The Great Escape

On a visit to Las Vegas last year to watch my hubby's most recommended show, we were invited to purchase a 3-night stay in The Grand Chateau Marriott for a ridiculously low price.  The catch was that we had to attend a 90-120 minute presentation - they were going to try to make us join the vacation club - which is a nicer marketing term for timeshare.

These teaser packages are actually a great way to save money on accommodations - if you can say no after the resort sales executive's great presentation.

Our track record isn't too promising.  We own time share in the Lawrence Welks program (which fortunately is a pretty great program) - and we bought this without being offered the teaser package, mostly due to my mother-in-law's prodding.  We almost bought with Shell Vacations a few years back - we cancelled at the last minute, no teaser package here either.

Now considering that this is the Marriott Vacation Club program that has been recommended to us by a couple of sales agents from other timeshare presentations and they offered us a rate that is much cheaper than what we have right now with Welks - we almost said yes.  Almost being the key term - we escaped unscathed!  We were able to say no - after talking it out in depth.

Reason 1 - we really can't afford it right now.  Reason 2 - we weren't very impressed with the facilities - considering we had the Trump Tower to compare it to - even our Welks Resort property seemed more upscale than the Grand Chateau.  Reason 3 - they didn't have as many amenities.  Reason 4 - we can avail of the most attractive part of their offer through our Welks modified points program and Interval International.

Although they really had friendly staff and customer service was top-notch - we had to decline.  We learned to say no and we're happy with our decision.  Of all the presentations we attended, the Marriott's sales executive was the friendliest and the only one who kept his promise to not hard-sell us in the end.  We were free to go after a reasonable amount of time and there were no hard feelings.  If you have the budget and the inclination to purchase a timeshare program - I'd still recommend the Marriott Vacation Club to you.

Happy vacations, my friends!