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

I wouldn't call it unethical when they tell you the gift is free, no strings attached, all you have to do is come in and listen to the presentation. The worst thing about these is that if you don't know how to say no or handle a high pressure sales pitch, it can suck a lot of time and energy out of you when you could be out enjoying your vacation instead.

Don't do TS pitches in Mexico since they are one of the highest pressure ones.

The gifts are getting a lot less and tbh $100 is not worth 90 mins of my time. I have a resale Hyatt Beach House which I bought off ebay about 4 years ago and during my stay at Sunset Harbour as an owner they tried to get me for the pitch but I did not want to spend 90 mins of my 4 days but wanted some updates so agreed to a informal chat without the gift. It took 30 mins and I basically figured out the only thing they could give me that I don't have i.e. transfer to Hyatt GP points is not worth it for the premium they are over the resale market.

You can get some packages to Hawaii i.e. 6 nights, rental car, credits or points, etc. With Starwood, Marriott, Hilton, etc. that is a good price but necessitate you of going to a presentation. I did one at the Westin before it became a St. Regis and it was a good deal.

I love going to timeshare presentations! I have been to dozens of them. My training is in social psychology (how people influence each other), and I always love to see what influence techniques the salespeople are going to use this time.

I find it fascinating when I catch the salespeople in a lie -- they generally just ignore being caught and change the subject. For example, one salesman said, "Once you own a week at our resort, you can rent it out on eBay for $1200." He them proceeded to show me a week that had *sold*, not rented, on eBay for $1200. When I pointed out that the week on eBay was a permanent deed transfer, not a rental, he just shrugged and talked about something else.

I own a bunch of timeshares, but bought them all resale. I did once try to buy some Disney Vacation Club points directly from the resort, but I couldn't get the salesman to return my calls. (I was just looking to add on to my current Disney Vacation Club with a small package at Disney's Beach Club. Disney has way more buyers for Beach Club than they have inventory to sell, so they weren't interested in talking to me.)

I recognize a couple of fellow timeshare owners from www.TUG2.net (the Timeshare Users' Group) here on this thread. Hi, Chriske and Carolinian!

Interesting. Now I'm inspired to attend a few more, as I work as an online marketer and would like to observe their selling methods. Like you, I would be taking a professional interest. I'm wondering how they respond to you if or when they learn you're observing them as test subjects. :D

Ironic, I was watching an episode of King of Queens this week about them trying to avoid the timeshare people. In any event, I've never owned one and never felt pressured to sit through a sales tactic. I stay far, far away from it. My friend, on the other hand, is a sucker for presentation and wound up buying 2 in one year (2010) that she hardly uses now.

I never confess that I teach psychology. I'm afraid the salespeople would hit me if I did! I just play dumb and then at the end I tell them their timeshare is way too expensive.


Fun fact: Of every dollar spent for a timeshare bought "new" (from a developer), about 20 cents goes to actually building the resort. Around 60 cents per dollar goes to marketing costs -- someone has to pay for all of those "free" theme park tickets! About 10 - 15 cents never gets collected at all; it's written off as bad debt. Profit is maybe 5% - 10%. (If the resort is selling additional ownerships to people who already own there, then marketing costs go down and profit is higher.)

My dad loved them too. He got flagged within one system as someone that routinely attended but never purchased. Back in the 80s, skiing weekends we popular freebies. My mom said they were taking advantage of one of the many stays and were approach by the management and told they could finish out their visit but were not welcome back. Dad was most disappointed.

We've never gotten flagged like that but around here the timeshare companies have quit offering their deals to locals as there were obviously too many of us who simply collected the rewards.

They would do their spiel, I would show them that their numbers didn't make sense, generally baffling the salesman in the process and that was that.

There used to be a company around here (I never knew their name so I don't know if they still exist in some form) that did booking but wasn't actually affiliated with the timeshares. There was an older woman there that loved us--when something came along with good enough rewards she would promptly call us because she knew it would most likely be a very easy "sale". (We had to turn her down a couple of times on scheduling.) We haven't heard from her in years, though.

Last year in Hawaiii on Maui I went to three.

First one was The Westin Residence Club . After a nice and low pressure pitch I got a $100 AMEX Card.

The second was the Marriott Maui Ocean Club. Due to an overbooked schedule there were no sales agents. So a nice person took me on a 30 minute Information tour and showed me around. The next thing I knew I was out with a Free Sunset Appetizer Cruise which had great appetizers sparkling wine from Australia etc.

The last was at the Embassy Vacation Resort where I got a $100 dining certificate and used it at Roy's.

I have also been to them in Lake Tahoe and wherever I can attend. I still have time to tour the city but in a place like Las Vegas where I have been there it's not a waste of time in order to get the incentives.

:D Hi Judy.
Fancy meeting you here. :D

Sure. Some tuktuk driver in Delhi said he'd take me to the Red Fort (which wasn't close) for free if I just went into a couple of shops. He got his petrol chits, and off the tuktuk went.

Oh, but that's not what you're talking about...

I am actually a satisfied Westin Vacation owner.

We went on a 90 minute tour in exchange for a reasonably priced 6 day trip to HI over Thanksgiving (prime $ week) for our family of 5. We figured what we saved was well worth 90 minutes of our time. Our experience at the Westin was actually very low pressure and professional. We held them to the 90 minutes and they encouraged us to walk away and think about it. We actually did and called back to make our purchase when we were back home on the mainland. We have enjoyed using our property every year since.

That said, not only has the real estate market changed considerably since our purchase, but I have learned a lot since and would probably never buy from a developer again. Thanks TUG!

On the other hand, we were stupid enough to agree to a presentation in Cabo, Mexico. When you travel as a family/large group, a % off savings for the week can be a seductive draw. Our salesman was an expat American with a loud voice and a long grey pony tail. After our 1/2 hour - 45 minute breakfast at which we asked many pointed, timeshare specific questions, we told him we only had an hour before our family would be meeting us for our activity of the day (hence fulfilling our 90 minute requirement) and he immediately got rude.

"No, no, no!!! The 90 minutes starts NOW! Don't you dare timebomb me." When we walked into the presentation room he announced loudly to anyone who would listen "Hey guys...I've been TIMEBOMBED here!"

After an excruciating 90 more minutes, we politely said "no thank you".He tried one last pitch and told us since we are 46 and 48 years old, we would qualify for the Senior Discount/Retirement plan.

It was the most offensive, sleazy, confusing and amateurish presentation we had ever attended and haven't been to another since.

Went on a free 4 day trip to Marriott on Singer Island (or maybe it was $99), when I had a conference down in Palm Beach. Had to sit through a max 90 minute presentation. Might have had a little interest, until we saw the placement of the resort near the West Palm pump house right off the beach, and the big FPL generating plant on the lagoon behind the island. So, we told the salesman that he could spend his full 90 minutes with us, and we would sit there, but we had no interest. He appreciated the candor, signed our validation slip, and released us after about 20 minutes.

The most sophisticated strategy I've encountered was at the HiltonVacationClub Vegas. During the guided tour, they have actors posing as timeshare owners who give "spontaneous" testimonials in the lobby about their satisfaction with HVC. After a little cross-examination, the ruse is exposed.

I'm not sure why this was done. :confused:
Could be that they actually were happy camper owners.
There are many happy HGVC owners including me.
I'd have no problem recommending HGVC as an ownership.
IMO one of the best owner friendly mini-systems out there.:D