The Truth About Timeshares.

I'm always surprised when I hear people complain about their timeshares and how they can never get in when they want to. Now, I'll admit that it may be a challenge if you are trying to get into one of the prime hotspot resorts. But it's not impossible, you may sometimes have to work a little harder and when you consider what your timeshare costs you, it's well worth it.

When you decide you want to use your timeshare you have an 800 # to call. This is in effect the timeshare company's full service travel agency. These people are professionals and can help you with all of your travel arrangements, including exchanging your week from your home resort to one of the exchange resorts or even a cruise, arranging airfare and even car rental for you. Now, if you have extra points left over after you've booked your stay, you can often use your extra points to pay for the airfare and car rental as well.

These people are there to help you. If you call and they tell you the resort you want isn't available you can just give up or you can ask them when is the best time to check back to find out if they do have inventory available at the site you're interested in. It is helpful if you are flexible in your vacation times, as you may be able to get the resort you want, but not at the time you had orginally planned. But maybe you want to go in April, but there's no availability at your resort of choice until June. Or maybe you can get to a certain location but can't get into the resort you wanted, but there is another facility that has openings there. Being flexible can really help you to get the bookings you want.

We have never had a problem going to the places we wanted to go. We call and try to book our trip with our first choice. If that isn't available, we book at our home resort and ask when we should begin calling back. We keep calling every week or so until we get the booking we want. We have never been disappointed. We have used this method to go to all of the destinations of our choice. When we wanted to go to St. Thomas, we were told that it's impossible to get in there. But we kept trying and within a month we got the booking. Two of our kids joined us there and we had a fabulous time and made many wonderful memories.

Now, we only buy timeshares on the secondary market. It doesn't make sense to buy them at inflated prices from the timeshare companies. When you can buy a lifetime of vacations for less than the cost of one vacation why would you pay more?

When we wanted to go to Maui we had the same issue. We kept calling and soon we got the booking we wanted. Now all we have to do is call the kids and see who can join us this year. We had the same experience when we went to Australia. We have always been more than happy with our accomodations. You may have to work a little harder to get your ideal vacations, but isn't it worth it for the tiny sum you pay for your timeshare?