Marriott's Marbella under fire over "four times UK inflation" fee increases

Timeshare company Marriott's Marbella Beach Resort accused of unfairly adding to Brits financial pressure with 'disproportionate' fee increases

Spanish timeshare chaos

Spain's Costa del Sol was a notorious hub of high-pressure timeshare activity for decades, prompting an introduction of legislation in 1999 to protect consumers from the worst excesses of the industry. Most resorts ignored the new laws and it was another 17 years before justice began to catch up with offenders. By 2024, most of the Spanish moneymaking powerhouses had been forced to close their new-member sales operations under the crushing weight of court ordered compensation payouts to their victims.

Among those still doing business are Marriott's Vacation Club Marbella Beach Resort.

Marriott's Marbella, at least according to our data based on information from ECC clients, broke the law as much as everyone else.

However Marriott are one of the wealthiest timeshare companies in the world with a 2023 turnover of $4.72 billion. They have deep pockets, both for paying lawyers to delay the consequences of lawsuits, and to pay the compensation they are unable to avoid.

Second revenue stream

The original model of timeshare was to generate income from sales, but charge their clients annually to maintain and run the properties.

With most timeshare companies in Spain having been forced to close their frontline sales an insidious practice of inflating the maintenance fees began, seemingly as a form of self compensation. Timeshare contracts amazingly allow the resorts to increase annual fees unilaterally, with little or no input or oversight from members. Many resorts now charge the same or more than regular accommodation tariffs for members' annual maintenance, guaranteeing themselves enormous profits.

In many ways timeshare members in the 21st century are now worse off than regular guests staying in the same resort, in part because they are legally obliged to pay whatever they are invoiced every year whether they holiday or not.

Certainly most resorts are regularly increasing their annual charges by considerably more than inflation.

Marriott's Marbella Beach Resort are one of the few companies who are still actively operating a new member sales program.

Despite maintaining this income stream which other resorts have lost, MVCI have been easily as enthusiastic as other resorts with raising their annual maintenance charges.

400% higher than UK inflation

A letter to Marriott's Vacation Club Marbella Beach Resort members outlining 2024 maintenance fee increases presents an increase of 8.72%, raising the average annual membership to a staggering €1554.47

This translates to an eye watering 400% of UK inflation, which currently sits at 2.2%.

Marriott list a host of reasons for this year's increase, including a €20.29 increase per apartment per week to use the pool, and €49.43 per apartment per week for a 'reserve fund' in case the units need to be refurbished. These figures might not seem extreme, but when you multiply them by 51 weeks, and then by 288 units, you get a total increase of €298,019 for pool maintenance alone.

Apparently the same swimming pool, with approximately the same amount of users will cost a third of a million Euros more to maintain in 2024 than it did a year ago.

The refurbishment planning comes to €2521.95 per unit. This is on top of the average €73,000 (before the increases) per unit already being paid by members for upkeep. A cynical observer could justifiably take the position that any such refurbishment planning could quite easily be provided for from the enormous sum of money already being paid annually for maintenance.

The increase also includes raises in the charges for "administration and accounting" (presumably to process all of this extra money Marriott are awarding themselves), front office, housekeeping, and insurance.

Expert comment

"It's a situation that rarely exists outside of the timeshare business," comments Greg Wilson, CEO of European Consumer Claims (ECC). "The resorts can set their fees at whatever they want. The consumer does not get any say in it, they are contractually bound to pay whatever they are told. So of course it is very tempting for the resorts to increase their demands to these kinds of extremes.

"If I can offer an analogy: Imagine if employees could decide their own individual wage increases every year and their bosses were legally bound to pay whatever raise the worker decided to award themselves. How much restraint could we expect those workers to show? They might even tell themselves they were being fair, but certainly a high proportion of people would be inclined to justify pretty significant increases to their own wages."

"Regular holiday booking sites like booking.com or Expedia are forced to be competitive with the fees they ask, or customers will take their business elsewhere. Timeshare customers don't have that choice."

Not happy with maintenance fee increases?

If you are tied into a Marriott contract and would like to take back control over your holiday spending, get in touch with our team to discuss your options. If you fit certain criteria, you may even be entitled to financial compensation.