time shares...is this a good idea?

Dylan W.

Dylan W.

lone resident of Bro-Lite Island
Joined
Mar 17, 2007
Location
Mocksville NC
Ok...So we've been talking about a trip to Williamsburg VA for a while. Always wanted to go.
2 weeks ago we received one of those telemarketing calls offering the free mini vacation(4 days 3 nights) a 150.00 visa card..50.00 Chili's gift card and 2 other free vacations,which supposedly have no sales pitch.
Of course,the Williamsburg vacation required we sit through the 90 min sales pitch.
We decided to go for the offer because we had the time and really wanted to go to Williamsburg any way. And it's easy to say No!

The condo was really nice! The area was great. We had a wonderful time.

The sales pitch went as expected. High pressure yada yada. Started with 1 (one week of ownership) 25000.00 price..lol. after that..the manager stepped in..price dramatically lowered to15000.00..then 10500.00. I stuck to my guns and said no to everything.

BUT...then, as we were leaving, a new face appeared,brought us into his office and offered this.

For only
6000.00(they'd finance this at 17%..lol)
We'd get 2 weeks (separate weeks)
500.00 yearly maint. Fees
189.00 exchange fees ( if we were to wanna book anywhere else instead of williamsburg)
130.00 yearly membership for booking company.
Week 24. Which is in June iirc.(actually a good week)
Plus...unlimited 3 day 2 night getaways for life (sept-nov) for 150.00 per trip
This got my attention. This was the best deal I've ever heard of.
With the Buyers remourse law on my mind...We stuck it on a 9% credit card and come home to mill it over.
Buyers remourse law works well in this case because they won't let you leave to think about it during sale presentation.

I have 7 days. Written letter of remorse must be postmarked within this 7 days.

Is this a good deal?
Should I back out?

Why?
 
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Great deal for them, bad for you. How much did you spend on motels last year? Just take the free for every couple years and be done. You are a sucker.
 
Dylan W. said:
500.00 yearly maint. Fees
189.00 exchange fees ( if we were to wanna book anywhere else instead of williamsburg)
130.00 yearly membership for booking company.
Plus...unlimited 3 day 2 night getaways for life (sept-nov) for 150.00 per trip
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So your basically payin $630 a year for a hotel room that you cant have at any time and even if you bank your week(s) your still payin for it.I don't have time to go into details now but my FIL owns at Westgate in Gatlinburg and its a racket.
 
1-tonmudder said:
So your basically payin $630 a year for a hotel room that you cant have at any time and even if you bank your week(s) your still payin for it.I don't have time to go into details now but my FIL owns at Westgate in Gatlinburg and its a racket.
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The only thing I'd change about your post is...
Its a 2 bedroom fully furnished condo..which is better than a hotel room.
 
I'll bet you don't find 1 good review here from the people who you know better than anyone else on the web. You are a good friend of mine but today I will call you a fool.


"A fool and his money are soon parted"
 
GotWood said:
Great deal for them, bad for you. How much did you spend on motels last year? Just take the free for every couple years and be done. You are a sucker.
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Spent around 800 for motels this year so far, but that's because we attended 2 weddings and a graduation.

I am a sucker WITH an exit strategy in this case.
 
Someone once told me of a timeshare program that worked through a hotel (I think it was Ramada?) they paid in just like you do with a timeshare but was able to stay at any of the hotels or their partner hotels. Just something you might wanna check out too
 
I know that the words" time share" are a big red flag. And most of the time, I know when a deal isn't a deal..... But look at the numbers.

That's really the reason I posted this...

At what price point would a timeshare be "worth it".
 
GotWood said:
I'll bet you don't find 1 good review here from the people who you know better than anyone else on the web. You are a good friend of mine but today I will call you a fool.


"A fool and his money are soon parted"
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I'm with ya..but again, at what point does it become "worth it"?

I bought it at this price knowing I could research ,once I was at home ,and then in a couple days, use the remourse law to get out of it. But seriously...don't know if this is a really bad deal or not.
 
Dylan W. said:
I
I bought it at this price knowing I could research ,once I was at home ,and then in a couple days, use the remourse law to get out of it. But seriously...don't know if this is a really bad deal or not.
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First - kudos for recognizing up front that you can leverage the buyers remorse law as an exit strategy, that's probably how they get 90% of people - from having to make an on-the-spot decision where they don't have time to do the math etc.

Second - I wouldn't call this a "really bad deal", but the math suggests something like a kinda bad deal.
Yes, you spent $800 in hotels already this year - would you do that again every single year, in this same place? And to be clear wasthat in this one place or in several different ones?
Lets say in a typical year you spend $1000 on hotels. At the $650 stated above that's a $350 savings.
Now the difference is, for $350, you can go anywhere you want, any time, and stay in any place. To me that alone is worth the money you'd pay.

