A low cost vacation? Visit a Timeshare

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PORT WASHINGTON, WI – It’s a frequent complaint from travelers: those sounds-too-good- to-be-true vacation deal offering several nights at a luxury resort, for a suspiciously below average nightly rate.

The catch, they often complain, is that the property is a timeshare and the guests are required to sit through a presentation on the benefits of what it’s like to own a timeshare – a presentation that can last from 90 minutes to two hours, and comes complete with what some have complained is a very high pressure sales pitch.

Not so fast, a Wisconsin columnist has written in her new travel column. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, says Barbara Fields-DeBlois, a writer for The Port Washington Travel Examiner. Despite the presentations, these are often a great way to stay someplace that the average tourist simply couldn’t afford to budget for.

Fields-DeBlois noted that the timeshare industry has been around “in one form or another” for decades, since the 1970’s, and has become a highly profitable industry – growing from a $2.2 billion business in 1996 to $10 billion by 2006, she noted, citing a 2007 study by the ARDA International Foundation on the domestic timeshare industry.

And even if your family hasn’t been thinking about buying a timeshare, she wrote, consider that accepting an offer for a deeply discounted trip to one of these vacation sharing resorts may not be such a bad idea.

“Timeshare presentations give an individual or family an economical way to travel to a destination that may not otherwise be affordable,” she wrote.

Not every agrees, and some people have gone online to fume about the lengthy sales pitch they had to sit through to get their inexpensive vacation. But Fields-DeBlois said they still get that affordable vacation anyway.

“While many people protest loud and long over the time spent at a timeshare presentation, if you go into the presentation with the right frame of mind, it will be smooth sailing,” she wrote in the Feb. 12 column. “There are many ways to find trips that offer up to a 70 percent discount on accommodations if you simply sit through a 90 minute presentation of the resort or timeshare amenities.”

In fact, some insurance brokers sell timeshares at discounts as high as 80 percent, and are easy to find on the Internet through simple key search words like “discount trips,” “timeshare incentives” and “discounted vacations,” the writer pointed out.

“However, do your homework and always look for reviews with regards to these companies,” she wrote, adding that a visit to the web site of the Better Business Bureau is also a good way to check up on a resort in advance and ensure you’ve found an honest and reputable company. Another way to make the trip affordable and enjoyable, she added, is to keep some basic tips in mind before booking any vacation at a resort that requires a timeshare presentation.

“If you know you do not want to purchase a timeshare, make sure you are firm with the presenter when it comes right down to it,” she wrote. “They cannot make you purchase a timeshare, but they will try their hardest to sway you, from cutting the price of the timeshare thousands of dollars to offering you every incentive in the book.”

Staying firm, she added, means they can get out of the presentation more quickly. She also urges vacationers to make it clear they only have the 90 minutes they were told they had to spend with the time share company.

“You have only promised them 90 minutes of your life, not an entire afternoon,” she wrote.

Fields-DeBlois also urged people to keep in mind that if they want a discounted trip and not to spend a lot of money they simply don’t have – they should go anyway, turn down the offer to buy the timeshare, and then go home. The presentation, she added, is just 90 minutes long. The rest of the vacation is the family’s to enjoy.

Fields-DeBlois is a married mother and grandmother of three, who writes in her spare time. A former paralegal and accountant, she enjoys sharing travel and budget knowledge so that everyone can enjoy a getaway, regardless of their income.