Welk Resort Group Reviews

On the paper he said by buying this timeshare, I can get 40-70% off all airlines, rental cars, and cruises. If I lend out this discount to share with my friends, I would get points that can help pay off the yearly maintenance fees. There is no such thing as 40-70% off! He even went as far to say if I change my mind about the family member or friend that gets the said discount, if they are not using it as much, and I get to elect 5 of them, I can change the name. Each of the 5 people I elect would get their own login and password. What a load of detailed crap.

The whole place doesn’t have internet so I wasn’t able to access these reviews until I stepped outside on the balcony. The whole place is booby trapped. From the get-go it’s been designed to keep you there. You park your car at a faraway place and they drive you down in the golf cart. You leave your kids at the Babyroom so you can’t say your kids want to go home. There are no clocks in there, and no evidence of their lies. So pretty much if you sign it you’re a goner, an indentured servant if you will, to pay maintenance fees for the rest of your life. Check on eBay there are plenty of people selling their already paid off timeshare for only $1 just to try to get out of it.

Every time I tried to read the terms and conditions, sales rep number 2 kept talking and showing me on his phone of how easy it is to get the rooms, not even of the website itself off his phone’s browser, but a video he took of his laptop of said website. (Why didn’t he just bring his laptop instead of taking a cellphone video of it? Bad reception in here he said, which is why a renowned company should have at least some wifi in their lounge). Don’t let the “Hyatt” Vacation Club name fool you, they will literally say anything to get you to sign, and they will disappear. Usually sales reps of cars or homes introduce themselves, but our sales rep(s) did not. I had to ask him, and even then he only said his first name, if that is even his first name at all.

In the terms and conditions, there was no mention of the generous 40-70% off all airlines, rental cars, and cruises. There was however, mention that these points cannot guarantee any availability of the timeshare and that there were blackout dates after all. When we asked them about those lines, they said said they have to put something like that there so people can’t just live in them all year round. Their final trick when we said no is that they asked us to sign an acknowledgement that if we refuse this offer this time, if we were to come back the price would be quadrupled to $160,000, according to them the price was going back up due to the pandemic being over.

So I call again, the lady informs me I need to pay with the front desk of the hotel..I call the hotel and that lady tells me that’s incorrect. They can’t take payments, that I need to call BACK to Vacation Club Rentals..The rude guy (Andrew) at Vacation Club Rentals told me I can’t give them an updated card, wouldn’t let me speak with a manager or anyone else. Denied they sent an email stating to call them to update the payment which I’ve uploaded in this review to prove it was from them. He was so rude and argumentative and condescending.

I can’t believe this is coming from a "hospitality" company. So I call BACK. To the Welk hotel front desk and get another guy named Andrew who says he’s the front desk manager. He says he can help me..What a relief I felt..BUT needed to call me back ..Well he didn’t. And today is 48 hrs now and I’m expecting my reservation to be cancelled. This has been extremely frustrating and I have no clue what to do now. I have 7 people coming to this resort for a family vacation and no one will help resolve this. Plus they’re showing booked now. I’ve traveled all over and NEVER had this type of horrible customer service. Even lower end hotels have been more accommodating than this place.

The annual fees keep increasing, the interest rate is through the roof, and I cannot even use the timeshare! I have paid over $6,000 to them so far with NOTHING to show for it! Where is my money going? My maintenance fees have also increased from $1105 to $1300. Why am I paying so much money when I am not even able to use it? They have made it extremely difficult for me to use my timeshare and now my financial security is at risk. I am concerned about my future. Please learn from my mistake!

They’re constantly trying to get you to upgrade and convince you that you haven’t experienced the best of Welk due to not upgrading. It’s all just a huge letdown and a scam. Don’t waste your money with Welk. They tell you their timeshare is a “tax write off” ...FALSE!!! What’s most vile about Welk is that during one of their garbage meetings their employees kept referring to wife as my husband despite having corrected them multiple times! Our experience with Welk has left us feeling discriminated against and constantly harassed. Not to mentioned scammed and left with tons of debt! Shame on Welk!

