Holiday Concepts Group

I feel quite generous giving Holiday Concerts two stars. If you’re seriously thinking of buying please look into it Very Carefully!
The presentation is a fraud. You are being misled in every way possible.
It’s almost (if not totally) impossible to book anything at holiday times, unless it’s two years in advance and to do that you have to pay a full week’s entitlement fee in advance. Outside of holiday time well…you might as well book through Airbnb and keep your thousands of dollars.
Not to mention this company keeps coming up with ways to add extra fees into your annual account.
If you would like more truthful information, I encourage you to search and read Jackson’s review, dated five months ago.
I have only just come across it and I wish there was a review such as his, when we thought of buying.

Great atmosphere, clean rooms lots of amenities for adults and kids
Staff friendly and responsive to our request.
The surrounding beaches and hinterland were majestic
Short 1minute drive to shops and restaurants.
All in all a great place for a holiday.

I have visited a few of the Resorts now and have enjoyed my stay and the facilities every time. The first resort I went as a guest, now I my own timeshare and enjoy the hassle free ability to book online and plan my one week get away! Highly recommend.

Poor customer service, love a good admin fee charge, unreasonable constantly moving goal posts, timeshare fees for deferring and banking weeks is the biggest con. Sales pitch great at start.

If you Google ASIC's report into Timeshare - REP642 Timeshare: Consumers’ experiences, it will provide good insight.

From the report:

"Only a small number of those participants who had used their
timeshare membership in the previous 12 months felt it was
meeting the expectations they had when they purchased it.
Many participants expressed feelings about their timeshare
membership experience that included anger, frustration,
disgust, despair and numbness. For some, their decision to
purchase membership, and the unintended consequences of
the purchase, was a cause for embarrassment and selfreproach.
Only a small number of participants said they would
recommend the timeshare membership they held to
someone else, and most said they would not recommend it. "

As well as quote:

"Even those who had used their timeshare membership and
were satisfied with their experience had misgivings about
aspects of the membership. For example, many participants
mentioned limited access to accommodation or ongoing and
increasing costs.
Participants who had not used their timeshare membership in
the last 12 months said this was because they:
 did not have the time to take leave from work;
 were not in a position to book holidays far enough in
advance to secure accommodation suitable for their needs;
or
 found better accommodation deals outside of their
membership.
Some of these participants felt that, despite their best efforts,
they had not been able to realise any of the benefits they
expected when purchasing the timeshare membership.
Some participants also reported that they felt that features of
the timeshare membership had been misrepresented to them
at the time of purchase. "

Updated Review.

My original review was 2 stars. I initially had a bad experience with the company when I effectively lost a week of entitlement. This was because as a result of COVID and other factors, one of my entitlement weeks expired (my new entitlement was somehow used before the old week). So - I effectively "lost" close to $1000 of entitlement. When I reached out for support, I was initially told nothing could be done and it was gone.

The company manager subsequently reviewed my scenario and they re-ordered my accounts so that the week's were used in the right order and I was re-credited for the "lost" week. I do need to pay an extension admin fee, but this is fair as the we entitlement week now carries forward for another year.

Ultimately, I believe the company treated me fairly although I did experience some unnecessary stress and frustration that could have been avoided.

So - the company is OK, but make sure that timeshare (and the rules) are right for you. You will need to manage enitlements closely and may not always have any flexibility when things go wrong.

Warning! Warning! Do not enter into any agreement with this organisation!

What a pity you cannot give 0 stars because this is the worst company I have ever dealt with. We have been members for more than 20 years. We paid a huge amount of money for this membership based on some very extravagant promises which we now know are just a hard sell. During Covid we obviously could not travel. My husband and I both have cancer and by the time we found time to travel we were told that our week for 21-22 had expired and to access it we would need to pay a fee of $169.00. Of course, we had to pay the "Maintenance Fee" for that year as well. The latest exploit from Holiday Concepts concerns a week we had booked in November 2022.15 days out from the booking we realised it clashed with a chemotherapy appointment. We have been told that there is no opportunity to move the booking to a later date regardless of the reason, so we would forfeit that week. Holiday Concepts is lacking in empathy and devoid of any business ethics. Their resorts are old and tired. They have failed to stay relevant when there are many other accommodation opportunities like Air BNB.

I implore anyone thinking of joining Holiday Concepts to be very certain of what you are buying into. Ask other members, who like us, have been stuck with this appalling company for years

Our family have been staying at all the holiday concepts resorts for over 20 years and have had many fabulous stays. We have also used the sister timeshare and visited Vegas and Fiji. In 2022 we stayed at Torquay and enjoyed the facilities and activities-Live music night and pool/sauna. Very valuable if you can make good use of the timeshare within the family. I have also had nights away with friends on timeshare. We have used timeshare probably more than thirty stays.

Avoid at all costs, terrible company, staff and whole system is close to a scam that they will make it near on impossible to leave.

They just called my parents THREE DAYS before their holiday was supposed to start and told them that it was cancelled and they had ALREADY FILLED the reservation WITHOUT CONTACTING THEM FIRST. Because their address was at a "hotspot" for covid.

My parents have not been at that address for over two weeks. The address was only called a hospot on the 18th of December, they had 10 days to contact my parents and inform them of this decision but decided to do it three days prior to their booking.

My parents have been in Queensland at my sister's house the entire time and are not even at the hotspot address.

Absolutely disgusting way to manage themselves during this pandemic. How about some open dialogue with your customers who have been loyal for countless years.

You should be ashamed of yourselves and this needs to be resolved before their holiday start date (1/1/21). My parents are up there with no where to stay and that is completely unacceptable. I should be contacting the ombudsman about this.

Edit after owners reply: they had dated border decelerations proving they were 1000 kilometres away from any hotspots the entire time, something you would know if any attempt of communication was actually had. The fact that you would place someone else in their booked accommodation without even consulting them first is absolutely ridiculous. You should be reimbursing them for any accommodation they have to pay for that week, if they can even find anything at 3 days notice.

Not to mention there are other people in our family who are NOT in hotspot areas who could have used the booked accommodation as well, which would have been the plan If for some reason my parents couldn't.

You handled this extremely poorly.

In regard to closed resorts due COVID-19, I was advised that "No action was necessary on my part, as dates got closer bookings would be cancelled and booking agents so advised" I confirmed that I could sit on my hands and just let the process run its' course. 6 weeks later when I checked back to see where things were at, I got a different response "You need to. " So I asked to speak to the original consultant who refused to speak with me and THAT is the issue. There really was no issue or action that I needed to take. Holiday Concepts had a process and it was working - all that was required was for the original consultant to confirm that everything was OK and things were on track as originally discussed. Instead I was left totally frustrated that the original consultant would NOT speak with me and left me to be shunted about by another consultant who was just trying to end the call by referring me off somewhere else.

Being a member for 30 + year
Can honestly not understand the 4/5 star rating
I have found the club going downhill every year.
When we both the timeshare they told us you always get your money back when you no longer need it.
What a joke New owners have to pay $3500 to become a member
and can used the sister resort.
They promised Building all new resort,
Only 2 in all that time is just a joke
I sometimes think we all should get together and start a class action agains them
To many people have lost $10000
Will ring the ombudsman’s day hope they can help us all. To be treated fairly and keep their promises we told years ago

We miss our 2016 benefit when I tried to follow up
they say sorry, ittotally not professional. Staff in the office can't answer my Question. What you pay for it has no value but when we bought it was different.and there is no assistance if you want to get rid of it
Disappointing