Club8 Holiday Timeshare Ownership Review

Recently I was invited for a marketing event by Club8 holidays, a Bengaluru based company which is trying to enroll people into its holiday membership costing 1.6 lakhs (5 years) to 6.5 lakhs (25 years)

I will give you a brief of what Club8 offers, sparing you the need to endure their 1 hour long marketing pitch and pressurization to sign up on the spot.

What Club8 Holidays offers-

• Accommodation only (no travel, no sightseeing, no other expenses), every year 6N/7D for 5/10/25 years (Nights may increase/decrease if you change hotel category)
• Their membership is organized into Premium, Classic and one more category (I forgot the exact term, not mentioned on their website either)
• The top most category gets you 5* properties, Premium is 4* and class is 3*. Classic is the cheapest option
• No season limit like Club Mahindra, Room types were also not called out (Studio or 2 BR etc)
• They will organize itinerary, taxi, flight, cruise holidays etc but of course for extra money

Official website: https://www.club8holidays.com/aboutus

25 year membership was pegged at 650,000 INR but was being sold at 5.5 lakhs and a holiday to Maldives/Bangkok, Phuket thrown in. 5 year classic membership was being sold at 1.65 lakhs with a 3N/4D domestic holiday as complementary.

There is 10500 INR + GST annual service fee extra to be paid every year. If you get them a new customer, this will be waived off as referral bonus.

	Total	Per night (7N per year)
Amount for 25 year membership (25 year * 7 night per year)	5,50,000 after discount	3142
At 6% interest lost on membership amount	33000 per year	4715
ASK	11500	1642
		9500

Their argument will be that price will go up every year and if you take their membership you will get it for less. But they don’t give any refund or compensation in case of not being able to serve you or poor quality of service. You have to commit for 25 years without an option to cancel and without any assurance that company will survive for 25 years. Brand name is unheard of, they hardly own any properties and people behind the company are also not known. Sales people who took money from you may resign and move on (or simply block your number), leaving you will no support.

We can get budget/mid range rooms in 3000-4000 a night for most of the trips and opt for a luxury stay once in a while if we get a good deal. I am not comfortable committing lakhs of rupees with an unknown company hoping to save on holidays every year.

Accommodation is only one part of the holiday. There is flight expense, taxi expense, sight seeing expense, food, dinner expense and so on. If a resort is far from city, taxi cost, food cost will be so high, you would feel it would have been better to take a budget hotel in city center instead.

Club8 (and other timeshare companies) offer some extra discount if you pay 100% in cash on the spot. Loan options available: 30% down payment, balance in 6 to 12 EMI with zero interest, 24 month EMI at 8% interest.

Club8 doesn’t own any properties- they are apparently building a few in Andaman and few places, but for now they only have tie ups- like a couple of rooms in various properties around the world. As long as these properties are paid properly they will entertain club 8 guests- if they are not paid then members will be rejected check -in. 

• Club 8 holidays doesn’t have a season like Club Mahindra
• Club 8 allows advancing your day, gifting your days, carrying forward unused days
• I was told if two year holidays are clubbed ASF need to be paid once only
• But once you pay up, absolutely no refund/cancellation whatsoever, come what may.

With no known history, not enough assets (properties), not enough customer feedback and not knowing financial results, it is high risk buying from these companies. Overnight they might vanish after enrolling 1000s of members collecting lakhs from each (10000 members paying 5 lakh rupees each is INR 500 crores.

Karma Holidays and Dove Vacations had similar pricing and model- I feel these are copycat companies having different branding in the front end, with same promoter in the backend trying to enroll as many people as possible.

After Udupi I am sure they are heading to other cities to enroll more members. Of course you are free to trust them and enroll. I don't have a proof to brand them as fraud, but their operating model has all telltale signs of trouble. So use your discretion.

I had a nice dinner at Paradise Isle resort near Malpe and returned home (my main motive to was to check out Paradise isle resort). At least these Club8 guys didn't cheat like Dove Vacations where no dinner was provided and holiday voucher they provided was rejected by their backend team. I had shamelessly confirmed dinner will be provided before I sat for presentation.

There are multiple timeshare companies offering similar services and similar pricing- Karma Holidays, Anway Dove Holidays, Makin Memories, Ace Holidays all are getting customer database from multiple sources, conducting events in small cities, trying to enroll as many customers as possible promising moon.