What are Vacation Clubs?
A vacation club is essentially a multi-resort timeshare organization where you purchase membership into the club and are afforded the ability to stay at the club resorts. Whereas with a one-resort timeshare you are purchasing ownership, or the right to lease, with a vacation club you are paying almost an “initiation” fee, followed by annual fees you could call membership dues. Vacation clubs are always “right to use” timeshares, versus outright ownership.
Since the club membership is a right to use, you can sell, donate, give away your membership just as with a one-resort timeshare and the differentiator is the type of membership. The more expensive the membership, the more benefits and access you get.
Vacation Clubs can get very complicated in terms of ownership when you get down to the nitty gritty, so you’ll want to review the documentation very closely. For example, with smaller vacation clubs you may actually own a deed much like a typical timeshare.
Disney Vacation Club
The Disney Vacation Club is a prime example of a vacation club where you purchase a membership and then can use your time at a multitude of locations, not just Disney locations (they claim 500 on their website), even cruises. Another strength of vacation clubs, especially if they are affiliated with a big company such as Disney, is that they can offer amenities not typically available through your regular timeshares. For example, Disney offers ExtraMagic hours where you can go into their theme parks an hour early or stay up to three hours later, guest transportation, Disney service, and package delivery (in fairness, these are offered to all guests of Disney resorts).