Is The 90 Minutes Worth It?

[TINK61]

Anyone out there ever attend these 90 minute presentations to get an unbelievable rate to stay at a resort? I mean, $29 a night for a studio w/kitchenette including all the bells and whistles seems pretty hard to beat, with some including 2 1-day tickets to Magic Kingdom. Is it worth my time, or is it a big pain and not worth it at all? Experiences and opinions please.

 

[spiceycat]

depends upon the resort - the Marriott, Orange Lake,Summer bay - all do soft sells if you are interested not a problem.

Westgate on the other hand -does know anything besides hard sell.

I like the gift certificates or tickets that Marriott gives you.

some will give you cash - but these are generally hard sell.

I tell them upfront that I am not interested - I only buy resale. Some will let me go within a half hour with the stuff I came for not a problem - others will make me stay for the whole 90 minutes before giving me the stuff.

the hard sell will try to kept you there indefinitely. So make sure you bring your cell phone. they will also try to make you feel horrible if you don't buy from them - this is a selling tactics don't let it bother you.

 

[TINK61]

Thanks. That was helpful. Anybody else have experience or just educated opinions?

 

[bearzabout]

I don't think it is worth it. For $37/night, you can get a condo with Skyauction without doing a presentation. The ones I have done were so unpleasant that I left with bad memories. I think that bad experiences have no place on a trip to Disney.

 

[dg39]

Last year we stayed at the MOWC and was approached by someone and asked to sit for a 90 min. presentation. We had time to kill and did it. It lasted around 2hrs. And we got 2-1 day passes to the MK and $100.00 to spend anywhere at the resort. The tickets never expire, so we still have them and we used the $100.00 for dinner there. It wasn't that bad, even though we weren't interested in buying a timeshare. After awhile I did get antsy, but like I said we had time to kill and we did get something in return. There was no pressure and depending on the offerings, we might even do it again. If you have the time and don't mind around 2hrs. of your time, go for it.

 

[RC Fan]

Hello!

I guess it depends on how much time you have. I felt my timeshare expericence was not time well spent, and it was a high-pressure sales push.

 

[zaxmom]

You could look at it like work. If you are getting more than what you would usually make in 90 mins worth of your job, you have profited. If you are not making/saving that much it is not worth it. Time is money! When I am staying at a condo and they call and ask me to do the timeshare I just tell them I do not like the place that much. They hang up after that. Other lines you can use are that you have to take the info home to your financial advisor to look over before you make a decision. You need to compare 2 other resorts and their offers before making a decision. Thank them for their time and all the great information they gave you, tell them you will look it over when you get home and tell them what a great job they did on the presentation.

I have not done one of these because my husband has not deemed it worthy of his time, but if I were to do one it would be one that I booked before I went and was only for a discounted rate, not something I had to wait for them to give me. That way when 90 mins is up, you stand up shake hands and say goodbye.

 

[robinb]

We have done timeshare presentations (our last was in Hawaii) and they can be worth it. Just make sure that you keep the salesperson to 90 minutes or less. Westgate salespeople are *sharks*. I would never return to one of their presentations and I would never recommend anyone else to attend. It was our first timeshare presentation and it lasted over 3 hours! My DH kept on asking questions and I kept on kicking him under the table. I think his shins were sore by the time we left . Then, we got the 3 point hard sell. Yuck. FWIW, we bought DVC less than a month later!

Our last few presentations were much better. We tell them we own at DVC and that we are there for the goodies. We verify that the presentation will last 90 minutes and check our watches frequently. We are polite, but firm. In Hawaii we got a couple hundred dollars off our hotel bill ... that was really nice!

 

[TINK61]

Originally posted by robinb
Westgate salespeople are *sharks*. I would never return to one of their presentations and I would never recommend anyone else to attend.

I had a feeling about that place, because I had submitted my e-mail address and phone # for a "Sweekpstakes" on the internet, well I only gave them my work number, and sure enough, one of there sales people contacted me at work and tried to talk into visiting their property within two weeks for an amazingly low rate. Gee - do you think he was just being nice?

What's the 3 point hard sell?

 

[robinb]

Originally posted by TINK61
What's the 3 point hard sell?

First the salesperson. "No thanks. Not interetsed."
Then the manager. "What part of 'No' don't you understand?" (Actual quote made by me to the manager)
Then the 'closer'. "I told the last 2 guys 'no'. It's still 'no'. Where's my lovely parting gift?"

 

[maximom]

Originally posted by robinb
First the salesperson. "No thanks. Not interetsed."
Then the manager. "What part of 'No' don't you understand?" (Actual quote made by me to the manager)
Then the 'closer'. "I told the last 2 guys 'no'. It's still 'no'. Where's my lovely parting gift?"

I'm laughing as your post reminded me of our experience yesterday at Cypress Pointe. I just returned home and logged on tonight to "warn" everyone here.

