Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community  

Go Back   Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community > The Academy > Tilted Life


 
 
LinkBack Thread Tools
Old 07-19-2005, 02:30 PM   #1 (permalink)
Tilted
 
Location: On the 'Mostly Harmless' planet Earth
Time Shares... Worth it?

I think the search feature was broken or something because I couldn't figure out if this was already a topic somewhere, so here goes...

We really shouldn't have, but did get sucked into buying a time share. Fairfield Resorts.

Basically, points for life, paid about $10K for it, their payment plan had an atrocious 12% rate, so we transferred the balance to AmEx, with a 6% rate for the life of the balance. Has a bit higher minimum payment ($182/mo rather than $130) but I'm hoping it will be worth moving.

So far, the resorts have been really nice and we have the comfort of knowing that one day, it will be paid off and we'll own it outright for the rest of our lives, but it's debt in the here and now.

Anyone else get into the time share thing? Any experiences, good or bad?
__________________
Oh no, not again.
Nunquam_Idem is offline  
Old 07-19-2005, 05:55 PM   #2 (permalink)
Psycho
 
Seanland's Avatar
 
Location: Ontario, Canada
O Man! My parents own Two Weeks at Lagoon City in Ontario, Canada..
I thikn its the greatest thing ever.. its a vacation anywhere for like $200

If you get bored of the place, you can always exchange it for the week..
Its awesome, get the RCI book, and look for other places, there are some nice places in there..

Ive actually been to a Fairfield Resort.. It was the one in Tennesee.. Fairfield Glades.. absolutely beautiful place, plus you get discounts for being a timeshare/RCI member.. Its awesome.. Ill be grabbing my own time share as soon as I can
Seanland is offline  
Old 07-19-2005, 08:52 PM   #3 (permalink)
Tilted Cat Head
 
Cynthetiq's Avatar
 
Administrator
Location: Manhattan, NY
I love our time share, Hyatt Beach Club in Key West. We've travelled all over the globe in the 3 years we've owned. We bought ours basically in cash for our honeymoon.

I do not like the Points system of Fairfield resort, especially for buying retail (from the sales office) too pricey.

I'm currently interested in buying in Atlantis but ti's $60,000 for the deeded week. I am not so interested in points save for trading. Buying points to me is an odd fluctuating currency that confuzzles me and I don't know the "value" of what I'm buying.

I also do lots of research at the Timeshare Users Group Bulletin Board

The best part that I've learned is that if you bought it from a sales person at retail you paid too much.
__________________
I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not.
Cynthetiq is offline  
Old 07-20-2005, 04:09 AM   #4 (permalink)
Crazy
 
Location: In a house
I have looked into timeshares in the past, but have never pulled the trigger. I actually enjoy going through the hard sales presentation that most have (to get whatever perk they are giving away). I have said no in the past and have educated myself a little bit on it. I would check out Ebay before buying any timeshare. A lot of people on there selling them and they seem to go a lot cheaper than from the retail outlet...
__________________
-- CALA555--

"Win if you can, lose if you must, but always cheat"

Jessie "The Mind" Ventura
cala555 is offline  
Old 07-20-2005, 04:49 AM   #5 (permalink)
Functionally Appropriate
 
fresnelly's Avatar
 
Location: Toronto
The timeshares to avoid are the mass-market ones. If they sent you a flyer promising a free weekend vacation for attending their seminar, you should just pass.

A co-worker bought into one of these and regretted it. Her timeshare is legit and not a scam as such, but she found that she could never secure a prime location at the time she wanted. The best resorts were always taken because she was competing with retirees who could book well in advance for long stretches.

When she and her husband are able to book a stay, the location is never where they really want to go, and they have to bend their schedules in able to do so.

Some years they have not gone at all due to these complications, and still have to pay for it. Definately a poor investment if you ask me.

Only buy on a trusted recommendation or after some hard research.
__________________
Building an artificial intelligence that appreciates Mozart is easy. Building an A.I. that appreciates a theme restaurant is the real challenge - Kit Roebuck - Nine Planets Without Intelligent Life
fresnelly is offline  
Old 07-20-2005, 05:46 AM   #6 (permalink)
Dopefish
 
wraithhibn's Avatar
 
Location: the 'Ville
My parents are in Fairfield, and we love it. I'll have to agree about how expensive it is, that is why we bought everything on a secondary market. You can get points for less than what Fairfield is selling for. Check out TUG listed above, thats how my dad learned about all of it. Fairfield's resorts are incredibly nice and they keep building.
__________________
If you won't dress like the Victoria Secret girls, don't expect us to act like soap opera guys.
wraithhibn is offline  
Old 07-21-2005, 07:15 AM   #7 (permalink)
Tilted
 
Location: On the 'Mostly Harmless' planet Earth
Hey, thanks for all the info.

On our honeymoon, my grandparents let us stay at a timeshare in CO, and they gave us the sales spiel, and not knowing any better, (about things like how hard it would be for her to get a job, took 6 months for that to happen) we bought into the Discovery package. Give you some 189,000 points for about $1500, with the option to roll it into ownership after trying it out.

We tried it out, liked it, and didn't want to lose the money we already spent, so went ahead and bought in to ownership.

We justify it now knowing that it will be a lifelong vacationing investment, once paid off in a few years, it will be ours forever. Only problem being the %@!# yearly maintenance fees.

Glad to hear that it may have been a good thing, wish we had gotten in secondary market if it was cheaper, but I think we probably did OK with that Discovery rollover it at least covered all their bogus expenses for closing and whatnot stuff they made up.

We've been to 6-7 Fairfield resorts, they were all pretty nice.

Thanks again!
__________________
Oh no, not again.
Nunquam_Idem is offline  
Old 07-21-2005, 07:50 AM   #8 (permalink)
Dopefish
 
wraithhibn's Avatar
 
Location: the 'Ville
We started off with 203,000 points at Fairfield Williamsburg (the cheapest for resales), which was enough to get us a week in Myrtle Beach for a 2BR during the summer. From there we've bought several more times on the aftermaket and have over 500,000 points, which is VIP. That gives us 2+ weeks per year that we can use in Fairfield. We take several weekend vacations per year, and have given weeks to family as presents. We love it.
__________________
If you won't dress like the Victoria Secret girls, don't expect us to act like soap opera guys.
wraithhibn is offline  
 

Tags
shares, time, worth

Thread Tools

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Trackbacks are On
Pingbacks are On
Refbacks are On



All times are GMT -8. The time now is 09:17 AM.

Tilted Forum Project

Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.7
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.
Search Engine Optimization by vBSEO 3.6.0 PL2
© 2002-2012 Tilted Forum Project

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360