Deal or No Deal or Which Deal?: Our Timeshare Update
Posted on | August 23, 2010 | 19 Comments
Featured on Eventual Millionaire for the Carnival of Money Stories.
Read about our decision on the Timeshare Prize here.
Do you ever get that feeling that you don’t quite know if you’ve been snowballed or not…but you suspect that you have? Let me pose the scenario to you.
On a Friday last fall, I became a willing guinea pig for my readers and attended something I had always been curious about: a Timeshare sales pitch. For those of you who missed out on that experience, check out my article Selling a Timeshare to the Wall. In a nutshell, the property was sub-par, the salesmen used a 3-prong, pressurized sales strategy, and I finally earned my freedom to leave three and a half hours later minus a Timeshare and with my prizes in hand: a $40 American Express Giftcard, a trip for two to Las Vegas for 3 days and 2 nights with roundtrip airfare and the hotel included, and a trip for two for 5 days/4 nights to a choice of several Caribbean locations with hotel included (you supply your own airfare).
The $40 gift card was great; I used it to fill up my tank and to purchase a pack of wine coolers for the weekend. I attempted to sell the Caribbean package on Craigslist, but it did not pan out. No big deal. What I did walk away with that was certainly worth my 3.5 hours was the Las Vegas trip.
Paul just turned 30 in August, and at the time of the Timeshare we had decided that we wanted to celebrate by taking a weekend trip to Las Vegas and having ourselves a good ol’ time in the dazzle and sparkle that can only be found in the middle of Nevada’s desert (oh, and by looking at the earth in space; apparently Las Vegas sticks out like a sore thumb from there as well). Besides, we had a free trip coming to us anyway, so why not?
There were several more barriers to get through in order to get this trip, and I diligently filled out all of the paperwork involved. We selected three dates that were not within 10 days of a holiday, and started on a Tuesday or a Wednesday, and were at least 60 days apart from one another, and were not within the next 14 days. Then I gave a deposit of $100 to cover taxes on hotel and airfare, which seemed reasonable. Then I waited for a travel agent rep to call me to do the official booking.
Nina from Casablanca Express was my contact. In her chipper and quick-talking voice—as if she were about to rip off a band-aid in order that I may not feel the pain until afterwards when all of my nerves had a moment to catch-up—she explained to me that I had four options. It turns out that 99% of people do not choose to go through with their 3 day, 2 night trip after they hear all of the restrictions, and she was sure that after I heard these restrictions, that I would choose against it as well.
So without further ado, the following are the four options we were given. Please vote in the comment section below which one you think we should choose, and then I will reveal the one we chose in Wednesday’s article.
- Use the prize. You will get 3 days and two nights in Las Vegas; however your flight will leave between 6:00-10:00 p.m. on Wednesday night, and between 6:00-12:00 a.m. on Friday morning. Your hotel will not be on the strip; it will be either at the airport, or a hotel called Wild Wild West, which is located at truck stop (Happy Birthday, Paul!). You are coming from Houston, and so most likely there will be stopovers/layovers. There will be no shuttle service to pick you up from the airport, so you will need to pay for your own taxi.
- Upgrade. For $483 for the two of you, you will be removed from the restrictions. Your flight will leave Wednesday morning and Friday afternoon or evening. Your hotel will be on the strip in a luxury tower room. You will have free shuttle service back and forth to the airport. You will get two free tickets to a magic show by Mac King (she assured me I should google him and he’s ultra-famous and sought after). You will get buy-one-get-one-free dinner at the Blues House, and several other restaurants.
- Get there yourself. Pay for your own flight there, or perhaps you have some frequent flyer miles you can use. If you do this, we will upgrade you for free to a hotel on the strip, plus refund part of your $100 deposit.
- Go to South Padre Island. Drive to South Padre Island, and we will pay for your two nights’ hotel stay in the Ramada, which has a four star rating. You will get free breakfast both mornings. (At this point I asked if we would also receive part of our $100 deposit back, and she was baffled—no one had asked her this before. I explained to her that if we chose this option, we would be getting ourselves to the Island, and Casablanca would not be purchasing airfare, so we should be refunded part of the $100. She simply said “they are not going to do that”. Is “they” the Timeshare mafia?)
- Get a Refund. We will mail you a check for $100.
As crazy as it may sound, this conversation actually did occur, and I tried to use the same language as she did in the descriptions above. Once again, I’d love to hear your votes (and thoughts) in the comments below!
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19 Responses to “Deal or No Deal or Which Deal?: Our Timeshare Update”
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August 23rd, 2010 @ 8:54 am
I would take option #2. I might be biased because I LOVE Vegas!. But $483 for a trip to Vegas is a good price (although it depends on what “tower” they put you in on the Strip). Plus if you go to Vegas and sign up for Players Cards at the various hotels (there are 2-3 major companies that own most of the hotels so you only need to pick 1 of those companies and they all have multiple hotels on the Strip) they will send you offers for free hotel rooms in the future…granted you do have to gamble to get the offers though.
