Classic Escapes review: Classic Escape Holidays 89

What I don't understand is if Classic Holidays are so confident and so big, then why do they keep their members bound. Should a member want to opt out; give him the opportunity. Why bring legal aspects into it. Yes, Yes, I know the story of if you buy a car and decide you don't want it later you cannot return it, but then again I have a car. In this case we have nothing but timeshares. Okay lets argue on that. We pay rent yearly right. That's for a time slot. Are you allocating a certain time in the year specially for that member. No. Then why the fees. I have personally written numerous letters stating I don't want this membership cause its burdening me and all I get back in return is lawyer stuff and obligations. I have also offered to pay $5000 just to be freed of this but to no avail.
35 years and over 45000 members and still you hold the members who beg to opt out .
If Classic holidays are that responsible and honest then help the members who can no longer afford this membership rather than bearing the wrath of them. Its all to do with helping when your members are hurting. Can you live up to this ?

TOTALLY ABSOLUETLY AGREE WITH THIS COMPLAINT. Stupidly my partner and I were sucked in by there LIES, DECEPTION, HARASSMENT AND HARD SELLING TACTICS. Fortunately we paid upfront and didn't use finance I have tried on several occasions to book suitable accommodation for my family of 4 but to no avail. I tried to book for Hawaii last year but nothing was available surprise surprise. Today I try to book an hour away from home in Australia and nothing available not t mention the rude and disgraceful manners of the clowns that work in the call centre. I wish there was a way to get our hard earned money back but we have just cut our losses but still have to pay $160 per year until 2027 for something we can not use its a JOKE people be aware total scam dont get sucked in

Yep, agree with these complaints. Fell for the same scam at Rhodes (NSW), thought we would give it a go as the rep said we could use their facilities to book flights and accommodation. As my partner scratched the "winning" ticket we were assured we were under "no" obligation to buy anything and at worst would get the booby prize ie, iPad which we could always donate to our grandchildren. From the moment we arrived there was so much noise you could hardly hear yourself think, our rep was very loud, didn't really listen but expected us to shut up and listen to his spiel. Kept avoiding the one question I wanted answered and that was the overall cost and the trigger for me was when he said we could include this membership in our "Wills". Our first thought was even in death you won't be able to get out of this contract and would we really want to burden our kids with this garbage. My partner was annoyed he sidestepped all his questions about accommodation availability. Also the fact that, until you became a member, you couldn't browse the website to see where their destinations were was a joke. Again, our rep told us we would be told what the "main" fee would be ONLY after we became members and only by reading the above comments did we find out the upfront fee. Our rep was becoming very agitated by being asked the same question about up front fees and tried to belittle us by announcing very loudly for others to hear, that we couldn't afford it anyway, gave us our prize, got up and told us "first door behind you". How charming. As the old saying goes "if it's too good to be true... it usually is". If you are approached by anyone from this company, RUN VERY QUICKLY...preferably in the opposite direction.

My family and I went through the winning ticket prize today at wet and wild resort. I was willing to listen to the spill the young lad had to offer. Firstly if your going to try and con someone at least have a good story. "Wow you won, that means I win too". I asked what do you mean. He then told me he gets $100 for each booking. After keeping that in mind and then answering some personal details, I asked how many of these prizes do you give away a day. He's response was 20. Oh so a young person handing out winning tickets to people he thinks he can sign up can net him $2k a day. Well there you have it already, either he is telling fibs about he's income or classic escapes are making that much money they can afford to pay someone 5 times what it's worth. After being asked for a $20 deposit I told him, I have won the prize and I'm expected to pay. Come on your not being upfront, this sounds like a Nigerian Internet scam.
How this sort of business activity is able to operate is beyond me. This is why we have the ACCC to get rid of businesses that are acting in such a fraudulent manner.
While my wife organised a locker I watched him hand out tickets to groups of people. Interesting how he was giving tickets from the top and bottom of the pile. People in Australia shouldn't have to be subjected to this type of fraudulent marketing, especially when I have paid a lot of money to attend this theme park.

Gold Coast renowned for scams and scammers. Even with investment cons (white collar crime ) running into millions The Australian Securities and Investment Commission hardly ever take any action.

Thought. & was encouraged. That. We had bought into. A holiday. Purchase. For. Where ever. We chose. You could do a better deal . You are just. Another. Vacation. Time share. ! Please sell our. Life time. Investment. You. Sold us. It is not. What. You promised. . Sell our. Investment to. Someone. Who wants time shares. . Waiting. ! Don't want to cause trouble. !

Anything with this kind of hard-sell and tricks is a scam in our opinion! We came across this company pushing its hard sell at Warner Bros Movie World on the Gold Coast -alarm bells were ringing but the high-pressure sell was slick. "Winning" scratch cards which they even gave to our 5-year old son, flashing pictures of hotels without telling us the actual name, swapping quickly between prize/company/"seminar" info to confuse us thus and avoid questions and hence our ability to make an informed decision etc etc. We "won" a prize (either a holiday or travel vouchers) and paid the $40 booking fee for the presentation where we could collect the "prize" and get our $40 back - but not until after the "90 min (approx)" presentation. We've done a bit of research and have decided to simply cut our losses and not go. If the deal was any good such high pressure sell tactics would not be required. We both feel really silly for being sucked in like this but just goes to show that there is obviously money to be made in such deceitful practices so our advice is if you are handed a scratch card run a mile!

