Observations from my first timeshare presentation

We survived a spectacle of a sales presentation. 

As a relative newcomer to the points and miles hobby (I’m less than a year into this new obsession), I’ve been spending my spare time catching up on the hobby’s metagame by watching frequent flying credit card YouTubers share their strategies for optimizing everyday spending. Many of these YouTubers dread timeshare presentations and share appalling anecdotes on how aggressive the sale tactics can get. I’ve actually never been to a timeshare presentation, so I was lowkey excited to observe how the purported marketing techniques lure in unexpecting buyers.

Having lived with Val for the past three years, we were lumped into a couples category, which qualified us to sit in a timeshare sales presentation in exchange for heavily discounted excursions that we can enjoy on our trip. Our timeshare presentation was scheduled for the first morning of our stay, and we were warmly welcomed and baton passed around by a team of professionals who were eager for our money. After chowing down on a free breakfast buffet, we were given a comprehensive tour of the property before we buckled down for a sales pitch.

Our salesman did his best to research our profiles to offer a property that would fit our consumer behavior. Given that Val’s parents already own two properties with the timeshare company, we were pitched a penthouse suite. He went on to describe the (inherently murky and convoluted) process of how we as a couple would pay for it over a span of 30 years (yikes). He did not do a good job explaining how the points redemption worked on a holistic level and should have been more clear on the overall value we could get from the deal. It was also unclear how membership benefits within the timeshare company would transfer across different properties around the world. Ultimately, Val and I politely declined, despite multiple attempts of them giving us lower and lower buy-in offers.

The whole ordeal took 2.5 hours of our time, but we walked away with goodies. We redeemed a boat and snorkeling experience to a remote beach of Yelapa and a separate tequila tasting tour at the nearby town of Pitillal, Jalisco. The sales team looked defeated when they couldn’t get us to buy, but we easily walked away unfazed. Needless to say, Val and I didn’t get the free champagne that came to buyers who made a downpayment on the spot. Cheers to our freedom!

Since I’ll be working for a travel company (particularly one that will disrupt the concept of timeshares as we know it) this coming August, it just does not make any sense for me to purchase any property that came shackled with longterm commitments. I perceive timeshares as a too-rigid structure for vacations, and I would much rather prefer to be flexible in my travel so that I can customize my time the way I want it.