Thread: www.SeasonsHolidays.com - Anyone heard of them?

I personally have not heard of them.

Have a look in here Has Anyone heard of Seasons Holidays?? - holiday Watchdog

There are good and bad reviews.

Read the small print and check it out thouroughly before you decide to hand any money over.

My wife and I have been members of Seasons Holidays for over 10 years and always found the organisation efficient and fair. Yes you do have to purchase your time allocation, but then nothing is for free! Seasons offers a range of accommodation both in the UK and overseas. We have used their resorts in Wales, Cornwall, The Lake District, Spain & Portugal plus their affiliate resorts in Australia, the USA and South Africa. We have also enjoyed using the facility of short breaks at weekends and mid-week in addition to the allocated week. Experiences so far? Always reliable bookings, thoughtful and caring staff and value for money. Communication from the head office is instant and the membership panel is effective membership voice.
Any regrets? none at all. We regard our membership as a good investment which has repaid our investment with some memorable trips.
Those who see it as a [problem] I suspect are looking for something for nothing.We attended a number of time share presentations before buying and we can confirm that some of them were dreadful experiences but those experiences at least gave us a yardstick to measure the claims of the reputable companies.
Finally Seasons in particular and timeshare in general may not be the best option for everyone as a holiday facility but our experience has with this company been completely positive.

On the other hand, my mother and stepfather have been with seasons for over 10 years. They started off with a single unit and annual fees of approx £200 per annum. For that they had to sign a 55 year contract, but were given assaurances at the time that if they wished to sell their time slots, Seasons would do there best to find a buyer and that the package would not lose it's value.

Since that time, they were pursuaded to buy two "red week" time slots, cruising holiday, Carnival exchange all of which amounted to an outlay of well over £15,000. Her annual management fees are now in excess of £900 per annum and they advised her this year that to pay for refurbishment of her home site (Loughan in West Wales) they would be increasing the management fees by 5% on top of inflation for the next three years.

They are both now disabled (he seriously disabled), and have tried to sell their timeshares but have been told they are almost worthless. Seasons will not take them back, suggesting that they are liable for the remainder of the contract if they try and walk away or fail to pay management fees on time. At one stage, they even suggested that in the event of their death I inherit the contract and would be liable for it. LIKE HELL I AM!

She wanted to pass them on to me in her will, as this is something that Seasons push (you can pass this gift on to your children). I calculated that what she was trying to give me was a life debt for approx £135,000 for holidays that I didn't want at places I had no intention of ever visiting.

My advice for anyone who is ever preswnted with literature from seasons is find the nearest bin. You won't regret it in the long run and neither will your bank balance.

I think there way of getting people to call is misleading and this company should be avoided at all costs.

Untill they learn to promote there products fairly you should goto center parks instead

We would like to set the record straight regarding a number of postings on this website by consumers who have not provided sufficient information and background to a number of promotions we have hosted on the web recently, nor have they actually enjoyed a holiday at one of our holiday resorts or put our money back guarantee offer to the test. We are sorry if some participants are disappointed, but it is also important that other participants are in possession of all the facts so they can make their own judgement, rather than relying on unsubstantiated rants. More than 500,000 UK households already own timeshare and a recent independent survey based on thousands of responses showed that the vast majority of UK timeshare owners are satisfied or very satisfied with their timeshare experience.

