Attending a Time Share Presentation in Downtown San.Francisco

On this holiday, we stayed at a beautiful and luxurious vacation inn and hotel belonging to a vacation club. Eager to learn more about the time share vacation plans, we signed up for a presentation with no obligation to buy.  We were supposed to be picked up from our last week's hotel at Fisherman's Wharf.  However, the Uber did not come to pick us up at the specified hotel. Instead we were asked to take a taxi to the presentation location and promised that we would be reimbursed for the fare.

The presentation was scheduled at 12:30pm. The venue was at a  downtown glitz hotel meeting room with fine furniture. We were greeted by a friendly sales representative who took us to a room where a number of small round tables and chairs were set up.

I was expecting a large group presentation with pictures and history explaining the company and how this time share thing worked. But none of that.

It was a one on one personal approach from beginning to the end. We spent sometime doing small talk about our background, children and professions etc. to break the ice then we were asked a number of questions about our vacation and travel plans for the past years or so. The sales rep then multiplied the cost of hotel stay per night by about 2 to 3 weeks, then added the cost of meals, and times 20 years giving us a number in the $80,000 to $100,000.  Wow! That was to be our cost for our travels in the coming few years!

About half way through the presentation, we were given a tour of a three bedroom model unit right in the fancy hotel building. This unit was a gorgeous place furnished with designer furniture with an interior designer's touch and where everything was perfect, not a cushion was out of place.

After the tour we went back to the same room at the table with the sales person explaining to us the point system used in this time share company. According to their suggestion, we would need to buy 400,000 points in order for us to stay for 1 - 2 weeks in San Francisco. The cost was not cheap, adding on top of that, a monthly maintenance fees between US$ 80 - 120.00 per month.

We were tempted. But would we need a 2-3 bedroom suite each time we vacation? Is it worth to pay all that maintenance fee every month to a place we only come for 1-2 weeks a year? Plus, our Canadian currency is pretty low compared to the mighty American dollars.

We needed sometime to sleep on it before we could make our decision.

R.T.
San Francisco
USA