Best way to get out of a Timeshare?

ThrowawayInTheYear23@lemmy.world to Ask Lemmy@lemmy.world – 98 points –

My mom got roped into buying a Wyndham timeshare on a trip and procrastinated herself out of the grace period. Is there anything she can do to get out of it now?

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I've heard a lot of shit about timeshares, but is it possible to get a good deal on one? Does that require someone to actually pay you to take it from them (are they THAT bad, really?)?

Sat through a pitch. Their last ditch "Alright, I got special permission from my manager for this" price was like 1/4 their initial price, and even then just the additional maintenance fees alone was more expensive than just booking a room once a year.

Yes, take the special offer to hear the pitch, and never buy.

They get so mad lol. I did this once, and when the guy realized we never intended to buy, he said "Never come to one of these again". And I was like, "Stop sending me free vacation offers then!" (at least that's the comeback I came up with a few days later)

We have only done it once, and the people were pretty cool about it. A couple quick last minute pitches and we were out the door.

Yeah, they did keep cutting the price to try to get us. The last offer was half the price of the one before it, which just made me think "if you can offer this, how much of a rip-off must the original price have been?"

They're that bad. Maybe there's a good one out there, but why risk it

if there was a good one, they wouldn't need gimmicks and scams to sell them.

It generally isn't. The few that are worth it are places you will visit over and over again for the next generation.

It's heavily dependent on the specific contract, but if you like to Vacation at the same location every year or most years it can work out better than having the even greater cost of owning a full blown vacation home. You can also iirc rent out your slice of the time share if you don't or can't make it a specific year (Contract dependent, you really have to read the contract you sign if you even want a sliver of hope of getting a decent value out of it)

Some people who are stuck with timeshares will book rentals and resell them just to recoup some losses.

I forget the site but there's one where you can basically sublet a rental. I've never done it cause it seems sketchy AF

I have two weeks at a good one I'm super happy with.

We use it to snow ski. The yearly maintenance fee for a weeks use is equivalent to a single night accommodations at the same time. Cost me $4k to buy. I've used it for a decade so far.

Imagine they keep selling slots though and suddenly the only dates available to go skiing are in the middle of July.

Na, they sold ski weeks and non aki weeks, so if you have a ski one you put your name down for the dates you want . Happy with it.

I bought into a thing that's kinda like timeshares, but it's through the company that runs most of the resorts. You get like 2 weeks a year for $300/week as long as you book within 45 days of the stay. Plus discounts on hotel rooms, flights, etc.

Basically it's where they rent rooms they're not likely to be able to on those days, so they're at least making some money.

So, if you like to travel in the off seasons, it works out really well.

It was only like $6k and $300 a year in maintenance fees.

A 10 year estimate of cost: That's 900/year + buy in and opportunity cost 1200/year. That's 2100/year for 14 days. So roughly 150-200/day locked in for a decade of short notice off season bookings. It's not bad, but it's also not good unless the rooms start going for 400+ in the future. Which even then you're only saving 2-3k/year for the restrictions, and if you don't use it fully the value quickly swings in their direction.