Classic Holidays / Classic Leisure
reviews and complaints

This product was sold to us know that we were two working individuals with 3 children at the time now 4. The resorts are never available during school holidays even when booking nearly a year in advance. We have not been given any free holiday which was how we were conned in the first place. We have attemped a few times to book but never available or more expensive that booking direct with resport.

ICE took $599 for a 2 for one package and we were unable to use it for the below reasons and they decline to offer any refund.

35 Holyman Drive

Prospect Vale 7250
Tasmania
Tel [protected]
Mob [protected]
Email j. [protected]@bigpond.com
Ice
Natahlia Austin
Customer Resolutions Specialist

Hi Natahlia

What a disappointing company.

You have demonstrated
1 ICE customer resolutions is meaningless.
2 ICE has narrow minded financial policies.

I will therefore,
1 inform others of your poor service.
2 use in future a trust worthy travel company.
3 Inform classic holidays and the Beach-house of the shabby customer service.
4 suggest to Classic they source another company.

Please do not contact us and remove our email.

Jack Hummerstone
28/9/2012
— On 24/08/2021 1:48 pm, AP-Resolutions wrote:

Good afternoon Jack,
Thank you again for your email response & attachment.
As previously discussed there is no refund being processed for your membership, the decision remains unchanged. We have been able to provide sufficient extensions for your certificates at no additional cost and this will again be reviewed should the restrictions remain.
You are within your right to seek independent advice, should we be contacted on your behalf we will certainly cooperate and provide any relevant information to support our decision.
We truly do hope we are able to support you as a valued member and assist you with your future travel arrangements.

Kind regards
Natahlia Austin
Customer Resolutions Specialist
Our Vacation Centre
Office: [protected]
Hours: Mon - Fri 07:30 am - 07:00 pm AEST | Sat 09:00 am - 07:00 pm AEST | Sun 09:00 - 06:00 pm AEST
natahlia. [protected]@ourvacationcentre.com
—
Natahlia Austin
Customer Resolutions Specialist
My reasonds for requesting a refund are:
1. It wasn't possible to travel due to virus restrictions and lockdowns.
2. It is an unfinished contract.
3. Travel bookings weren't available due to virus restrictions.
4. As a couple in our 80's, it was unsafe to travel and death was a high possibility due to the Corona virus.
5. Sea cruises ceased due to deaths, lock downs, State restrictions and the high virus infection rate.
6. Your cold calling technique placed us under pressure.
7. The product that was sold to us was deceptive and offered unattainable results.
8. As a couple in our eighties and of ill health your consultant took advantage of our vulnerability.
9. Your consultant promised cruises and more that we couldn't use.
10. No expenditure was involved by your company as no service was provided.
11. As age pensioners with limited income the recovery of this money is vital.
12. At no time has it been safe to travel and presently the situation has further deteriorated.
13. Giving us an extension is worthless as for the foreseeable future it is unwise and dangerous to travel.
Regards
Jack Hummerstone
j. [protected]@bigpond.com

Hi, my name is Brian kopu

Ive tried to get access to my account but it won't allow me in using this email. Ive tried prompting with the "forgotten password" avenue but no email is sent to allow me to change passwords. As you can see from the below email and reply that you've sent that this is email that is connected to the membership 1415279. I would access to my account ASAP. If you can manually reset the password that would be appreciated.

To whom it may concern,
My name is Brian kopu and I wish to cancel my membership with classic Holliday's.
I have tried on many occasions to use this membership and the service was very disappointing to say the least. I have contacted classic Holliday's on 3 occasions to help me with overseas holidays and each time I was told I had to do it myself. In the 10 plus years that I have been a member with classic Holliday's I have not used them once. I was also promised an overnight accommodation with a bottle of champagne in Sydney city but that didn't happen because they were all booked out for the next couple of months. Therefore I wish to cancel my membership and have all the money I paid refunded that I have paid over the 10 plus years

We agree with all the complaints made by other buyers of this holiday product. That we were bamboozled into signing the contract without having time to read it through we were told we had to sign today or the offer would expire.
We booked holidays on a couple of occasions only to find that we arrived and the booking had been messed up and not what we expected.
We have tried to get the company to discuss some sort of compensation but were offered a gag order to sign to allow us to get out of the contract without any financial compensation we invested $ 20.000 and expected better service. We have a 10yr contract with 40.000 points My husband has recently suffered a brain injury which makes taking holidays extremely difficult

