The refrigerator is stocked with your favourite foods, the beers are on ice and there’s someone to drive you from the airport to your spacious $1m-plus home. To make your stay easier, golf tee times on a championship course have been reserved and an appointment at the club spa booked. Those final details you’ve forgotten will be sorted out by a concierge and a personal chef is just a phone call away.

Tanner & Haley, set up in 1998 under the name Private Retreats, claimed to have invented the perfect vacation concept. For a redeemable initial deposit (from $100,000 to $1.5m), relatively modest annual dues (starting at $7,000) and a $150 per night rate, members of its “destination clubs” would get unlimited access to dozens of luxurious homes in the US, Mexico and the Caribbean (plus daily green fees or ski passes for two) with none of the headaches of actually owning the properties. Best of all, unlike in traditional timeshare and fractional ownership schemes, availability was guaranteed. If members wanted to be in a certain destination at a certain time, they could be.