Use Booking.com to book your next timeshare resort holiday for less?

More and more timeshare owners are frustrated to see supposedly “exclusive” resorts advertised to the general public on booking platforms such as Booking.com and Expedia.

When timeshare promised an escape from disappointing holidays

Timeshare can feel old-fashioned now, but it first gained traction in the 1980s by addressing a genuine concern for holidaymakers. Many people remember media stories about “holidays from hell” — trips where hotels looked impressive in the brochure but turned out to be a let-down on arrival.

Families would arrive expecting a beautiful hotel or apartment, only to find building work, tired complexes or accommodation in poor condition instead.

With little choice, many tried to make the best of it, telling themselves it was only somewhere to sleep and that they would spend most of their time on the beach anyway — whether in the Canary Islands or on the Spanish Costas.

Those experiences made holidaymakers more receptive to the idea of paying extra for guaranteed standards — and they became prime targets for expensive timeshare deals.

“A bit of luxury” — and the promise of consistent standards

By the late 1990s, touts were a common sight in many of Europe’s most popular resorts, using high-pressure sales tactics to persuade holidaymakers to sign timeshare contracts.

The pitch was straightforward: pay to join, and you would get quality accommodation in a top complex — and enjoy the same high standards when exchanging and travelling elsewhere.

The price was steep. Many people paid thousands of pounds to join, plus an annual fee that often cost more than a standard holiday. For some, the peace of mind made it feel worthwhile.

For years, timeshare memberships often delivered on that promise, and owners felt reassured they wouldn’t arrive to find accommodation that fell short.

Then, in the early years of the new century, the travel industry began to change — and timeshare resorts started to fall behind.

Why timeshare began to lose its advantage

One major shift was the rapid rise of sites such as TripAdvisor and other review platforms built on user-generated content. Travellers could check honest feedback from previous guests and find out what hotels and apartments were really like.

Because these reviews weren’t written as marketing, they helped people avoid unpleasant surprises.

As a result, fewer holidaymakers saw the need to pay thousands upfront for a timeshare membership — especially with an expensive annual fee on top.

For many resorts, this created a dilemma. Unsold inventory was bringing in no revenue, so renting out available weeks became an obvious way to fill gaps. The problem, of course, was how members would react when the “exclusive” resort was effectively open to anyone.

By 2022, almost all timeshare resorts could be booked by the public through sites such as Booking.com.

The last straw for owners: availability online, but not for members

"This was the last straw for most owners," says Andrew Cooper, CEO of European Consumer Claims (ECC). "We get calls from timeshare members whose resort is telling them there is no availability, when they can see the same week available on Booking.com. Often it costs less for a non-member to book online than the member pays in maintenance.

"There is no remaining justification for a timeshare owner to have paid tens of thousands of pounds for a membership when they have no benefits that are not available to the casual renter. This isn't what people paid all that money for. Their resorts are effectively changing the deal without offering any compensation in return.

"Booking through the online sites as a non-member is clearly preferable, because they can come and go as they please. They are not contractually obliged to pay every year for something they may not want to use, unlike the timeshare owners."

"Luckily, since 2016 ECC, together with their associated firm of timeshare lawyers M1 Legal, have been helping people to escape these dated and constrictive membership contracts."

People who bought their timeshare after 1999 may have another path back to freedom: "Spain enacted laws to protect consumers from high-pressure timeshare sales in January of that year," says Cooper. "Arrogantly, the large majority of resorts ignored those laws, and as a result all the contracts they wrote after that were illegal. Right now, courts are awarding significant amounts of compensation to owners who were mis-sold with those illegal contracts."

If you would like to find out more about getting out of a timeshare contract, or you want to find out if you may be due compensation, contact Timeshare Advice Centre today for a free consultation.