Time Shares?

THE PILGRIM

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Does anybody still own Time Shares?
I used to own some, but that was a long time ago.
Just got a call from RCI, thats the Timeshare swapping company.
 
I have friends that own time shares.
I never saw the value by owning a share in them.
If some do that's great.
Now I see commercials offering help to get out of them.
 
The value in them is for the seller of the share, not the buyer.
I know several people that have them and wish they didn’t.
I wonder if the firms that are willing to cash you out are affiliated with those that sell them. That would be a nice circle of transactions.
 
Owned one (three weeks a year) at a popular lakeside resort in driving distance of home and used it extensively when the kids were younger. Was also able to sell unused weeks at a profit or bank them for trading with RCI. Since the resort was in RCI’s top tier, we were able to trade all over the US and Europe, and did, including one particularly memorable trip to Paris and the U.K. over the millennium and many vacations to high end destinations in Florida and Arizona with friends. Later, as the maintenance fees crept up and the property began to decline, we stopped using it as much and the weeks became harder to unload. Ended up giving it to a co-worker and paying the closing costs ourselves just to get out. After a couple of years, he gave it to another coworker who is still enjoying it. It was certainly no “investment”, but we knew that, and discussed it, going in. Looking back, I would say it was a positive experience for us and we have no regrets.
 
My BIL had one and he had a hard time getting out of it.

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Got caught up in that scam about 25 years ago.....

Bought a time share at the Yatchman Resort, Myrtle Beach, SC.
Bought 2 weeks a year, they threw in a Lifetime Membership at one of the local Golf Courses....Cost was $8,500.00 and change as I remember it......

After two Hurricanes the "Yearly Maintenance Fees" were double what the monthly purchase payment was.........

Mine was paid but the fees were not worth the effort......
Sold it thru a "get out of your timeshare nightmare" group for
pennies on my dollars......but was glad to be rid of it...........
 
The wife and I own points in Diamond Resorts and RCI, about 160,000 points at the moment which can be used for cruises, flights, hotels, but we mainly use it to spend 2 or 3 months in one spot and do additional travelling around the country. Also, being retired Navy we can use Space-A flights to Europe and use points at anyplace in Europe that Diamond or RCI owns. Last year we spent 3 months in Williamsburg VA, went to France, Spain, Italy, Portugal and Germany and still had like 45k points left, so we took a 16 day cruise.

Yes, it can be expensive initially, but in the end, every January 1st, your points are reset to all you own so your vacation lodgings are there year after year, and in our case, we don't pay travel or lodging, just food and incidentals.
 
The problem I see with them......

...is that you are locked in a time and place to go on vacation. If you have loads of dough, that may not be true, but I don't have any dough, much less loads.:confused: If it were in a locale that I really liked to go, I might consider it. I used always long to be in the Blue Ridge mountains, but it's gotten so crowded, I don't feel that way now. From the time my folks moved up there in the 80's til it had gotten to where they were unhappy with it except for knowing some back roads to avoid the horrible traffic.

Several times, though, we have rented time shares on a one shot basis and that has worked out well for us.
 
...is that you are locked in a time and place to go on vacation. If you have loads of dough, that may not be true, but I don't have any dough, much less loads.:confused: If it were in a locale that I really liked to go, I might consider it. I used always long to be in the Blue Ridge mountains, but it's gotten so crowded, I don't feel that way now. From the time my folks moved up there in the 80's til it had gotten to where they were unhappy with it except for knowing some back roads to avoid the horrible traffic.

Several times, though, we have rented time shares on a one shot basis and that has worked out well for us.

Rentals of time share units is not a bad way to go.....
Friend of mine bought a $285,000.00 " Large" Winnebego
diesel pusher Motor home that gets maybe 9 miles to the gallon plus upkeep..Sits in his yard under tarps 40 weeks a year...but he's happy....keeps telling me how much money he saves traveling...:eek::eek::eek::eek:
 
I never actually stayed in my Timeshares.
I got them on exchanges-barter, and Immediately listed them on RCI.
Then you can use other timeshares listed on RCI.
We stayed in a number of locales, like Orlando, Scottsdale, San Diego, Biloxi, Mobile.
But as already mentioned, you pay a yearly maintenance fee for your Timeshares and a fee to RCI.
As long as you are moving and using, it works.
Then your kids get older, other events happen, it dont seem to work as well!

About RCI | RCI.com
 
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Does anybody still own Time Shares?
I used to own some, but that was a long time ago.
Just got a call from RCI, thats the Timeshare swapping company.

We do. They used to be the Bandera River Ranch (Bandera, Texas) now is called :rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes: Pinnacle Ranch. :mad: Anyway, it's a several 2-story building (log cabin) named rustic names like "A" for Antler-etc- Ours ison a cliff top overlooking a river cut valley which almost never has water running through it-least when ive stayed there. :mad: But is a nice place. The family is still paying on it and its worth it I especially if you have guests you want to invite to it?
 
