The Manhattan Club

I complained about the same thing all of the other owners here have stated. The simple fact of the matter is that the management just does not care about what their timeshare owners think. Then, they have the audacity to contact us regularly for referrals! What are they thinking we are telling our friends? I have spent $38K for my contract and $1800 annually to not be their priority and so that people can walk in off the street and get a room after I have been told there was no availability for that date.

The Manhattan Club 9 unavailability for timeshare owners: We bought 3 weeks 12 years ago and have had more and more problems booking what used to be 6 months in advance then 9 months in advance. And now, it's more like a year in advance! We bought, precisely because we were told by their sales rep that we would never hear again "we are fully booked" as was supposedly the case with most NYC hotels, specifically refuting any need to have a fixed plan one year in advance!

You merely have a once a year chance to book, and if you need to change, you simply lose it! Yet,The Manhattan Club shows availabilities year round on various online booking sites, offered at a reduced rates to the public. This has translated into a steady degradation of the rooms and bigger and bigger maintenance fees, as owners take better care of the environment and rooms they own rather than the general public who is merely passing through. The TMC of course requires that we pay the exorbitant maintenance fees even if they were unable to provide us with the week(s) we are entitled to. These practices hardly seem fair and equitable.

For the second year, I was unable to book my timeshare with the Manhattan Club. I called in mid-December to ask them to bank it with RCI and was told it was taken care of. When I called RCI a couple of weeks ago, they informed me there had been no deposit of my week and I needed to call the Manhattan Club. When I did they told me and I quote, "You must be mistaken. You never spoke to anyone here. We have no record and can do nothing." They blamed it on me. When I said really, why do I have my week from 2009 banked with RCI? I know the rules and you need to reinstate my week. They were indignant as if I had the problem.

I called Jose ** and he told me he could nothing and would take it to management. I have heard nothing and there were no response to repeated calls. They had my $1800 for two years and act like as an owner I have no recourse. Yesterday, I received a Living Social offer for the Manhattan Club! I can now get a room for $297 a night on the weekend, but have no ability to use my timeshare that I purchased in 1998. I will likely default and no longer pay for my maintenance. And they will likely resell my timeshare.

They keep calling me trying to get me to book a room for 300 bucks, for a night plus I have to pay tax on that, 42 bucks for parking and she tells me I'll get tickets to a play but won't tell me which one. Then, you have to make an appointment for a "review" which is the high pressured sales pitch for timeshare. A waste of money as read here. Why get timeshare, you have to book 9 months - a year in advance? For a weekend to boot? Joke. This place is a scam, and they are thieves. They need to be shut down. They just want their money, they don't care about you, your timeshare, or anything. "This is the Manhattan Club calling." Click. Hang up -you'll be glad you did!

You buy a timeshare at the Manhattan Club and expect that you will be able to reserve a night or 2 when needed and enjoy the timeshare. Well that is not the case, they are continually "booked" no matter when you call, yet the maintenance fee has to be paid up front. Yet they are still "selling" timeshares! They have oversold the availability and continue selling more! This is a fraud!

I live on Long Island. I booked reservations (more than 9 months in advance) for August 28-29, 2011. That's when the infamous hurricane Irene visited NY and other areas. As a Manhattan Club owner, I agree that policies need to be established and followed. However, there are such things as wavers and consideration to be taken into account. The club policy that I refer to here is the cancellation policy. If a reservation is cancelled, that night is either lost or a $175 penalty is imposed to have it reinstated, per Salvatore **, executive director of operations at the club.

So much for the policy. Salvatore is a board member. I assume that timeshare board members are concerned with the best interests of the owners as well as the timeshare itself. Mayor Bloomberg, per various Irene weather advisers, urged people not to travel during such hazardous weather conditions, even shutting down some major New York City transit facilities. With that, I thought it best to cancel my 8/28/11 reservation (72 hours in advance, per club policy) for safety and weather condition reasons, with roads being blocked by floods and downed trees. I thought I might be able to keep the 8/29/11 reservation if some improvement in roads and weather improved. However, I found it would have been too dangerous and almost impossible to drive into Manhattan on that day. So, I cancelled. I was offered the "consolation" that I could pay the $175 penalty and have the day reinstated by Salvatore **, by policies of course. Unrealistic adherence to policy without circumstantial consideration is not in keeping with upholding the Manhattan Club owners' interests, which is the function of the board of directors.

It is practically impossible for us to use our membership to book a room there. We have been trying for months. They are seriously oversold for members, yet have plenty of rooms available at any time for non-members. These rooms are available "for marketing purposes by the developer" I was told by the reservation agent who hung up when I asked her what is the trick to be able to book a room. We paid about $70,000 for 2 weeks a year, plus about $2000 per year in fees.

The Manhattan Club (TMC) is a time share operation. The sales pitch is you can pop down to NYC and have a great place to stay whenever the spirit moves you. The truth is, you are required to book 9 months in advance for any possibility of getting a reservation. Reservation line opens at 9:00am. At 9:10 am, I was on the line with reservations and was told all rooms for 9 months out are booked. How do you book all rooms in 10 minutes?

Investigating info about other owners reveals that TMC posted their 200 W 56 as the address of record for all owners. This makes it impossible to interface with other owners. Investigating getting some results through the board of directors reveals the members are 4 people assigned by the developer himself and 3 that the developer has to approve, so the deck is stacked against anyone wanting some answers from the board.

