I think all of the big hotels in Mexico do these type of timeshares. We have always kept away from them simply because the price of flights alone is so expensive - you can get a 2 week AI holiday for the same price.
I think you may be best to do to your nearest CAB and see if they can help or employ a good solicitor - doesn't look good though!

Flight costs are a HUGE problem for UK visitors to the Carib.We looked at buying a property in Antigua outright about 6 years ago - but pricing up flight only with Thomson,Virgin,BA came out as much as two weeks AI packages. Really think you need to get legal advice for your parents but be prepared to cut their losses!!

Hi, didn't want to 'read and run' so to speak, but I've just returned from Gran Bahia Principe Cayo Levantado in the Dominican Republic. We received several 'invitations' to collect our 'free gift'.....................we didn't attend, however on doing so you were roped into a one on one presentation................... the guys were very pleasant BUT very persistent.

As previously advised I would take legal advice, particularly bearing in mind your parents age and health, but maybe also contact the hotel chain directly, from talking to the management team during our holiday, they are fiercely protective of their brand name and it certainly couldn't do any harm.

They push it bit with UK visitors due to the closeness of Spain from what people told me when they attended.

Hope you get this sorted to your satisfaction.

The Grand Bahia Principe at Riviera Maya is a lovely hotel and I recommend it to anyone that is looking for a special holiday in Mexico.
However, there is a downside that can easily spoil your holiday long after your holiday has ended if you are caught unaware. So I intend to enlighten anyone looking to holiday there, so that the bitter taste regret and debt don’t sour the sweetness of your fabulous holiday.
The hotel has various parasites that will hound you to look at their presentations offering you the opportunity to be a VIP for many years to come at any of their luxurious hotels around the Carribbean.
They will hard sell you a ‘holiday ownership’ scheme, similar to timeshare that they call ‘Bahia Privilege Club’, which will enable you to holiday at certain hotels within their group for which you purchase a set amount of weeks for a predetermined amount of years and offer you VIP treatment when you holiday. They will tell you that it is easy to book these holidays too.
We were unsure but were promised quite a lot and bamboozled into purchasing. However, we paid the deposit by credit card and thought at least we’d be protected by Section 75 if it went Pete Tong.
We got back home and the cooling off period passed which meant we could now book our first holiday in Punta Cana. We decided to book a few weeks for our birthdays and it took us ages to get a reply by email and impossible to contact them by telephone. When they did reply they told us that we couldn’t have the weeks that we wanted despite the fact that the only weeks we weren’t allowed according to our contract was Christmas and New year. Very displeased I gave alternative weeks and was told that the hotel was full those weeks and couldn’t have them either.
We never heard anything else from them so several weeks later we booked an independent holiday and then they replied saying that they now had room at the hotel. We then requested to cancel our contract because we considered them in breach of the contract. They ignored us.
Eventually a Manager,( name removed)t, called to try and sweeten things but did offer anything that could help us at all. I requested to cancel and for our money back. He said that he would cancel it and put it to the board for a refund but said that they never give refunds. I later emailed asking what the board had said and he told me that they rejected it.
The next step then was going to the credit card company for a refund under Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act. After a 2 year battle and getting the FSO involved to find out that we had been totally shafted.
We were not protected under Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act because of the deceitful way in which Bahia Principe operate this scam:
The holiday Ownership is operated by a Company called ‘WHITE BAY TRADING’, based in Panama. Bahia Principe is owned by a company called ‘LEVANTUR SA’. Our agreement was with White Bay Trading but when they processed the payment, it was taken by Levantur SA trading as Bahia Principe which meant that there is no debtor-creditor-supplier relationship between us, our credit card supplier and White Bay Trading.
Therefore, as Bahia Principe had had our £2,000 deposit and we had already paid over £2,000 for our holiday there, we thought that we would contact the Bahia Principe group and see if we could get them involved in either orchestrating a refund or coming to a mutually beneficial compromise of maybe a free holiday.
Guess what their reply was?.......... NADA, NOTHING, ZILCH!! They didn’t even have the courtesy to reply.
So be warned...avoid!!

