Saying "NO" to timeshare

[pdsd]

Several posters mention DVC along with the other timeshares. Does DVC offer incentives for its presentations too? If so, what? Just curious.

 

[djm99]

It never ceases to amaze me how much pride people around here take in wasting valuable vacation time in order to save a few bucks.

Wasting any portion of the few weeks a year you get to spend away from it all is a complete waste, IMO. If you know in advance that you're not interested, and if you know in advance that these presentations are unpleasant, why go?!? Don't waste your time. Don't waste your children's time. Don't waste the salesperson's time.

I respect your opinion (and its many who feel like you do) - but my husband and I have traveled very well listening to timeshares. Just this March, my husband and I spent 8 days 7 nights in a beautiful Cancun Resort (a 6-star hotel). The Resort was all-inclusive and we were out of $567 for that whole week. This included transportation to and from the airport, all food, snacks, drinks, etc. Its not that we couldn't afford the full price, but we saved over 60% by sitting with an extremely nice presenter (who greeted us kindly at the airport) – who really wants to pay full price for anything when you can save $$$.

Are you telling me you wouldn't sit thru a timeshare for 4 day hopper tickets for $135 each? Friends of ours do this every year. They never pay full price for tickets. They are a family of four. They saved $400. You wouldn't sit thru a timeshare to save $400? Maybe you have $$$ to spend like that. Some vacations I don't want to be bothered (this vacation we are renting in Emerald Island and we don't anticipate the need for a presentation, but I always keep my options open). Our tickets for both US/IOA and Disney are already purchased - but I never know what incentive will be offered.

 

[edcopp]

They saved $400. You wouldn't sit thru a timeshare to save $400? Maybe you have $$$ to spend like that.

No I wouldn't. I'd save the extra $8/week for the year and not waste even one minute of my valuable, priceless vacation time listening to some idiot drone on and on about something I'm not interested in. Life's too short to go to things that I know in advance will be unpleasant.

No matter what the incentive, I couldn't be dragged to a Bon Jovi concert, for instance.

 

[mbb]

....No matter what the incentive, I couldn't be dragged to a Bon Jovi concert, for instance.

If you ever get an offer/incentive to go to one of those, would you let me know??

Have a Nice Day!!

 

[mbb]

Several posters mention DVC along with the other timeshares. Does DVC offer incentives for its presentations too? If so, what? Just curious.

Yup.

We got 4 meal vouchers, cookies and lemonade/iced tea, and the kids spent the time at the Kids Club at the Boardwalk.

That's it.

No pressure at all.
We came home, registered on the Boards, learned a lot!, and bought 10 months later.

You can save some by going through resale if you're thinking of buying a larger contract.
Hop over to the DVC Boards, and read, read, read

HTH!!

 

[djm99]

No I wouldn't. I'd save the extra $8/week for the year and not waste even one minute of my valuable, priceless vacation time listening to some idiot drone on and on about something I'm not interested in. Life's too short to go to things that I know in advance will be unpleasant.

To each its own!!!!

 

[rejobako]

No I wouldn't. I'd save the extra $8/week for the year and not waste even one minute of my valuable, priceless vacation time listening to some idiot drone on and on about something I'm not interested in. Life's too short to go to things that I know in advance will be unpleasant.)

Certainly, it's a matter of preference. What you find "unpleasant" others may find quite tolerable if it means being able to visit one of the parks for the rest of the day, or staying in a two bedroom condominium instead of a standard hotel room. You might find it easy to simply "save the extra $8 per week" to avoid doing something like this. Others may simply not have the room in their budgets to do so, preferring instead to use that $8 per week for household expenses, and then take 90 minutes out of a vacation to earn the whole thing.

I hear people saying that they cannot conceive of "wasting" 90 minutes of precious vacation time sitting through a timeshare presentation for a measly couple of hundred bucks. Well, maybe some of these people consider their week's vacation to be 6 days, 22.5 hours. That extra 90 minutes is just some work they have to do to earn the ability to maximize the rest of their time. Seems reasonable to me, because I can still remember when my financial situation was such that it was easier to spend time than money.