They lied about the exclusivity of their resorts. They constantly haggle you to upgrade yet you never see the benefits of it. All their fees continue to increase, and I’ve recently found out I’m in debt to them $110,000. What does it say about a company that does business like this? Don’t believe their lies. The timeshare is hardly usable, availability is scarce and almost always available to non-owners. What is the point of getting sucked into a Welk timeshare contract if you always must pay to use it and have the option to book online? Unless you’re purposely looking to get scammed and deceived, stay away from Welk Resorts. I wasn’t so lucky, and I have had enough. I hope others read this and spread the word about Welk.

The clincher was that a Welk contract would release us from Vistana because they’d use the Vistana timeshare as a down payment. Well, months later, we still had a Vistana timeshare. When we called to figure out what was going on, we were told Welk never contacted them! What’s worse is now we have 2 Welk contracts. We signed one in person and another that was sent to us later that we thought was the same as the first. Unethical salespeople and company. I’d give no stars if I could!!!

I was lied to about resort amenities and the unit I was buying. I was promised access to the Disney Aulani resort in Hawaii and told only Welk has an arrangement with Disney. Not true. I found there was no affiliation at all. When I am actually able to make reservations, I end up paying out of pocket. If I have to pay per night, why am I throwing away so much monthly?! At every turn, Welk has been proven to be full of liars and I wish I would have never gotten in this position.

1. Getting the complimentary gift is like jump through hoop. Mail something in to reserve, they mail it back and say you need a $50 deposit and missing the voucher, call Welk and get invalid number to call, on hold for 1.5 hours.

2. The $1000 4 night at Welk resort also makes you jump through hoops. Says it’s valid for 18 months but can’t book for 6 months (so 12 months). Limited availability when you do book.

Honestly just a pain. More work than we planned for. Spent hours in hold and talking to people who can’t help and ending up at square one.

After finding out about all the lies that were told, it’s clear that they only care about helping themselves, not service members. They took advantage of us, just as they would any other people. We were told that we were investing in real estate, only to find out we purchased intangible points. No one mentioned we could bank points, instead they were wasted when they expired. We didn’t have enough points to go where we wanted even though the salespeople said we’d have plenty to go anywhere we desire. This is a scam, through and through. Especially if you are a service member, don’t fall for their blatant lies!

From the time we entered the presentation, we were bombarded with lie after lie. We knew nothing about this product and were very hesitant. The reps prey on people like that. We reluctantly signed up for the “audition” program. After that, we booked a vacation and when we check in, a rep tells us we must go to yet another presentation or we would be FINED!!! After FIVE HOURS in this second meeting, we became full owners.

Unfortunately, nothing they told us was true. There is no cancellation option like they said there was, and the points are useless when you can never get a reservation. If you do ever get one, there’s always a mandatory meeting where the reps push you into another upgrade. This is quite a scheme they have going. It should be illegal to do business the way they do. I sincerely hope that my story saves another person from the frustration my husband and I deal with constantly.

This membership was sold as an investment in real property rather than a timeshare. We were promised equity that would only increase so we could resell our “asset” or gift it to our children. None of that is true. There is no property, equity, or value. What’s worse was the promise of recovering our costs through renting the property out and being part of a buyback program. We thought that with those 2 options, we had a way to deal with things if it became a financial burden but those were just more lies!

As if these things were not bad enough, we always have problems with availability. We went over 2 years without being able to reserve anything. We were never able to rent out points because the program didn’t exist! That was the major selling point. If we knew we could not offset the cost, we NEVER would have gone through with this! This has become a financial albatross.

This was out of the question as the preview reps expressed that they don’t have availability. We then continued to look at the sister hotel on our phones and thought ‘What the heck? Let’s try it!’. We are BlueGreen owners and we were thinking, ‘Why not check what else is out there?’. We were also persuaded by the gifts they promised for our taking the time to drive to Escondido for the tour. My husband and I thought it wasn’t a bad move - small staycation with our daughter, a possible Timeshare upgrade, and a freebie. Not bad, right?

