Reply to Why is it that every person i know who owns a timeshare thinks it was a great decision?

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[quote=Anonymous]My wife's parents just had to pay a company 5K to get rid of their Hilton Head timeshare.  They paid like 11K for it almost 15 years ago, and I'll even stipulate that it's a beautiful place, upscale, close to the beach, etc., and even sweeter for my wife and I to meet them down there every October with our two kids in tow at no cost to us.  But then company harrassed them every year to try to convince them to trade their unit in for points, but they refused because no one would guarantee availability at the resort in future years.  Then two bedrooms started getting a little crowded once we had kids.  And then one year we got confused about which week we had and bought nonrefundable plane tickets before we figured it out.  The resort had no flexibility for us to switch weeks, so we had to shop elsewhere.  This revealed two things -- one, we were not going to get much help from the resort if we ever had to change weeks, which was definitely going to happen once the kids got too old to miss school.  And two, we quickly found a bigger house for rent by year-round owners at a better resort next door for the week we needed for only $800.  What really opened my wife's eyes was that this was less than the annual maintenance fee on the timeshare.

I think timeshares might have made sense at one time for the reassurance of knowing you could stay at a nice place without all the effort of planning, and might even make sense today if you've got the time to research all the ins and outs of trading points (although that sounds like a Faustian bargain at best to me).  But there's no denying that now, with online rentals including ones available directly from individual owners that include photos, reviews, and more, it's too easy to do discounted trips ala carte, with no need to sacrifice thousands of dollars upfront and accept an annual fee obligation on the gamble that you'll actually want to or be able to use a place or trade points for the next 20 years.[/quote]

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