The Best Destination Clubs in 2026: 9 Scored on Price, Protection and What You Actually Own

Denver, Colorado · founded 2004 · paid-access club, no member equity · Steve Case is chairman and majority owner; since February 2026 the club sits inside The Exclusive Collective with Inspirato and the group’s serviced-residence brand, with James Henderson as chief executive of all three · pricing 23 · protection 9 · portfolio 18 · usage 14 · disclosure 11

The only club in the index that publishes its complete price on its own website without a form: ten-year memberships from USD 195,000, a ten-year Plus Option from USD 235,000, thirty-year from USD 295,000, and 2026 annual dues of USD 1,835 per Plan Day held flat across every season, location and residence size. Members take 15 to 60 Plan Days a year, can book 90 or 120 days before departure or hold multiple reservations up to two years ahead, may gift up to fourteen days, and memberships are described as fully inheritable. The portfolio is the deepest here: more than 350 residences on the live site across 75-plus destinations, averaging 3,500 sq ft and four to five bedrooms, with more than USD 750 million of it owned inside a portfolio valued above USD 1 billion, and named properties including Montage Big Sky and villas at Rosewood Mayakoba. Member numbers are given as 4,500-plus families in a February 2025 release and 4,000-plus a year later. The residence count is inconsistent too, 400-plus in the 2025 release against 350-plus on the site today, which costs it two points. What holds it to 75 is protection. The initiation is non-refundable, the term expires, and the club addresses refundability, insolvency and member-money protection nowhere on its site. It is worth remembering that Exclusive Resorts cut the refundable portion of its member deposit to 75 per cent in 2008 and by 2011 was selling wholly non-refundable plans at a discount; today the refundable deposit is gone entirely and what replaced it is term-expiry risk, which is smaller, better defined and still entirely the member’s. Trustpilot holds 3.6 from two reviews, too few to publish as a rating, and the BBB does not rate the business.

Investor-owned funds, current vehicle Fund VII · first fund 2006 · chief executive Philip Mekelburg · investors own the fund, the fund owns the homes · pricing 10 · protection 21 · portfolio 16 · usage 13 · disclosure 11

The best-protected way into this sector and one of the worst-documented shop windows. Investors buy into a fund that owns its homes outright, receive usage rights, and on liquidation are paid 100 per cent of their invested capital back before any profit split, with the majority of appreciation after that. Homes are sold around the ten-year mark; Fund VII’s own FAQ expects liquidation in 2037 while a third-party piece on the launch says 2036. Fund VII targets twelve homes at USD 3.5 million to 6.5 million each from a USD 70 million raise, in Deer Valley, Turks and Caicos, Hawaii, London and Napa among others, against a standing portfolio of 65-plus homes averaging USD 4.5 million. Usage is 15 to 45 nights a year by level, bookable on unlimited short notice or up to three years ahead, with unaccompanied guests over 25 admitted, 600-plus investor members, a seven-to-one investor-to-home ratio and a stated 60 per cent occupancy target. The failures are in disclosure. The site withholds every price behind an Executive Summary download, so the whole fee table here is third-party. It says its accounts are audited annually by “a top-five accounting firm” without naming the firm and without publishing the accounts. Its own destination count says more than 25 while a third-party overview says 50-plus. And equityestates.com, the domain most people will type, does not resolve; the live site is equityestatesfund.com.

Calgary, Alberta · the only Canadian club found in this sector · marking twenty years in 2026 · members buy shares in the company that owns the homes; governed by a nine-person volunteer board drawn from full members · pricing 11 · protection 22 · portfolio 13 · usage 13 · disclosure 11

The highest protection score in the index, and it comes from structure rather than from any promise. Members buy a share, not a membership: Class A at CAD 430,000, Class C at CAD 301,000, Class B at CAD 215,000, with the company holding 22 properties outright inside a portfolio of roughly 40 to 43 homes. Members receive all property appreciation, and three exit routes are published rather than implied, a private sale at any time, a members-only auction every three years, and a sunset buyback every ten, with a resale policy stated at 93 per cent of the private sale price. Annual dues are CAD 39,600, 34,230 and 20,445 for 60, 42 and 21 nights, with the site stating that a post-stay cleaning fee is the only other charge and that there are no nightly fees. It runs a waitlist to hold the owner-to-property ratio down and has 200-plus members. Against that, the club publishes no price on its own site at all, so every figure above is third-party; its home count is given as 43 in one place and 40 in another, its destinations as 25, 29 and 30-plus across three sources including its own; and its founding year appears as both 2004 and 2006. One practical warning: destinationm.com without the hyphen is a parked domain for sale and is not the club.

