# I just "won" a timeshare pitch. What's the straight dope? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 10, 2008, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-won-a-timeshare-pitch-whats-the-straight-dope/476558 "2008-12-10T15:30:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![shallora](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f9ae1b/32.png) [@shallora](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shallora)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2008, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-won-a-timeshare-pitch-whats-the-straight-dope/476558/21 "2008-12-10T16:30:32Z")
A timeshare pitch? :eek: My suggestion: Run. Run away. Run away fast. Don’t look back. Like other posters on here have said: I’ve never seen or heard of a timeshare pitch that was worth the time involved to participate in whatever pitch/presentation it is. Huge waste of time. Run. ---
**Author:** ![Wallenstein](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/b5a626/32.png) [@Wallenstein](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wallenstein)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2008, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-won-a-timeshare-pitch-whats-the-straight-dope/476558/22 "2008-12-10T16:38:14Z")
The $500 in VISA vouchers will probably be something like: - $100 discount on a $5000 jetski from our partners at Jetskis R Us - $50 off a $2000 wedding dress from [Bridezilla.com](http://Bridezilla.com) - $100 off 300 sacks of industrial fertilizer at Bob’s Nitrate Barn That sort of thing… technically valid, but essentially useless to the average punter. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2008, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-won-a-timeshare-pitch-whats-the-straight-dope/476558/23 "2008-12-10T16:41:43Z")
So you’re talking about investing seven hours of your time, five of which are drive time with the attendant cost in gas & maintenance. Unless you travel a lot and can take advantage of hotel or flight vouchers, or you happen to be in the right position to take advantage of whatever the highly-restricted cool reward is, it seems unlikely that this will pay off for you. My cool prize was a 3-day cruise from San Diego to Ensenada, Mexico and back. Which is to say, 3 days on a boat chugging slowly along through the ocean; it’s only about an hour’s drive from one town to the next. All expenses except passage on the boat, including travel to and from San Diego, were mine to pay. I was living in San Francisco at the time… ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2008, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-won-a-timeshare-pitch-whats-the-straight-dope/476558/24 "2008-12-10T16:44:58Z")
> [@](#): > > The odd part is that they did specifically say that I had won something (which, as I understand it, they generally don’t do), and further explained that I am guaranteed one of four things in addition to the trip: the car, a Caribbean cruise, a cruise to a destination I don’t remember, or a $500 Visa gift card. In theory, I should be happy about this, since it seems that I’m guaranteed a free $500 for my troubles. Are you sure it isn’t “you are guaranteed to win one of these great prizes _if you qualify_”? By which they usually mean “if you buy the timeshare”. The other catch I have encountered is that you win **a share of** of the Visa gift card - meaning they split it up among everyone who “wins”. I wound up winning less than eight dollars. We did one of these on our honeymoon. The sales person told me, flat out, that I didn’t love my wife because I didn’t want to buy the timeshare. We wound up with a plastic tote bag and a great story. Put it this way - you are guaranteed not to win the car, the free trip to Florida will be a bus ticket (or the equivalent) and you will be required to sit thru eight hours of hard sell once you are in Florida, and the cruises will leave on a specific day, will be for one person and will not include airfare, liquor, side trips, or anything else. If your schedule is free enough that you can go on a three day cruise on the weekend they specify, and you don’t mind spending the money on everything that makes such a cruise desirable, and don’t mind wasting a day driving there, listening to the hardest sell you will ever encounter, and dealing with all the impediments they will put into your path to try to prevent you from actually gaining any benefit from your “prize”, then go for it. Unless they are simply, flat out lying to you. That’s a possibility too. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![EpicNonsense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c37758/32.png) [@EpicNonsense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EpicNonsense)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2008, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-won-a-timeshare-pitch-whats-the-straight-dope/476558/25 "2008-12-10T16:49:20Z")
See if you can find out what company it is that is offering the gift (that’s what we called it in timeshare). Then do a little bit of Google-fu on their ass. I’m sure you will get a lot of useful feedback then… Some company’s may have a better way of going about it than others… I worked with Hilton and anyone who toured usually had a good experience and got what they were told they’d get. It seems with this situation you are in, you’re already getting less than what you were told. First, they tell you it’s a trip you’ve ‘won’, then it’s only airfare plus taxes, then it’s only airfare on certain days, in certain seats, etc. Hopefully, whatever company that is offering the gift to you won’t be disguising any _more_ gimmicks. Good luck ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2008, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-won-a-timeshare-pitch-whats-the-straight-dope/476558/26 "2008-12-10T16:54:32Z")
