Are holiday timeshare resorts worth it?

We compare the cost of a Gold Coast holiday timeshare to booking accommodation online.

Ines Gruber

Last updated: 20 February 2018

Need to know

Based on our number crunch and the complaints we've received from our members, CHOICE does not recommend any timeshare product.
In addition to membership fees, there are annual levies, mandatory fees and other costs to pay, whether you book a timeshare or not.
Some timeshares can take 38 years to work out cheaper than booking your accommodation yourself each year; others will never be cheaper.

We look at five timeshare companies – Accor Vacation Club, Classic Holiday, Marriott Vacation Club, Ultiqa Lifestyle and Wyndham World Mark South Pacific Club – to find out how they compare to the costs of booking online accommodation in Surfers Paradise, Queensland.

On this page:

Should you invest in a timeshare?
How does timeshare work?
How to buy a timeshare
How much does a timeshare cost?
Timeshare holiday vs self-booked holiday

Should you invest in a timeshare?

The short answer is no. Based on our number crunch and the complaints we've received from our members, CHOICE does not recommend any timeshare product. The best thing you can do is avoid these high-cost holiday traps and book each holiday as you need it.

Some timeshares can take from 11 to 38 years to work out cheaper than simply booking a Surfers Paradise apartment online every year. Other timeshares will never be cheaper than booking online.

The contract is the catch. A typical timeshare contract locks you in for 40 to 60 years or more, and you're obliged to pay fees every year, whether you book a timeshare or not.

These fees are also subject to a percentage increase every year, compounding your costs. For the cost of a timeshare in Surfers Paradise, over the life of the contract, we found the entry fee plus the ongoing fees could add up to as much as $450,000.

Another downside? If you're travelling at peak times you may have to plan up to a year in advance to secure your timeshare accommodation, so it can be far less flexible than booking yourself or visiting a travel agent.

How does timeshare work?

Timeshare memberships come with a set number of points for members to spend on accommodation each year. For example, you might buy into a 6000 points a year membership for a one-off cost of $30,000.

Every year you receive the 6000 points – but you also have to pay fees every year.

The number of points you need to book accommodation will vary depending on the season (high or mid), how long you stay and the type of accommodation, but they're capped at the original price for the duration of your contract.

Accommodation

Accor Vacation Club, Classic Holiday, Marriott Vacation Club, Ultiqa Lifestyle and Wyndham World Mark South Pacific Club have accommodation in several destinations in Australia and worldwide.

Accommodation reservations can be made online or over the phone. Bookings are available from 11 to 20 months in advance, depending on the contract, and you're encouraged to book early.

They're processed on a first-to-book, first-served basis, subject to availability. Higher or different level memberships have a larger booking window at Accor, Marriott and Ultiqa. Some of our CHOICE members complained about the long lead-time and a lack of available accommodation when they tried to book.

Contract periods

Accor Vacation Club's contract runs until 2080
Wyndham has two options: the Premier ownership with all the perks runs until 2080, while the Standard ownership will continue for the lesser of either 40 years from purchase or the life of the Club
Classic Holiday runs until 2084
Ultiqa Premium ownership continues until 2081, or the Standard option for 40 years
Marriott operates until 2061.

There are no termination clauses in any of the product disclosure statements (PDS), so once you sign up, you're locked in for the lifetime of the club or the agreed contract period.

Fees and levies

Membership comes with a series of costs:

Upfront membership fee
Annual levies, increasing every year at up to 6.5% or the Consumer Price Index (CPI), for operating expenses such as management fees, landscaping, cleaning and refurbishment costs, as well as administrative expenses
Additional costs for housekeeping once you've used the limited complementary allowance
Additional costs for using international properties
Mandatory fees like 'establishment fees' and exchange fees

How to buy a timeshare

You can buy a timeshare by attending a presentation by the club, or you can buy one online or privately from a member looking to offload theirs.

But you can only buy a timeshare contract with full or premium membership by attending a presentation.

Timeshares bought online or privately usually come with restrictions. For example, your accommodation options might be limited to the number of resorts available at the time of signing up, or to resorts within Australia, or you might have smaller booking windows.

We sat through presentations at Accor, Classic Holiday and Wyndham to bring you this information.

At the presentation, an agent:

flogs you the membership perks
asks questions about your holiday patterns
determines the amount of points you need a year for your travels
offers you a membership according to your travel habits.

The membership offered will include a certain number of points each year. If you need more points, you can accumulate them for one or two years or borrow from an upcoming year (for Wyndham this only applies to the Premier Ownership).

Alternatively you can switch to a higher membership with more points included, but you may have to pay a fee for upgrading.

To understand what timeshares are all about, I read the product disclosure statements (PDS) of five vacation timeshare companies, and my partner and I sat through timeshare presentations from Accor Vacation Club, Classic Holiday and Wyndham World Mark South Pacific Club.

The first challenge

Since timeshare memberships are mostly sold at presentations, I assumed it would be easy to attend one. Turns out it's not – especially if you only want to hear the facts without signing up for a 'heavily discounted' holiday offer. We eventually managed to get appointments after the agents checked our eligibility over the phone.