You're enticed by the 2 bedroom furnished part. I get it, as a family guy w/ kids that is really appealing. Know what? You can find a Homestead Suites almost anywhere, they provide multi-room suite rooms for often the same rate or only slightly more than a typical hotel. You just don't get really fancy rooms or extra stuff. But you get a kitchen, pull out sofa... basically an apartment. And I know you, you don't care about the frufru.

Think about it this way. If it was a good deal, why would they have to still rely on high-pressure, "only good right now" sales style? B/c once people do some research and sleep on it, it's not a good deal, that's why. If it were, the deal would sell itself and people would be clamoring to join up.

Mail the letter, and pat yourself on the back for going through the exercise.
 
RatLabGuy said:
First - kudos for recognizing up front that you can leverage the buyers remorse law as an exit strategy, that's probably how they get 90% of people - from having to make an on-the-spot decision where they don't have time to do the math etc.

Second - I wouldn't call this a "really bad deal", but the math suggests something like a kinda bad deal.
Yes, you spent $800 in hotels already this year - would you do that again every single year, in this same place? And to be clear wasthat in this one place or in several different ones?
Lets say in a typical year you spend $1000 on hotels. At the $650 stated above that's a $350 savings.
Now the difference is, for $350, you can go anywhere you want, any time, and stay in any place. To me that alone is worth the money you'd pay.

You're enticed by the 2 bedroom furnished part. I get it, as a family guy w/ kids that is really appealing. Know what? You can find a Homestead Suites almost anywhere, they provide multi-room suite rooms for often the same rate or only slightly more than a typical hotel. You just don't get really fancy rooms or extra stuff. But you get a kitchen, pull out sofa... basically an apartment. And I know you, you don't care about the frufru.

Think about it this way. If it was a good deal, why would they have to still rely on high-pressure, "only good right now" sales style? B/c once people do some research and sleep on it, it's not a good deal, that's why. If it were, the deal would sell itself and people would be clamoring to join up.

Mail the letter, and pat yourself on the back for going through the exercise.
Click to expand...


To answer ya...no, I would not be required to go to same place. In fact, I could book almost anywhere in the world...meaning, I could stay in Morocco to Isreal to cancun...hundreds and hundreds of places I could trade to. For a 189.00 trading fee of course lol.

So in essence, I could go to Vegas for a week and only spend 189 transfering fee for the suite.

Our vacations are often spuratic..having a set time every year to look foward too did sound good to the wife and kids. Even though we could switch times or places anytime..again for that 189 fee.

Biggest problem is that this is an every year deal...for the rest of my life and the kids get it when I'm 6ft under. If we go or not...maintainance fees must still be paid.

The association must be profiting big time on maint. Fees alone. Think about that...500 per year for each Tennant × 52 weeks is 26,000.

That seems like alot of money there making right there.
 
My FIL bought in when it was just a dirt pile,argued w them for 2/3 hours,paid cash for a greatly reduced condo and had to wait almost two years for it to be built before he could spend the first night in it.His condo is on the second floor and all you hear all night is the commodes flushin and people movin around in the upper floors.Its his condo,at least two weeks in it are his,and they refer to him as a "owner" but he cant stay anytime he wants,or even have a key to it so to me its just a glorified hotel.

He got in for around $5K and his yearly maint fees are $800 a year(started out just under $500).In order to get the condo you have to books weeks/months ahead and you can forget stayin in the Westgate in MB.We've been tryin to get one for three years now.
 
Look into the term "unexpected capital expenditure" and "special expense disbursement"

You will never pay what they claim , usuyaslly 2-3 times.

Plus your math is flawed. At best its 630 a year. Plus the annual allocation of the 6k plus interest.
Over 10 years that's still over 1300\yr. Even over 20 itsd over 1k\year.

I'm not familiar with the remourse law need to research.
 
Dylan,

It is a good deal. A very good deal*



* Any and all statements above represent the interests of the timeshare and not the screwed individual. Fees and terms subject to change in the favor of the timeshare. Our friendly staff are always here to serve you at 1-888-BEN-DOVR
 
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I cannot believe you are unfamiliar with buyers remorse law ( guess I've been spelling it wrong)

@Ron It's not for everything..like a new car purchase, but it does kick in when there are door to door, high pressure sales, or in a situation where the seller is using rented rooms such as hotel conference rooms and such.

In my case, it's the high pressure sales and the paper work was signed in a temporarily leased office at a seperating location than the main headquarters of this company. All of which I knew going into the deal.

I was 75% certain that I was going to back out. And 100% sure that I would be able to.
 
Ron said:
Look into the term "unexpected capital expenditure" and "special expense disbursement"

You will never pay what they claim , usuyaslly 2-3 times.

Plus your math is flawed. At best its 630 a year. Plus the annual allocation of the 6k plus interest.
Over 10 years that's still over 1300\yr. Even over 20 itsd over 1k\year.

I'm not familiar with the remourse law need to research.
Click to expand...

Um, yeah, lol kinda overlooked that critical piece - the $630 doesn't account for the purchase price.
 
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