Further to my original post over 2 years ago, unfortunately my father passed away earlier this year. Mum and Dad had never been able to use this Privilege Club Membership after paying quite a substantial amount of money for it. Mum is looking to sell it but we've been unable to get any help or advice from anyone at the company. When we tried to explain that we would like to sell it as Dad has passed away, their advice was "keep it, its been paid for". I don't think they are quite understanding the situation and that Mum doesn't really want to use it. We've looked at prices of flights etc so that other family members can use it but it works out VERY expensive (its almost cheaper to book a package holiday than to book flights separately, not to mention the additional charges per day of using the Privilege Club).

I really don't know where else to go with this but I hate the thought of Mum and Dad paying out their life savings for absolutely nothing.

If anyone could provide any help or advice, it would be much appreciated.

Charlene.

charlie_ocs wrote:

My mother and father have just returned from two weeks at the Gran Bahia Principe in Riveria Maya, which they absolutely loved. This holiday was special to them because 2 years ago my Dad was diagnosed with bowel cancer. He's now been given the all clear and this was their "holiday of a lifetime" to celebrate.

However, I'm very concerned that while they were there they were somehow "roped into" signing up for this Gran Bahia Principe Privilege Club. Which to me, is just another name for a timeshare. From what I can gather its 30 weeks holiday (over 30 years!) at any of the Gran Bahia Principe hotels which are based in Mexico, Jamaica, Dominican Republic and Tenerife which all of the family can use. Each person for each will will come off the total 30 purchased. All they have to do is buy their own flights. But according to Gran Bahia Principe they can provide discounted flights aswell.

I've done a quick google search and the reviews I've seen on Trip Advisor about this set up arent the best. But they all seem to be from Americans or Canadians.

Can anyone please shed any light on this? They have used quite a bit of my Dads pension money on this (several thousand pounts) and I'd like more information and most of all - peace of mind. As it stands just now they paid half of the figure by debit card and the other half is to be paid interest free over the next 12 months.

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.

Hello,
We came back from our trip to Mexico in January, 2014 my partner and signed up for this and we are now stuck after paying over US$ 5,000. ITS NOT A GOOD DEAL, AND WE DONT KNOW HOW TO GET OUR MONEY BACK. What I am going to do though is write to them via Courier. Stop the Payments, grin & bear it. AND curse the guy who made us sign. The interest free is actually a load of crap. Its creative accounting. If you stop the payments, they get the money you paid scott free. They can I guess complain to the Mexican Government, especially since Champagne was served during the signing of documents. This marred a very lovely holiday. I am still kicking myself for getting roped in. I guess they are making millions with the people who put a hefty amount down and didnt check. Good luck. I am gong to also complain to the Better Business Bureau. I will do whatever it takes to stop the Debits on my Credit Card, bad credit be damned. Shopsella

Hi Shopsella, I'm just wondering if you got anywhere with trying to get some money back or if any action has been taken?

We've contacted Gran Bahia so many times now. We've even reluctantly looked into flights etc so that its being used but we are not getting anywhere. Communicating with them is ridiculous. We couldn't even log in at one point but this has now been resolved. We've requested dates about 3 times and we've not heard anything back. It's an absolute joke.

Any help or advice would be much appreciated.