The criteria included:

minimum annual income for couples (which for these companies was $80,000 or $100,000)
permanent residency or citizenship
must be aged between 28 and 65
not having attended a presentation in the past 1–5 years.

We were told the presentation would take around 90 minutes and that we should bring our ID and Medicare card – and be punctual.

The hard sell

At each presentation, most of the other attendees were couples in their thirties, some with babies. Agents and their managers were introduced, drinks were offered and a light conversation started about how we holiday, what we expect and what we plan for the future. Apparently this is important for the agent to determine the amount of points you'll need to be able to holiday properly.

A lot of time was spent showing us available properties and explaining how a timeshare can save us a lot of money in the future.

Drinks were offered and a light conversation started about how we holiday, what we expect and what we plan for the future

After estimating how much travel accommodation currently costs us, the agent tried to convince us these prices would double every decade. According to them, a timeshare would give us the opportunity to holiday at today's prices for the rest of our lives.

And since we attended the presentation, the agents said they could offer us a premium membership, which comes with perks such as being able to use the points internationally, cheap last-minute travel and even reduced flights or cruises.

Timeshare salespeople can be notoriously pushy, with allegations of targeting people dying of cancer. But the agents and managers seemed pleased with us. We showed interest and we love travelling – a perfect match. But then we started to ask questions.

The hard questions

We wanted to know about getting out of the timeshare if we wanted or needed to. In these cases the contracts run until 2080 or 2084. That would make me either 96 or 100 when it ends. We were assured that the companies will still be running for another 80 years after that.

I'm not sure I'll have the need to travel by 2160, but the agent told us not to worry; we could gift our points, rent them out, sell the timeshare, or leave them to our children. Classic Holiday also gives you the option of requesting a refund for part of the annual costs when you don't use your points.

I saw plenty of memberships being sold, far cheaper than their original price, and some even being given away for free

Selling a timeshare with no real financial loss would be another option, according to the Accor Vacation Club manager. But he also made us aware that the super premium membership would be downgraded to a normal standard membership when sold, so it doesn't make much sense to sell. Instead, it would be better to gift it to a family member.

While doing my research I saw plenty of offers for timeshare memberships being sold, far cheaper than their original price, and some even being given away for free.

Unfortunately for them, we're both quite good at maths and told the Wyndham agent the numbers didn't add up

After almost two hours, we finally got to the point – the price. Upfront costs, how to finance (over a period of seven to 10 years) and annual costs were covered.

To prove that all of this was much cheaper than planning our holidays and booking an Airbnb or hotel ourselves, they threw a lot of numbers at us. Unfortunately for them, we're both quite good at maths and told the Wyndham agent the numbers didn't add up. A shrug and, "life doesn't always work out the way it should" was the response.

The pressure

We told the agent and manager we were interested, but wanted to think about it. After all, a lifelong financial commitment like this should be considered carefully and it takes a while to read the 60-page PDS with all the details.

To our surprise, that wasn't an option. The decision had to be made right then and there. After leaving, we wouldn't be able to attend another presentation for years, and the premium membership would be off the table.

Their reasoning was that they put a lot of effort into their presentation and wouldn't want to do it again for someone who wasn't committed the first time. They also assume that you'd only decline due to a lack of money, and generally financial situations only change over a period of three to five years.

To our surprise, thinking it over wasn't an option. The decision had to be made right then and there

The manager of Wyndham suggested we sign and use the seven-day cooling-off period to consider and read the PDS. In his opinion, that's what the cooling-off period was for.

I thought getting in and sitting through all the information was the hard part, but it turned out leaving the presentation was even more difficult.

After being told what a great deal we'd miss out on, we were left to think it over. This tactic was repeated two to three times, and each time the manager came back with a new offer, including free weeks in the resorts and discounts on the premium (discounts which are declared in the PDS anyway).

Even when our decision was final, each timeshare company presented us with new offers: Accor Vacation Club, Classic Holiday and Wyndham each came back with a discounted trial membership, which locks in the full membership prices for one, two and three years respectively.

Even when our decision was final, each timeshare company presented us with new offers

We finally managed to leave the Accor presentation after two and a half hours. It was a bit over three hours for the Wyndham presentation, and almost four and a half hours for the Classic Holiday presentation.

It's completely understandable how people can get sucked in. Almost everyone around us happily signed up. The timeshare agents and managers wear you out with their tactics, numbers and perseverance. You feel coerced into signing because the deal is only available then and there and it's tempting to trust them. Being a polite and patient person makes it hard to say no. We almost felt sorry that we didn't take the deal. It would have been so great for us, right?

How much does a timeshare cost?

So, if you've got your head around all of that, the timeshare structure seems quite straightforward. You sign a timeshare contract and you're locked into compounding annual fees, much like the compounding interest on your mortgage, for the duration of the contract.

For the full membership option, that's until 2061 for Marriott, 2080 for Accor and Wyndham, 2081 for Ultiqa Lifestyle and 2084 for Classic Holiday timeshare – much longer than the standard 30-year mortgage.

