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Comment by jimt1234 | Hacker News Reader

My friend's wife attended a timeshare presentation and, unfortunately, she ended up signing. She thought she got a great deal - "We can go to Hawaii twice-per-year, and pay far less than staying at a hotel!" Well, almost immediately, they started receiving invoices with outrageous charges, like "maintenance fees" and dubious property taxes. The original contract was for $200/month, but all the additional charges brought the cost to around $2000/month. They tried to get out of the contract. The timeshare company wouldn't return their calls. Finally, after a few months they talked to someone who told them there was no getting out of the contract - basically, "Sorry, you signed a contract." My friend and his wife ended up declaring bankruptcy, just to get out of the timeshare contract. They never even went to the timeshare. Not once.

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That story seems to be missing some pieces. Most people would just refuse to pay the invoices and wait for the timeshare company to sue. I suspect your friends might have had other financial problems beyond just the timeshare.

Seems quite nutty to think you’d find yourself flying to Hawaii twice per year even if the housing was free

The crazy thing to me is always going to the same place for vacation. Really? No variety, ever?

Idk, as a canadian, going to a tropical island twice a year in the middle of winter sounds pretty nice, even if its the same island.

All things equal, sure. But is the cost of the hotel really the thing stopping you from doing that?

It’s pretty sweet if you’re on the west coast and you have young kids. Extremely high chance of a good, relaxing time for everyone, and it’s a non stop flight for most people. Plus, many people take multiple vacations in a year.

Obviously, not every worth buying a timeshare.

They cover that in their sales pitch. There's supposedly a market for trading timeshares, so you can trade in your timeshare for someone else's, specially if you have a highly coveted one

Of course none of it is as easy as they make it sound.

Right. "Supposedly." I've always avoided options that more or less locked me into a single location.

I do go up to my dad's--now brother's--place in Maine a few times a year but that's as much for family as having a need to go to a specific location. Absent family, I'd probably even vary that a bit.

Some of them are “points-based” and you can spend your points at different resorts that they own and hypothetically have some flexibility in time but “points” should be a bad smell, see

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Razzle_(game)

Where they actually cheat to help you get enough points that you think you could win them when they stop cheating the game is unwinnable. If the cops show up they will see the carnie playing ‘honestly’ and not see anything wrong. In terms of psychology it is the king of scams.

In the case of the timeshare schemes you will find all sorts of problems and limitations when you try to redeem your points, it is like the limitations on airline frequent flier points but raised to the Nth power.

It's a long flight, but it's not an unreasonably expensive flight. Especially if you live in a place with winter, it might be nice to visit in novemberish and marchish to get a warm week in between your cold at home. There's lots of people who live near me and visit Hawaii once a year.

Personally, I'd be more likely to do a two week stay than two one week stays, I'd rather reduce my time on an airplane. But leaving for two weeks is harder than leaving for one for all sorts of reasons.

Yes. But interests change. Life interferes. Etc.

There are certain trips I try to do annually but I have zero interest in being locked into someplace like Hawaii on a schedule.

I agree that, especially, after semi-retiring, my goal isn't really to travel less but to spend less time on planes.

Also, like, how do you even handle the resentment?

Odds are you're just staying with tourists most of the time, and whenever you do need to deal with the locals you have to ignore their thinly-veiled contempt mixed with self-loathing for depending on your patronage.

I hear it gets kind of awkward for Paris people getting summer homes in Britanny. I'm pretty sure the degree of hostility towards mainland Americans getting winter homes in Hawai must be much higher.

In places like Hawaii where the economy is pure tourism there isn't much hostility. You're a paycheck to them.

Also tourism economies are terrible and create a bunch of terrible perverse incentives for both business and government.

Source: Grew up in one

A round-trip flight from the West coast is ~$300.

A beach hotel starts at ~$300/night.

Even from the west coast it's a 6 hr flight. Combined with time difference, it often means 2 days on travelling alone. Even worse for people in mid west or near west coast, which is the majority of where the population is [0]. For most people I know, Hawaii is a trip once every few years, and definitely not twice a year.

[0] http://dhmontgomery.com/2018/02/population-latitude/

This is a week vacation though, not a weekend. I agree it doesn't work for a weekend, but if you take a full week off things look much better. If you really do want to go to that exact place in Hawaii for one week a year every year for the rest of your life a timeshare is a great deal (assuming the fees are as stated, sometimes what looks like $100/month turns out to be $2000/month) - but I don't know many people who vacation like that. I do plan to go back to Hawaii, but I also have vacation plans for Boston, Florida, California, Spain... Even the people I know who do vacation like that don't do it for life (I make regular trips to visit my in-laws, but they are thinking about moving states so I may have already taken my last visit to their current home)

In the end, the best case a timeshare does save money. However for most people the restrictions mean you are never in the best case and often you are in the worst case and lose money.

Isn't there usually some cooldown period for contracts like these? Or is that not a US thing? Any sales contract that I have signed in the past came with a 15-30 day cooldown period, where if I change my mind I can cancel no matter what.

I had to do it once where I caved under the pressure of a particularly aggressive "life insurance" salesperson, only realized my mistake a day after signing, so I called them up and exercised my right to "cool down".

Yes, but it's short (three days in some states), and they'll do everything in their power to dodge your attempts to use it.

> and they'll do everything in their power to dodge your attempts to use it.

A gym I was interested in joining had a pay-for-one-month deal, so I said, “sure, why not?” Their system took my e-signature for authorizing the one-time credit card transaction and copied (forged) it onto a shitty gym contract with auto-renewal and a bunch of other terms I didn’t agree to.

Fortunately, my state had a 3-day right of recision, so I followed the requirements in the law to the letter. It only required written notification that I’m exercising my right, so I printed a letter as such, brought a notary friend and another friend as witness, and hand-delivered it to the manager on duty and asked them to sign a receipt for it (which was witnessed and notarized). They tried to give me all kinds of crap about “the company cancellation process,” which I said is great and all, but not applicable because state law trumps company policy and state law says that as of 30 seconds ago our contract never existed. They ultimately relented, especially since they were nervous about the forgery aspect too.

The most important part of any contract is the termination clause.

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