Visiting a timeshare resort as a gift...
 

and decided to attend the timeshare presentation (for a gift card of $150).

I had never looked into one but did before the presentation and it doesn't seem to be a good fit for a lot of people as you are required to make monthly maintenance fees for the rest of your life.

We did say no a few times and were able to leave with no sale made :)

p.s. we also believe that an older couple were in the sales presentation as 'plants'.

Would not surprised me if they used shills

I remember when we as young (lower 20s) Air Force people would go to similar presentations using a steak dinner as the bait. We got lots of good meals before we started running out of new presenters. I think they started checking to see if we were part of the "free dinner" guys. lol Not sure that was legal for them to do but back in the early 1970s, maybe the rules were different. . . or just ignored. :icon_wink: Learned how to look very interested throughout the presentation and then how to calmly walk out at the break. Great fun for a pretty good meal.

They likely were shills if the OP picked up on it. I wonder if some offerors of reverse mortgage and annuities dinners use shills?

We have been to some financial type dinners where some of the folks having a dinner was a customer of the adviser and had wonderful things to say or course.

In the ' 70s, we got a free Thanksgiving frozen turkey for looking at a camping plot by a small lake. That was great, as we were just starting out and didn't have two nickels to rub together back then.
We didn't buy a plot. Our friends did, though, and used it for many years.

We have attended several time share presentations. I have no intention of ever buying into one but if they want to give me a couple of nights stay at a nice resort to hear their pitch than I am all in. I would never settle for some $150.00 gift card.

The last one we attended was for a property outside of Disney. We got two nights free at a resort that had a beautiful pool, bar, entertainment, ETC.

The sales pitch was very good. It was difficult to leave their offices because they kept bringing in different managers to help over come our objections. We knew going in that we were not buying anything so we just put up with it to get our free weekend.

In the end we got a fantastic free weekend for a couple hours of our time. As far as the time share company, I think they know the game. They need X amount of people coming through their gates to sell a few suckers.

I remember when Palm Coast got sued because they offered free 'car phones' for coming by. At that time (1985) car phones were $$$$ so it was an attractive thing. Turns out the car phone was a little plastic push button phone you plugged into the wall. It wasn't even touch tone. It just LOOKED like a car..

Time share may be the biggest scam on the planet that is also legal. Once you're IN, it's very difficult to get out. As a former owner who got out after 20 years, I can tell you that the costs of the "maintenance fees" just keep going up and up. The fact is that as we get older, taking the trip becomes less of a joy and more of a burden. Run.

Great Way to Get Freebies!
 

My wife and I have been to several of these presentations (Time Shares & Future Developments) and have received hotel stays, free dinners, golf packages, and other promotional gifts. When it gets down to the salesperson asking "Well, what do you think?". Our response has always been: "Wow! That all sounds very nice, but we need to first check with our financial planner first - we'll get back to you." Then we pack up and leave for home.

Actually timeshares will not be thought of as investments but can be a good deal if you look into the corporation offering them and their history the first thing you should ask is what their maintenance fees are and how much is their reserve. Then you have to ask if is it a Time limited timeshare like a 99-year lease or a point-based system or a real deed system. The only timeshares that have ever gone up are the ones that are on the islands in the Caribbean has any other ones most wanted for trades. By the way there are two major trading companies so you can use your weeks almost anywhere with enough time in advance we had four weeks in Puerto Rico for many years that cost us less than $300 per week for maintenance now compare that to the average of about $2,000 per week for a full one-bedroom suite that's currently being offered and you'll find out that we have saved quite a lot. Of course if you're 65 or older how many times more are you going to be going away? As for the shills I can't speak from any recent experience but it's commonly done in art auctions timeshare presentations and many other places by the way the best place to buy a timeshare is either on eBay or a place called tug t u g where you have owners reselling systems often for zero dollars just to get out of the maintenance fees that they can't afford anymore. Lastly unless your children are well off I definitely would not give them timeshares in your wills unless you discuss it beforehand. The only legitimate two ways of getting out of a timeshare is selling it, going into bankruptcy, or offering it back to the corporation. Excuse me three ways

We had a timeshare through Marriott for about 15-20 years and enjoyed it. However, it no longer fit our needs, because most of the places are resorts where you spend the week lying on the beach, which is not what we are into anymore. We did sell our timeshare back to Marriott with a minimum of problems, however. They were much better than most programs about that.

Went to one a few years ago, they were offering a free steak dinner and two days three nights free at one of their properties in Bermuda. Had to pay the air fare only. The hard sell came at the property. I finally told them I had no interest at all, was just interested in the free dinner and mini vacation. The guy got really ticked off. I told him if they were stupid enough to offer freebies like this and people were smart enough to take advantage of them they had nobody to blame other than themselves. After the third night we moved over to another hotel and enjoyed the rest of the week’s vacation.

We have owned a timeshare for 13 years and love it. It has provided a home away from home in Orlando near Disney for way less than it would cost retail to stay there; or that we can exchange for inexpensive travel to many other places.

If you don't mind a three hour sales pitch you can get three free nights somewhere you might want to go. When we got up to leave and claim our "gift" they gave us a hard time. It was not fun. And it was not worth it.