Time Share Tours Lead to Cheaper Universal Tickets

I spent a Saturday morning listening to a time share presentation. It was our first time and what I knew I only heard from friends and an old job (which was a bit biased).

Most liked their time share and used it for vacations. One family I know hated their monthly payment and thought it was a bad decision on their part. 

The hotel we stayed at said we could get cheap passes to Universal and scheduled us for a tour the next day. Apparently the hotel has a partnership with the resort. We met the qualifications and signed up.

I was curious to see what the time share was all about since I heard everything from the horror of the people selling timeshares to some great vacation friends had at their timeshares. At the very least, we’d get tickets to both Universal Studios Theme Parks .

Timeshare Presentation

The resort was a few minutes away and we drove the next morning for our appointment. He asked us up front what we were told about the tour from our hotel’s guest services. We were told we’d get 2 unlimited passes to Universal Studios if we took the tour. He said that was fine, he just had to make sure we weren’t misled. 

Our sales person explained how the time share ‘used to’ market and how they currently marketed. They used business cards and other typical information material and then measured how much people retained information. When they called after 1 week apparently they remember 70%. The memory declined until the fourth week where they remembered 0%. Apparently they won’t even remember the name of the place. Really? I found that ‘fact’ odd.

Anyways he went on to the new and better way they sold shares. They offered incentives to those who acted today. He asked if it was ok to ask if the company asked us to consider to buy a timeshare. He was very careful with his words. We told him it made sense that they would see if they could get a sale. 

After finishing our free breakfast (fruit, donuts, and muffins), he started explaining the wisdom of getting a time share as he gave us a tour of the facilities. The place was fantastic and the rooms were gorgeous. All the while, he’s asking us what we think of the place. Afterwards we went back to the breakfast area to hear the price information on the timeshares they were selling.

Timeshare Sales Pitch

He asked us how much we spent on a vacation. Bad move. We spent 5 minutes debating back and forth with each other on how we broke our expenses. Since it is apparently too low to sell us on the savings of the time share we also had to include food, car rental, etc. Still too low. We had to round up the figure to $1000 (makes it easy to do quick math).

He then asked us to guess with inflation how much this would be in 50 years. We discussed it and mention how inflation is around 3% and tried to get a figure. Our sales guy told us some ‘facts’ about how hotel inflation is 10% and how we could protect ourselves if we bought a timeshare.

After we told him no, he went to get a manager. We went through 3 more sales people who had different job titles. It was amazing how much cheaper a condo time-share became. It went from $30,000 to $15,000 to $10,000 and the final one was $5,000. The $5,000 was for an every other year deal. We kindly said ‘no’ to the different pitches. 

Basically we didn’t get the time share and we did get our Universal passes. All in all I thought it went well. I think a time share would be nice, just what they offered didn’t make sense to us. Afterwards in the hotel room, I looked at times hare prices and found I could buy the very same condos they wee selling for much less than the lowest pitch they gave. 

Did you know that there is a glut of timeshares that peope are trying to sell? I’m glad we passed on taking heir’ deal’. In case you want to find out more, please read as much as you can ahead. Here are some of my favorites:

• Personal Budget Management: Buying a Timeshare
• Listen to a Timeshare Pitch, Get [insert freebie here]
• Confessions of a time-share salesperson
• The Pros and Cons of Owning a Timeshare 

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