We were sold a 3 night resort package at Westgate Resorts that included a membership to Interval International. We were told that we could use Interval International, just like our RCI membership, to exchange timeshare weeks. I just spoke to Naomi, from Interval International and she claimed we do not have a membership with Interval International, that will allow us to exchange timeshare weeks. This was an outright lie by the Westgate Resort representative, in order to sell this package. I called and asked for my money back and spoke to a manager, Michelle, who refused to refund our money.

We had purchased a Westgate time share in 2005 on the assumption that we would be able to travel the world with it. Upon finding this was much harder to do than we had been told. Unfortunately upon staying in Flamingo Bay in 2009 we were told we needed to go to an owners meeting. Going there was a huge mistake. We were talked into paying out another $6000 to upgrade to Planet Hollywood. We were told that because this was on the strip we would have a much easier time exchanging it. I was devastated to later find out that we had been conned into exchanging our 7 days for only 4 days, and finding out we could no longer exchange at all. The contract is very ambiguous and I really can't see how they can get away with it.

I purchased a 5 bedroom timeshare at Westgate-Gatlinburg in October 2010. The financing offer was a down payment and payments over 10 years. The option was to pay 50% within 60 days and remainder over 3 years with no interest. My plan was to use the option within the allotted time. After about 45 days, I received a call from the accounting/deeding department in Orlando indicating that Westgate wanted to close loans and was willing to offer an incentive (5% discount) to pay it off within the 60 day period. I asked and it was confirmed that paying the loan off 100% would not incur any interest. The answer was YES, NO INTEREST. I asked for the payoff total and authorized the payment from my credit card. In January, I received a notice that I had paid $200.97 in interest. When I questioned why interest was charged, I received several fabricated stories but finally they said I broke the contract by paying the loan off early and therefore they could charge interest. (I still have the recording from Westgate representative stating the payoff would be a no interest loan payoff. ) An appeal to the local business closure person who wrote up the “no interest” loan provision caved in to the home office and indicated that if I took them to court. They would provide numerous witness stating that I agreed to be charged interest. This is a total fabrication and I challenged them to listen to their tape recording of phone calls to prove it. They would not. An appeal to David Seigal, president, resulted in no response. The lesson is that even though a contract is in writing, they can change their mind and dare you to sue them. Any future purchasers of a time-share from Westgate, do not believe anything that is told to you nor anything that is in writing. Just bend over, grab your knees and hold on.

Changes in present contracts affecting old owners in a negative manner!
1. no longer able to visit the property if in the area (something we were able to do when we first signed on- a perk we loved since we live close to the property)
2. exchange fees changed- we bought in a high activity week (thanksgiving) and now it is not considered a premium week due to changes they have made to booking. So if I want to exchange into Christmas, Easter, or a few other "Premium weeks", I have to pay a higher fee. NOT HOW WE BOUGHT INTO THE CONTRACT.
3. NOW not able to exchange into ANY resort in Orlando- there is a "geographical block". Have been able to exchange in the past to wherever needed - again a new change to the contract.
I have been an owner since 1991- the changes are NOT beneficial to my usage, and am has ruined my enjoyment of being an owner with Westgate. I have had other issues but this one finally pushed me to complain so that NO ONE BUYS INTO WESTGATE!!! Your contract you sign will not be what you really get!

My name is Alex Sabogne. I purchase a deal from Westgate Resorts back in February. It cost me about 5000 dollars to get into this membership (8weeks) with your resort plus a leisure time passport membership.

After finally paying my last monthly payment, I received a welcome letter from your company and a leisure time passport number that entitles me to go anywhere in the world at a DISCONTED RATE.

Well, to my surprise, I went to your website and looked to see how many resorts you have and where can I spend time with my family to find you only have 28 resorts all around the US (Orlando, Miami, Branson, Robinsonville, Las Vegas, Myrtle Beach, Gatlinburg, Park City, and Williamsburg). I remember the day of our meeting, one of your sales reps pointed a big plate you had on the lobby, with David Siegels (billionaire) name on it. She said, that he was a founder of this amazing resort, club, etc.. so it gave some type of reassurance that you are picking a good company to do business with. Well to make story short, typical marketing scam. You are just using a big name to sell bad products.

What makes me angry is not only I need to pay $199 to continue the club, but also $500 every time I travel, and in top of that the $5000 that lets you become a member. It makes me upset to have overlooked this HORRIBLE DEAL, if you can call it like that.

And this is not all, I found that by searching for a deal in Expedia, Trip advisor, Hotwire, and some other companies, I get the same type of discount through your company that doing a regular search on the websites mentioned above. Take a look at my attachments.

I look to see if you offer better prices for Disney tickets and NO same price, I looked for hotels deals, NO same price, and I look for airline discount and NO same price. So what you are just doing is creating a portal through your website showing the same type of information. I mean I build websites for living; I could start doing this also and make people believe they are purchasing the deal of a life time, but you know what, I have a conscious.

So my regular search without havent wasted $5000 + $199 yearly +$500 every time I travel, would have better if I saved the money and do the search on my own.

To add to this AMAZING DEAL, the special deals that you have on the side, for Las Vegas, Bahamas, Cancun, etc. not to my surprise are about 10 dollars discounted, I mean, WHY DID I PAY 5000 DOLLARS FOR. Your deals are no deals. In some cases the prices on my search were cheaper than your mentioned discount so please explain to me or if possible give me a refund for the money I spend, because up to this date it makes no sense to me why do you sell this horrible deal.

I am very, but very upset how I got tricked into buying this, as when I bought it you gave me the impression that I was going to receive 4 free weeks plus 4 weeks at discounted price.

I am trying to think how can I make this better and avoid thinking I wasted my money but there is no way of doing this. Trying to sell this weeks on Ebay or Craiglist is going to create more hassle, and this is something I shouldnt even been considering but what other options do I have.