The 90 minutes will end up being more like 3 hours. The “prizes” will bear little similarity to what you were promised. Usually you will be told you’ve won some kind of “second prize” and you will be given worthless coupons with tons of restrictions, or, alternatively, you may be given something which they can argue technically meets the criteria for what the promised, but which is really a trick. For instance, one common bait and switch is to offer a “boat” or a “truck” which turn out to be toys (and which you won’t find out are toys until you pay a “delivery fee,” and then get your toy boat in the mail. I think **Wallenstein** has probably hit it in this case that the “Visa gift card” will turn out to be limited to a narrow set of discounts (nothing free, just “$5 off”) on crap you’ll never want to buy anyway. I can guarantee you won’t get anything like what they’re dangling. These come-ons are ALWAYS scams. No exceptions. ---
**Author:** ![Roland\_Orzabal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c2a13f/32.png) [@Roland\_Orzabal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roland_Orzabal)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2008, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-won-a-timeshare-pitch-whats-the-straight-dope/476558/27 "2008-12-10T16:57:24Z")
Re: the VISA stuff, **Wallenstein** is probably right. At any rate, I’m not all that concerned with the offer of ONE OF FOUR FABULOUS PRIZES!; I was merely curious what their angle was. As it stands I’m just trying to decide whether to take the vacation in exchange for the sales pitch. Thus far, the things I’ve been cautioned about are, while perfectly valid concerns, just the sorts of things I was expecting and am willing to deal with…although there are exceptions; **Savannah** and **Ethilrist** ’s tales suggest that the offered vacation itself may well suck, in which case I wouldn’t want to waste my time. (I have plenty of time to waste, mind, which is why I’m considering doing this at all, but I have to get at least something decent out of it.) ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2008, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-won-a-timeshare-pitch-whats-the-straight-dope/476558/28 "2008-12-10T17:00:23Z")
Oh, yeah, the “cruise” which turns out to be laden with out of pocket expenses, lasts 3 days and has to be on the weekend that they say. That’s a possibility too. ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2008, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-won-a-timeshare-pitch-whats-the-straight-dope/476558/29 "2008-12-10T17:09:26Z")
Buying part-ownership in a resort condo doesn’t seem to me to be an inherently-bad idea (assuming, of course, that you can actually afford it, etc). What is so wrong with these timeshares that they have to resort to such scammy tactics to sell them? Are they crappy resorts? ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_T](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Gary\_T](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_T)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2008, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-won-a-timeshare-pitch-whats-the-straight-dope/476558/30 "2008-12-10T17:16:57Z")
My understanding is that typically you’ll win a “vacation trip” with so many mandatory add-on fees for you to pay that you could actually have done it cheaper on your own. ---
**Author:** ![Drain\_Bead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e47774/32.png) [@Drain\_Bead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drain_Bead)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2008, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-won-a-timeshare-pitch-whats-the-straight-dope/476558/31 "2008-12-10T17:18:10Z")
I went to a timeshare presentation at a resort we were staying at. It took about an hour, my husband and I got a good laugh at the hard sell tactics, and afterwards they gave me a voucher for $100 to use at their spa. I got a milk bath and a seaweed wrap out of it. YMMV. ---
**Author:** ![Wallenstein](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/b5a626/32.png) [@Wallenstein](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wallenstein)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2008, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-won-a-timeshare-pitch-whats-the-straight-dope/476558/32 "2008-12-10T17:24:17Z")
> [@Sunspace](#): > > Buying part-ownership in a resort condo doesn’t seem to me to be an inherently-bad idea (assuming, of course, that you can actually afford it, etc). What is so wrong with these timeshares that they have to resort to such scammy tactics to sell them? Are they crappy resorts? [http://www.independent.co.uk/money/invest-save/holiday-club-scandals-are-on-increase-in-southern-europe-595652.html](http://www.independent.co.uk/money/invest-save/holiday-club-scandals-are-on-increase-in-southern-europe-595652.html) ---
**Author:** ![Antinor01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecae2f/32.png) [@Antinor01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antinor01)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2008, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-won-a-timeshare-pitch-whats-the-straight-dope/476558/33 "2008-12-10T17:30:55Z")
> [@Drain\_Bead](#): > > I went to a timeshare presentation at a resort we were staying at. It took about an hour, my husband and I got a good laugh at the hard sell tactics, and afterwards they gave me a voucher for $100 to use at their spa. I got a milk bath and a seaweed wrap out of it. > > YMMV. We did something similar in Vegas. They paid for our room on our next trip and we got free show tickets. (We went to thunder from down under, that was fun) ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2008, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-won-a-timeshare-pitch-whats-the-straight-dope/476558/34 "2008-12-10T17:34:10Z")
> [@Roland\_Orzabal](#): > > A few weeks ago, I dropped my name into a mall “Win A Car!” box on a lark. Aside from the timeshare pitch, I think this was a mistake, because they’re going to sell your contact information to all sorts of mailing and telemarketer lists. ---
**Author:** ![jujuju](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/7993a0/32.png) [@jujuju](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jujuju)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2008, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-won-a-timeshare-pitch-whats-the-straight-dope/476558/35 "2008-12-10T17:39:17Z")
I got a call from one of these recently, telling me I had won a free vacation, anytime I wanted over the next year, to one of their 6 destinations if I listened to their timeshare pitch while there. Then after all the descriptions and that, they say “all we need now is your credit card to charge a nominal $125 fee to reserve your vacation”. I say send it to me in the mail and I will look over it. They transfer me to someone else, say they can reduce the fee by $50 but I have to do it now to reserve my spot. Um, no. ---
