Travel Tips

Is the “Great Vacation Club” Really Great?

Locations in this article:  Barcelona, Spain Mexico City, Mexico Phoenix, AZ

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Dear Peter,
I hear your show every Saturday on XM radio, and hear a lot of good tips. Thanks. While in Cancun, Mexico last week I signed up with “Great Vacation Club” with Ventas Riviera Maya, S.A. de C.V. What do you know about this travel club? We are to get 12 weeks of vacation resorts all over the world, for a fee of $199 to $399 per week, plus a few other deals. I invested $2,200.00 in this plan. Your comments would be helpful. Thanks.
-Ed H.

Thanks for your email Ed. We started off with an initial Web search, which is always a good first step when investigating any organization with which you have financial dealings.

A search on the Internet revealed that there are multiple complaints for Great Vacation Club.

Several of these complaints dealt specifically with the lack of properties available, despite the claims of “no blackout dates.” The reason for this is that properties are “subject to availability. Other issues have appeared regarding customers who have tried to cancel their contract but were unsuccessful.

Click here to read some complaints on TripAdvisor.

And here on the Complaints Board.

The watchdog group Mescam has also received multiple complaints, the majority of which come from the Mayan Palace’s Great Vacation Club package. Click here: https://www.sws-llc.com/mescam

A quick look at the Better Business Bureau also shows multiple complaints against Great Vacation Club and Mayan Resorts. The company has received an “unsatisfactory” record with the BBB, which means that not all of the complaints have been resolved.

So we checked in with the American Resort Development Association (ARDA), the Washington D.C.-based trade association that represents the vacation ownership and resort development industries.

According to spokesperson Luanne Birney, “In the United States, legislators have a lot of good state laws, which vary state to state. But we cannot control it if the timeshare is incorporated outside of the U.S.”

ARDA’s timeshare purchasing tips can be found here.

Some important tips include:

  • Ask if the resort is an ARDA member. Member companies of ARDA agree to adhere to the ARDA Code of Standards and Ethics
  • Look for signs of good management, such as well maintained facilities and resort amenities, good housekeeping, and friendly service. Take a look at the resort’s annual budget.
  • Verify the resort’s affiliation with an exchange company and learn about the resort’s internal exchange policies and member benefits.
  • Buy the most desirable unit in the most popular season or the largest points package you can afford. If your primary goal in purchasing is to take advantage of the exchange benefit, know that the greater the demand for the unit or resort you “bank” for exchange, the greater exchange flexibility you will gain.

However, you’re not dealing with a company that’s incorporated in the U.S., so things are a little different. We spoke with Vernon Penner, a Phoenix-based attorney who specializes in timeshare fraud in Mexico.

Penner states, “The only protection is a basic contractual protection. What you sign is what you sign. There is a consumer protection authority in Mexico called Profeco who can help out non-residents of Mexico … Most of the time, timeshares companies don’t like to give money back. If you don’t have just cause to cancel, you have the option to give the timeshare company good notice within the first five Mexican business days. But the timeshare company has to receive that within those five days.

According to Penner’s Web site, www.mexicolaw.com/Timeshare.htm, good reasons NOT to purchase a timeshare include:

  • You have been told it is a good financial investment.
  • You have been told you can make a lot of money by renting it out (Rental income is presented as a “sure thing”)
  • You have been told that if you get tired of it you can easily resell it and even make a profit on it (Promises to sell your existing timeshares at inflated values as a trade-in or down-payment for the new one.)
  • You have been told that X company will buy your old timeshare from you for a considerable amount of money (perhaps more than you paid for it) and that amount will be deducted from the purchase price of a new timeshare or applied as the down payment).
  • You have been promised something else as part of your package (discounted airfares, extra days of stay at the property or other properties).

We then called Profeco’s Mexico City office to see what they had to say about Great Vacations Club.

According to advisor Pamela Sota, “We have had many complaints about Great Vacation Club.”

Her advice to anyone who is considering purchasing a timeshare is: “Make sure that that everything he was told is true. Read every single document in the contract carefully. Everything told by the salesperson in the presentation needs to be in the contract. People are often misled in the presentations.”

Sota also points out that if you have already signed the contract, you have five business days to mail a registered letter to the timeshare company’s address in Mexico (send a copy to Profeco as well). However, if the five days have already passed, you can still approach Profeco for help. “We’ve had worse cases,” she said.

We attempted to contact officials at Great Vacation Club, and heard back from (Customer Service Department Manager Ali Palacios) with this statement:

“The Great Vacation Club Customer Service takes great pride in satisfying all our members’ requests. Our normal cancellation period is five business days but we are flexible and willing to listen to our members’ circumstances.”

So, Ed, if you’re happy with your timeshare situation, we see no problems. But because a number of red flags have been raised about this particular company, if you’re not satisfied with the terms of your contract, you may contact Profeco to see if they can take your case:

Phone: (52) 55 5211-1723
Email: extranjeros@profeco.gob.mx,
https://www.profeco.gob.mx

Need more hints to help you determine if you should do business with a particular travel provider?

Check out Scam or Legit?: Learn to ID Credible Travel Web Sites