My partner and I too became another statistic.

Funny we didnt even have to scratch a winner... the sales person just gave us a already scratched winning ticket that someone "ineligible" had already scratched.

Well needless to say 2hrs of our life we are never getting back. A few things that point to poor practices include:
* the fact that you have to be a winner to be able to attend the presentation.
* the fact that to purchase the premium membership you have to make a monetary commitment on the day that equates to more than a new car or house deposit.
* all the administration fees are given to you at a different time to the membership cost.
* I believe they have a product (premium membership) that is attractive but when I told the sales manager (who was pushing... no obligation my ###) im not currently in a financial position to make that sort of financial comitment can I purchase this at some time in the future, maybe 12 mths time, his response was no not for 5 yrs because we cant just keep giving holidays to people when they want.
* This leads me to the next point how can it be a "competition" if everyones a winner (the target audience anyway) and everyone wins the same thing (a 7 day holiday for $199 fee). I would be curious to hear if anyone has ever won any of the other prizes.

As for the prize its interesting to note:
* its only accommodation.
* most people will choose thailand or bali.
* only available during the low season.
N.B. I had a quick look at hotels in bali and thailand (phuket) during the middle of June (mid/high season) and found 48 hotels in Bali and 55 hotels in Thailand for less than the $199 admin fee.

Advice: choose a holiday in the expensive aus cities to get your money worth out of your cheap prize. Instead of signing up for this product put the same amount you would be paying for the membership into a savings account and use the money to cover all the costs of your next holiday (flights, accom, etc) and look at sites like expedia and wotif then book direct with hotel asking them to honor the online price of these cheap websites (90% will do this) and you have the advantage of cheap accom booked direct which generally eliminates most admin fees, has better cancellation/refund policies and are generally more flexible and accomodating.

By all means attend and see what they have to offer but dont be forced to make a massive financial commitment in the course of 2 hrs.

My girlfriend and I went to a presentation on the sunshine coast in 2011 after getting a 'winning' scratchie at the local shopping centre. We sat through the sales pitch, said no, sat through more, said no again. Bring in the manager who can offer a better deal, no again. Finally they got the message we weren't interested and we completed our scratchie to reveal we'd won a 'free' holiday. All we needed to do was sit through another presentation while on the holiday and pay the $199 cleaning/admin fee.

We went through the process to book the holiday in Bali and got rejected because my girlfriend was under the age of 28. We were given a few options, all of which required us to pay more money, including paying a $200 young person fee. This really annoyed me so I wrote them a manipulative email appealing to their inner greed:

Hi Grace,
Thanks very much for your prompt reply. As someone who was seriously considering purchasing a membership with your
organisation, I must say I am a little put off by the way this has been handled. At no point in the process was I informed that both Sophie and I were required to be older than 28, quite the opposite in fact. When approached by one of your promotion staff who arranged for us to attend your sales meeting, I raised the issue that Sophie did not fit the criteria as she is younger than 28 and was advised that only one of us was required to be older than 28. Secondly, when attending the sales meeting, none of your staff, all of whom were aware of Sophie's age, raised this as an issue which would prevent us from either becoming members or redeeming any prizes. Furthermore, upon reading through the terms and conditions on our voucher, at no point does it mention that BOTH of us are required to be older than 28.

In all honesty, after crunching the numbers on your membership, I am confused as to why young people are excluded. It would appear to me that young people would be a logical target demographic as they have more time to make use of the membership, and hence, would get the most value. I opted not to join at the initial sales meeting as I wasn't happy to sign anything without first examining the figures myself. After doing so, based on the rough figures provided at the sales meeting, I was pleasantly surprised to find a favourable outcome, an outcome which would be considerably less favourable were I aged 50 or 60. Given this finding, I was looking forward to experiencing a classic escapes Bali resort to help make a final decision, and I have to say, I am disappointed with both your decision not to allow us to redeem our voucher, and the manner in which this whole situation has been handled. I hope this is does not reflect the treatment Sophie and I would receive should we become members of classic escapes.

Grace, I would like to respectfully request that you re-examine our circumstances with a view to allowing us to redeem our voucher in Bali. We are not interested in visiting a resort on the gold coast as we already live on the sunshine coast and have no interest in regularly visiting the Gold Coast. For us, the opportunity to travel abroad to areas such as Bali, is the most appealing aspect of your club and therefore, these are the resorts we would like to experience before purchasing a membership.