Cheers Anne & Peter Press Member number 2867054

We bought this membership on 2018, same thing we got the scratch and wea told we won in 5 days accommodation in Malaysia and set the date for consultation or whatever they called. Being first time to win got excited and head to their office. Held to see the presentation i may say they are really good to con people. I say this because they all over you just to encourage you to sign for membership. Believe what they say they got the membership and didn't realised we paid more because of the interest that they gave us thru lender freedom they called. After that we haven't use the 5 days in Malaysia that they say we won because we're busy working to pay for the product plus the membership fee every year. And when I came back to them to ask if they can extend it they can't as its already lapse.. and even the two in one service was expired and the only way we can use use it its to pay extra. And same with everybody its more cheaper to book on your own than to look for their website. Didnt bother to complain about that because every time you call then it's takes you so much time just to talk to them and I don't have time as I'm busy working to pay for the too much expensive product. And when I called them to tell them I don't want the service anymore and if there's any way I can get it out of it the Costomer service told me to sell it privately as they don't sell. She even mentioned to me to post in ebay like everybody else. The question was how the hell you will pay for membership fee every year when you didn't enjoy the product and the service? I want to return it too. I hope is there any way to do that .

Rhia

I to have tried to opt out of their " holiday "club but we are constantly being harassed by them for more money. Would very much like to pursue a class action against this company.

20/2/2021
To whom it may concern,
When we were asked to join, a very lengthy process, we were chosen via a random person in a shopping centre.
We attended to meeting for information about timeshare holidays.
We decided this seemed like a good idea, we joined.
When we got home, 4 days later, we had decided that we would not go ahead with this product.
We looked into the cancellation policy and found we were over the 7 day cooling off period. Living in rural Australia, we did not realise the documentation would take so long to receive, even through email.
We decided to give it a go.
We tried booking a few places to stay, always with lengthy phone calls and emails, the 2 places we booked were not any cheaper than if I had booked them myself.
When we wanted to book accommodation for a special event on our lives it took 2-3 weeks before the consultant contacted us, we had already organised our own accommodation.
When we finally used our 7 day package reward, we found the accommodation 2 star at best.
When we have tried to contact the company we have had limited response from the contact person in how to exit the contract.
This timeshare company charges us $200 a year in administration fees, yet we receive nothing in return for this.
We have tried to cancel this membership a few times to no avail.
We have decided this timeshare is not in our best financial interests and would like to cancel the membership.
We have searched reviews etc and have come to realise that this cancellation of our policy will possible be difficult to exit.
We would like to cancel this membership please, and like some advice as to how to do this.
Kylie and Bernard Scott

I rang today to ask about cancelling our membership, which we have had over 20 years and it has been used once.
We are no longer in a financial suitation to keep paying this.
I don't want any refund I just don't want this.

Being told that I have to have this for life or that the only way to get rid of it is to sell it. Who would buy it.
Please Classic help us out of this.

Please can someone help me cancel this nightmare

On the 2nd of July 2019 family members of mine who are long time members of Classic Holidays attended a sales presentation to your newest holiday club program after a team member approached them while staying at the Beach House Seaside resort.
Both members who are now 83 year old had been suffering from flu like illness while on vacation and were feeling under the weather. However they felt it would be impolite of them to decline the presentation so attended. While attending this high pressure sales presentation the members were sold a product that they did not understand. The members were told information which lead them to believe that there current 2BRM Floating week at Beach House Seaside was soon to be extinct and that classic was moving towards operating on a points only basis. Upon reading the original documents from the purchase of the 2BRM Floating week I was unable to find an end date so believe the sales pitch was unconscionable and misleading.

When the members returned home to New Zealand and had recovered from their illness they looked through all the relevant information of their new membership and shared this with me. It became very clear that neither had understood what they had purchased and were not given the opportunity to exercise their rights to seek further professional advice after the presentation. Instead the focus from the team members was to have them sign on the day.

The members sent an e-mail to Giselle Clare, Customer Relations Manager on 25th July 2019 outlining their concerns and asked what the procedure was for a refund. There have been a few e-mails and a phone conversation on 31st July 2019 where it was outlined to Giselle that the members were already receiving similar benefits with their existing membership and purchasing the Aspire membership has limited and to no financial benefit to them.

I demonstrate the following calculation so show a true cost of the membership

$20, 960.00 Aspire Membership 20, 000
$990.00 One off establishment fee
-$4, 000.00 Discount for trade-in
$17, 950 AUD Initial Total

In addition to that, every year there are "annual fees"

$199.00 Annual Fee (Early bird)
$690.00 Maintenance Levy (3.45cents per point, calculation based on 20, 000 points) this may go up over time
$889.00 AUD Total per year

Based on records available from previous years PDS I believe it is fair to apply a 5% inflation to the maintenance and annual fee at the "early bird" rate I have calculated that to be $9744.00 AUD spread over 10 years been the length of the new membership. Please see attached document for more detail calculations.

