Magic holidays timeshare cost & review

10 days ago, I saw a series of print ads by Magic Holidays related to timeshare concept. Their concept and scheme looked like an exact replica of Club Mahindra. Out of curiosity, visited their website, which hardly answered any of my questions, as it had generic glorified info. I registered on their website to know more. After full 3 days I got a call from them and 2 days later, a sales rep met me. I was expecting him to carry a laptop and show me the videos etc, but he came with a file folder, which had some brochures and Xerox copies of the sales materials like rate cards etc.

I listened patiently while he completed his generic sweet talk about his company and then asked him following specific questions:

1. Do you sell property to non members? If a member is not getting rooms but non members are able to book in open market, what should members do?

Answer by Sales Manager: (He didn’t give a commitment that they don’t give out property to non members) “That’s very unlikely scenario as our primary focus is our members. If members want to book at short notice they can call us. We’ve a MRD team which has access to certain VIP rooms in all resorts- with CEO’s approval we can give those rooms to members if there’s a genuine reason”

2. Do you have any upper cap on how many members you plan to sign up? (if # of members is > #of weeks * # of rooms # # of resorts, there’s bound to be shortage)

Sales Manager: Compared to others, we have very less membership base. For past 2 years we’ve not been marketing at all and were growing by referrals. Only now we’ve launched an ad campaign. We’ve only 2000+ members as of now, with 17+ properties and 21 more soon coming up. We’ll never face shortage of rooms. If you can’t get a room even after giving multiple date and location choices, call us, we (our MRD team) will help (Note: again, there’s nothing in writing to indicate what process will be followed if above mentioned situation, which is always a theoretical possibility-occurs)

3. What if I give 3 dates, locations and make my request more than 30 days in advance and still fail to get a room?

Sales manager again reinstated the MRD team, VIP rooms and special arrangements. Again this was superficial promise, there was nothing written in writing to cover this possibility.

The sales guy also showed Club Mahindra and Sterling rate cards, season chart and made following claims: 

• Magic Holiday rates are 30-40% cheaper than Club Mahindra Holidays, ASF is also proportionately cheaper
• Magic holiday doesn’t have a purple season
• Magic Holiday is just 3 years into the business, already has 30+ properties and 20+ lined up, while CM and others, despite being in business for many years, don’t have as many rooms/properties as Magic
• CM and Sterling need 30 days notice for booking, Magic needs 15 days
• Selling your membership week is legal with Magic. Suppose if you get a booking of 1 week in Goa and then wish to sell it to a colleague, Magic would charge Rs 1000 for this and all liabilities will be borne by your colleague who uses the property. In CM, actual member will be liable
• Magic holidays resorts are closer to city while others have their resorts far away.
• Magic Holidays allows you to advance your next year’s days to this year.
• Minimum booking is 1 night whereas it is 2 nights with others

Below is the actual chart shown be sales person, highlighting the differences

Note: Above are the claims made by sales rep, presented here as info. I’ve not personally verified these claims. Please use your discretion and cross check.

Just like CM, Magic also offers complimentary holiday, free gifts, meal vouchers, cash discount and so on. There is a weekend clause- your 7 days a year can contain only 1 weekend. You can't take 3 vacations of 2 days each, all during weekend.

Magic Timeshare Holidays current membership cost/tariff/pricelist

Below is the photo of Xerox copy he gave me. Click to enlarge. Membership rate varies from 1.6 lakhs to 7.8 lakhs ( For 7*25= 175 nights) + annual fee of 5k to 11k)

(Club Mahindra rates start from 2.5 lakhs and goes all the way up to 12.5 lakhs for Red 2BR (16+ for Purple season) + ASF ranging from 10k to 22k per year- More details here)

Below: A chart which explains No of days conversion between season (i.e. if you buy a studio blue season, you can still book a 2BR in red season, but for 1 night only, as against 7 nights in a studio apartment in blue season

Your travel, food, site seeing expenses extra. In a recent presentation by Singapore tourism board, they said Indians spend 40% of the travel budget on accommodation, 21% on shopping, rest on food, travel etc. In case of domestic holidays, majority expense will be on reaching the destination-(flight mostly, if you’re in other part of the country). So having a good timeshare membership but not having budget travel options can make our travel budget go out of control.

Should you buy such timeshare membership? By calculating the per day expense, it doesn’t make sense spending so much money now, hoping to save in future. ASF would increase in line with inflation. Very difficult to predict how our life will be over next 25 years. Having your money locked in with one time share company limits your options during a holiday. Many a time a Rs 1000/day home-stay can offer much better experience that Rs 7000 a day resort.

Below: list of properties as claimed by Magic Holidays

However, if you’re already sold on the concept of timeshare, have decided to buy a membership and trying to decide between Sterling, CM, Magic, then you can give magic some serious considerations. No one can certify a product/service better than an existing customer, so find an existing magic holidays timeshare member, take his feedback before deciding.

Only 2 of Magic Holidays resorts are gold crown certified- Allepy and one more

I'm yet to get some clarity on their cancellation policy and few other follow up questions. Expect some updates to this post little later

Also read: Club Mahindra membership review *