Brentwood, Tennessee · founded 2010 · founder, chairman and chief executive Wade Shealy · reciprocal exchange, not a destination club · pricing 22 · protection 15 · portfolio 12 · usage 9 · disclosure 11

The outlier, and the only name in the sector with a review record worth reading: Trustpilot 4.7 from 1,175 reviews, against two reviews at Exclusive Resorts and nothing at all for six of the nine. It is free to join. Members deposit unused weeks in a second home they already own, earn Keys, and spend them on other members’ homes, paying USD 295 a year and an exchange fee of USD 495 to 1,995 per trip, both published plainly, with keyless bookings available for a USD 100 surcharge. That is the whole exposure: a member risks the annual fee and any prepaid exchange fee, not a six-figure deposit, which is why it scores 15 on protection without publishing any insolvency provision or escrow. It owns nothing; all 20,500-plus properties across 100 countries are member-deposited, and that figure is a 2025 third-party number, because the site itself says only “thousands of extraordinary properties”. Usage cannot be quantified in advance, since what you can book depends on the Key value of what you deposited. It belongs on this page as the answer to a question several of these clubs are answering expensively, but only if you already own the second home.

Winter Park, Florida, founded near Aspen in 1999 · chief executive Greg Spencer · deeded fractional ownership, with a reciprocity programme as an owner benefit · pricing 4 · protection 21 · portfolio 15 · usage 8 · disclosure 10

The strongest protection on the page and the weakest disclosure of price. Buyers take an undivided deeded real-estate interest in a specific residence, which means an operator failure would disrupt management and the reciprocity trading system but would not touch the asset; exit is by resale on the open market with any appreciation the owner’s. Seven core properties are named, Captiva Island, Tuscany, Vail, Kaua‘i, Steamboat Springs, Jupiter and Kiawah Island, with 13 to 14 destinations in the reciprocity programme, and the flagships are Casali di Casole in Tuscany, The Sebastian in Vail and Timbers Kaua‘i. South Seas on Captiva is being rebuilt after Hurricane Ian. What is not published, anywhere on the company site or on any property page tested, is a purchase price, a fractional percentage, an annual maintenance figure beyond a statement that it varies by residence, or any quantity of guaranteed usage beyond “a minimum amount of vacation time”. For a product whose entire advantage over the rest of this index is that you own something specific, not saying what fraction of it you own is an odd choice.

Denver, Colorado · founded 2011 · taken private 3 February 2026 at USD 4.27 a share; Nasdaq trading suspended before the open that day · now a brand of The Exclusive Collective · club operating entity named in the terms is Best of 52, LLC · pricing 18 · protection 5 · portfolio 14 · usage 8 · disclosure 12

The lowest protection score of any trading club here, on the second-best price disclosure. Inspirato publishes a USD 15,000 initiation fee and annual dues on its own membership page, which is more than seven of the nine manage, although that page displayed two different dues ranges on two fetches on the same day, USD 4,300 to 6,000 and USD 5,500 to 6,000. It then publishes no nightly rate, only “discounted nightly rates”, so the actual cost of a week cannot be worked out from the site. The member terms are explicit that initiation, enrolment, annual membership and subscription fees are non-refundable, and they contain no provision at all for what happens if the company ceases operations or becomes insolvent; the only trust identified is a Hawaii travel-agency client trust account, which is a state seller-of-travel requirement covering client travel funds, not a member-deposit escrow. Portfolio figures contradict themselves on a single homepage, which gives both 170-plus and 100-plus destinations against 300-plus residences and 200-plus hotel partners, and membership is quoted as 11,000-plus in December 2025 and nearly 10,000 in February 2026. On disclosure it scores highest in the index, because as an SEC registrant it filed audited accounts through FY2024; that ends with the delisting, so the most transparent set of numbers in this sector has just gone dark. The distress that led to the sale is a matter of record: a Nasdaq notice in November 2023 after the market capitalisation fell below USD 15 million, revenue down 15 per cent in the nine months to 30 September 2025, and cash down from USD 21.8 million to USD 13.7 million. Deferred revenue stood at USD 152.7 million at that date, and it should not be read as refundable member money, because the terms say the opposite. The BBB rates the business D- and it is not accredited, the rating reflecting a failure to respond to three complaints.