...is that you are locked in a time and place to go on vacation. If you have loads of dough, that may not be true, but I don't have any dough, much less loads.:confused: If it were in a locale that I really liked to go, I might consider it. I used always long to be in the Blue Ridge mountains, but it's gotten so crowded, I don't feel that way now. From the time my folks moved up there in the 80's til it had gotten to where they were unhappy with it except for knowing some back roads to avoid the horrible traffic.

Several times, though, we have rented time shares on a one shot basis and that has worked out well for us.

We are locked in. 1st week of August every year. Sometimes we can go in the winter months too-but then, what's the use? You cant go swimming then.
 
We own WorldMark by Wyndham, and we use it a lot. But it's not the old "locked into one place at a certain time" timeshare.

We didn't pay full retail, though. We bought my BIL's ownership, and then we added credits through the secondary market. Right now we have 25K credits, which is good for about 25 days at any WorldMark resort, and it doesn't have to be used all at once. We can stay a week here and a week there throughout the year. All total, we paid about 1/4 what you'd pay if you went to a presentation and bought that way.

But we use what's called "bonus time" as often as we use our credits. That's when you pay cash instead of using your credits, and is so much per credit. For instance, we went on a month-long road trip through the Southwest about 10 years ago, and we stayed at the WorldMark resort in Indio, Ca. (near Palm Springs) for 11 days. We paid .55 cents per credit. We had a full size condo for $55 per night. In that entire month, we stayed at regular hotels four times.

We had some friends come to town a while back, and they wanted to stay somewhere nice. We booked them a room, using bonus time, in the WorldMark resort here in town. We got them a 2-bedroom condo on the beach for $60 per night. You can't even stay at the Motel 6 on the edge of town for $60 per night!

We've stayed at about 17 WorldMark resorts so far. My favorites are Las Vegas, Maui, Indio, Tuscon, Scottsdale, and McCall, Idaho.

Yes, there are maintenance fees, and those are based on the number of credits you own. So, everyone needs to figure out if it's worth it to them. For us, it certainly works out well. My wife knows the system so well that she's been asked if she works for the company.

There is a down side, though. It completely ruins you for staying in hotels. Now, if one can afford Four Seasons or Westin, that's one thing, but for most of us who can't, this isn't a bad deal.
 
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We have had one for 16 yrs. It's in a good location, we use it every year & invite friends & family, lots of good memories. My dad owned it originally for about 12 yrs then I purchased it from him. (He is the only person I know that didn't lose money on a time share. :)
The annual maintenance fee is much less than we could rent a cabin on a lake for a week around here. We have also exchanged to Disney World, Wis Dells & a couple others.
 
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My wife and I just got back from an excellent trip to Los Cabos near Cabo San Luca Mexico. We stayed at the Holiday Inn all inclusive resort, all food and drinks were free, three pools, two restaurants, and 3 bars. The place was in an upscale part of town where everything was very nice and the beach was gorgeous and the whole resort was not very crowded with no waiting lines and daily entertainment. The room and airfare combined was about $642 per person, or roughly the cost of the airfare alone flying out Oklahoma City. Most yearly maintenance fees on timeshares are over $1000 not including your monthly payment so I don't really see the point in having one, except some people like to brag and say "I OWN a timeshare".
 
It doesnt matter the river doesnt have any water.[emoji1]

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They used to have canoes to rent, I remember seeing them once circa 1988? Not enough water in the river to float a paper boat. The next year, I didnt go and it flooded-all canoes washed somewhere downstream. I went the year after-a trickle by our lodge-went for a few hundred yards-then bone dry. Ah well, at least I saw lots of Deer and a few Coyotes. :)
 
Everyone I know is trying to get out of them.
I go to the “presentations” for cheap vacations. Matter of fact, one is coming up in June to Myrtle Beach and another in Oct to Orlando.
I just say no. I wouldn’t take one for free, and have had such offers.
 
They used to have canoes to rent, I remember seeing them once circa 1988? Not enough water in the river to float a paper boat. The next year, I didnt go and it flooded-all canoes washed somewhere downstream. I went the year after-a trickle by our lodge-went for a few hundred yards-then bone dry. Ah well, at least I saw lots of Deer and a few Coyotes. :)
88 was a dry year everywhere, even the rivers in Mt were low, that was the year of the fires in Jellystone.

