[Resolved]  Club Mahindra Holidays — Pathetic Services from word GO .....

My experience with Sales as well as Member Relations teams have been bad. The painful story goes like this :

As usual their representative Mr Shreekumar Menon ( I am not sure as to how he is associated with them as he was referred to me by one of my friends ) promised many things but did not deliver any. I have paid full money for my membership in January 2009 and had opted for cash back in lieu of Shopping Vouchers of INR 15, 000. But, I have still not received anything from them even after 3 months. Even after repeated follow-ups the standard reply is that it is in process and will come shortly.

I wanted to take a short break in February and had requested Mr Shreekumar Menon to help me make arrangements as Ooty. Each time I followed up he kept on asking for 2 more days to get a confirmation and finally a 4 days before the scheduled date he informed me that it was not possible.

Most of the times time I have tried reaching Shreekumar he is busy and sends a text saying " please allow me to call you back" which seldom happens.

My experience with both their reservation channels, website as well as member reservations center have been extremely painful. Issues with their website are follows :

1. Their website accepts reservation requests exactly 6 months in advance ( e.g. Today being May 7th it allows us to request reservation upto November 7th ). But sadly this is not true as if we put this request we get a reply from their member reservations center informing us that booking for November will open only on June 1st. Isn't this ridiculous ? A member has to waste time in logging request only to learn later that their effort was futile. This I have experienced myself whilst making a request for October 10th to 15th. This can be confirmed from their system.

2. The requester does not any reference no. for the request logged in. Therefore there is no way to know whether the request has indeed been logged in or not unless we call their member reservations center to confirm.

3. Whilst logging in a request, as I have a membership of a Studio it should show Studio as my default preference of apartment. But, each time I tried making a request the the default preference apartment kept changing each time randomly as STU, 1BR, 2BR.

Issues with their member reservation center are as follows :

1. On May 1st being a public holiday I tried calling them exactly from 0930 hrs. Till 0948 hrs i kept hearing a message that they were still closed and from 0949 onwards the numbers were continuously engaged. I just could not get thru'

2. When I finally got thru' at 1159 Hrs. the call went on hold without anyone answering for 6 minutes and 39 seconds. After this I kept on trying without success till 1247 Hrs.

3. I then spoke with Mr Shreekumar Menon ( [protected] ) who was busy as usual and replied with standard response " please allow me to call you back". I sent him a message asking for contact details of top man at club mahindra which made him call me after 15 minutes. I informed him about this harrowing experience. Even he tried connecting me to their member reservations center without success.

4. Finally Shreekumar could connect me to their member reservations center at 1338 Hrs. and as was expected we were kept on hold. The process for getting confirmations took 17 minutes and 03 seconds. Which in my opinion is ridiculously high and not acceptable.

5. On may 1st and many many times earlier I have logged in complaints for non-receipt on cash Back in lieu of Shopping vouchers of INR 15, 000. But even today I am writing to you I have not received the cash back. Their member reservations center keeps calling me to check on this but no one has ever ensured that I get my money.

My above experience is making me shudder thinking hard as to going forward what will my experience with Club Mahindra be ? Given this the best option for me is to seek a FULL REFUND of membership fees paid by me. I am hoping that this compliant will be dealt with appropriately and learning the pain I have had to go thru' other gullible prospective members may reconsider that decision to join club mahindra.