Shell Vacations Club Reviews

Parents bought into the Shell Vacation Club years ago before it was purchased by Wyndham. Over the last several years, they voiced numerous complaints about how poor the accommodations and service had become. Both parents are now deceased, and we have spent the last 9 months attempting to divest the estate of the these. They have, of course, been charging the monthly maintenance fees this entire time. Seriously, avoid both Wyndham/Worldmark and Shell like the plague.

No one can explain to me how the amount of my Direct Membership fee is derived. I previously owned 12,050 points for which I was charged $726. I now own 3,050 points and am being charged $359, basically 1/2. I spoke with Financial Services, Owner Care and Wyndham resolutions and the response is “It is what it is”. I was told to write a letter to the Board of Directors!

5/10/2022. Called Shell Vacations Club to speak to the exit department. I kept getting messages that they were closed. I spoke to the main operator and asked for their open hours and was told 11:30 to 8 pm. When I called it was during those hours. The receptionist was flustered and acted like he didn't know what to tell me. He said just a moment put me on hold and then came back and gave me a different phone number to call like care department or something like that and said he would transfer me because they didn't have their own phone number. Put on hold and eventually the whole damn system hung up on me.

I was on hold for 1 hr. 25+ min. Transferred by 3 people, 2 of whom asked all the same annoying questions. Called on a second phone simultaneously for more than 25 min before hanging up, because someone finally answered the phone of the 1 hr 25 min call. One of the people (Charmaine) stated the account for which we pay a monthly maintenance fee was inactive. Totally untrue. Shell has one of the worst systems I have ever seen. They tell you to pay on line, but every time we attempt to pay online, the system tells us our account is locked.

Shell Vacations Club (now owned by Wyndham) is the most unethical organization I have ever dealt with. DO NOT ATTEND THEIR SALES PRESENTATIONS!!!! You will get hounded by their sales staff and you will be roped into a scam by their deceptive sales tactics. They made purchasing a timeshare sound like a dream. Telling us straight lies to make their timeshare more appealing. They never provided us a public offering statement, made misrepresentations of our right to rescission, told us their timeshare was an investment, and more. ALL LIES!!!! On top of this, we have written complaint letters to them and they have completely ignored us.

We were very disappointed in Shell Vacation Club. We got into this in 2013 and have since paid thousands of dollars out of our retirement fund and savings to pay Shell. We ran out of money and can no longer afford to pay unnecessary bills such as the timeshare. We told Shell many times over the years this didn’t suit us, it wasn’t anything like we were proposed it would be, and that we just don’t need this. For us, it is a headache and doesn’t work with our life. We were beyond thrilled last year when we were told our account was being canceled.

My husband and I purchased two timeshares from Shell Vacations Club which Shell has now sold to Wyndham Vacations Club. Wyndham has now informed us that unless we purchase into their program we can only go use the properties that we bought at. That is not the terms of the purchase agreement that we signed with Shell Vacations Club. It was that we purchased so many points and we could use it at Shell Vacations Club properties. We should not have to go into another debt in order to able to use what we already paid for. Now they want us to continue paying dues for only two properties when we were supposed to be able have access to at minimum 20-30 properties. We both feel that they have now broke the contract and are not upholding to their part of the deal, but want us to keep paying our monthly dues to maintain their properties.

Have been trying to negotiate arrears with maintenance fees. There is no negotiating! While being not current, loss of points banked and paid for. Can’t exit program until current. If I get current just to qualify to get out of this messy terrible “timeshare” I will still lose. Just the worst feeling of paying for nothing in return.

Shell vacations is one of the most SCANDALOUS companies I have ever been involved with. Do not waste your time and your hard earned money. Shell held me in a “short” presentation for over 2 hours. I am a physician and made it very known that I wanted to be able to travel to Nepal for medical mission work. They assured me I could do it using points but you need an astronomical amount of points to travel to Nepal. I attended another presentation that they told me was a “owner update” and they told me, "Oh this isn't right. The last person probably didn't know what they were doing!" Well it feels like nobody at Shell knows what they are doing and it's costing me money! I’d much rather use that money to pay towards the medical mission trips to help those less fortunate than the greedy people at Shell Vacations.

Wyndham is full of scam artists. Don’t fall for their lies. I have been completely disappointed by Wyndham, their product, and staff. We were lied to from day 1 in our presentation. The sales reps were pushy and gave us false information to trick us in to buying a timeshare. When we said we wanted to vacation near Universal Studios, our salesman said we’d be able to get discounted park tickets as owners, but that never happened. My husband and I REPEATEDLY told them we could not afford to purchase the timeshare but that did not stop them! All they did was offer smaller packages with lower prices no matter how many times we said that my husband was not currently employed.

