoons) White Season : This is the mid season Red Season : During school holidays (like summers for hill stations) Super Red : It is the brief peak season (like Christmas/New Year for Goa) The price of the week depends upon the size of the unit and the season. If you have bought a week at a resort for 25 years, it does not mean that year after year you go to that resort for a vacation during your own week. Instead by a novel exchange mechanism, you have access to over 3600 destinations throughout the world through vacation exchange companies (like RCI & Interval), of which your resort would be a member. This is how it works. You deposit your week for a particular year with the exchange ( thereby renouncing your right for that week and year and resort). Like you, other members of other resorts too would be banking their weeks with the exchange. So now from the pool of banked weeks, you can choose the destination and the time of the year you want to avail of your holiday. Obviously, the trading power of your banked week, amongst other factors, depends upon the size of the unit you own, the rating of your resort and the season of your unit. Needless to add, a Super Red 2 bedroom week in a deluxe resort at a hot tourist destination would have the highest trading power, which means that as a lucky owner of such a week, you can travel in any season to any resort throughout the world!! The costs involved are : Initial ownership cost : Depends on the property, location, season and unit size Annual Maintenance : Paid to the resort for upkeep of the unit Exchange Membership: Annual fee paid to the exchange for membership Exchange Fee : Paid everytime you exchange to the exchange. More for international exchanges and lower for domestic ones. Utility Charges : Paid to the resort you travel to. The costs and charges varies from resort to resort. OUR EXPERIENCEWe own a Super Red, 1 B/R week at Toshali for 25 years for which we paid close to Rs 1.8 lakhs. Toshali is affiliated with RCI (https://rci.com) which is the largest vacation exchange company with over 3600 resorts dotted across the globe. We thought we had frozen our holiday costs for 25 years and were even considering buying more for our children. But little did we realise that our ordeal had just begun and that we were being taken for a grand ride by the resort and RCI. Having paid for ownership of our week for 25 years, we are now at their mercy. Look at the costs : Toshali annual maintenance : Rs 6000 (used to be Rs 900 when we joined) RCI membership / annum : Rs 3000 (used to be Rs 1200 when we joined) Exchange fees : Rs 5000 for India resorts, Rs 10,000 for international (used to be Rs 1200 for all domestic) Utility Fees : Varies from Rs 600 to Rs 6000 depending on the resort We have no control on the above charges, which are hiked arbitrarily by RCI and Toshali at their whims and fancies. So based on annual charges being paid, each week's holiday costs at least Rs 17,000 + Interest on Rs 1.8 Lakhs (Rs 8000) + Pro-rated amount for 1 week (Rs 8000) = Rs 33,000 for 4 people for 7 days. Then we are restricted to just 56 resorts in India and when we want to exchange, invariably we are told that nothing is available during that week and for that destination. We end up making a sub-optimal choice and would continue doing so for the remaining term while paying through our nose for maintaining the memberships. For Rs 25000, one can pick and choose the time and location for ones travel and of course have all meals included in it for a group of 4!! Timeshare is expensive and definitely not worth considering under the present circumstances. We need protection for timeshare owners!!