Thank you for your help and I look forward to your reply. Regards,

Needless to say I had no intention of buying the membership I was just annoyed that they made us sit through that sales pitch with the promise of a prize that they had no intention of handing over. To my surprise, they changed their tune after receiving my email and agreed to book our holiday under the original terms, obviously thinking they had a sure thing. We went on the trip, had a great time, sat through their presentation again and said no again. All in all a good outcome for us.

Wow my wife and were just about to leave for the presentation in lynbrooke but after reading all the commentson here we are not going to bother going now. Lost $40 but not to worry. Was too good to be true anyway.

I'm curious to know if anyone has taken up the 'free' 7 nights accommodation offer in the Gold Coast, Bali or Thailand? And, what was it like?
$199 seems like a cheap price to pay for, at worst, sitting through another sales pitch.

I wish my husband and I had been smart enough to goggle Classic before we committed to 10 years of useless holiday club membership. I am a teacher and I kept asking, "so it doesn't cost anymore during the holidays, because we can only take our holidays during the school holiday breaks. "No every week is the same", I was told by our salesperson. This is not the case, school holidays are much more expensive. We were given a 2 for 1 cruise voucher, which we were very excited about, however in most cruises we looked at the price was more than if we had bought 2 tickets at full price elsewhere. The 7 day cooling off period was useless to us, as we didn't receive our password for the website for 4 weeks, so it wasn't until then that we realised what a scam it was. We approached Classic with our complaints, supplying evidence of cruise prices, but were told we had not contacted them by phone for any bookings. We wanted something where we could log on at our leisure and say that hotel looks nice lets book that, not ring up and then book something we can't look at. Stay away from Classic holidays, don't purchase a plan, they are a waste of money. If they were a sincere company they should have a money back guarantee if you are unhappy. We have been paying for 2 years now and will only using our complimentary holiday in July, which by the way cost us an extra $400 because we are going in the school holidays. Get real Classic, stop fleecing hard working Australians. We deserve better and I agree Currents Affairs programs and the government should look into this program. It is costing us over $10 000 for something that was suppose to supply us with cheap holidays for 10 years, but in reality we can book cheaper holidays in better destinations. Please read customer comments before wasting your money. Wish we had!

We were lured last week at Movieworld on the Gold Coast by a very fast talking Pom who handed me and my two teenage children a card each to scratch which were all losing cards and then he handed me another card to scratch which was a winning ticket, surprise, surprise!. We were told we had won one of 3 major prizes - $2, 000 in Jetstar vouchers, or a 7 day holiday to Bali, Thailand or the Gold Coast or flights and 2 nights accommodation for 2 people in any capital city in Australia. We were asked to hand over $20 and attend a 90 minute presentation the next day in Surfers Paradise to be able to claim our prize. My husband and I were very suspicious but decided to attend the presentation. Like others we were greeted by a cheesy blonde receptionist and a loud, rough pommy woman with a gold front tooth who was over friendly and asked way too many questions. We were then introduced to a young Kiwi girl who had only worked there for 3 weeks and couldn't answer any of our questions. She also asked way too many personal and repetitive questions wasting more of our time before taking us across the road to look at the Chevron Renaissance 3 pools. We were not able to look at any rooms because they were all full. We came back to the office to end the presentation and claim our prize but found that she wasn't able to finish the presentation, which really meant she couldn't tell us the price. So we gad to wait for the super slick head salesman, Kim to come and complete the scam. When he finally revealed the price was $13, 000 or $20, 990 for life membership we were horrified. On top of that there is an annual membership fee and another 3 yearly fee before you can even book a holiday. We told Kim that we wouldn't consider joining without being able to look at their booking site in more detail and he said that wasn't possible. We then said we wouldn't spend that sort of money on the spot but would need time time to do our due diligence but of course tis was a one off deal. So then we got shuffled to the fast talking American finance person who tried to get us to sign up to a three year trial membership for $2, 500. When we declined that we were finally given our holiday card voucher to claim online and left. This whole experience took 2 hours and was a complete waste of time. So then we tried to claim our prize. The hotels available are of poor standard and there are additional costs to book so we won't be using it. There are many better holiday clubs on offer for way less investment that offer holidays at all hotels worldwide and offer real value. This is a real scam and should be avoided at all costs.

We are so upset that we have wasted that much money signing up. Joined quite a few years ago and only used it twice, the rooms were second class we were not given what we requested even though we booked 12 months ahead. Few weeks ago I phoned to get a price on a particular cruise we were booking for my daughters honeymoon told $1600 per person, I end up booking though someone else for $890 so much for cheaper holidays we were told that we would get when we signed up. That particular cruise line was having a special for a few days which Classic didn't even pass on the me. The service is poor, accommodation is poor anybody reading this DO NOT SIGN! Love to get a refund on some of the money, they said I could sell it, I wouldn't do that to somebody else...all a scam. Bottom line the information you are give is not the whole truth.

I used to work with for this company and I can 100% confirm that this is a scam. They provide you with two sets of scratch cards. One set is the looser pile and the other set is the winner pile. They get you to visually judge people who walk past you in order to attract a certain demographic and you offer the 'middle aged well to do average man or women' with the winning card and a loosing car and you offer the looser cards to people who don't look desirable just to get rid of them more or less.

