How many of you have timeshares?
 

How many of you own timeshares? Are they worth it for you? Where do you have them? :winkwink:

i always thought timeshares were a rip off.

yea, same here :thumbsup

timeshares are for suckers

Unless you plan to use them every year and take vacations on a regular basis they are pretty much a waste of money. I have a friend and his wife that have one and when it is all said and done they will have paid around 35K for it. That'a a lot of nights in a hotel and considering they use it about 5-7 days a year on average it's not much of a deal.

I beg to differ on the timeshare = scam mentality. I'm sure many of them are, but I just purchased on in Las Vegas with the Marriot and here's what it breaks down to:

- Two weeks a year which because vegas is 'Platinum' level, I can trade at equal ground with anywhere in the world. For example their Arube hotel is $900/night but I could trade straight up. If I trade with lower level places I can get more time out of my 2 weeks, say 3 weeks.

- Mine cost $26,000 because I had the price frozen from last year. Currently they sell it at $28,000 but only one tower of 4 towers has been constructed, when the rest are up the price should be much higher. MGM is also doing their huge 'CityCenter' 10 billion-dollar project right across the street, meaning if they want to buy the Marriot's land out, they have to contact and deal with each timeshare owner individually. I know someone who had that happen to him with a different timeshare in Vegas and for his $30K timeshare he got close to $100K only a year after he bought it. So look at it as an investment (even though they say they dont want people to look at it that way).

- If you don't use it up, you can still do other things with it. They can rent it out for you taking a fee, or you can rent it to people. You can also convert it into 'points' which you can use for airfares. Basically for almost anywhere in the world, if I vacation only every 2nd year I could have fre airfare for two + weeks + hotel anywhere I want.

On that note if anyone is interested in the Las Vegas Mariott "Grand Chateau" timeshare, let me know so I'll hook you up with my rep and also earn myself like 90,000 points or something :winkwink:

I bought two on the Las Vegas strip next to Bellagio for 1000 bucks. The people who buy them new get ripped off, I think I got a good deal since I love going to Vegas. I pay $316/yr in maintenance fees each for a 1bd condo overlooking the Bellagio fountains.

Took this pic from my window.
http://www.howling-wulf.com/pics/lv_strip1.jpg

lol nobody here watched the timeshare south park ep ;)

I guess there are scams out there, but mine was a steal. Got it about 20 years ago.

I was waiting to see Varius post in this thread ;)

We had this discussion already lol

I have one w/ the Hyatt program
like 5 hotels i can stay at
i can either use the one on the coast down here for two full weeks ( our two weeks run thru 4th of july aswell ) or can use my "points" at the hotels around the country

we use it atlest once a month for 2-3 nights and always get nice rooms :)
not the best suites but nice rooms

dont know the total price off the top of my head but it is only like 240$ a month and our points roll over aswell if we dont use em
plus we can do different things to get " bonus " points
its really cool :)
low early fee aswell
500$