TS Today - Creating a Vision for the Future of Vacation Ownership Issue #96 Nov/Dec, 2007 | Page 6

TimeSharing Today

Page 6

By Marc Roddin
Perhaps I’m a glutton for punishment,
but circumstances were such that my wife
and I attended three different timeshare
points presentations within a two-week
period during July, 2007.
We received our first invitation when
we attended a Fourth of July
concert near our home in
Northern California. It was
from the Shell Vacation Club
promoting their new resort in
the town of Napa, which is a
1-2 hour drive away for us.
The prize offered was a trip
to Hawaii, leaving late on a
Tuesday and returning early that Thursday, subject to blackout restrictions, a
deposit for taxes (the exact amount of
which is to be determined later) and a waiting period.
Ordinarily this would be too short of
a trip to bother with, but I had thought
that it might be an opportunity to visit my
aging parents living in Waikiki. At the
time, we were getting ready for a week that
we had booked in Branson, Missouri, so
we scheduled our appointment with Shell

for after our return home from that trip.
In Branson, we stayed at The Plantation at Fall Creek, a Sunterra resort. Most
of the time they have a lot of people stationed at the front- and concierge-desks
in the lobby. Two of these people pretty
much have a full time job of trying to con-

Nov/Dec, 2007

three bribes that we were offered. She was
booking for Fairfield as well as for
Worldmark, as they are under common
ownership. The two presentations that she
was offering were at different resorts in
Branson, with the same prize for each. The
eligibility requirements were slightly different for the two clubs, she explained to us, but we ended up
with Worldmark because they
had an opening during a period
between shows that we had
tickets to attend.
All of the timeshares that
we own are fixed or floating
weeks, so I was interested to
see what points might have to offer me
that I don’t have already. This is especially true since I have recently retired, and
have much more latitude about when to
schedule vacations. Also, for most timeshare presentations you need to have a
certain level of income and I wonder if my
retirement income in future years will be
sufficient for that threshold.
All of the presentations were extremely similar, beginning with a short survey that gets evaluated by the sales executives who decide which salesperson
to assign to you, while you are waiting in
the lobby along with the other couples
who are also waiting for their presentations. Then the assigned salesperson
greets you and holds a great conversation as if you were long-lost friends catching up. All three of our salespersons had
been with their respective company for
only a relatively short period of time, so
they had lots of interesting experiences
elsewhere that we got to chat about while
enjoying refreshments appropriate to that
time of day.
After you get to know your salesperson, there’s usually a video presentation
about vacations, spending time with families, the wonderful locations of that
company’s resorts, the developer’s reputation, how many thousands of dollars
you’ll save over the years, etc. Then you’ll
spend a lot of time talking with the salesperson about all of the advantages of their
particular program, how flexible it is, and
how you can vacation whenever and
wherever you want, while saving both
money and points. At some point, they’ll
explain that they have regular offers that
are available to anyone at anytime (such
as you, tomorrow) but there are all sorts

I Survived Three
Points Presentations
Within Two Weeks!
vince anyone staying at the resort to book
a presentation. The prize is greatly reduced
prices on tickets for all shows during your
entire stay in Branson.
The next day, after booking this presentation, but before going to it, we were
in the lobby of one of Branson’s 50 theaters where we were seeing some shows,
and a nice lady near one of the gift shops
signed us up for a Worldmark presentation. The prize was one hundred dollars in
cash, certainly the most tangible of the

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