I booked CP thru Hotel Kingdom so a presentation was not required. As I had been told would happen, the front desk called our room on Tuesday afternoon (which happened to be our free day) and asked if we would like to attend a presentation they had 8:00 am & 10:00 am available on Friday and would give us $75 Disney Dollars to attend. I first said no because I knew DH wouldn't be interested and by Friday we would be finished visiting Disney and the $ would be of no use to us. That's when they offered $100 Disney Dollars that I could pick up that day and attend the presentation on Friday. They would take a CC impression and if we didn't show up they would charge my CC $100 and if we attended the presentation I would get my CC impression and receipt back. So, I agreed to the deal.

Friday morning they served us a continental breakfast then began the presentation. All went well and it sounded very interesting. She made it sound so easy to do since she only mentioned the yearly maintenance fees and made no mention of $19,000 + it would take to purchase the timeshare itself. That was not mentioned until we had been there 15 minutes longer than required and I promptly asked to get my receipt so we could leave. That's when she got very offended and defensive because I implied that she had mislead us. She then had to get a manager to sign us out before we could get the recept. DH, who is well known for his inability to hold his temper, was getting very upset. We told the rep three or four times that we were not interested and needed to leave as we had plans that day. Then the manager came over and was giving her little talk and DH said " LISTEN, I'VE TOLD YOU PEOPLE NO FOUR TIMES AND I'M NOT SAYING IT AGAIN!!!" That's when she got very snippy and told us that the only reason we were there was because we wanted a bargain and we didn't have to stay with them again. I was really ticked by this time and I'm not sure that it was worth the $100.

Oh well... live and learn

 

[robinb]

Hmmmm ... I took the Cypress Pointe presentation a couple years ago and it was fine. We always tell the salespeople upfront that we are there for the gift and that we already own at DVC. We were out at about the 90 minute mark.

Did they only keep you 15 minutes over the 90? That's really not bad. The salesperson does have to get the manager to process you out so they can make you an offer you can't refuse . That's the way it works with all timeshare presentations except DVC where the didn't give us anything! I'm sorry you were disappointed.

 

[CarolA]

Did they only keep you 15 minutes over the 90? That's really not bad. The salesperson does have to get the manager to process you out so they can make you an offer you can't refuse . That's the way it works with all timeshare presentations except DVC where the didn't give us anything! I'm sorry you were disappointed.

And the above pretty much sums up why I won't do timeshare presentations for ANY money. First, getting out in 90 minutes is practically impossible, second the whole reason the manager has to process you is to pressure you to buy!

I own DVC and love it and have considered Marriott.

My vacation time is worth too much to me to waste two hours dealing with this!

 

[powellrj]

we have done Marriott and would do them again, can't answer about the other ones, but Marriott was a great deal and very soft sell!

 

[maximom]

Originally posted by robinb
Hmmmm ... I took the Cypress Pointe presentation a couple years ago and it was fine. We always tell the salespeople upfront that we are there for the gift and that we already own at DVC. We were out at about the 90 minute mark.

Did they only keep you 15 minutes over the 90? That's really not bad. The salesperson does have to get the manager to process you out so they can make you an offer you can't refuse . That's the way it works with all timeshare presentations except DVC where the didn't give us anything! I'm sorry you were disappointed.

This was actually my first timeshare presentation but I expected that it would go over 90 minutes so that didn't surprise me. What upset me was the attitude that we were given. Because we did act interested.... I mean when you are told that you can get these great vacations for around $600 a year who wouldn't be interested..... I think that's the reason they tried to "pounce" on us. When we were finally given the price of $19,000 and then repeatedly said no, the sales rep wanted to know if she had offended us in some way and I simply said that I felt we were misled. That's when things went sour. She and her manager got VERY defensive and RUDE!!!! We were pretty much being belittled for booking our stay thru HK and for taking the $100 for the presentation.

My advice to those going to CP thru Hotel Kingdom is to first say you can't attend the presentation, they will probably offer you more money as they did me. Then if you are willing to give up around two hours of your vacation time and you can hold your temper then go for it.... Just NEVER act the least bit interested and you might have a better experience than I did.

 

[Bella the Ball 360]

Just got back from 16 days and I have to admit we did two presentations because the deals were at places we wanted to stay and frankly could not afford for that length of time.
Marriott was easy. Our sales person knew from the beginning we were not going to buy. She went through all the motions but no hard sell. She kept joking with us that we would take it in the end and we kept saying only if it is free but she knew it was a joke.

We did one at Wyndham Palms and it too was easy . The sales person was kind of a flake but we were honest. With two kids in college we were not going to take it. What I did not like was that some of it was like a car sales pitch. She had to bring over the finance manager and then the timeshare quality manager. Both of them were not hard sell and the salesperson told me later that Wyndham sends in secret shoppers and that they are fired if they do a hard sell or are dishonest.
The timeshare quality manager was not from this country and we could not understand most of what she said her accent was so thick ANd she got upset when we needed her to repeat herself. . I told the salesperson later, " here is a little hint for future sales, get someone who can speak English to speak to English speaking clients."

All in all however it was well worth the less than 90 minutes we spent on each presentation. I have not been successful on Skyauciton and I wanted to stay at specific resorts.