So how much money are we actually talking about over the lifespan of the contract? From around $100,000 to $450,000.

Cheapest

The least it will cost you for one week's accommodation each year for the duration of the contract is $103,637, if you holiday in a one-bedroom apartment in mid season with Accor.

Most expensive

At the other end of the scale, a two-bedroom apartment with Marriott in high season will lock you into $450,001 for the term of the contract.

Timeshare finance

At timeshare presentations for Accor Vacation Club, Classic Holiday and Wyndham, we were also offered a financing scheme. With a 10% upfront deposit on the membership fee, you could finance the rest over a period of seven and ten years respectively, with an interest rate of 14–15%. Doing so would of course add even more debt to your timeshare contract.

Timeshare holiday vs self-booked holiday

To figure out if a timeshare is worth it, we calculate how long it takes for the ongoing annual costs of a timeshare in Surfers Paradise to be cheaper than the cumulative cost of booking an apartment online every year. This is listed as 'Years to recover costs' in our comparison table below.

The result? It would take a minimum of 16 years before a timeshare became cheaper than booking your own holiday online, based on an annual family vacation in a two-bedroom apartment during high season (based on Accor Vacation Club and Ultiqa Lifestyle contracts).

But if you're booking that same holiday with Marriott Vacation Club or Wyndham World Mark South Pacific Club, your timeshare is unlikely to ever be cheaper than booking independently online.

OK, so perhaps timeshare isn't for families travelling to the Gold Coast in the school holidays. What if you're not bound by the school holidays?

Ultiqa Lifestyle's two-bedroom apartment will become cheaper that a DIY booking in 11 years, but a one-bedroom apartment with Marriott Vacation Club, even outside school holidays, will again be more expensive for 43 years. After five years, Marriott's costs for a two-bedroom apartment for one week in high season is 938% more than booking.com.

Mid-season: 2-bedroom apartment for one week
	Accor	Classic	Marriott	Ultiqa	Wyndham
Cost after 5 years ($)	31,672	29,908	132,694	25,246	46,465
Lifetime cost of timeshare contract ($)	125,905	129,341	385,262	128,066	166,960
Years to recover costs compared to booking.com*	15	15	43+	11	25

* Cost of booking.com after 5 years: $14,122

High-season: 2-bedroom apartment for one week
	Accor	Classic	Marriott	Ultiqa	Wyndham
Cost after 5 years ($)	35,307	35,683	154,823	32,790	89,846
Lifetime cost of timeshare contract ($)	143,563	214,079	450,001	158,463	308,908
Years to recover costs compared to booking.com*	16	19	43+	16	62+

* Cost of booking.com after 5 years: $14,907

The fees and costs used in our calculations were collected by us from Booking.com and provided by the timeshare companies between November 2017 and January 2018. For Classic Holiday, Marriott and Wyndham, we use averages of the offered rooms to calculate the number of points required. An inflation rate of 1.8%/annum is applied to the average cost of similar accommodation on Booking.com over the same time frame. The period 2018–22 was used to calculate the estimated cost after five years.

To calculate the costs of a timeshare membership we include:

the upfront fees for membership
the mandatory exchange dues for Marriott and establishment fees for Wyndham
Points & Play membership and costs for Classic Holiday (required for full membership perks)
the compounding annual levies at 1.8% CPI.

Bear in mind we haven't included additional housekeeping fees and exchange fees for international travel.

Depending on the contract, fees could increase each year by up to 5%, 6.5%, or the Consumer Price Index (CPI), whichever is the greater of the two. We've taken the conservative option and compounded the fees and the price of the apartment booked online at the current CPI rate of 1.8%.

All timeshare companies have different membership levels and assign different points to their accommodation. We use the example of travelling for one week a year to Surfers Paradise. The points needed for this stay give us the minimum membership level required, and with that the costs for the accommodation, locked in for the term of the contract.

Points required vary depending on the season:

High season: School holidays in Australia.
Mid-season: Date based on timeshare companies' common timeframes.

Classic Holiday, Marriott and Wyndham also had variations based on whether an apartment has a view or not, so we took the average of the accommodations.

On booking.com we used apartments in Surfers Paradise in the same area as the timeshare resorts in high and mid season, with four to five stars and user ratings above seven to ensure the quality of accommodation. They all have a kitchen or kitchenette.

We allocated rooms to singles and couples or families on the following basis:

Single and couple: One-bedroom apartment, usually suits two to four people; booking.com quotes are based on two people.
Family: Two-bedroom apartment, usually suits four to six people; booking.com quotes are based on four people.

Prices were based on availability on 28 November 2017 for Accor, Marriott and Wyndham, and the 25th and 28th of January 2018 for Classic Holiday and Ultiqa, for one week's accommodation in July, October, December 2018, and January 2019. We disregarded the school holidays in April 2018, since timeshare companies advise booking up to a year in advance.

We care about accuracy. See something that's not quite right in this article? Let us know or read more about fact-checking at CHOICE.

Stock images: Getty, unless otherwise stated.

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