For the week of Thanksgiving we packed up and headed out to Tyler, Texas for a week at a time share resort. No, we didn't buy a timeshare...this is the "sampler" package they pitch for you to "experience" the whole time-share/resort vacation. Boy, am I glad we didn't and never will buy a timeshare. David and I saw through the high pressure salesman the first time they had us out to the Canyon Lake resort for a "presentation". There are so many holes in their pitch that it's almost laughable. They pitch you on the great value of the paid week each year. For a price you own one week at a resort. You can even trade your week and/or trade with other owners. Once you get finished paying for the deed you get to pay annual maintenance fees that add up to about $800 a year...every year...forever...until you sell it (and you can hardly give timeshares away right now!)
Pitch #2 is that it makes you take a vacation each year since you've essentially "prepaid" for it. Well, that has never been a problem for me. If I want to take a vacation I make it happen. In my opinion, David's job merely gets in the way of my true desire to travel and explore! Pitch #3 is the ammenities of the resort...mini golf, pools, basketball, organized games, etc. Sure, we enjoy those things, but again, for the price that's a lot of mini-golf! I guess it boiled down to the fact that I can plan, in fact, I enjoy planning, vacations that are fun, adventurous, and frugal! I can do soooooo much better on my own thank you! And I'll use the $14k +$800/year to finance a lot of vacations to remember.
3 comments:
Nina,
Timeshares have become less and less of a deal throughout the years. Thankfully we bought ours when the maintenance fees were only about 250 a year, and we had just come off a vacation in which we had dropped almost 10K on. One of the most memorable vacations we've ever had, I must add. I think in the long run the timeshare will probably save us money and probably has already. We have loved our timeshare, and I haven't seen the maintenance fee go up yet. If I have to start paying the 600 like quoted in your post I'll start thinking again!!!
Duane and I went on one of those timeshare spiels once and opted out also. "To each his own" when it comes to vacationing. Timeshares work for some and not for others!
Maybe we just got a bad one...I know there are people who love theirs. I'm sure there are a lot of different deals out there...but this one was not good!!
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