Sadly, we were wrong. The preview reps at the Grand Prix assured us that our daughter could go to a child care center on site while we attend our tour. Fast forward to our small staycation, we are pulling into the driveway of the Lakeshore Resort (sister hotel) in San Marcos and we are made aware that we can not attend our Tour because our daughter isn’t potty trained and the policy at the day care on site at Welk is that children must be fully potty trained and not in pull ups. We were disappointed because we then had to rebook our Tour, take off work another day, and pay for a babysitter for the day. We chalk it up to a minor miscommunication error. At our stay at Lakeshore, because we weren’t gonna drive two and half hours back home. We were assured we can keep our room for the night. We checked into the resort and we’re given for lack of better words a dirty, old, and out of date hotel room.

The sister hotel, Lakeshore, had put us in an old building and nothing like the photos online. The walls had large dents from moving furniture or furniture that must have been dragged across the wall leaving a dragged dent at least 15 feet in length. The walls looked and felt like they hadn’t been wiped since I don’t know when. Just by putting your hand on the wall you can feel the layer of dirt on your fingers. The TV remote and light switches needed to be wiped down as they were noticeably filthy and the same as the wall dirty to the touch. All the furniture (the table, night stand, chairs, and entertainment dresser) was beat up and just deserved an upgrade. We had a made come wipe down the wall, light switches, and remote.

A week later, we come back for our tour. We have the most amazing, down to earth, funny Tour guide Dylan. He made everything easy to understand and we had a great day with him. Information wise everything sounds almost exactly the same compared to our other timeshare. We leave the preview center to go on our tour and I pass a couple who has a stroller with their daughter who is maybe 2 or 3 years old playing on her pad. I immediately start thinking, ‘Hmmm… that’s interesting. They told me my daughter could accompany my husband and I on the meeting.’ I shake it off. We finish touring the rooms and we head back to the preview center and I can’t make this up, two other families both with strollers, both with 2-4year old children (I am estimating and comparing to my daughter's height and stature) and are upstairs with parents talking to Tour guides (one child on coloring and the other eating a snack).

At this point I am very angry. I excused myself from my table to go to restroom and lo and behold I run into a mom with their baby in the restroom. I ask her how old is her daughter she says, two. I comment on the selling tactics and she says, ‘Yeah, my husband and I don’t want to buy. We’re just here for the gift’. I get back to my table and it’s apparent that I am bothered. My tour guide Dylan asks us if we want to look at numbers and I tell him my thoughts about the miscommunication. Of course he’s confused and doesn’t know what to say to me so he suggests a feedback card. I express my wanting to leave and at this point I don’t care about the gifts. He says, "Ok, let me get you the sign out sheet."

Dylan comes back with a salesperson Alex. Alex is very direct and tells my husband and I that our current ownership is ‘worthless’ and that THEY would be ‘doing us a favor’ by selling us a package with Welk. He continues to tell us that our Timeshare isn’t any good, we were gullible to buy with BlueGreen, we obviously don’t know anything about our timeshare package, real estate, trading power, or the value of money. I tell him he’s coming off very aggressive and rude. He leaves us with a sly comment about my husband's watch and how we must go on a ton of Timeshare previews - insinuating we are taking advantage of the whole Timeshare system. He extends his hand to shake goodbye and I tell him ‘walk away, don’t touch me’.

We then must wait for the gift we are promised and I express to my husband and Dylan that I don’t care about the gift, I’m gonna leave. Another salesman comes to our table and explains to us our gift and that if ever we do look to purchase they offer a sampler package and would love to sell us one. His name was Eric and he was nice. We then left with our gift, 4 hours later. We get home 3 hours later, and pay our babysitter for 9 hours ($170) of watching our daughter from 9:00 - 6:00. Something I didn’t even have to do since parents brought their unpotty trained kids to the meeting with them. Something I was told twice, by two different reps (AJ and Tamara) was not possible.

On my drive home I couldn’t help but feel discriminated against, since the three other families with small children were all ** and obviously had rules bent for them. I also thought the comments from Alex were out of line and had I not remained professional and composed, I might have been arrested for the way I wanted to act towards Alex. This is what I know in my experience with Welk, they don’t have universal policy for guests/potential owners, they treat you nice and respectful until you raise concern, and they lie.

A few months later I inquired with our accountant about the real estate being claimed on our tax return and I was told that we couldn’t file it on our taxes as it is NOT real estate, which directly contradicts the sales pitch we sat through! Owner’s updates are only a ploy to get owners to buy more points. After declining the sales pitches at our last “owners update” our rep got visibly upset and left the table, and after he returned, he said we could leave but the free gift we were promised was no longer available to us. HOW PETTY IS THAT!?

Once the contracts were signed, we still felt uneasy and 6 DAYS LATER we tried to call and opt out of our contract and were told they would get back to us with the status of our app. The next day we got a voicemail stating our app was already processed and “closed” and we could not cancel. WE FOUND OUT LATER CA LAW PROVIDES 7 DAYS TO CANCEL A TIMESHARE CONTRACT! We were told we had 2 weeks if we changed our mind to cancel! This company is full of liars and cheats I would never recommend them to anyone!

I have found it very difficult to schedule at any of the resorts for the time frame I wanted. And there are all kinds of rules about how far out you can schedule. It's very confusing and frustrating. We bought ours at Branson. During the tour, you see how many units they have and they were still building more! The hidden truth is, not all those units are available for owner rental. Maybe just 1 or 2 buildings. I have stayed at Welk's in Branson, San Diego and Cabo. All of the units were very nice. The pools were nice. The food selection is limited. It is definitely NOT worth the cost of buying in. You CANNOT get out even if your points are paid for. You apparently CANNOT even just give it back to them. They want you to pay them. And now they've SOLD OUT to another company. DO NOT BE TAKEN IN BY THEIR SALES PITCH. YOU WILL BE SORRY. RUN when they offer you anything!

I contacted welk Experiences to see why they never posted to be told you can't apply them to the maintenance fee. Ridiculous Since their website allows you to apply the points against the fee. No one can tell me where my points are. I want my points back. To back this is not an honest company and I am sure I will never see my points again. Time to book my extra travel with someone else who I will actually get a benefit from. Seems like if you change something you let people know. And if you website allows them to use it for things you aren't allowed to. Then the points get credited to your account.

We have been unable to make reservations as our membership did not qualify. We were never told that there were restrictions to these bookings! When we booked our alleged free cruise, there were so many out-of-pocket fees that it cost more than it would have been to just pay cash for the trip. To make it worse, this was cancelled due to COVID and it took about a year to get our money back! What kind of company is this??

We were told we could use the e-ticket number to rebook through Alaska. It didn't work. I contacted Alaska, and they said that number isn't an Alaska number it's a Hahn number and to contact Hahn. I tried them, they won't even answer the phone. I contacted Welk who gave me the run around that I needed to contact Alaska. I have told at least 5 different people at Welk the numbers don't work. Finally, one of their representatives tried the numbers and confirmed they don't work. They then said to find the flights I want and provide Welk the dates, times, flight numbers, etc and they will book it for me.

They got back to me and told me that in addition to the $1200 credit, I would need to pay an additional $218! These same flights are available on Alaska for $250 a piece right now and have been since I started battling with them. This doesn't make any sense. Does it? I have asked this question to multiple people in the organization and none can give me an explanation. I am very disappointed in the customer service of this company. I do not recommend using them for travel services.

I quickly faxed them a letter within the legal deadline to get out of my contract. They were quick to process my request and gave me my deposit back within a couple weeks so I figured good riddance. All of this was in July. But then on Aug 11 I received a voicemail from a Jennifer who was apparently trying to schedule us for a tour? I ignored it. Since August I have gotten a couple of missed calls from their number; in fact I got one today. I don’t even bother to answer or request that they remove me because I’m kinda curious how long the apparent lack of recordkeeping on their end will continue lol. Anyways fellow millennials, know that timeshares aren’t anything cool unless you have an aunt who has one that’s paid off where you can go. I am shocked this business model still exists!