We were SVC members for about 15 years. In the beginning we really enjoyed it, but once Wyndham came into the picture, things changed. In 2016, during our membership update, we were told that we could join Wyndham now or stay an SVC member forever. We decided to join Wyndham at that point. To join Wyndham, we had to buy more points. At our membership update in 2019, we asked why we could not make any Wyndham reservations. The Shell/Wyndham person working with us said they were more like "Side door members of Wyndham." Yes that is a quote. If we wanted to be able to use our Wyndham membership, we would have to upgrade our membership by buying more points.

BEWARE! If you are thinking of buying into a timeshare at Inn at the Opera, please think twice. Once they have you they disappear out of the picture leaving you holding the bag. We owned a week at the Inn at the Opera for many years. We are getting on in age and do not travel much anymore so we decided to deed it back to Shell Vacations (now also known as Wyndham Vacation Resorts). The transaction was completed in March 2020. When we received the annual property tax bill from the City of San Francisco, we sent it to Wyndham/Shell to accepted ownership of the property. Apparently, they ignored it.

I have not been able to use my timeshare for Shell because of my limited travel due to covid. I had called in and a lady told me as a courtesy they moves points to RCI for members and that I had 2 years to use the points. She also informed me that I had to pay exchange fees to use my points from RCI. Later found out my points expired and I can't get them back. They will not credit my points back that I lost for 2020. This is terrible customer service and very disappointing considering how expensive the timeshare is. I discourage anyone from buying timeshare! It's not worth it!

We have fallen for every lie Shell has told us. They are dishonest about everything they do within their company. Their answer to every issue we have ever brought to their attention is to “buy more points”. We put our trust in this company and they have put us in over our heads and refuse to help. The way our ownership was sold to us is not at all what we have experienced. This company is lying, manipulative, and what they do to people should be illegal. If we could give them less than 1 star we definitely would.

This is the most unsatisfying ways to think you will be able to save and or travel. I have been a member for many years with many points and have realized it is a complete WASTE. Every time I want to book it is not available, costs more than internet price, no one has answers if you have questions .. very frustrating! DO NOT join this group or any part of the Wyndham group as well. IF you really would like to join, please get with me and I will be happy to get you some of my points at a very discounted rate. BTW don’t think you are going to any exclusive/all inclusive resort.. They charge you double to triple than internet prices.

Last August I decided to give back my timeshare at the end at the opera in San Francisco. I was told it could take up to eight weeks to complete all the paperwork and have a new deed recorded. In the last five months I have contacted them three times and have been told that the deed was sent to the word Recorders office but that office is so slow that it could take eight months to transfer a title out of my name.

The online reservations tool had a major bug for about six months starting in February 2019. Reservations made were not accounted for properly, thereby making the status of customer accounts inaccurate. Reservations made based on this inaccurate data led to significant problems after the bug was discovered, such as having customer accounts locked out due to negative balance. The Customer Care department made retroactive adjustments to my account that were erroneous in multiple respects in ways that had a negative effect.

When you check in they always want you to attend a presentation. This time I declined. The same day of check out I get a call, "you didn’t attend the presentation. Come to room 3117. Show your license. We want to give you a gift just for being a client." I asked the girl at check out. She said, "wonder why they have you going there. You can get gifts right around the corner." I go there. I sit down. 2 ladies are conspiring to keep me there longer. "Don’t you have 10 minutes", after I said my sister was standing outside waiting on me at another casino. I said, "give me my license gift or no gift I’m out." They threw together some junk & gave it to me. I shook my head. Shady business practices get you nowhere. Wyndham is a big name with tons of money, be honest. Raising maintenance fees, shame on them. They have so many bad reviews. I hope people read them & don’t purchase.

Tim of Huntington Beach, CA. I would join that class action lawsuit. When Wyndham took over our maintenance fees went way up to $4.00.00 a year. They go up every year now. We can never get availability. We have 17.000 points and they are trash now. If anyone else reads this. Stay away from timeshare all together. They will dig deep in your pockets forever. Total junk.

Have tried to take care of splitting timeshares since death of our mother and for 8 months have made over 20 phone calls and have sent all documents required more than once. We are repeatedly told it will take 7-10 days for documents to be complete so that we can make reservations. We are never able to talk to the same representative and have gotten the run around continuously. We are now proceeding forward with the FTC and ARDA. This has been very time consuming and it solidifies that Shell Vacations took advantage of our elderly sweet mother.