Charlie

Hi Charlie_ocs

I am really very sorry to hear that your family have gone through this, unfortunately though it doesn't look like its something you can cancel and get any money back, I have read too many stories and have dealt with them enough to know its a load of bull. On the upside though, your weeks are valid and you can use them and bookings although are painful are possible. I have the membership and have similarly tried to get out of it but have had to resign myself to accepting what I have or lose money. I have had my membership for nearly 3 years and only just holidayed through them for the first time. The booking process is annoying, but once you are there everything is free. It does work out cheaper (even if only slightly) but here are my tips (I also live in the UK & fly from gatwick). There sis a number in the book or online to call for bookings - this is the number for "all other countries" I think its based in the dominican the call centre. Then once you have someone on the phone have 3 or 4 dates ready (I know this can be particularly tricky as we have 3 school children and need to work around the only 2 school holiday weeks in the gold season!) once you have the dates that are available ask the person to email it to you. this will help you establish a contact that you can email until you have to call with your card to pay - believe me you will save hundreds of pounds this way! Unfortunately I ask a million questions and couldn't do this until the end when I have already spent 3 weeks and several hours on the phone! I am still waiting for the "email address" that they supply with the contact and booking details to contact me back from 6 months ago, so its not worth just emailing a contact centre - get contact details by them emailing you when you are on the phone - they all do this immediately. NONe of the availability is confirmed until you give payment details and they could change quickly - but they usually do say on the phone if they are the last few available and provided you try to sort IT IN a week or so they should be fine. If you need tips on where to stay in Mexico I would highly suggest Luxury Akumal as we were in one of the other ones when it changed to luxury and still got to eat there and hang out there because we were privilege and it was by far the nieces in mexico. Flights: BA and Virgin are actually more cost effective and nicer than thomas cook and thomson. PLUS if you wait till the sales (and go tues/thurs on virgin) you will pay much less than on thomson flights (once you have added baggage, meals, exit tax and all the other things that thomson charge extra for believe me its much cheaper and nicer). Tips are that if there are any children under 12 going with the first one in each room is free. I have 3 kids and we usually go in 3 rooms as we take my mil with so it works out a lot cheaper for us than it would any other way. Although membership weeks run strictly sat - sat you can add odd days from your preferred allotment to the accommodation. Although they will say that these will be in different rooms and that you will have to change they will not really do that if they can - we had a party of 6 with 3 rooms and were meant to make 3 changes as we added days on the beginning and end and then extended again, but we were never moved from our rooms at all. Don't get me wrong, I hate these guys, but having dealt with them I have realised that I will get nowhere and don't want my holiday ruined so have learnt how to make the most of it and its actually all ok. Carts to drive you from your room to anywhere you just have to call (while other people have to wait) you can get into any restaurant (with some planning and you can eat wherever you want every night) you do have more perks than others, and are treated like a VIP guest of the hotel. From the lounge you can make calls to all over the world fro free (so get your address book ready) all premium drinks are free (I don't really drink so this wasn't a major thing to me, but at least one person in my party did and it was great for them) The privilege staff there really are there to serve you and make your holiday amazing. If i can help any other way I will good luck. Sorry if this email is confusing, I have little time to type, but just found this and didn't want to leave it. again good luck.

My boyfriend and i had signed up like idiots only due to the fact they had high pressure sales all around we were served not 1 not 2 but 4 beers a glass of champagne and a shot befor signing. We had giving them 400$ cash but not a single pice of bank or credit card info(concidering we dont even have creditcards) do you think they can still come after us?

I attended one of these promotions at Grand Palladium in Riviera Maya in 2010, by getting on the mailing list I got a great promotional deal in 2011, all I had to do us attend the presentation. You have to know what you are attending, no one is forcing you to sign anything. This this hotel is the last one one earth I would pay good money to as they have a dolphin enclosure - horrific practice.

oh dear we have not long returned from Bahia PRincipe Coba, this is our second time at this resort as we had previously been to for our honeymoon. During our holiday we were sold a high pressure "privilege club" package which we managed to reduce from 30 weeks to 10weeks (being from the uk we are are sceptical people) however after being sat in a boiling room with lots of bells ringing and champagne we decided to just sign and get out with our free two weeks in the Dom Rep, we just figured that what we had spent would be what we would spend on next years holiday so it should even the cost out..however upon our return we tried to book our discounted flights with RCI and they are not budging on costs, so next years holiday is coming in at around £8000!!! Not what we expected. We have one more outstanding payment and will not be paying it....avoid avoid avoid

I am a businessman and reads every contract ans even I was scammed. I should have known when they told me I wouldn't get the same deal once I left the hotel. They dont want your lawyer to look at it. They don't want you to sleep on it. If its such a good deal, they would be confident that people would call back to book it, but they already know its a scam so they try to get you to sign whey you in a good mood and halfway drunk. Scammers. Look at the link below for some of the documented evidence.
https://www.bbb.org/south-east-florida/business-reviews/timeshare-companies/privilege-club-in-coral-gables-fl-90057450/reviews-and-complaints

I'm so sorry to hear of your loss and hope that my insight may help.

I believe that you can transfer ownership to your children. You can also take family/friends with you at privilege rates.

I know this is probably not what you are looking for but may help.

my husband and I joined the club a few years ago and have since been back to Mexico and Dominican. I agree flights are expensive and can prove difficult when you have to pay everything up front unlike when you book via a travel agents. I believe they may have introduced payment options now.