[anonymous]

Originally Posted by naveen.raju

I have been approached by them many times for membership but refused since it was expensive.
You visit any malls/petrol stations in Cochin, and you see 3-4 people approaching you with coupons from CM. What they basically do is tell you that it's a special offer and ask for the mobile no. Then they keep calling you asking you to take the membership.

I once filled this lucky coupon and received a call from them that I had won something in the lucky draw and had to come to their office to collect it. They asked me to come with my family. I went there, they gave me a small presentation and asked so many question about my yearly holidays etc and finally offered me the membership which I promptly refused and walked away. BTW, I had won a coupon of 4N/3D Stay in any of their resort for free which expired without being used.

[scopriobharath]

Customer service is yet to mature in india. People who have already paid face the brunt of the bad service.

My wife was a corporate member in CM (through office) and we had no trouble in getting rooms in last minute. I work for IT and leaves are not confirmed till 1 week in advance. Ideally The members should get preference over others. When one has paid the full membership money, he should be given a choice and his requests must be catered to.

This is similar to Annual Maintenance Contract that we take for gadgets. AMC customers are given 2nd preference whereas new customers / cash customers are given first preference. Ideally, the AMC customer should get preference as he has ALREADY paid the cash compared to a new customer.

[Fusion2006]

Originally Posted by anonymous

I once filled this lucky coupon and received a call from them that I had won something in the lucky draw and had to come to their office to collect it. They asked me to come with my family. I went there, they gave me a small presentation and asked so many question about my yearly holidays etc and finally offered me the membership which I promptly refused and walked away. BTW, I had won a coupon of 4N/3D Stay in any of their resort for free which expired without being used.

I've had exactly the same experience with Country Club, and the free vacation voucher simply expired without being used, as there were so many conditions and blackout periods that it was pointless. The person who gave the presentation appeared to know less about the whole concept than I did.

[g_prajeesh]

ALL,

I was goiung through the Time share based Holidays. As of today in India, Sterling and Club Mahindra are the leading providers of this type of Holidays.

They give 6day / 7 Night Holidays in a year for 25 yrs. They have different season card such as purple, red, white and blue with Purple is the peak season.

Any Team-BHP members have recently joined, kindly give me your input in terms of quality, price etc.. I am looking for RED 1 BHK with Sterling.

Please give your input and other members who are looking for this will help a lot

[mayankjha1806]

We have seriously looked at Sterling and Club Mahindra multiple times and every time we have declined both for various reasons, some are listed below.

• We do 2-3 outings a year and with each outing we spend about 20k (Depending on where we are going) on stay so in total ~50K per year. At 4L+ it comes to the same amount that we would have otherwise spent in 8 years. We think this is on a much higher side.
• These memberships provide 6/7 days per year, if i calculate we end up staying ~8+ Nights. This means we would need to cut down on our vacations or the 8year calculation above will become 9 years as we will shell out from our pocket as well (Over and above 6/7).
• They have fixed number of resorts, for example soon we want to do a Rajesthan trip and they had no resorts there.
• Known issues with Club Mahindra on availability of rooms when you decide to have a vacations. Most of our vacations are decided weeks in advance and not months in advance. If i go with either of these i would possibly have to decide months in advance.
• The calculation above of 50K, it includes stay and food. So essentially they are asking me to put in minimum 8 years of spend which will happen in future, even if you take inflation into calculations.

PS: I believe similar thread exists, please request mods to merge. Here is the link.


http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/route-...ake-sense.html

[Parthasarathig]

For me CM and CC memberships arent worth it. Yes the resorts maybe great but being stuck to the same choices year after year makes no sense.

Even if we decide to visit some place where the resort is and think about visiting another place near to it and do a night stay at a small hotel there, you end up spending more.

Plus with the advent of sites like Airbnb.com you can get to stay at homes for less than what it would cost to stay at a resort. And zero membership fees. And you get to stay in any city of the world provided the owner advertises his home on the site.