Maintenance fees continue to rise and there is very high pressure from TMC to collect them more than a year in advance. Yet, you cannot get a room. Many owners have to forgo spending any time there because they cannot get rooms. Yet, TMC continues to sell under the false pretense that you can actually get a room. In addition, if you use an online travel site, you can get rooms at the Manhattan Club for the exact dates they said they were all booked for and for less money than you pay in maintenance fees. In addition, the management collects 20% fee and provides no service. Most other timeshare management takes 10%.

This is shady and feels like bait & switch. TMC should list real owners' addresses, have a board that works for the owners, and have to post actual stats of how hard it is to get a reservation. Knowing what you want to do in NYC 9 months in advance is crazy. So is having owners denied rooms while anyone else using Hotels. com or the like get rooms for less and with a few weeks advance notice.

I am currently paying $1770 in yearly maintenance fees and am unable to book any room over 9 months in advance. Also the maintenance fees continue to increase while room conditions and property conditions deteriorate. The owner of the property also has controlling interest in the board and refuses to make any changes. He also seems to get preferential treatment with booking. I pay $1775 for no benefit. Also because of the issues, the property is worthless on the open market. You can check eBay where several properties are always for sale at $1 with no bids. Extremely frustrating.

We bought in at The Manhattan Club timeshare in March, 2005, purchasing a one-week-per-year usage of a junior executive suite. The selling price was $27,500. Maintenance fees were quoted as $744/year, which could be financed over twelve months on our credit card. This was the only way such fees were affordable and TMC (The Manhattan Club) focused on this as being a convenience to the buyer.

We exchanged against our MC unit for the first several years, so we did not need to reserve a unit there. In 2008, we were suddenly charged $1,695 on our credit card in advance of the calendar year we were to use our week. When we called to inquire about this, we were told that monthly financing was no longer possible and that our fees had more than doubled from $744/year to $1,695 a year. I said this sure seemed like a bait and switch scam to me but this made no difference, of course.

Like most people, we do not have credit limits that allow for this kind of charge every year and we are now unable to pay these exorbitant fees, while keeping current on our monthly mortgage payments to an outside finance company (Equiant). When we first tried to get a reservation at TMC, when our fees were still kept current, we were told that advance notice of nine months to a year was needed to get a reservation. I stated that rooms are readily avaialble through TMC website but we, as owners, have to book that far ahead? They explained that the developer holds a large block of rooms for his own use and can rent them out, however he wants to. Obviously, the developer has majority rule and, therefore, the rest of us have no leverage.

As it stands now, we are among hundreds of owners who are woefully behind on their maintenance fees (some of whom tell me their fees have tripled) and owners at a timeshare, we cannot get a reservation in unless we can book well into the future. We also are seeing TMC owners in desperation selling their units, once priced well over $25,000 for $1.00 on eBay in order to get out from under their maintenance fees and just plain "get out" even though they are taking a huge loss.

We are in debt collection and added our maintenance fee bill to our account, so it would be paid off on a consistent, monthly basis. This was after we were told by TMC that this was not possible (it was, we found out). Even though we are in repayment, we still cannot bank one of our weeks or have any usage of our Manhattan Club membership which makes it worthless to use, though they sold this unit to us five years ago for $27,500 and we now see these units on Redweek.com going for pennies on the dollar.

Our maintenance fees started out at $744 in 2005 when we bought in, and we were told we could finance them each year over twelve months on our credit card which made this affordable. Over the next three years, our fees went up to $1,700 and The Manhattan Club demanded they be paid in full up front, no financing no longer available. Even when this was done, reservations at the timeshare we are owners at was next to impossible if not booked at least nine months ahead of time. This meant we were paying in advance for a product, we could not be assured was available without much advance notice.

However, rooms at the club were readily available at any/all travel sites to outsiders with only a day or two notice. Doubling and even tripling maintenance fees after signing an agreement that they be in the area of $750 only five years ago and then seeing the value of our ownership sink to next to nothing, coupled within being unable to secure a reservation for the very product you are in debt over is just wrong and we have the numbers within our "disgrunteled TMC listserv" to show it.

I purchased 7 deeded floating nights (only one may be a Saturday night) in The Manhattan Club in 2007. I was told that the maintenance fees were subsidized by the developer at the time and when all units were sold, that subsidy would be discontinued and management would be turned over to the owners. I was also told that reservations could only be made 9 months in advance and only after maintenance fees were paid in full. After I had used my 7 days, I would be allowed to reserve additional time at one-half the going rate for comparable hotels.I also was told that there was no rollover, so if I did not use my time within the year, it would be forfeited.

I was assured repeatedly, that calling two or three months ahead was plenty of time for a reservation excepting certain holiday periods. Since my purchase, the maintenance fees have risen steadily to more than double, but more problematically is that no matter when I call for reservations, the only time available for more that sporadic days or so is always 9 months from my call. That makes it nearly impossible for me to use my time if anything unexpected happens since I am not allowed to change my reservation in any way without forfeiting the whole thing and starting over, by which time there is nothing left in the time period remaining. And of course, I am never able to take advantage of the purported half-price offer.

in spite of the near impossibility.

This is timeshare that has increased its maintenance an exorbitant amount. But on top of this increase, they expect you to make a reservation nine (9) months in advance and/or no days are available. This of course is outrageous. Not many people can make plans 9 months in advance. Please help. Thank you.