The winner card ALWAYS offers the holiday. There is no iPad, no free flights, no money. Never. EVER. And don't let anyone in the company try to tell you otherwise as I worked for the company for over year and never ONCE saw anyone get a prize other than the 'prize holiday', which once you're on, you have to attend other presentations. It is a pure scam.

The worst thing is they even treat their employees like crap. I've had many a shift where I stood in a shopping mall all day and didn't get a single person to book in because a lot of people are getting wise to it. The amount of abuse and rudeness i've had to endure from that job is unreal and for nothing to show for it.

A word of advice to the company? Australia is getting wise to your scam promotional techniques. Where I was in Perth, it was hard to get anyone to get involved. I think the Perth office actually had to shut down because of the lack of people attending the presentations. Just goes to show how bad it is. Pretty well deserved if you ask me. Hey classic escapes, ever heard of CSR? Look it up.

At Karingal shopping centre today I was approached by quite a lovely sales lady who said that a winning ticket had been left behind by someone who was not eligible to claim the prize but wanted it to go to a nice family - apparently the sales lady had seen me and my partner from the distance and thought we were 'worthy' of the prize... I knew nothing of classic escapes and neither did my partner. We felt the sales lady seemed genuine but I can see now after reading all the comments here, that they are professional scammers. To qualify to claim a prize we had to earn above a certain amount per annum, strange we thought, but the way the sales lady explained it, it made sense..something about duty of care blah, blah... but she made sure to say that as long as we say that we earn enough money it'd be ok, so basically she encouraged us to lie. Not once did she mention about timeshare or anything at all what the 90minute presentation would be about. She mainly gloated about the prize we had definitely won. We will most likely not attend the presentation, only to get our $40 back if we happen to be in the area. Like what someone already said, if it seems to good to be true, it probably is.

Same story got sucked in at the airport where my mother had the "winning" scratchie. Sat through their pushy time share crap. Was made to feel like I was stupid not recognising what a wonderful deal they were offering. Ended up with the FREE$199 holiday anywhere in Australia, Bali or Thailand. Can't get onto redemption site only gold coast holiday site ended up on this one to see if any others were experiencing same thing - wow how can this be happening in 2013 in Australia. Have to follow this one through as it should be stopped.

Last week my husband and I were given 4 scratchies, two each, I won the three stars twice, I was not allowed to give one to my husband, as there could be only one winner per couple, if this is the case then why give the four scratchies to start with? I paid the $50 and now my husband refuses to go. I rang them and said that he was sick but I could bring his passport for the photo ID they required, I only want to get my $50 back at this stage. I was told that I could book again, when the old ### gets better and my $50 will be safe till then, bye bye $50.

My husband & I returned from the above mentioned "presentation" tonight. WHAT A JOKE! Loud blaring music greeted us as we entered the clean but minimal white office in Lynbrook Shopping Centre, Cranbourne. From the time the friendly English lady gave my husband & I a scratchie each, I was unsure about how genuine this place was. We handed over the obligatory $40 after my husband scratched 3 suns & I wasn't a "winner". We were given the sign-up form which I read carefully before signing & were given our $40 deposit back (phew!) We realised that the presentation was going to be an individual one with a Canadian from Alberta named "Allen Davison". Friendly-enough guy. Went through the LONG pre-spiel of what our holiday preferences were, etc. I noticed the winning card was tucked away quickly behind the computer screen after handing it over. An hour of questions later & we'd really both had enough, wondering how my husband hadn't said no when the lady had grabbed his attention walking past Classic's stand at our local Forest Hill Chase Shopping Centre. We were honest & said that the $300 deposit & ongoing years of fees just weren't financially viable for us either now right before Xmas or into the future. Who knows what will happen to their financial state in 10 years time, let alone 40! Then "Tom" with the glasses approached us, shook our hands, etc & sat down next to me. We didn't know where this guy fitted in the scheme of things. A manager or something. He gave us the HARD SELL even more than the other guy. Making us feel totally belittled with claims of how we could afford to stay at hotels for an average of $110 a night & how they they could save us a fortune on this. He made me actually feel physically ill with how close he was to the right side of my face. I was ready to walk out at this stage. He pushed SO hard to get us to sign up. 40 years for the price of 20, then 10 years when we said no to that. Then we were accused of "lying" about how we usually holidayed & that we had basically told them that we were in the market for affording this & we had sounded "SO EXCITED" about their deals. Who wouldn't?! It did sound great all laid out in front of us. After he had offered us the 10 year minimum & we said no as we just couldn't afford the outlay, deposit, etc, even at his huge surprise that we "couldn't afford to pay a regular $20 a week that everyone spends on stuff they don't really need! "Tom" looked at Allen & said along the lines of "that's why we do a screen/qualification before they come in" & his expression & mood suddenly changed to a hard look that made me feel quite intimidated & a couldn't care less attitude like we were pieces of dirt under his feet. "I'll leave you be then" & walked off to sit with the couple behind us, leaving us with our original consultant who tried again to sell us the same thing. He then said he would get someone to give us our scratchie prize. Another rep came over to do a survey of what we thought of our original rep Allen. We gave a good report because he wasn't particularly pushy unlike the second guy & then this third one started to try to get us in as well, wanting to know why we couldn't commit to it here & now! There was no mention of this stuff when flogging us the scratchie ticket at the stall, just the promise of the free holiday after attending the 90 min presentation. I knew in my waters there & then it didn't sound right. I explained again about the cost & how my work earnings varied too much week to week to commit to something so set in stone. The last guy then tried to sell us a "trial" over 3 years. We said no to that as well. We were given our free 7 day holiday card, walked to the front room & bid a good night. We couldn't get out of there quick enough! Even though I was FURIOUS at the way "Tom" had spoken to us & made us feel very small, belittled & invaded about our financial situation, I was relieved we had survived & been smart enough not to sign up for anything. BEWARE, BEWARE, BEWARE! Just keep on walking past these scammers at the shopping centres, it's just not worth the financial risk.