[sreedotk]

Another thing i would like to add was I had the bad luck of staying in the sterling resort at Ooty and that property was pathetically out of shape and indifferent hotel staff.

With the freedom you have to choose destination time and budget to stay, i personally think spending every year based on personal preference is better than signing on for the time share.

[ritz3645]

Hi everyone,
my friend was working with a time share company gsown Pune.
As per him Mahindra is expensive and Sterling is below average.

More company details can be found at website
Gsown Vacation Club

[goandude]

Guys please read this befor you put your hard earned money on club mahindra. this report is from Hemant Beniwal Club Mahindra Membership Fees & Review – Financial Blunder
happy holidaying

[infotech58]

IMHO, time share in today's world is not worth the money being asked unless you subscribe to a very high end time share (such as a condo in NYC). i have worked with business development team of RCI (Resort Condominium International - largest time share broker in the world) for almost five years and have seen the a big percentage of customers turning towards rentals and points based systems every year - in all developed markets, the biggest challenge for timeshare brokers and clubs is retention.

imagine this:

• you first pay a lump sump amount for 25 (or 20 year membership) for a club that has only 9-10 resorts in India out of which at least half are not maintained upto standards they claim.
• after that you pay a maintenance charge every year to keep your membership; even if you do not actually utilize that vacation.
• after all this, try booking a unit in Goa for (say club mahindra) during new year season and you'd see how difficult it is to actually get a unit.

i would not like to reveal the operation model of this business on a public forum due to obvious reasons but if someone has a specific question, please feel free to PM me.

[gandalf]

Hi all

Well I am among the few people who voted yes. I am a CM member and it actually works for me.
Why???? Well its because
1. when we holiday we generally plan months in advance. This is not because of club mahindra. I just find it easy to plan the holidays and give the plans out to my manager. In my experience no one would cancel your leave if you apply for it 6 months in advance.
2. I generally holiday with in-laws or parents or sister etc. So when going on holidays I need something for the Kids and elderly people etc. CM offers a really good experience for all age groups.
3. When on holiday I like to take things lazily slow. I dont mind missing out on a few tourist attractions when there
4. When the travelbug bites on a friday evening we generally go outside CM. But all i all really happy with the membership

[Tempelhof]

I'm perfectly happy with my membership.

I also have a long term RCI membership - that too is working out very well.

[arun_112]

This is to alert you about the fraud and cheating activities of the Country Club of India Limited and Country Vacations who operate from the following main office:

Managing Director
The Country Club
273, 1st Main, Defence Colony
HAL, 2nd Stage
Bangalore 560038

Managing Director
The Country Vacations

(Division of the Country Club of India Ltd)
# 3-6-12/13, 4th floor. Al Samad
Liberty X Road, Himayat Nagar
Hyderabad 500029

Branch manager
[SIZE=3]Country Vacation[/SIZE]

(Division of The Country Club)

Udyog Bhavan, Gala No. 245 / 246, 2nd floor

Sonawala Road, Goregaon (E)

Mumbai 400063

[sgiitk]

I have been with Sterling & RCI for over 12 years. I have never taken Sterling (they have really fallen in the world, so have always taken an exchange through RCI. It is worth it esp. if you vector in the inflation. Some observations:

For any popular destination you may have to book at least six months in advance. Otherwise look for a vacancy in the last week.

Most resorts are out of town so having your own transport is almost a must.

[anujmishra]

First of all, why others dictate your holiday plan? This is worst kind of service few people opt for their 25 years holiday plan. For me holiday plans being made at instant with instant booking. No pre planned places or hotels to stay.

Some people pays lakhs of rupees to these guys and repent afterwards. Few of them were from my family too.

Above all when you go on holiday you enjoy mostly on outdoor activities and come to hotel/resorts for night stay/food. I am no fan of indoor recreational activities at some resorts. That we can find aplenty at my apartment/locality.

I sincerely feel people should keep away from these clubs/resorts memberships. You plan your own holiday and stay options. Lets not other dictate your holidays plan and time.