Just wondering if anyone has recieved offers like the one I am about to describe and if they took up the viewing offer and their experience?

I am a Marriot Hotel Rewards Customer (those Loyalty type cards that you get points on when you stay at their hotels and accrue little extras) and I occasionally get an offer from them to do a viewing of what they call their "Vacation Club" but in essence is a timeshare, I think.

Now we have all probably been accosted in Tenerife or Magaluf or whatever by timeshare touts who offer you free drinks for a quick presentation and then try and grind you down til you sign on the dotted line to get away (never been there myself, but read horror stories about it)


The Marriot offer is 3 nights accommodation in one of these 'Club' apartments in Andalusia, complimentary hire car while you are there, and a €100 (about £70?) voucher for your next stay at a Marriot hotel.

The cost is £99pp, doesn't include flights and an clear upfront requirement is that during your stay you have to take 90 minutes out to be shown around the resort (while they will no doubt try and sell you the benefits of the club and get you to sign up - but at least they are very clear about this 90 minute tour needed to be taken)

Assuming flights to the neaest hotel are available via Ryanair/EasyJet super cheap, thinking this could be a nice little 3 night break for 2 in a luxury apartment with a free car for less then £300 all in (and a €100 voucher back for later use), with just a 90 minute chore to break into the holiday. (PS - got no intention of signing up!)

Or am I being niave and when it comes to the 90 minutes, electrodes will be connected to various body parts and will be tortured until I sign up?

Worthwhile? (they reckon this 3 day break would usually cost £400 pp, which sounds OTT to me)

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I went to a bookstore and asked the saleswoman, "Where's the self-help section?"
She said if she told me, it would defeat the purpose.

I've always been intrigued by some of these offers Hoovie, and i always think as long as you don't sign anything then you can't go wrong. we unknowingly went into a big complex when we were in Gran-canaria and it was showing people around ie timeshare the operaters were pretty persistant but i didn't sign and they were ok and we got a load of freebies ie mini criuse, t-shirts and free vouchers for a water park which we used, so i think some are ok
just mind how you go

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If you think nobody cares, try missing a couple of payments..

Cheers Lee,

I remember getting stopped by a couple of good looking girls in Tenerife - scratch card thing "Wow! he won, he won" (shocked, I was not ) - prize was to be taken to some place - and even though had a car, they said I couldn't drive there myself - made me a tad suspicous of that one, to say the least and said "no thanks"

At least with the one I posted about, it seems to be all up-front ... "we're giving you a cheap few days, you give us 90 mins of your time in return to try and sell you something" - which is fair enough


PS - just after posting the initial message, heard about Ryan Air closing operations in one spanish airport maybe days of cheap flights are coming to an end

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I went to a bookstore and asked the saleswoman, "Where's the self-help section?"
She said if she told me, it would defeat the purpose.

read the small print to be shure freebees may be conditional on a sale
or you may have to but x number off overpriced meals at the hotel to get free whatever ot reduced rate

or you may have to buy your flights from them

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we are all ------------------still learning

good advice, BA

I'll post back if there is anything like that when I re-read it again.

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I went to a bookstore and asked the saleswoman, "Where's the self-help section?"
She said if she told me, it would defeat the purpose.

Quote:

"Now we have all probably been accosted in Tenerife or Magaluf or whatever by timeshare touts who offer you free drinks for a quick presentation...." Hoovie.


SOME of you may well be able to go swanning off to furrin parts, but some of us can't. Last exotic place I went to was Amsterdam with a bunch of other students.

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I started out with nothing, I still have most of it.

Directmail scam information site: http://astrocat.proboards.com/index.cgi?

You got in so much trouble your passport was confiscated?

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I should be dead; I've cheated the Grim Reaper yet again by surviving my third heart attack in June.

Nah, I'm a law-abiding puss, we went to the red-light district, but you only get 15 minutes and I can't do IT that quickly.

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I started out with nothing, I still have most of it.

Directmail scam information site: http://astrocat.proboards.com/index.cgi?