When purchasing a destination club membership, an enormous part of the value proposition is the service, an intangible that can’t be easily assessed without personally experiencing it.

Some destination clubs actively encourage prospective members to talk with existing members, and this should be something that you insist upon. Also, all of the clubs will be happy to provide pages of testimonials - although these will (naturally) all be positive, it will still be useful to read them. You will learn something about the kinds of members the club has, and how it meets their needs.

The gold standard, though, is actually experiencing a club home yourself.

Some of the clubs make this easy with a per-night rate that will allow you to test-drive a property and its associated services, but we believe that all clubs should be (and probably will be) open to accommodating requests for a brief stay in one of their properties.

The clubs realize that purchasing a membership is a major decision, for financial and lifestyle reasons, and they don’t expect the sales process to take place entirely over email. In fact, one of the common themes from this year’s IMN destination club conference was the willingness of destination club executives to travel to meet with prospective members.

OTHER ARTICLES THAT MAY BE OF INTEREST

• Destination club price increases
• Quintess ups referral ante
• LUSSO member survey
• Destination clubs - an overview
• Financing a destination club membership