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My daughter and SIL just bought into the Disney program. They like Disney so that’s where they want to spend their vision time. The granddaughter loves it.
Have no idea what it’s costing them? :cool:
 
...is that you are locked in a time and place to go on vacation. If you have loads of dough, that may not be true, but I don't have any dough, much less loads.:confused: If it were in a locale that I really liked to go, I might consider it. I used always long to be in the Blue Ridge mountains, but it's gotten so crowded, I don't feel that way now. From the time my folks moved up there in the 80's til it had gotten to where they were unhappy with it except for knowing some back roads to avoid the horrible traffic.

Several times, though, we have rented time shares on a one shot basis and that has worked out well for us.

They don’t sell slots anymore, or at least the ones I’ve stayed at lately on the cheap( promotion to get you to listen to 90 minutes of why this is the greatest thing in the world) they sell “points”. You buy points to get a time/location of a resort of your choosing, or so they say. Will you get the location and time you want?
They couldn’t tell us if they would require more points in the future for the same location. I’m guessing the points go up over the years requiring you to “buy” more. Nice little scam to keep the cash rolling in.
 
My wife and I just got back from an excellent trip to Los Cabos near Cabo San Luca Mexico. We stayed at the Holiday Inn all inclusive resort, all food and drinks were free, three pools, two restaurants, and 3 bars. The place was in an upscale part of town where everything was very nice and the beach was gorgeous and the whole resort was not very crowded with no waiting lines and daily entertainment. The room and airfare combined was about $642 per person, or roughly the cost of the airfare alone flying out Oklahoma City. Most yearly maintenance fees on timeshares are over $1000 not including your monthly payment so I don't really see the point in having one, except some people like to brag and say "I OWN a timeshare".
I pay $675/yr; no monthly payments. To rent at the resort we have a timeshare at is $1500/wk for a 2 br lakeside cabin.
 
They couldn’t tell us if they would require more points in the future for the same location. I’m guessing the points go up over the years requiring you to “buy” more. Nice little scam to keep the cash rolling in.

We started using WorldMark about 11 years ago. We used my BIL's ownership, and when he wanted out, we paid him cash.

The number of points to stay anywhere haven't changed.

So, how do they keep the cash rolling in? The price of credits goes up, and they continually hound you to "upgrade" and buy more. We always ignore these offers!

Then, my wife became acquainted with a guy who specializes in timeshare resale, and we've bought credits at a fraction of the original price.

So we don't "own" a timeshare. But we do own credits that can be used at a large number of resorts. And since we didn't pay an inflated price, we could sell them for the same as we bought them for. But why would we want to? We (and our friends) use this all the time!
 
Time shares are the biggest rip-off around! After spending money to buy into the time share, you have to pay some else to take it when you want to get rid of it.

I now take their "free" offers for stays at resorts and when the hard sell comes, I just tell them I'm not interested and walk out.
 
In the early 1990s my dad was watching the local educational channel fund raising auction and bought a 1 week timeshare to Hilton Head Island for $800. It was the week after Thanksgiving and locked in to that week every year.

It's been a huge hit with the women of the family. My wife, my sister and mom would hit the HHI Outlet malls with a vengeance and get some power Christmas shopping done. Good vacation for me, too. ;)
 
No experience with timeshares, but we like AirBnB and VRBO. Huge selection from single rooms to entire large houses all over the world. Our experience is limited to Hawaii, Oregon, and California, but the experience has been pretty much uniformly good.

There are no membership fees, although a returnable security deposit is required. Choice of location, digs and price ranges is vast.
 
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I worked for RCI as an "Instant Exchange Coordinator" the summer of '87. $5/hr, IIRC. :) I think that was sort of the height of the whole exchange thing. My in-laws have a couple weeks in a timeshare and trade it: my wife and I think the whole idea makes no sense for our needs (We are happy to just rent an apartment or hotel room where we want to be) and do not have any interest in inheriting this property.
 
IMHO time-shares are one of the biggest scams around. Everybody I know who bought into one came to regret it. Costs keep going up and there is no good way to get rid of one without taking a financial beating.
 
...is that you are locked in a time and place to go on vacation. If you have loads of dough, that may not be true, but I don't have any dough, much less loads.:confused: If it were in a locale that I really liked to go, I might consider it. I used always long to be in the Blue Ridge mountains, but it's gotten so crowded, I don't feel that way now. From the time my folks moved up there in the 80's til it had gotten to where they were unhappy with it except for knowing some back roads to avoid the horrible traffic.

Several times, though, we have rented time shares on a one shot basis and that has worked out well for us.

Au Contrair mon Frere;

Timeshares these days with the big companys are point based. When I first bought in the mid 80s I owned a set week and set unit. Later on, they went to point based and gave us a set amount of points for our set weeks, thats when I upgraded to 160k points and we're going tomorrow for a week where we plan to add another 40k points. With points, you not only can go anywhere in the timeshare sphere, but with points, you can have the stock your unit with groceries of your choosing, so when you get there, all you need is on hand.
 
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