I was told there was places to stay in Newcastle and Brisbane when we joined up but the closet one to Newcastle is 30 min drive each way.If I wanted to stay at the Gold Coast or Suneshine Coast I would but there is no places to stay in Brisbane

Its a total scam. In short what they are selling is this:
You pay $20, 000 upfront. Then you pay $266 every year to retain membership. In return they promise you accommodation at the prices you would normally pay at similar ### hotels.

Well, I'd just be repeating the same procedures that drew us also, into the 2.5hr presentation, with loud music trying to hear a quiet Korean consultant. ( lovely guy ). We signed up yesterday, no one at all, verbally informed us of the 7 day cooling off period, I just happened to ask if there was a 7 - 10 day cooling off and was told yes, 7 days. It just struck me that we have to pay $165 for the next 75 years! I'm embarrassed to say we went for it, with 4 young children it looked like such a great way to see travel dreams come true, just not through Classic Escapes I guess.

Surely now its confirmed its a scam..8/9/13 Sunday.. One week before our flight we went to the market and the lady gave us this scratchie and luckily i won the 3 stars she said its a $2000 cash, holiday or TV, but surely the min prize that we can get is $1000 JB hifi voucher.. So yeah we gave them $50, we booked the 90minutes presentation Saturday 14/9/13 one day before we leave the country.. Now my question How can they process evrything without doing credit check? Like even if we did not give them any financial background .. Yes we sadly signed the papers but we haven't handed them anything like payslips or bank account, when we signed the papers they know that we will be overseas the next day for 3 weeks ( they even put a footnote on their papers that we will be out of the country for 3 weeks) so we dont have time to recheck all the freakin papers and they havent told us about the bloody 7 days cooling off period.. Now when we come back from our holiday i ring them because we received an email from them asking for our proof of income such as payslips sadly signed the papers but we haven't handed them anything like payslips or bank account, when we signed the papers they know that we will be overseas the next day for 3 weeks so we dont have time to recheck all the freakin papers and they havent told us about the bloody 7 days cooling off period.. Now when we come back from our holiday i ring them because we received an email from them asking for our proof of income such as payslips and bank infos so that they can finalise our application.. That means "IS NOT YET FINALISE" "NOT YET PROCESS" but when my husband ring them to cancel and don't continue the process they said "WE CANT DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT COZ WE ALREADY SIGNED A CONTRACT" watta ###! ITS A PIECE OF PAPER THAT THEY CAN THROW WERE EVEN HAPPY TO GIVE EVERYTHING BACK TO THEM OR THEY CAN KEEP OUR $300 DEPOSIT JUST DONT FINALISE IT.. WE TOLD THEM WERE ON FINANCIAL ### RIGHT NOW BUT THEY STILL INSIST TO GET MY PAYSLIP AND ACCOUNT INFO SO THEY CAN CONTINUE THE THING? SO NOW TELL ME IS THIS NOT A TOTAL SCAM? Forcing people to continue to become a member? And now im reading all this comments .. Someone should STOP THIS CRAZINESS or else they will really ruin a lot of peoples life.. Checking on The Current Affairs now!

These guys are "selling" there product at Fountain Gate Shopping Centre in Melbourne. My wife and I were given the scratchies and didn't win but the lovely English lady said she had a spare winning ticket we could use as a previous person wasn't over 25 years old and was inallagiable. She congratulated us on winning "free" accommadation to either Queensland, Thailand and bali with only a $200 cleaning fee to be payed. Then the questions started, age, income, how many holidays do you have a year bla bla bla and finished with a booking at their promotional meeting in Lynbrook with a refundable $40 payment which we handed over. We walked away feeling a little uneasy about what just took place so we decided to do some googling and came across a lot of these forums saying how there scammers. After an hour of contemplating this, we returned and asked for our $40 back to which the lady obliged after I told her about the unfavourable comments on google. Strangely for a lady who told us she had worked with this company for 5 years mainly on the Sunshine Coast and the last 3 months in Melbourne and had taken numerous trips with this company herself she knew nothing about the $20, 000 sign up to be part of there "club" which I find hard to believe. I agree with the previous person who said they probably work just within the law but prey on gullible people who will struggle to get value out of this. Once more, if it's to good to be true it ain't good!

