Save Your Vacation From The Timeshare Presentation Pt. 1

Many timeshare developers are offering a free or greatly discounted trip to a timeshare property in hopes of enticing you into buying a timeshare at a massively inflated price. Many retail timeshares will give away these seemingly amazing trips or gifts in exchange for your time at a presentation. These retail timeshare presentations are used to sell vacation ownership at these timeshares. So, how do you educate yourself about the product, yet save your vacation from the timeshare presentation?

Save Your Vacation

Many Americans have limited time each year to take vacations. From stressful and high demand occupations to your kids’ schedule, finding time to take a vacation can be difficult. These people are the ones who may need a vacation the most. Timeshare clubs spend a bulk of their marketing and sales on getting people into their presentations to buy their retail product. So, offering a cheap or free vacation package is not uncommon from these companies.

Although you are getting a discounted trip, you may not be getting the trip you have in mind. In most cases, you are only obligated to attend one presentation or tour. However, the sales personnel are trained in getting you to stay longer than you intended or to attend another presentation. Even if you are not convinced into additional presentations, they will constantly attempt to make you change your mind throughout the remainder of your stay.

Enjoy Your Stay

So you have made it to your destination courtesy of your friendly retail timeshare company. But it isn’t quite what you thought because you are checking in to a 2 star hotel down the street from the resort that you may or may not buy from. This is part of the illusion of a discounted trip because you are not staying at the 5 star resort like you believed. This may not always be the case but in many instances, these packages put you in a nearby hotel rather than at the resort itself and a shuttle brings you to the property for your presentation and tour.

What is Your Time Worth?

So you have made it to your destination and you are on your way to the presentation. Many presentations are listed as lasting only forty-five minutes to an hour but in reality they can take as long as four hours. A four hour presentation can significantly cut into family and vacation time.

Not only are you sitting through a long sales pitch, the sales associates are trained to hard sell. This means that they will be trying to increase your emotional response, make you believe that this is right for you and pressure you unrelentingly to buy their product. This sales tactic can be very effective and even if it isn’t, it is very taxing. So when the pitch is over, every attendee has been through a barrage of sales pitches and tactics. Is your valuable vacation time worth sitting through this?

Although this article has painted a worst-case scenario, it is not uncommon. However, there are better options.