I also bristle a bit at your choice of the term "idiot" to describe these salespersons as a group. Certainly there are unscrupulous types. Many of them, however, are just hardworking people with a talent for salesmanship. As I said earlier in this thread, the man who made the last pitch to us was a friendly, witty, self-depracating South American who was a pleasure to spend time with, even as he was making his sales pitch.

 

[swilshire]

My husband doesn't enjoy these and has to be talked into going. I, on the other hand, enjoy seeing other resorts and hearing what they have to say. It depends a lot on what kind of vacation we have scheduled.

If we are in Orlando, we usually have our days pretty fully scheduled and won't take time out to do a tour. If we are somewhere else, where our schedule is looser and includes a lot of time just relaxing, then 90 minutes is not a big investment if the premium is good.

I have only run into one or two rude salespeople, and I'm capable of being rude right back if the need arises. Just be able to say NO firmly.

YMMV.

Sheila

 

[mking624]

For me, I wouldn't put myself in a situation where I can be treated poorly or force myself to have the upper hand to save a few hundred dollars. I'd seriously rather pay full price for tickets or what have you to not deal with that because I really don't want that as part of my vacation memory. Yes, to each his own. But if some people really find it tolerable and don't mind sitting through things like these...then why do these topics always come up with so many people adding complaint after complaint? One time, sure live and learn. But to keep going back and then to keep adding complaints, it gets to the point where I really don't feel sorry for "repeat" tourist for these timeshare deals, because they knowingly go into the situation. And I can also understand why the salepeople get so frustrated. They're losing SO much money to people who are just taking advantage of a good offer...and who keep taking advantage without ever having any intention to purchase (they're there for a purpose, and it's not just to hand out free things). I'd be frustrated too. Obviously that's no excuse for certain behaviors, but it should never come as a shock for how pushy they can be.

 

[djm99]

For me, I wouldn't put myself in a situation where I can be treated poorly or force myself to have the upper hand to save a few hundred dollars. I'd seriously rather pay full price for tickets or what have you to not deal with that because I really don't want that as part of my vacation memory. Yes, to each his own. But if some people really find it tolerable and don't mind sitting through things like these...then why do these topics always come up with so many people adding complaint after complaint? One time, sure live and learn. But to keep going back and then to keep adding complaints, it gets to the point where I really don't feel sorry for "repeat" tourist for these timeshare deals, because they knowingly go into the situation. And I can also understand why the salepeople get so frustrated. They're losing SO much money to people who are just taking advantage of a good offer...and who keep taking advantage without ever having any intention to purchase (they're there for a purpose, and it's not just to hand out free things). I'd be frustrated too. Obviously that's no excuse for certain behaviors, but it should never come as a shock for how pushy they can be.

Are you serious? The timeshares reps solicit me - continuously!!!!! Most of the time I decline their offers. They know I've either stayed at their property or sat thru a presentation. Where do you think that got my number from? Your commit has many underlining sarcasms IMHO. If you choose to decline a presentation (good for you) - but why are you suggesting that those who take advantage of presentations are doing something wrong? Remember, they solicit us continuously. I've gotten at least 5 phone calls from Westgate this year alone (We are renting in Emerald Island this year). It has nothing to do with the postcards I've gotten from other resorts and the countless emails of promotional vacations. IMO, it appears that others have nothing better to do with our time than to belittle others who want to take advantage of offers and save money!!! And finally, I don't think one person of this board complained about timeshare presentations and discussed how they keep going back. Individuals who speak favorably of timeshares gift don't mind the presentation. G.A.L. !!!!!

 

[edcopp]

Maybe you can help me out with a problem I'm having...

I'm a vegan, but every week in my Sunday paper I get solicited by meat-preparing restaurants. Coupons from Ponderosa. Buy one Whopper, get one free come-ons from Burger King. Weekly specials on ground round from Shop-Rite. ($0.99/pound ?!? What a great deal !!!)

So my question is, How do you say 'no' to these pushy meat salespeople?!? I know going into it that I'm not interested, but maybe there's a quick way to sidestep these meat-merchants and get home to my tofu burgers...

Gotta' go, the Omaha Steaks guy is ringing my doorbell.