No head office stated; an Arizona telephone number is the only geography on the site · founded 2004; Parallel merged into it in the 2006 consolidation · dues-led boutique club owning no property · pricing 6 · protection 9 · portfolio 8 · usage 11 · disclosure 5

The smallest club here and the least visible. The model is unusual and, on its face, attractive: no large deposit, a USD 15,000 initial membership fee, and then very high annual dues, USD 49,000 to 132,000 across Signature, Platinum and Sky for 30, 60 and 120 nights a year. Those allocations are the clearest thing about it and carry the usage score. Everything else is third-party: the entry fee, the dues, the tier structure, the member count, all from trade coverage rather than the club, and some of the tier figures date from 2017. The club owns no homes; its own site describes access to shareholders’ personal properties made available at preferential rates, which means a member paying USD 132,000 a year has no claim on anything if the arrangement ends. Eight primary properties plus five with preferred access, thirteen locations including Colombier on St Barth, Florence, Paris, Aspen and Napa. Member numbers were given as fewer than fifty in 2017 and are now recorded as unavailable. No head office, no named leadership, no accounts, no insolvency provision.

Upstate New York since 2015 · the business traces to 1991 and founding partner Steve Dering, credited with creating the first residence club · exchange club for owners of residence clubs and managed vacation homes, plus affiliate membership for non-owners · pricing 2 · protection 13 · portfolio 8 · usage 8 · disclosure 7

The lowest pricing score of any trading club, for a simple reason: there is no fee information anywhere on the site, and the membership and about pages both return errors. Elite Alliance owns no inventory and takes no member deposit, so the money at risk is small, which is the whole of its protection score. Members earn Elite Credits against their own home-resort entitlement and spend them elsewhere, across what a third-party guide describes as 100-plus destinations, in properties ranging from studio suites to eight-bedroom homes. The company says it has worked with developers to generate more than USD 1 billion in real-estate sales, records reaching its 100th destination and 7,000th member in 2019, and claims 8,000-plus members on the homepage today. That is close to the whole published record. For a club whose members are, by definition, already six or seven figures into a residence club somewhere else, publishing a fee schedule would cost nothing.

Broomfield, Colorado · founded 2004 by Pete Estler · Chapter 11 filed 7 October 2016; members took roughly 46 per cent of the equity in exchange for writing off their deposits · still online, with limited signs of current activity · pricing 3 · protection 2 · portfolio 6 · usage 6 · disclosure 4

The cautionary case of the sector, and the reason protection carries 25 on this page. In July 2007 Quintess wrote to members, over the signatures of its chief executive, chief financial officer and president, and supported by a Big-4 annual audit and quarterly deposit-security letters, that it held coverage in excess of 110 per cent of its contractual membership-deposit liability. In October 2016 it filed a prepackaged Chapter 11 owing more than USD 120 million in membership-deposit refunds. Those deposits recovered nothing in cash; members took roughly 46 per cent of the equity of the restructured club instead, and 88 per cent of responding creditors voted for the plan. The lesson is precise and worth stating plainly: an audited coverage ratio is a statement about a balance sheet, not segregated money, and it protected nobody. The club that trades today leases rather than owns, publishes no price, and describes some of its rates as too exclusive to make public. Its member site still carries a 2019 copyright while the classic site carries 2024 with a working Broomfield telephone number, and no corporate news after 2016 was found. It is scored because it trades; the score is what it publishes.