**Author:** ![Solfy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@Solfy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Solfy)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2008, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-won-a-timeshare-pitch-whats-the-straight-dope/476558/36 "2008-12-10T17:40:50Z")
My husband and I were on vacation in Williamsburg, VA and got hit up for a time share pitch. We were promised our choice of free tickets for either Colonial Williamsburg or Busch Gardens. We already planned to go to Busch Gardens the next day, and the park didn’t open until 10:00, so we agreed to attend the 8:00 sales pitch. They promised to have us out of there by 9:30. They supplied coffee, the expected hard sales pitch, and a tour of a nearby facility. We held fast, got our tickets, and were on our way at 9:30. No catch. Saved us $80 IIRC. And the desperate pitch amused us. ---
**Author:** ![Roland\_Orzabal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c2a13f/32.png) [@Roland\_Orzabal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roland_Orzabal)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2008, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-won-a-timeshare-pitch-whats-the-straight-dope/476558/37 "2008-12-10T17:41:57Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > Aside from the timeshare pitch, I think this was a mistake, because they’re going to sell your contact information to all sorts of mailing and telemarketer lists. No worries, I’m already on all of those anyway. My only phone is a cell (which is registered on the national DNC anyway), and my Bin-O’-Junk-Mail makes for good kindling, so I’m always happy to have it replenished. ---
**Author:** ![EpicNonsense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c37758/32.png) [@EpicNonsense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EpicNonsense)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2008, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-won-a-timeshare-pitch-whats-the-straight-dope/476558/38 "2008-12-10T17:42:51Z")
> [@Sunspace](#): > > Buying part-ownership in a resort condo doesn’t seem to me to be an inherently-bad idea (assuming, of course, that you can actually afford it, etc). What is so wrong with these timeshares that they have to resort to such scammy tactics to sell them? Are they crappy resorts? Some are, yes. They prefer doing the presentations because there is a much better chance someone is going to buy and they know that the client they are working with makes enough money to buy a timeshare. Before even going on a tour you must first pass a basic qualification test… “Income”. If you’re married it’s combined income. At Hilton you had to be in the $80K bracket, IIRC, if you were married, and $60K being single. If you are not making enough money, we will not waste time with you. I hated spending several minutes talking with potentials and once the form came out and I saw they made no money I had to tell them they didn’t qualify. Was there a question on your entry form about “Income”? Once they find you “qualify” for the presentation, they’ll offer you a gift. But this gift is only there because they want you to feel more welcomed and comfortable while _at_ the resort. And the professional sales pitches they have for you will work a lot of the times because a) you qualify b) you are being shown this resort in person rather than on a TV. The resorts look much better when you are inside of them, c) timeshares aren’t all that bad in the long run as long as it’s with a good company For example, with Hilton, you are apart of a program called RCI? I think that’s what it is. You can stay at any RCI resort during your specified timeshare period. Which is really cool. Though, some companies require you to stay in a specific room (my grandma still does this).. and some companies still do this. Details of the pitch like this would be hard to fit into a commercial. The time they invest doing presentations outweighs their performance with advertisement. Why do you think every timeshare company has these booths all over the place? It’s not a business that could solely rely on advertisement. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2008, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-won-a-timeshare-pitch-whats-the-straight-dope/476558/39 "2008-12-10T17:45:21Z")
In the Disney area they have to pay something for your time. You can get away with an hour or 2 pitch and get Disney tickets ,restaurant meals or free attractions. If you do not mind the time waste ,you can save some money. Plus coffee and donuts are offered. They are good salesmen though. I still have 50 silver dollars that was given for watching a presentation in Key West. I also have the condo. ---
**Author:** ![Sateryn76](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e4f/32.png) [@Sateryn76](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sateryn76)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2008, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-won-a-timeshare-pitch-whats-the-straight-dope/476558/40 "2008-12-10T17:52:37Z")
We did a timeshare pitch in Vegas, got free show tickets, and bought a “vacation ownership” interest in a Vegas property. We trade our property into the Interval International system, and it has allowed us to stay at really upscale resorts, with full kitchens and bedrooms, all over the country. It’s the best investment we’ve ever made, because it has made travel affordable for us. \*\*\*\*NOTE - we did it through the resort company itself. If their pitch is from an outside seller, run away. We did one of these, and the properties are junk at high prices. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-won-a-timeshare-pitch-whats-the-straight-dope/476558.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-just-won-a-timeshare-pitch-whats-the-straight-dope/476558.md?page=3)