A total cost over ten years would be $27, 724.00AUD (the initial cost plus fees), spread across each year this is $2772.40AUD

So for a 1 week holiday that works out at $396.05AUD a day. This is calculated at the standard or high booking period for a 2BEDROOM unit. Which is 71% of the year, the remaining 29% of the year would not be available to book without additional cost.

This is a significant difference to the cost demonstrated in the presentation. $690 AUD. - see sales representatives hand written note on the attached document.

If the members had continued with their membership as a week's member as they have for the past 18yrs the cost would be considerably lower, to make a fair comparison I will apply the same 5% inflation to the maintenance levy.
Annual maintenance fee of $850.00 AUD
Over ten years the total fees would be $10691.00AUD
Spread across each year this is $1069.10AUD.

So for a 1 week holiday that works out to $152.72AUD a day.

The new points membership at $27, 724.00AUD verse the above $10691.00AUD is unjustifiable and in no way can provide member benefits to justify the $17, 033AUD.

The above calculations demonstrate how the information provided in the sales presentation to the members are misleading and displayed unconscionable conduct.

I am requesting that the members are given a full refund of all monies paid towards the new membership and have their weeks membership reinstated.

On the 16th of September 2019 I received a reply which fails to address many of my issues raised above see the attached for reply.

I will now be lodging an application with ACCC, ASIC, AFCA, FSCL.

An interesting news story aired on a current affair program on 17th September which will be of interest to follow.

https://9now.nine.com.au/a-current-affair/a-current-affair-timeshare-schemes/82352d04-c7f0-4a34-8d9d-ea41d89e8779

I send an email through my Classic Holiday membership account last February 2019. I am yet to hear from them. But I am still getting invoices for a service my husband and I are not receiving. I am attaching the letter below, as I feel it says everything I still feel, but instead of cancelling my membership as mentioned in the letter, I would like to either get my money returned or receive a free holiday per year.

25 February 2019

RE: MEMBER NO. 1556368

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN

I am replying to a message I received when I was away last week from your office regarding overdue payment of my account.

Last year I contacted your office to let them know that I was having financial difficulties in paying my account as my husband had been out of work for some time.

I did try to pay a little, but it is still difficult at the moment.

I also did some thinking during that time, about how disappointed I was in Classic Holidays, as I paid over $20, 000 and have nothing to show for it.

Every time I have contacted Classic Holidays regarding a bonus week, I have always been told it is booked out. I seem to remember how excited I was at the "high pressured sale" to get us to sign up, that it was mentioned that the beauty of the bonus system was that there was always vacancies for Classic Holiday members, but this doesn't seem to be the case.

I feel that I have blown away $20, 000 into thin air, I have never received any free holiday weeks like a time share would, at least that would be something to look forward to, and to make matters worse, I am still charged an account fee each year and every 3 years I am charged a fee for the bonus weeks, which are never available for when I want them.

And even worse was when I paid over $20, 000 and I have staff from your office offering me weeks for money, like I can afford that after paying out $20, 000!

I have tried to sell my membership, but there are so many out there, I feel I should just give it away, even if it was just to save the $259 a year.

Therefore I would like to cancel my membership and for you to onsell it and pay out any moneys owed, because I just get angrier and angrier every time we get a bill for something that we can't use or is never available.

Regards
Aniko and Kevin deMalmanche

Paid $15, 000 for this membership that we felt would be the answer to our travel. But when push came to shove they have done nothing for us tried a couple of times to book, but it was either to expensive or there where hidden charges or could only be used during the week. They pushed for us to take the two for one holiday that they gave us but only to find out after we had booked and paid for that we could get the same thing for half the price that they charged us. We want out and our money back as they have not delivered what they promised

My wife and I were given free scratchies at a Supermarket as their promotion and we scratched all cards with a free Holiday. We were then talked into going into their office and given a 3 hour presentation and were told that it would cost us $50 and it would be refunded back to us, but wasn't. The presentation went on about how the process and the Timeshare is supposed to work and how different our life was going to be. We both felt trapped at the time and were pushed into making a decision. Unfortunately we decided to take it and then were sent into another room were the application for Finance was sorted. The finance was applied for, and we left and went home. We decided to keep the membership and about 3 months down the track we decide to claim our free holiday that was promised. to be told that we had to pay extra money on top to arrange which from memory was about $700, and then were told the resort that we were looking at wasn't on their list anymore. so the conversation ended with some not so nice words from myself and we left it at that. to cut a long story short i haven't seen any value for my $14800 finance as yet and have stop paying the payments to classic holidays as i am strapped for cash due to my marriage going through divorce and ive had to stop paying these payments that are just a hole in my pocket and nothing to show for it as i have not used this holiday scheme as yet and now classic holiday are trying to take me to Court to recover money. Im trapped in this and have no money to secure a lawyer.