 

[bobbiwoz]

I'm so happy that I read this thread. We'll be staying for free Marriott points at a Marriott time share in Orlando. I went on the resort board to see if anyone has stayed there, and it had good reviews, and so DH asked if he should try to save the points by going for a presentation. I then read him some of these replies, and we both agree that we rather spend the points than do the salespitch time! Thank you all!!

Bobbi

 

[angelstar0614]

Just curious...if a married couple attends these presentations and they're offering 2 1-day tickets, is that per person or couple?

 

[djm99]

Just curious...if a married couple attends these presentations and they're offering 2 1-day tickets, is that per person or couple?

per couple!

 

[dtauer]

I've always said there was no way I would ever consider a timeshare presentation. I didn't want anything to possibly tarnish our vacation memories at WDW.

However, after a lot of research, we did buy DVC. So far we love it and have no regrets.

When we just bought tickets through Orbitz, they offered a link to get $150 cash to attend a presentation at Fairfield Bonnet Creek. This one I may actually jump for. For 90 - 120 minutes, $150 is a lot of money. Not only that, but they claim to be "on-site" in that the property is actually on a small portion of the Disney area that is not owned by Disney. For curiosity sake, and $150, it might be worthwhile.

If anyone has done the Fairfield Bonnet Creek presentation let me know what it's like. Thanks.

 

[MaMa3Princess]

dtauer,

We did Fairfield Bonnet Creek and they are elegantly smarmy as I like to call them. My hubby and I had to take a different approach with them. We were not combative, we did not get into scemantics(sp) about if they were on or off of Disney Property. We gave them the answers to their fact finding questionare, we ohh and ahhed at the facilities and then when he asked us the million dollar question if we would like to sign up WE said "NO" then he brought in the salesmanager who came in with the special low low price on a package of points that would have gotten us a 1 bedroom in February perhaps, we declined, DID NOT GIVE A REASON, we try to give close ended statements, never saying money, time, downpayment just that timeshare is not for us. Well they release us over to the closing interview person and they try to give you some preview points and package to come back and try their facility. Once again He tried to throw a cheap shot at hubby and say he understood if we could not afford it, Hubby laughed and said maybe/ maybe not. They did not get us riled up we went down to the prize room and collected our money.

Like I said Westgate timeshares make you have to be smarter than the average bear HOWEVER Fairfield will try to stronghold you but we just played the game acted nice nice, did not offer alot of small talked, sat listened gave perfonctory nods and then at the end said no!!

For a 150 I would most certainly do it!!

 

[kydisneyfans]

We did a bluegreen pitch last fall-not too bad but longer than 90 minutes. It was storming anyway and the kid wanted to "play" Once the pitch was over-we stated that family members owned the property already and we just wanted to understand how things worked. Less than 5 minutes later we had 100 Disney Dollars heading out the door.

Not sure if we would do one again-saving an additional $2.00 a week for a year might be the better choice for us.

 

[luvdisney14]

We are staying at OLCC on an owner referral plan, do we get anything for attending the presentation?

 

[Tink9748]

We did a timeshare presentation 2 yrs ago at Celebration World Resort. I was stressing for the whole week knowing we were not going to buy as we only did it for the cheap condo but how we were going to tell them no. We ended up with the best salesperson for us (maybe not for the company). We told him no within the first 30 minutes of our presentation and he never pressured us to buy, never said he would get his manager or finance people or anything like that. We actually ended up chatting for the last hour as he did take us on a tour of the condos. Having never went through a timeshare presentation before, we had a great experience with it.

 

[pcgmom]

We have attended 3 timeshare presentations, and the last one was for the Royal Floridian in Ormond Beach, where we were abandoned by the salesperson 15 minutes into the presentation. I guess it was because we were pretty upfront about the fact that we were going to say no, so she just left us. We waited around for a few minutes, and then we decided to leave. We could not even leave without trouble because we were locked in the pool area and could not get out without a key. Talk about feeling trapped. We did finally get out without our free gift, though.

Taking the kids is an easy excuse to have to shorten the presentation. If you go in with the right attitude, it won't be too painful, but you do have to stand firm. If you can't stand firm, it might be too dangerous for you to listen to the sales reps. I guess you could go in and role play some other persona that you have always wanted to have and still say no in the end.

We have learned that if you refuse the presentation the first time that the gifts and incentives get better as the days go on.