We purchased way back in 1998 and originally, Shell was a pretty shady organization. Still we did manage to have some decent vacations although we never truly used our points to our advantage. It seemed like a breath of fresh air when Shell was "taken over" by Wyndham. However, now that Shell is using RCI instead of Interval for booking it's like a step back in time. In the past few years, we became very accustomed to using Flextime as a way to book vacations. There were some great Interval properties that are not located terribly far from where we live and it was always nice to book (on reasonably short notice) and know we could put our points to good use for us. RCI does not have a feature like this and when I "spot-checked" some bookings I was looking at dates in 2020. Not very convenient for last minuters like we are. Sorry to say but I think I prefer Interval over RCI.

I have been an owner for 8 years now. I purchased the lowest package because my husband thought it was a steal of a price. After about 2 years we realize Shell does not have lots of great offers. Their internal resort selections is limited and it is always booked during the summer. Even with RCI and International Interval. It's difficult to find an available resort. Not the best timeshare. We always end up Airbnb a place when we travel so it's pointless to have a timeshare.

About 7 years ago my wife and I went on a vacation to Kauai. We were staying at a hotel just outside of the little town of Kapaa which is about 5 miles from Lihue. While there we stopped at a booth that was pushing a free whale watching tour for taking a short hour and a half out of our trip to talk to folks at the Kauai Coast Resort at The Beachboy. (Shell vacation club). That short time turned into about 5 hours or more and even though we told ourselves we would not get hooked into the timeshare racket, we were inundated with pressure and promises about how great timeshares are and how valuable they are. We bought enough points to allow us one week at the resort,

I have owned Shell for about 12 years. The sales pitch was awful, I will admit. I didn't want to buy, but my partner did. Yes I feel stuck with something I don't want forever... and it cost me $20,000. But, I will say I truly have never had a bad experience at one of their properties. I have stayed in Anaheim and Las Vegas several times each - nice rooms and courteous staff - and the properties are pretty well located. Not right in the mix but close enough to walk to it.

We have been members for about twelve years now and the experience has been horrible from the moment we bought. They are dishonest about running credit checks, dishonest about the availability of rooms and resorts, dishonest about payments, and dishonest about the ease of using this program. If you decide to have them take your monthly payments they may call and say that they did not receive payment (how this can happen if they are taking the payments out is beyond me).

We purchased timeshare years ago with promise that Shell Vacations would have more resorts to chose from. Well, What they did was add another company that they partner with that has many resorts but then you have to pay money to use them. Then this company Interval International... not customer friendly. Just upsetting, how we were had. If there was a something less than 1 star I would probably use it.

Unhappy with CSR. I spoke to a Manager. Worse conduct for a manager I've had. He hung up on me twice. LEWIS, manager - he continued to talk over me while I was speaking. No reply or compensation from Shell Vacation.

My wife and I came to Vino Bello for our 1-year anniversary, and neither of us had much knowledge of timeshares so we decided to attend a presentation since they offered us free wine tasting for attending. While the initial presentation was great, our conversation with our sales rep was absolutely atrocious. She was extremely disrespectful and pushy, but didn't seem to have much detailed knowledge on how it all worked. When I told her I don't make impulsive decisions and would need to do some research on my own, she decided to personally attack me and call out a failed business partnership I brought up earlier. She kept insisting "there's no research you can do." My wife and I were absolutely shocked at the repulsive sales tactics and the complete lack of professionalism.

Horrible, awful, rude customer service. I bought an intro package to their Napa Valley Resort for 3 nights and was told I had options for other locations if I changed my mind, which I did pretty quickly after learning more about it. I wish I had read these reviews. I called to change locations but then told the other locations were closed or not available to me. I was just about in tears when I heard the customer service associate making fun of me for crying to the person next to her. She just repeated over and over that there was nothing she could do to help me and eventually she just hung up on me. I regret having anything to do with this shell of a company. Avoid at all costs!

When booking a last minute reservation to a Shell Vacations Club Resort, the housekeeping fees are supposed to be waived. Last year I discovered, by accident, that my guests have had these charges put on their credit cards each and every time without my knowledge or approval. It was my adult children who brought this to my attention. I have been so embarrassed and angered by these overcharges and Shell's unwillingness to resolve this issue that I have stayed away from the resort since last summer.