We too are obtaining termination of membership based on breach of contract and failure to provide goods. We have been members less than a year, and have booked 2 holidays - both of which they have overcharged from the quote at the presentation, and one they failed to book what was asked (missing nights accommodation overseas).

We have been offered $7000 refund of our $10490 membership and after going to the Dept of Fair Trading and the Financial Ombudsman we finally have the 2 nights accommodation booked, and our transfer, but the stumbling block seems to be that we want to see the "cancellation deed" with non disclosure clause before agreeing to it and signing it. We were told the $3000 was an exit fee, which we have said they cant use that term as by their own PDS the exit fee is $315.

Leonie (Resolutions Officer) has done nothing to resolve the problem until the 11 hour with Financial Ombudsman. Like other complainants - she hides behind email and never rings, and fails to respond to emails in a way that would indicate that she has read the case thoroughly

Not sure why she is holding out, but we will stick to our guns, as this company is fraudulent in its presentations and there is no way we want to be associated with them, and dont trust them to provide the correct legal wording in the deed.

Hello my name is Vicki Fraser membership number 1307364 I wish to stop the membership program because my sitution and life style has changed. I no longer can afford the membership because I am now a DSP Pensioner and only receive $900 per fortnight. I am now divorced from Robert Fraser and I don't know where he is nor do any of my children no where he is. Robert has never used the membership and he has never paid any money towards the membership in fact he did't want to go into the program at the time and only signed the paperwork because he came with me and I was the one who was interested in the membership. I am the only one who used the points and went on the holidays.
I hope you look at my request and cancel my membership.
Yours faithfully
Vicki Fraser
[protected]

I have been trying to cancel my membership for the past 3 years. We were under the impression it was a 7 year membership only to learn today that it is for 40 years! We refuse to pay the membership subscription as we do not use the services but then risk getting a bad credit rating. Then also we get harassed by the finance company on the day the payment is due. It's such a joke and a really dumb decision we made. Especially when we can get much better holidays at a better rate through other online companies.

My husband and I were approached by a salesperson at our local shopping centre and handed several scratch cards until we so called "won a prize"' .We were then told in order to collect our prize we had to pay a deposit and when we attended a 2 hour presentation we would get our deposit back, which we did.
We travelled 45 minutes each way to attend this presentation and had to get a babysitter (as no children allowed).On completion of the presentation and them trying to sell us membership we declined. Because we had scratched a winning prize on the scratch card we received at our local shopping centre prior to this day, we were told we can receive our prize, which was 3-5 nights accomodation at any of the classic holidays in the booklet given to us that day.
In the process of wanting to book the getaway I noticed in the terms and conditons it says that after you book your getaway, you are required to attend a minimum 60 minute promo follow up during your stay! OMG! are you serious? I have already given you 2 hours of my time and after all it was suppose to be a PRIZE? At no time were we told that we would have to attend yet another presentation or follow up as they call it.
Im sorry but I feel like we have been misled and even though as I was told by staff on the phone when I complained, it is in the terms and conditions in the booklet-at no stage were we told this would have to occur in order for us to redeam our so called prize!
Totally peeved and will never stop for a classic holiday person again!
People beware!

To whom it may concern,

My name is Lillibeth Hullock of Unit 45/56 Farm Street, Newmarket Brisbane QLD. 4051. I joined on the 22/02/2015. I am not actually complaining of the services of this company all I want is to cancel my membership. The reason was I cannot afford to continue paying for what they call a loan that I haven't got and hardly use.

I am having financial difficulties and owed a lot of money that I spent when mother passed away overseas (Philippines)and I don't even know how to pay for it all. Now I also have to support the rest of my family that was left behind. I realized that this money I am paying Classic Holiday can help help my family instead.

At first I thought I will benefit from it but I just keep paying and I realized that it was a waste of my money that I never have. I payed almost $7, 000
since I joined in and I used it once that I can remember of.

I don't want any refund of the money I have already given them. all I want is to cancel my membership.

Thanks for your consideration.

Sincerely yours
Lillibeth Hullock

Account 1555719

After being told I can get out any time I want at the sales pitch, I was told today that I can not ever exit the membership . I just want to get out, the deals/prices are not what they promised, and the locations are not where I want to go, which is not what I was told in the presentation, the flexibility is no good for accommodation dates . I was duped, scammed and now I have to pay fees for a service I never use because it is not what was sold to me. Please help me get out of this scam.