This complaint well describes how we were approached in September 2013 at another Sydney shopping centre. The english girl went on about 'are you lucky' and so forth. The impression we had at the shopping centre was that this was a travel agent. Only after talking for quite some time were the admissions that we had to sit through a session of 90 minutes to get our prize. Silly us we paid the $50 and said we'd go to the session. I came home and began researching. I spent a lot of time on the classic escapes website. I found the bonus week's area very interesting. Bundaberg or Bateman's Bay a week in a studio apartment was $199. Also on their website I found confirmation of the $199 booking fee. Our daughter is a travel agent with an insurance writing certification. You have to be certified to sell insurance legally. Also you have to give the PDS before the papers are signed for insurance to make it legal. When she saw the reviews here describing PDS and insurance issues, she just started yelling about breaking the law. Also she tells me you can book a week for 2 on the gold coast from Sydney for approx $1200 including airfares. So its not cheap, and its not tempting. I would be more inclined to buy into an actual physical time share than this point based rubbish. There you physically have a week in a certain building every year. Simple and easy. My sister's family has a time share and its just fine.This points system is crazy, the PDS stuff is borderline at best and their marketing techniques set off alarm bells that ring "scam". I suspect they operate just inside the law. My recommendation - If you've got a spare $20k buy it if you want maybe it'd be ok, but if you don't have it, don't bother. If you know you can't afford $20K when they give you the clipboard and ask you to sit down and give them still more personal information, right at the beginning of the 'presentation' visit; sit down for a moment and have a good long look at what they want to know. Put the clipboard on the seat and walk out and keep walking. Thank you to all the other souls who sent us well prepared into the hard sell. I'm not buying. I may at some point in the future buy a real time share, but classic escapes points system and the hard sell just smells of scam.

Dear Annnnn155555,
We are sorry to hear your comments and suggest you call our office to discuss how to best use your membership.
Classic Holidays

We signed up years ago with Classic after the same enticement was handed to us. We were silly enough to sign up and have regretted it since. Their contract was complicated and the scheme itself was complicated with not everything being explained and avoidance of questions. I have rung Classic many times complaining and all questions are avoided. They are totally unhelpful. Stating that your company has been around a long time probably means you have scammed enough people and have enough in your deep pockets to keep the scam going. Booking holidays is tedious and when ever I ring the resort as a non Classic member, there are plenty of rooms. Then I ring as a member of "The Club" and suddenly 2 minutes later there are NO rooms. What a scam. Would love to get rid of this chain of yearly debt, but no-one wants to join and I don't blame them. Their legal eagles have certainly earned their money. Good to see many people are not being taken in and complaining. Hopefully something legally will happen. Annnnn155555

My husband and I have just got back from one of their presentations.After an hour and a half of avoiding telling us what membership would cost and talking temptingly about Paris and other wonderful holiday destinations we were gob-smacked with the $20, 000+ cost to join up.When we said "No way" they quickly dropped the price to as low as $8, 000! Now we are back home and have tried to book our "free holiday" and we can't even find 'THE REDEMPTION CENTRE" section on the website to claim our "prize". The places we looked up were mostly "sold" anyway. In very small writing at the bottom of our "prize card" it says " Subject to availability and the terms and conditions on our website"...So I think that there is no "AVAILABILITY" for we "prize winners" ...They certainly don't make it easy to claim your "prize" and I think most people just give up as it's all too hard. Do they really have week long stays for all their prize "winners" available? On their website it says something about 37, 000 winners of our "prize" to either Thailand, Bali or the Gold Coast...THAT'S a lot of "free" holiday winners! Could it be that they don't expect them all to take up the offer?

I also was handed a winning scratchie ticket*WINK WINK*..last week, and paid my $50 deposit to attend the TWO HOUR
presentation..i did receive the deposit back when we attended the presentation..but definitely this deal was not for me..and of course the prize I won was for a* FREE* weeks holiday with a $199.00 admin fee...carefull people when dealing with this mob...it may not be a scam..but definitely not completely honest!

Dear Mr H

We are disappointed to read your comments on this forum and we can assure you our company is not a fraud. Classic Holidays is a well-respected and reputable company, we are currently celebrating 35 years of operation, with over 45, 000 members who enjoy the many benefits their memberships provide for them. We pride ourselves on our customer service, we take our member’s needs seriously and we are also sympathetic and empathetic towards their needs and situations. We are very sorry to hear of your current financial situation, however we understand that your comments refer to the loan you have taken out to purchase your membership and that you signed all the relevant loan documentation including the Application for Loan Insurance. In relation to the Loan insurance, as is standard practice, when a member cancels their loan insurance, the refund for this insurance is credited towards the loan. We understand the refund for the cancelled loan insurance has been credited to your loan thereby reducing the balance payable by you. We also understand that your case has been reviewed by the finance company involved and reduced loan payments have been offered to assist you during this difficult time. May we suggest that you contact the Finance Company directly so that these arrangements can be implemented as soon as possible so as to assist you during this time of hardship.

