
Getting free admission to tourist attractions in places like Las Vegas, Hawaii, or Orlando seems to be remarkably easy. All it takes is for you to join a timeshare tour.
The Offer
If you have ever been on vacation to Las Vegas, Hawaii or Orlando, there’s a good chance you might have been approached by somebody offering you deep discounts or even free admission to local attractions or shows. In exchange, all you have to do is attend a tour of a resort for a couple of hours. The savings can amount to hundreds of dollars. It almost sounds too good to be true, especially when the resorts sound fancy and are owned by high-class hotel chains like Hilton or Sheraton.
In fact, the offers are usually legitimate. Not surprisingly, though, the people organizing these giveaways are also hoping to make money off of you. The “tour”, sometimes also called a “presentation”, is all about pitching a timeshare to you. Of course, they will rarely state this in such blunt terms. The profit from selling a single timeshare is usually thousands of dollars. Even if nine out of ten people walk out of the presentation not buying anything, the profit from the one person who does buy a timeshare more than justifies the “marketing expenses” of the tour. If it didn’t, they wouldn’t be doing it.
The Restrictions
The person on the street who is signing you up for the timeshare tour is getting a commission just for referring you. Of course, they can’t just sign up anybody. The timeshare sales agents that they work for don’t want to waste their marketing dollars on people who are not likely to buy anything. In many cases, they require that you be married. This way you’re more likely to have the income to support a timeshare purchase, even if you’re not entirely truthful about your income. The minimum annual household income to qualify is usually a figure between $60,000 and $70,000. Of course, there’s really no way for them to check independently that you meet these qualifications but that is not to say they won’t try. To check you really are married, you look for wedding rings and IDs that show you living at the same residence. Income is harder to check. They might ask you what you do for a living. Students and the unemployed are automatically disqualified. On the other hand, in an apparent concession to stay-at-home moms and dads, it’s usually okay for one of you to be unemployed. However, they are much less likely to give you a break if one of you is a student of any sort. Oddly enough, the sales rep on the street is usually your best friend. It’s not because they like you so much but because they want their commission badly. In some cases, they will even try to coach you to give the right answers to sales agents during the timeshare tour.
The Sign-Up
Once you have decided that you are qualified - the decision is really up to you - you will have to sign up for the tour a day or two in advance. Since the resorts are often away from the major tourist centers, a bus will pick you up and drop you off near your hotel. You will share the ride with other tourists of course. By the way, you need not worry about missing out on the nightlife. Conveniently, many of these tours are scheduled to take place in the morning or around noon because the people organizing timeshare tours have come to realize that a more convenient schedule motivates more people to sign up.
The Presentation
At the timeshare presentation, more than one agent will meet with you and make their pitch. They made an investment in you and they want it to be worthwhile. If you don’t want the timeshare, be sure to tell them you are not interested and that they are wasting their time. There’s no obligation for you to buy anything in order to receive the gift you have been promised. While they cannot force you to buy a timeshare, their tactics can get extremely annoying very fast, especially when they try to play your spouse against you. Rather than becoming angry, simply tell them they are being rude. If you’re feeling playful, you can try turning the tables. Start asking them about their own lives. What do they do for a living? Where do they live? Where did they go to college? Etc. Besides taking the attention off of you, this strategy also kills time. After all, the presentation can only last a couple of hours.