I figure I'd resurect this thread since there are a lot of new people to the board since the last post and it's still a relevant topic. DW and I have listened to 3 timeshare presentations (0 fer 3 for the sales reps, yea!) and maybe some can learn from our experiences:
1) Bella Vista, AR: bought a week off skyauction.com for $1 and $230 in taxes. Had a two bedroom condo with fireplace (wood supplied), family room, full kitchen, washer/dryer, and 4-person jaccuzzi in the master bath
. It was not a requirement to listen to a timeshare presentation, but they paid us $75 cash to attend one.
2) Tanglewood Vacation Villas, Pottsboro, TX: offered "expensive" his/her watches (was going to sell on Ebay, but they looked too cheap. Wound up as play toys for the kids), credit for ordering stuff out of a catalog (wasn't interested in anything they had), and a cruise out of Galveston, TX. We went for the cruise, but never took it because of the restrictions: must be during the slow season, must give 90 days notice, must give them 3 choices of dates to sail of which all must be at least 30 days apart. We mailed in only 2 dates and they sent it back because we didn't give 3. Also had to mail in a $100 refundable deposit of which we got back after tiring of dealing with the run around. I agree with the previous post about it being virtually impossible to take the cruise.
3) Salado Creek Villas, San Antonio, TX: got $89 for 2 nights plus 2 adult tickets to Sea World right after the presentation. Helped us save a lot of money on our vacation, but was not impressed with the property.
I'll have to admit, some of the offers, especially after the manager comes in with the really good deal, were tempting. We thought it might be a good deal if we didn't finance it, but after seeing the resale problems it doesn't look to be good. I'm all for taking their freebies though as long as you have the will power to say "no".