One interesting wrinkle I've noticed in Orlando. We fly there often to visit family who live there, and sometimes we'll meeting up in a group of 6-8 of us from out of town, so we almost always book a villa of some sorts.

Hilton prices their villas high for "regular" reservations, but then offers very juicy timeshare preview deals.

Marriott generally runs better promotions for "regular" reservations (full points and EQN qualifying), but tends to be a bit stingier on their timeshare preview packages.

In the order of pure costs, I usually find them in this order:

(1) Hilton preview. As cheap as FREE, but sometimes $50-75/nt.
(2) Marriott preview. Usually $80-100/nt.
(3) Marriott - no preview. Usually $120-140/nt.
(4) Hilton - no preview. High - $175 & up./nt.

All numbers are for 1-bedroom unit, not a studio. And obviously not max-peak seasons of Christmas, New Year's, Spring Break, etc.

And FWIW, I usually see "unbranded" villas (e.g., not Marriott, Hilton, Starwood, Disney, etc.) in the $80-100 range. Travelzoo seems to advertise a bunch of those, but I've never tried them. Why bother when I can get a reliable Marriott unit for just a tad more?

Yes, we've received them twice on our cellphone. We were driving down I-5 and Mrs. Fredd eventually had to hang up on the guy - he was that persistent and if it happens again we'll try out our new Diamond privileges and harass them in return. I went through the same thing with Comcast awhile back wanting to sell us VOIP and it's more than annoying.

I've actually taken advantage of it for one of the Las Vegas properties and for $199 had a room for 2 nights that was going for around $200+ a night due to a popular convention that I was already going to attend.

Instead of the meals or spa or whatever, I told them to throw in 15K HHonors points. Worked for me, got a room during the busiest time for Vegas convention and 15K HHonors to boot ^

I get these calls about every other week.... One previous poster indicated that he comments on how timeshares are one of the worst investments... I actually go a step further with "The only investment worse than a timeshare is 'vacation ownership'..."

People, people, I'm not interested in owning a timeshare/vacation ownership/whatever it is called this week!

I just want to stay in Manhattan for a sort of $75/night rate...at somewhere that isn't a fleapit

Yea...we hear ya! I think a lot of us here play this game from time to time, even though we don't actually buy timeshares. $75/nt in Manhattan is outstanding. Do a quick query on similar-category hotels in Manhattan and you'll be able to figure out exactly what you're getting "paid" for your 90 minutes. I'm sure it's a fairly nice sum knowing what even marginal-3-star NYC rooms are going for these days...

So to answer your first question, I'd say that YES you can always call back. Call back and tell the truth - you got a phone call, here's the offer you received. You checked with the Mrs. and she wants to take 'em up on the offer. Tell them you're thrilled about the prospect of vacation ownership in Manhattan. They will have a record that they contacted you. You may have to re-haggle a little bit, but those agents aren't making up offers on the fly, so if $249 plus some room credit is in the system, they'll give it to you.

I don't know how NYC works - in some markets, they book you into the "regular" Hilton, in others, they book you into the HGVC itself. Honestly, for a 2-night NYC stay, I think I'd rather have the Hilton. I fear how small a studio lock-off unit at HGVC could be, given how small they are in markets like Orlando where hotel rooms are usually large. (Maybe search this board for more specifics on that property...surely other FT'ers have taken timeshare tours there.)

I've done the timeshare thing twice... once when I was 16 w/ my older brother for free Universal tickets, and once about 18 months ago in Orlando in exchange for 3 nights in a 1 bedroom for around $50/night and 2 2-day Universal tickets. Neither were HGVC or even branded for that matter. The time I went w/ my brother the salesmen (plural) were persistent to the point of rudeness. We had to say "we're done, sign off on our tickets or we'll call the BBB". The second time last month we had a much nicer salesman, only one "closer" who was also much nicer, and actually got out in only 90 minutes. I've received the e-mails from HGVC for Las Vegas + 10K HHonors points for $99/night... seeing as I can usually get the LV Hilton for not much more than $100/night, I'm not too interested. If I got the Manhattan offer, however, I might be interested in doing it again since my wife has never been to NYC.

I work for Hilton Grand Vacations Outbound sales, we do drop the price a little bit when we read the terms and condition and that's because if you can book your dates in 45 days, so it's called an early booking discount. For example for Orlando you get 4 days and 3 nights for 199, if you book early then it drops down to 149, but if you can't book early that's fine it just goes back to 199. Part of the reason why we can't do call backs it's because we don't have actual phones, it's all down by computers and we don't control the calls, the calls come to us. I'm not quite sure what happens if you try to call the number back, you would just be calling the computer so it may to recording or something, but we do give the number to your concierges.

I got connected to the HGVC after calling the Diamond Desk about something.

I bit on the NYC; stayed 2 nights at the mid-town Hilton. Had a great time.
The sales pitch wasn't really a sales pitch. it was certainly a very soft sell, and I enjoyed it. They do have a "try before you buy" option, and I opted for that. Not sure if I want to go back to NYC for 5 nights (probably), or go to Park City.

Very much different from a normal "time share" sales pitch.