Classic Holidays > classic scam..
Against my better judgement on maybe a weaker moment for me after the 3 hours of garbage and reduction after reduction in prices my partner and i signed up . Signed up to what only becomes obvious after the fact...I was led to believe we were securing a membership, not actually taking out a loan, then as you read what seems to be only available AFTER you become a member is usually cheaper elsewhere or out of the way or its fully booked. After 2 years have gone by and we have found ourselves in dire financial situations, after contacting Classic and sending through mountains of documentation to prove what we were telling them was the truth, it was suggested i should contact the mortage insurance people to make a claim to payout the loan ...Hello what mortage insurance i asked ? further more how much did this so called mortage insurnace i knew totally nothing about, actually cost me, another $ 1000.00 i was told, so i contacted the company and was asked for details, well surprise surprise anther scam, this was the result, they asked for the club membership no, i gave that and the membership was in both mine and my partners names, so this is what i was then told, i am sorry Mr H but the mortage insurance is only in your name and just to check who are you employed by, my answer is i am self employed, which i am, once again, we are sorry Mr H however if you are self employed you can not get mortage insurance and this policy is worthless and their will be no payout, and also the fact it is only in your name which does not correspond to the Classic Membership...Further to that i asked to be refunded the mortage fees be reimbursed to me, however surprise surprise the funds were sent to Classic, after realising the whole set up is really fraud, i contacted Classic back to which the CEO basically laughed and said stiff that is how it works .. After receiving another account for fees i have advised i would take action in regards to what amounted to fraud, their reactiojn was to send a letter immediately, basically blackmailing me if i should do anything they will file a credit default and sell me up ...Obviously they have not read all the info i sent and i already have a credit default so this dear readers is how Classic Holidays operate they are shonks, scammers liars to be avoided at all cost ...Current Affairs really need to do a story on these people to expose just what Claasic is really about .

Thank you so much for all your reviews - we got a winning card on Saturday and paid our $50 - now knowing all this I think it will worth losing my $50 rather than having to go through the hassle of telling them 'no' - it's definitely not something we would be interested in. They also gave us a big speech about how they have to give away 50 prizes each month, blah, blah, blah but now I've looked up their website it says everyone gets a prize by attending - so that wasn't what the lady at DFO Homebush led us to believe. Next time I'll definitely know better.

Once singed is there any way to stop the wasting money? Anyone knows? Please...

Does the 45, 000 members include all the timeshare owners who have units in this managed complexes. If you recall the timeshares were being sold as per week so that was 52 owners per unit. What I see to be important for anyone considering Classic Escapes is to weigh it up. We attended a presentation and 'had to decide there and then'. If you are paying $20, 000 plus (in our case NZ$26, 000) and your annual fees (NZ$350) and say you have 20 years of travel ahead of you that's in the regions of $1200+ (or NZ $1650) a year before you even go on holiday. If you only take one major holiday a year you need to add this $1200 ($1650) to your 'cheap' accommodation, plus there are the airfares. My research has shown me that you can get package holidays for a lot cheaper than Classic Escapes...why do you think they pressure you to buy at the presentation.

I so agree with the complaint! Once you signed up like we did they ignore you we're trying to take this to court we're getting as many feedback from other members as well! They promised us cheaper accommodation ### you can find cheaper elsewhere & book it when you need we are paying bloody $195 annual fee + $220 monthly fee and we can't even bloody use it TOTAL SCAM TOTAL WASTE OF MONEY DO NOT SIGN UP!

I was given my scratchie cards inside a theme park on the Gold Coast, after giving the sales rep the $20 I went into guest services where I asked the girl behind the counter if it was a scam, she told me that she had worked for the company handing out cards in a Shopping Centre in Surfers and that she knew which cards were the winning cards. My partner and I went along to the presentation where we were given the $20 back upon arrival. The presentation had all the bells and whistles and even a tour of a room in the Chevron Renaissance to try and sweeten the deal. We were out of the presentation in under 90 mins and sure enough we also won the 7 nights accommodation prize. What my curiosity is about this, Has anyone claimed the prize with the gift card paying the $199 booking fee/cleaning fee

