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Engelhardt |
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 "Oh, look, Joanne--it's that really stupid sales team again. I'll bet we can take them for an extra two days at the spa with meals included!" |
AS LONG AS SHE HOLDS THE UPPER HAND...
She never met a timeshare
sales team she didn't like
By JOANNE ENGELHARDT
of TheColumnists.com
I’ve mentioned before that some of my Best Friends
(and Hubby, who is also a Best Friend) think of me as being cheap.
I prefer economical, but that’s a whole other column.
The story for today, kiddies, is those irksome, tedious timeshare
offers which I find….irresistible. To my way of thinking,
you get to go someplace swank (usually), spend a night or two
at little or no expense, enjoy the sun/sand/snow/clean air/fill-in-the-blank,
get some rest, all for attending a silly little presentation
that usually includes donuts and coffee (sandwiches if in the
afternoon), balloons popping when someone actually makes the
mistake of signing away the kids’ inheritance for a week
a year at this Nirvana, and lots of jovial salesmen who don’t
seem to recognize the easily telltale signs that we ain’t
agonna buy, no matter what.
Let me make it perfectly clear: We don’t actually own a timeshare. We just take timeshare companies up on those “special offers” we get nearly every week by phone, mail and--now--even email.
In the past few years we’ve spent five luscious days at a Sheraton right on the beach in Kauai, four days at a place with spectacular pool slides in Palm Springs (in March when the temperature was a balmy 80 degrees), three nights at a lakeside chalet in South Lake Tahoe, and a mini-holiday at a Southern California beach resort where we also received a certificate for $125 to spend on dinner, shopping, etc.
Now what could be wrong with this picture?
Oh, yes. We do have to sit through one of those dreaded 90-minute presentations. And, let’s be honest here, they never last 90 minutes. More like two hours before you finally start turning six shades of purple and the earnest young salesman comes to the realization that he’s lost you.
Granted, most of these guys (and women) work two jobs to make ends meet, which does make us feel a teeny weenie bit guilty. And yes, we have no intention of buying before we ever walk in the door. But those sales people don’t seem to care! They always think they’ll be able to convince us. And, if not the first one, then certainly The Closer. It’s easy to recognize The Closer by the way he’s dressed. Think expen$ive suit, coifed hair, repugnant cologne, two-carat ring and 90-watt fake smile.
But this guy’s never run across the likes of my Hubby. We’re not buying. No way….not even when they chop the price of a time-share week in half….not even when they throw in a future trip to Las Vegas or Reno….not even when they assure us they’re giving it away.
Truth be told this is the part we LOVE. Being bona fide timeshare junkies, we can’t wait for The Closer to move in for the kill….errrrr, sale. Initially, Hubby didn’t take to all this, but now he almost relishes the presentations so he can ask the salesman to explain his mathematical calculations.
“Just how much profit did Drift & Shift Corporation make on each of your timeshare units last year?” asks Hubby.
“Tut, tut,” oozes The Closer. “You don’t have to worry about that. Just look at the tiny little amount you pay yearly.”
But Hubby persists. “No, now, let’s see. If you get $650 for property maintenance from my unit annually, and there are 300 units, times 50 weeks a year (two weeks downtime for spring-cleaning or whatever, we’ve been told), that comes to…..$975,000. Close to a million bucks. Quite a nice chunk of change.”
(Hubby doesn’t actually figure this out in his head. He brings along his own rickety non-digital calculator to make it look really official.)
It’s not pretty when he points out that the profit percentage is as high as Las Vegas’s Stratosphere Tower. There’s a lot of sputtering, spewing, spitting….no, it never got that far. But still, it’s ‘cut-tail-and-run-time’ for the ol’ sales team.
Face it: Most people who accept these offers have no intention of buying. But some (especially first timers) get carried away with the excitement, the glamour and (relative) low cost of owning a timeshare week somewhere. These are Impulse Buyers.
Hubby’s daughter, Patty, and her husband are one example. We spent a week on Maui in December, and they flew in a few days before we left. They stayed in a posh hotel in the Kapalua area, while we were in the low-rent district of Kihei….in a delightful oceanfront condominium. Heck, what they paid for two nights was about what we paid for a week at our place. This was their first time in Hawaii (unless you can count Patty’s high school graduation trip to Oahu. She probably doesn’t remember much of that other than lots of beach time, mai tais and no parental supervision).
So, they got carried away a bit after partaking of the Aloha spirit. They loved Maui so much that when their hotel invited them to a presentation at their soon-to-be-opened resort on the Kaanapali coast, they went….they bit….they bought! Now, to say that this timeshare was a tad on the pricey side would be like saying Hearst Castle has a few decent antiques. As my husband pointed out, the price for an annual two weeks at this timeshare was the same price as his first house!
When they returned, they sheepishly told us about the deal. They knew we’d think them a bit daft. After all, isn’t the whole idea of going to timeshare presentations feeling really smug when you resist temptation and say “no”? But, well, you know, I couldn’t say too much because I could tell they were already on the defensive, and besides, I love them dearly. So I kept my big mouth shut (never an easy thing for me).
As it turned out, when we saw them a few days later, Patty said, “You’ll be happy to know we canceled the timeshare deal.” Wow! My faith in their intellectual capacity was immediately restored. I mumbled something motherly like “Just remember, you can ALWAYS buy one--they’re not going away. And there are timeshare resales that cost a lot less than buying one brand new if you really decide you want one someday.”
And then.…just a few days ago I got this enticing offer in the mail. Two nights, three days in a one-bedroom villa at a gorgeous resort outside of San Diego. Eagerly scanning the details, I read we also get a $75 gift certificate for dinner at the resort restaurant. Has it been long enough since our last venture that Hubby is up for girding the lions in the Coliseum? I waited for an opportune moment. It came, I spoke, we’re going. I mean all I had to do was mention that we could combine this with a couple days in Las Vegas, and he was all over it.
I’ve already started working on mastering my “no thank yous.” Graciously.
©2004 by Joanne Engelhardt.
The cartoon illustration is from IMSI's Master Clips Collection,
1895 Francisco Blvd. E., San Rafael, CA, 94901-5506, USA.
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