The Timeshare Captivity Thread
 

This should be a funny thread. Were you ever a semi-willing captive for a timeshare pitch to get free tix during a vacation?

I became a captive to the Polynesians when in Waikiki, and spent the better part of a day as a captive to timeshare pitch, in exchange for a tour of Oahu and dinner at the rotating restaurant. The two guys on the street know how to hook and nail 'em.

They sat me down with only coffee to sustain me and a "guide," a beautiful Native American girl who was present to wear me down. After 5 hours of talking, videos, high pressure and dropping the price from $8K to about $2K, I left with my vouchers and had a great time the next day on the tour.

Was it worth it? No. Spend your own money to do these things, and don't waste your valuable vacation time fighting off these high pressure tactics. It was good to know I had the strength of will to fight off the sales blizzard.

Anybody else do this?

Never. And I can't understand why anyone would spend half a day or more of vacation time to save a few dollars.

It's not always so bad. early on in a presentation, we told them that we didn't want to waste anyone's time because we were only there for the free snorkeling.

they didn't bother with the posture and we got a free snorkeling trip worth 150. Not bad for thirty minutes in my book!

many years ago I was when I was a student I went with some friends to a presentation and ended up being offered jobs because we were so good at countering their arguments!

I cannot believe that this marketing technique actually works. Lure people with attraction tickets and then subject them to an hours-long ultra-high pressure sales pitch?

I vaguely remember that I did this on my honeymoon. We were drinking pails of tecate so were somewhat numb. It was fun cuz there was simply no way we could have bought anything id we had wanted to (young and poor). Ended up with a free trip to Xel-ha.

I did this once when the kids were little. We went in, sat down and told them flat out we were not going to be buying, we were just there for the 300 disney dollars. 45 minutes later we were out with free breakfast and 300 disney dollars.

Yep! Stayed at the Marriott Phuket Mai Khao Beach using my friend's timeshare. Since I wasn't a member, I was "invited" to listen to a presentation. The whole thing only took 90 minutes and the reward I chose was 2 free rounds of golf at Mission Hills in Phuket. Since I was planning on playing there anyways, I was happy to sit there for 90 minutes and save $300+ USD!

I am a longtime timeshare owner who has owned weeks on four continents plus the Caribbean (down to just three, now) and served on the board of one of my resorts and as board president for a number of years. I have always bought my weeks on the resale market which is much cheaper than buying at developer prices. Marketing costs because of all those freebies they have to give away to get people through their pitch amounts to about 60% of what a buyer pays when they buy from a developer.

Still I sometimes do developer tours to get the gifts. It is easy to get the developer sales weasels to let you escape with your prize. Just ask if their prices are similar to the resale market (it helps to specifically mention eBay which is the bargain basement of the resale market). I also like to mention the very low maintenance fees of my week in South Africa and ask if theirs is close. The last one we did was at Massanutten, and we started with a free lunch fot the family. After about 10 minutes into the lunch, the sales weasel got up and went to get out gifts. When we finished the free lunch, we left with our gifts. If you know the right things to say, it is easy to escape their clutches.

I do them every now and then if the weather isn't nice or I'm up early before my friends. The most recent one I did netted me a $200 VISA gift card at the Vacation Village in Weston. They bought me a buffet lunch in Bonaventure Country club and then went thru a 2 hour sales pitch. The sales lady was pleasant and I was happy to make $200 for 3 hours of my time which included eating lunch on the golf course.

Carolinian is right, mention ebay and they realize they don't have a sale.
I like to talk timeshares so usually end up staying the full 90 minutes but if you don't engage them you will be done much sooner.

I had a sales agent ask me once after the free breakfast if I wanted my free money already. I laughed because he hadn't even started his sales pitch yet.
I guess he wanted to move onto a more lucrative prospect. Needless to say he wasted his day with me. ;)

Interesting, re: how to get your gifts and leave quickly. Don't engage them, mention Ebay. What else?

One of the funniest things I've ever seen was the episode of "The King of Queens" when they go for a timeshare weekend. It was played up to the hilt, but I LOL'd.

I went along to one of these in the Carribean - it was actually really interesting, as we had a good nosey around the property in question, a meal, and left with hats, t-shirts, bottles of rum, and, the real reason we had gone, a full day sailing trip for 4, wortha couple of hundred dollars per person. Whole thing took maybe 90 minutes - not a bad return for a meal we would have eaten somewhere anyway, and a bit of a nosey around a resort!

My mother-in-law loves going to timeshare presentations to get cash/gift cards. She's not interested in trips and such, but if they're offering a visa gift card or cash, she's there. Never buys anything, though.

Clearly, ethical behavior has escaped both the sales people and the intended targets. I wouldn't attend a presentation where I clearly had absolutely no intention of buying, or worse, to insult the sales people to cut it short. Obviously, YMMV.

+1. best episode ever