My husband and I were shopping at the local shopping centre and were handed a scratchy to scratch. I scratched mine first and won. My husband was given 3 tickets and still didn't win anything. We decided to go along with this. We were very sceptical about the whole thing. After we asked lots of questions about whether it was time share or anything and how much it was. The English sales lady avoided all the questions with other questions. She then asked us to hand over $40 as a deposit and to be refunded when we arrived. We refused point blank to hand over the $40 and then she said that she will put the money in for us if we guaranteed to go. We agreed to this. We went along to the presentation. We were greeted by a young lady in hot pink heels. She was very loud and bubbly. Talked non stop. The receptionist asked us a million questions about us and our personal lives whilst we waited in reception. When we went through to the room, the music was playing really loudly. Its like a really relaxed atmosphere. That's where it all stops. The sales assistant in hot pink heels chats and laughs and is really friendly while she is asking you questions about how much you think your holidays will cost for the next 75 years etc. After 2 and a half hours with a headache from the loud music and all the sales talk, we finally got the price $20990. We nearly fell off our seat. At the start she asked us if at the end of the presentation to give her a one word answer if we are interested yes or no so as to not waste her time. When the price came up they left my husband and I to talk and we said no. They came back and we told hot pink heels NO. She then said why. We explained that its too expensive. She said ok, went and got her boss who then came over and did the hard sell. He offered us other deals like take it over 20 years or even 15 years so its cheaper. This is such a scam. When we first went in and sat down they asked how much we pay for accommodation etc when travelling. We do travel overseas once a year. We explained around $200 a night. They worked this out to be around $1400 for 7 nights. When you multiply this by the cost for 15 years which was around $15000 there is no saving whatsoever. The price works out to be the same. There is also lots of ongoing fees and the fine print says membership is only valid for as long as the club lasts. Well, that's not much good paying out all that money if they go broke in 5 years time. After they tried the hard sell for a while we just said NO. We were prepared to get up and walk out without getting our so called winning prize. We won the accommodation. When I have gone online to look up the accommodation, the Gold Coast hotel doesn't even have a proper bed in the room, it only has a fold out sofa. We decided not to redeem this offer at all. I wouldn't suggest signing up for it at all, you are just wasting your money. There are plenty of holiday packages and deals with reputable companies that will save you money and you don't have to pay $20000 to get it. Once we said no, the attitude changed. The boss stood over near the door ### about us to other staff members etc. The lady in hot pink heels suddenly became very defensive. All I can say is that I made a Classic Escape, straight out the door.

Well today at the food and wine festive in sydney, we to were handed a card, mine didn't win but my friend did, went through the while spill an how there are only 75 winners for the 3 days we were there and how lucky we were ( meanwhile the were 3 other people standing there with winning tickets) I asked was it time share and was told flat out - no it's not time share, my friend kept in going along and then it came to the part of handing over the cash to go to te presentation. In the meantime I aske the lady what was the name of the company she told me and I told my friend (in front of the lady) to wait as I wanted to google them, then of course I and across these stories, the lady representing them said as I was googling "like any company you will find good and bad feedback", I read some of the reviews an things about the company and said to my friend don't do it it sounds like a bit of a con job and will more than likely end up costing you money, the lady snapped at us, well do you want to do it or not, we said NO an her happy go lucky personality quickly changed as she snatched the "winning ticket" out of my friends hand, I couldn't help but giggle as we walked away and she started to ### to a co worker, I guess she's one down for her daily quota.
But I do wonder how many people hot stung there today, it was packed and they had 7 people working there counters.
The old saying came to mind, if it seems to good to be true then it probably is!

This is the most accurate complaint I have ever read about Classic Escapes.
I too got caught up in it all when the team handed my mum and I a card at our local shopping centre. I scratched a loser, however she scratched a "winner". I have to say, I didn't notice a difference in the two cards... that's because the sales assistant snapped them away too quickly for me to even see! She was congratulating my mum before she had even scratched off the final square? She didn't even see the card properly and she already knew she had won? Not fishy at all..

We handed over the $50 deposit and attended the presentation where the $50 was returned. TWO WHOLE HOURS we were there with the sales crew trying to sign us up for one of their travel programs. We didn't want anything to do with it, we never travel. Let's be honest, we only went to get back our $50 and try for the iPad.
We declined all offers and received a 7 day accommodation gift card to redeem online. Sure enough, there were so many Terms and Conditions we didn't bother to even use it ourselves.
... that was in August 2012.

Now, May 2013...
Classic Escapes are back in the same local shopping centre - this time I've taken a closer look.
On their desk that's set up, there are two piles of scratch cards. One pile of losers, the other of winners, perhaps?
And, better yet, the sales assistant is the same person as last time. Watching on from a distance, she attempted to hand out scratch cards to EVERY SINGLE person that walked past. Out of about 30 people, I saw 3 or 4 sign up with her, scheduling a time and handing over $50 - all of them with joy on their face.
I walked over and the sales assistant turned her back on me. I stood there and waited to be handed a scratch card. Nothing. She completely ignored me. It was like I wasn't even there.

I wonder why...

Hi Lesley
We haven't booked anything as yet as we are planning to travel next year and haven't organized flights yet. We expect to book in the next fortnight or so. We have made a few calls to 'test run' availability of hotels and all seems to be fine. Originally they misunderstood our timing thinking it was in a few weeks time rather than 12 months, and they still found some options for us. Fingers crossed the offer will be as good in practice as it sounds. It will be tested in the next few weeks!