The wife and I got a free stay in AC with the promise of Airline tickets(strings attached) if we sat through a timeshare presentation.

We vacation regularly so a timeshare would be beneficial for us if certain factors were met. We've sat through at least 4 timeshare presentations before (for free gifts) and were never tempted to buy bc it wasn't right for us at the time.

After hearing the presentations, and the benefits that come with it we thought it would be good for us if the price was right. The initial price was too expensive, but the sales guy dropped the price twice in a span of 10 minutes with no haggle from us. (not usually a good sign) In fact, after the 1st price drop I told him to give me and my wife a couple of minutes to discuss and he came back within another minute with another price drop. The final price was over 50% less than what he originally offered.

They told us that we have 7 to days to cancel if we so desired. I felt great and excited about the purchase the night of but woke up the next morning with doubts and 2nd thoughts. I read some reviews online and many people had complaints, although it seems like a good portion of the complaints were false expectations from the consumer.

In reading alot of the legalese regarding timeshare sales, the sales team bordered on the line of illegal activity ie Its illegal for them to promise that the timeshare will increase in value, or to promise profits by renting it out yourself, but they definitely implied it.

My biggest concern worry at this point is that we purchased the timeshare with the idea that we'd mostly use it as an exchange to go visit other places, but alot of what i read says that you should always have a timeshare in a place you wouldn't mind going every year in the event that you can't exchange. The sales guy made it seem like exchanges wouldn't be an issue at all bc we have a desirable property but I need confirmation of that from the exchange company for me to feel confident.

>The wife and I got a free stay in AC with the promise of
>Airline tickets(strings attached) if we sat through a
>timeshare presentation.
>
>We vacation regularly so a timeshare would be beneficial for
>us if certain factors were met. We've sat through at least 4
>timeshare presentations before (for free gifts) and were never
>tempted to buy bc it wasn't right for us at the time.
>
>After hearing the presentations, and the benefits that come
>with it we thought it would be good for us if the price was
>right. The initial price was too expensive, but the sales guy
>dropped the price twice in a span of 10 minutes with no haggle
>from us. (not usually a good sign) In fact, after the 1st
>price drop I told him to give me and my wife a couple of
>minutes to discuss and he came back within another minute with
>another price drop. The final price was over 50% less than
>what he originally offered.
>
>They told us that we have 7 to days to cancel if we so
>desired. I felt great and excited about the purchase the night
>of but woke up the next morning with doubts and 2nd thoughts.
>I read some reviews online and many people had complaints,
>although it seems like a good portion of the complaints were
>false expectations from the consumer.
>
>In reading alot of the legalese regarding timeshare sales, the
>sales team bordered on the line of illegal activity ie Its
>illegal for them to promise that the timeshare will increase
>in value, or to promise profits by renting it out yourself,
>but they definitely implied it.
>
>My biggest concern worry at this point is that we purchased
>the timeshare with the idea that we'd mostly use it as an
>exchange to go visit other places, but alot of what i read
>says that you should always have a timeshare in a place you
>wouldn't mind going every year in the event that you can't
>exchange. The sales guy made it seem like exchanges wouldn't
>be an issue at all bc we have a desirable property but I need
>confirmation of that from the exchange company for me to feel
>confident.


Their home location is Myrtle Beach but they always end up exchanging theirs through Intervals.com .

It's become a bit of burden because they don't want to go to Myrtle Beach (and they haven't been back in years). They started offering up their timeshare to me and my siblings... we just cover the yearly maintenance and they help us with the arrangements wherever we want to go. Still, they occasionally end up traveling just because they don't want to waste the yearly maintenance fees.

If you're going to get a timeshare, I'd only consider it if it was somewhere I already went regularly. A friend of mine has one in Vegas that she goes to just about every year.

The exchanges aren't too hard. Like I said, everything goes through Intervals.com and you can find all kinds of other timeshares that are available for exchange. The biggest caveat is that it's hard to get an exchange into popular locations... there are few openings bc most people there end up using theirs and there's high demand for exchanges into those spots. It took my parents a year to exchange theirs for Dubai but it was worth it.

Overall, I think it can be valuable but only if you like your home location but still travel regularly. If you can withstand the sales pitches (and they come at you HARD), you can negotiate a decent deal. But just remember.... the contract is basically for life because they're still very hard to sell.

with vrbo, all the discount sites and airbnb is it even needed?

>My biggest concern worry at this point is that we purchased
>the timeshare with the idea that we'd mostly use it as an
>exchange to go visit other places, but alot of what i read
>says that you should always have a timeshare in a place you
>wouldn't mind going every year in the event that you can't
>exchange. The sales guy made it seem like exchanges wouldn't
>be an issue at all bc we have a desirable property but I need
>confirmation of that from the exchange company for me to feel
>confident.


you really shouldn't mind going to that location every year. for exchanges, you're going to need a flexible schedule - if you have kids and need to go during spring break or other common vacation times, it'll be hard to go to the popular spots.

it's also way more of a hassle to do exchanges than plan regular vacations - however, if you get lucky, you can also end up in super luxurious places you otherwise would never pay for - i just stayed at http://highlandsinn.hyatt.com/en/hotel/home.html using my parents timeshare for 2 nights. the total cost ended up being about $200 of maintenance fees - the room i stayed in goes for ~700/night

i don't think i would advise anybody to buy one unless they're 50+, but i will also say that a lot of the complaints on the internet come from people who probably weren't paying attention to what they were getting

I have a lot of questions based on what i've read or thought about After signing everything. So right now, we fall into that category of people that weren't paying attention to what we were getting.

Also, we always shop around and do research which we didn't do here. Just bc we were and even if a timeshare purchase is for us, it doesn't mean that THAT timeshare is the right one. I'd rather shop around and find a location that we actually choose based on our needs /desires. I'm pretty sure at this point that we are going to cancel.

also, just in case you weren't aware, there are "every other year" timeshares. i don't know much about how the cost would compare to regular ones, but i imagine it would be a smaller investment both money-wise and in terms of having to plan around using up the timeshare.

for us we'd use it yearly and multiple times a year if possible. It just depends on the flexibility that we'd have to exchange. That is probably the biggest factor for us.

My mom had one and we were so excited. But, eventually she decided to sell it because she knew that the fees would keep going up and she didn't want that expense to fall on my family one day. So, she sold it.