Here are the facts.
Seasons Holidays are one of Europe’s leading resort developers, with six luxury resorts in the British Isles and three in Europe. Each year Seasons arranges holidays for more than 75,000 customers. We offer both timeshare on a flexible, multi-destination basis, and also freehold luxury holiday homes and fractional ownership. During the last 12 months, we have built and sold more than 120 brand new luxury holiday residences in Scotland the Lake District and Cornwall.
We have been operating since 1996 and we are an English registered company. We work closely with our home authority trading standards office to ensure offers are clear. We are proud of the quality and value that we offer our customers and the valuable year round employment we are bringing to rural communities, without forcing up the price of local residential property for first time buyers. It is more selfish to buy an outright residential home for holidays, then leave it empty for most of the year and then take down provisions for a few weeks each year. All of our property offers encourage multiple use of holiday properties.
For the last 5 years our marketing has been structured around opt-in marketing for our products and we have indeed been offering the chance for consumers to win a Clubseasons timeshare membership worth £3750, excluding annual management fees which are paid by all co-owners and these are currently £367 per week. We are surprised to see comments on this website that we have in some way tried to hide these facts, since these facts were included very clearly in original offer page. The management fees include all bed linen, utility charges and VAT, as well as all the usual services required to maintain a portfolio of very nice residences and facilities. We offer a money back guarantee to winners who are not entirely satisfied upon returning from their first 7 night holiday.
Yes it is possible that some people may have had bad experience of timeshare in the past, when the trade was young and inexperienced. Our industry has by and large developed into a responsible and ethical group and most problems these days relate to non-property based discount travel clubs which have been set up to get around laws and code of ethics that our industry has adopted. We are members for the Organisation for Timeshare in Europe (OTE Organisation for Timeshare in Europe - Home).
Our marketing is based on an opt-in basis without compulsory sales presentations and we are glad that the resort experiences sell themselves. We have generated opt in lists of more than 400,000 consumers over the last few years offering the incentive of the chance to win a timeshare (excluding annual management fees) as a means to attract consumers who may have wondered how to find out about resorts. Yes consumers are required to pay annual management fees for their share of the collective costs of running the resorts in the portfolio but anyone who has won a prize should note that more than 1000 clients have purchased the prizes on offer for more than £4000 per membership excluding annual management fees. We have given away nearly a 1000 memberships worth £3750 over the last 24 months: non winners have been offered the chance to enjoy a low cost inspection break in the UK or overseas without obligation to find out more about Seasons timeshare. In fact some of the winners have also gone on to purchase more weeks from us, others have decided to walk away from ownership without penalty and that is fine no product will meet the needs and aspirations of every client. We let the resort experience do the selling; we are a commercial organisation and of course we will always encourage customers to purchase more, and there is nothing to be ashamed about in being enthusiastic about a rapidly growing, asset based club that will definitely save members money on better quality holidays for whatever period they choose to remain within the club. We are truly unique in being able to offer to customers six very sought after destinations within the British Isles and even more overseas. I am pleased to say that more than 50 % of our sales last year were existing owners who have owned for 2 years or more deciding to purchase more, so it is clear that what we offer is very attractive to some consumers.
EDIT

Dont trust there letters. Dont even open them.. Just throw them in the bin.

Its nothing but a marketing ploy to get you to ring. Once they have your details they spam you for life. Im saying this first hand because my missus did it last year and we get bombardrd with junk and phone calls trying to sell us tat.

Seasons holidays make there money on hidden costs and by sueing people when they refuse to pay for poor services.

Dont take the risk.. Just avoid at all costs.

And yes... google Seasons holidays and trading standards and read about the court cases they have pleded GUILTY to.

As with most companies of this nature, there will always be those who are totally satisfied with the product on offer and manage to get the most out of it. However, it is the way that seasons do buiness and the sales methods that bring them into disrepute.

The "you have won a free holiday letter" is a [problem]. Those who get taken in by it are often subjected to a very hard sell on their "holiday" and are often totally unprepared for the financial outlay that they agree to under the hard sell. For my part, my parents have, perhaps unwisely, allowed themselves to be pressured into agreeing to a number of ungrades in their timeshare plans. Their current outlay on maintenence fees is £900 and seasons are increasing this by inflation PLUS 5% for the next three years to allow for "redevelopment and inprovement" of Laughan in West Wales. She wanted to leave me this timeshare in her will, a facility that Seasons are keen to promote. I calculated that is she did that, she would be committing me to an outlay of in excess of £130,000 (yes you did read that correctly) over the remainder of the 65 year contract. Suffice to say that I have advised her not to do anything of the sort.

When originally purchasing the timeshare facility, all sorts of promises were ade about how they would retain their retail value, and that if required, Season's would even buy back their timeshare and allow her to walk away from it. The timeshares that she has are worthless. She has been trying to sell them for the past three years and the only offer she has had was some 70% below their purchase value. She has asked Seasons to take them back and was told that they would only do so if they could find a buyer for them. They even had the cheek to suggest to her that if she died, the contract would automatically transfer to myself, and that I would be liable to maintain the contract. (I would really like to see them try that).

Furthermore, two of the upgrades that she bought into were timeshare exchanges, where she could offer part of her holidays in this country in exchange for those accommodation in other countries. It has come to light in the past year that was has been happening is that accommodation being put up for exchange is instead being SOLD by companies particularly in America, leaving little accommodation for exchange. The other upgrade was for cruises at reduced rates, but again, availability in locations anywhere other than the Bahamas is extremely limited. Since the reason that wished to start cruises was because my stepfather can no longer fly, this is also useless. Prior to purchasing, she was assured that GB bases cruises were available.

In short, your parents may be happy at the moment because they can get the full value. If you're happy taking holidays in this country it can be for you. If you want variety and to go further afield it is not. I hope for thier sake that their circumstances do not change and that they continue to enjoy their investment. They may not be so happy when they find just how little it is worth if circumstances do change and they need to sell it.