If you choose the South Padre Island part of it, but you still want to experience some gaming action you can always make a weekend out of Lake Charles, LA (which is only ~3hrs from Houston).
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FruGal Reply:
August 23rd, 2010 at 9:16 am
Hello Michelle!
Thank you for your comment and choice. Check back on Wednesday!
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August 23rd, 2010 @ 9:26 am
At first I was going to say option #4 South Padre Island, until I stuck it in google maps and saw it was a 6+ hour drive from Houston, yuck. It also depends how cheap you can get a flight to Vegas on your own. I guess everyone should see it once in their life, but we did and don’t think we’ll ever go back. It was definitely interesting and fun to see, but the thrill wore off quickly and we were ready to go home by the end of our long weekend trip! So if it were me, I’d take the refund. But if you guys want to see Vegas I’d try to get there cheaply on your own!
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August 23rd, 2010 @ 10:44 am
[...] the original post here: Deal or No Deal or Which Deal?: Our – Frugal Confessions Cheap Las Vegas Tickets Click Here Posted in Airline Deals Tags: airport, casablanca, flight, [...]
August 23rd, 2010 @ 2:23 pm
I would take the first deal and consider all the inconveniences as part of the experience. I think we’re all a little spoiled nowadays and expect everything to be perfect. My vacations as a kid consisted of going to a small town in Mexico twice year. So many things would go wrong that you’d think you were part of a bad Chevy Chase movie. Now I look back on that and can’t help but laugh. Have fun no matter the circumstance.
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Amanda L. Grossman Reply:
August 23rd, 2010 at 2:49 pm
Hi Sandra!
Thank you for sharing. I have not been to Mexico, but am looking forward to going in the next year or so. Check back on Wednesday!
Amanda L. Grossman recently posted..How to Save Money on Your Wedding—Part II
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August 23rd, 2010 @ 2:33 pm
We went to the exact same timeshare as you if it was the one in Conroe.
I had put this in the comments of your old post; sorry you were still unpleasantly surprised.
We were going to go to Vegas anyway that year, so it worked for us to pick Option 3. We ended up choosing Circus, Circus from the list of options they had (okay rooms but WAY too many kids to trip over when you plan on leaving the hotel every day). They sent us back our $100 check within a few weeks.
We booked our own flight and stayed an extra day when we found an $18 rate at the Four Queens for that Friday (it was in honor of the Olympics). We ended up flying in Wednesday morning, staying at Circus, Circus Wed-Thur night, stayed at Four Queens Friday night, and flying out Saturday early evening.
The flight was about $500 for both of us with no stops. Our whole trip with shows and gambling came to about $1200. Casablanca sent us a coupon packet along with the hotel stuff, and we ended up using a few BOGO Free coupons for food as we wandered along.
The whole thing was enough hoops that we will never go to a timeshare presentation again.
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FruGal Reply:
August 23rd, 2010 at 4:20 pm
Hi Crystal!
Thanks for giving your experience again–I do remember you commenting about this now:).
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August 23rd, 2010 @ 2:39 pm
Option number two.
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August 25th, 2010 @ 8:04 am
[...] the original Timeshare Story, as well as Timeshare Part 1 posted earlier this [...]
August 25th, 2010 @ 12:32 pm
“You will get 3 days and two nights in Las Vegas; however your flight will leave between 6:00-10:00 p.m. on Wednesday night, and between 6:00-12:00 a.m. on Friday morning”
And that’s what they call 3 days and 2 nights? I already know the answer, but I pick option #5: Refund!
Kevin@InvestItWisely recently posted..A Few Simple Frugal Tips to Healthy Living- Eating- and Exercise
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August 25th, 2010 @ 1:42 pm
Get the refund. How much is your spare time worth per hour? Certainly you will have more hassles with this.
My parents years ago went to a timeshare presentation just so they could get one of the 4 prizes. It was a car! or… a vacation getaway! or something or… a boat!!! Well they got the boat. It was a little rubber raft.
It was fun for us kids to ride it on the waves at Galveston though.
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August 31st, 2010 @ 12:49 am
[...] Deal or No Deal or Which Deal: Our Timeshare @FrugalConfessions [...]
September 5th, 2010 @ 9:54 pm
[...] L Grossman presents Deal or No Deal or Which Deal?: Our Timeshare Update posted at Frugal Confessions – Frugal [...]
September 6th, 2010 @ 10:47 pm
[...] L Grossman presents Deal or No Deal or Which Deal?: Our Timeshare Update posted at Frugal Confessions – Frugal [...]
October 16th, 2010 @ 4:01 pm
[...] may also like: Deal or No Deal or Which Deal, our Timeshare Update We are Not Going to Help them Make Vegetable Soup out of a [...]
November 4th, 2010 @ 4:38 am
we just bought our wine cooler from e-bay and this stuff is really nice for cooling the wine you have at home ,,
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December 3rd, 2010 @ 11:19 am
there are portable wine coolers which also fit in a small office space. i use them in my home office -’:
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August 27th, 2011 @ 4:58 pm
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