The Insanity of Time Shares

[number six]

So I''ve lived in Florida my entire life so I know how bad Time Shares are. We had friends of the family buy one in the 1990s and I remember the hell they went through to get out of it.

Apparently Hilton has one and they threw enough Hilton points at my Wife (plus a free stay) that it made sense to sit through the presentation. I was also curious about how they spun these to make sense to anyone so off we went.

Like I said I know Timeshares are bad but OMG.. here's the initial offer we were shown for a Timeshare that would get us about 2 weeks at various Hilton Properties:

$60,000 buy in @ 15% Interest plus closing costs plus a yearly maintenance fee in excess of $2,000. This maintenance fee is not locked in and can (and will) go up.

Doing the math on the maintenance fee alone made it come to about $180 a night for 2 weeks of Hotel Stays. Now you can book these time shares like a normal hotel if they have vacancies.. so checking online the two in Orlando were available for between $120-$150 a night. So this deal was to pay $60,000+ for the privledge of over paying for a Hotel Room. What the hell man, I mean seriously.

When we balked at this they did show us a 2nd offer for less points and a $9,000 buy in.. but the maintenance fee was still over $1,000 a year so with the reduced stays you were probably still at that $180/night rate on maintenance a lone.

We were out of there in 44 minutes (my wife started a timer when they started the presentation). I'd say how do they ever sell these but we have a friend (who is ironically cheap as hell) buy into the Wyndam vacation club (timeshare) last year to the tune of around $8,000. He says he likes it but also told us how he had to switch hotels several times on a recent visit to Atlanta because they couldn't get a single room for 4 days.

[tufnel1530]

Think the move is catch people when they are on a vacation high and or drunk all week and try to convince them this could be their life every day.

It's pretty insidious really...

[HammysHangout ( Hammy )]

My brother has DVC.. its still NOT to bad .. but the maintenance fees still seem to creep up, but the fee is still cheaper then trying to get a room at a resort..

I have a friend that has a Time Share in Marco island, their maintenance fee is $500 a year , and hasn't gone up in 20 years.. they also paid off the timeshare decades ago.

So, I am sure there are some good deals, but probably less now than before.

[number six]

My brother has DVC.. its still NOT to bad .. but the maintenance fees still seem to creep up, but the fee is still cheaper then trying to get a room at a resort..

As some one that stays at a lot of resorts I'd say.. the fuck it is.

Like I said you can book one of these time shares right off the street for less than $150 a night. They weren't anything special.

Maybe if you bought a time share decades ago when it was an actual time share.. ie you owned a single room and a specific location for a specific week out of the year.. that might eventually have made sense. However these new ones are all nebulous point systems where you don't really own anything and you are seemingly throwing thousands of dollars away on a system that is significantly worse than just booking a hotel on your own.

Even if for some apeshit crazy reason you wanted a time share there are plenty of people willing to sell you there's for free. That's how bad these things suck.. people just want to get out from under the liability. So paying any upfront fee is ridiculous.

[number six]

Think the move is catch people when they are on a vacation high and or drunk all week and try to convince them this could be their life every day.

It's pretty insidious really...

When we got back I watched some videos on youtube to see if I could figure out how people fall for it.

A lot of the suckers.. I mean valued customers seem to be maybe a little less educated rural types.. you know, hillbillies. Many of them got roped into promises of perpetual vacations in Branson (that should tell you something) but even that became almost impossible to book because once they get you into the system then its the nine hells of actually using your 'points' to get a room.

But mostly its just the uninformed.. kinda how Scientology continues to exist. Grab somebody that doesn't know what research is and throw the sales trick book at them and hopefully 1 in 100 is stupid enough to sign on the dotted line.

[HammysHangout ( Hammy )]

As some one that stays at a lot of resorts I'd say.. the fuck it is.

Like I said you can book one of these time shares right off the street for less than $150 a night. They weren't anything special.

Maybe if you bought a time share decades ago when it was an actual time share.. ie you owned a single room and a specific location for a specific week out of the year.. that might eventually have made sense. However these new ones are all nebulous point systems where you don't really own anything and you are seemingly throwing thousands of dollars away on a system that is significantly worse than just booking a hotel on your own.

Even if for some apeshit crazy reason you wanted a time share there are plenty of people willing to sell you there's for free. That's how bad these things suck.. people just want to get out from under the liability. So paying any upfront fee is ridiculous.

Get yourself a weekend at a dvc resort, let me know how much it costs..

Standard Room Rate for Animal Kingdom Lodge is $532/night  , 4 nights is > his annual maintenance, and good luck getting a reservation.

I mean, i guess you could stay at Disney's All-Star Sports Resort... for $180/night.

-- I would never by a "Hilton" Timeshare.. its a hotel... not a resort.

[number six]

Get yourself a weekend at a dvc resort, let me know how much it costs..

Standard Room Rate for Animal Kingdom Lodge is $532/night  , 4 nights is > his annual maintenance, and good luck getting a reservation.

I mean, i guess you could stay at Disney's All-Star Sports Resort... for $180/night.

-- I would never by a "Hilton" Timeshare.. its a hotel... not a resort.

I've stayed at the Disney resorts and I've visited relatives on the Vacation Club hotels. They are insanely overpriced. They prey on out of state residents that don't know any better. I am neither.

Hilton has some of the best properties in the world, but those aren't part of the standard Time Share pool.. like most companies.

Time shares are reserved to get rubes to pay a huge multiplier on something that is clearly not worth it.. the same as just about anything Disney offers across the board. If you are paying $532 a night to stay in Orlando one of the most hotel dense areas in the world.. you are retarded, I'm sorry.

[k7]

timeshares have been a terrible idea since this guy sold the 1st one: