We just returned from the Hyatt Residence Club (HRC) @ Kaanapali. As part of the deal ($1695 for 5 nts in an 11th floor oceanfront 2BR/2BA), we attended a sales presentation. The presentation was not extremely high pressure; I'd call it professionally insistent with some classic sales techniques. Our presentation lasted about 65 mins; the first 60 mins was the salesman, followed by <5 mins with him and his manager, who ended the presentation early when it was clear there'd be no sale.
I began the presentation by being honest that we'd accepted the vacation offer because it's such a great deal but, that we had no interest in purchasing a timeshare. In the end, I think the only difference that made was that the "bring the manager in" session lasted only a short while. But, the salesman used all the same sales arguments that he likely would have anyway. I've summarized those below:
1. You're going to spend lots of $$$ on vacations in the next 20 yrs anyway, why not do it with a timeshare that guarantees staying in the awesome place of your choice.
2. You're going to spend $XXXk on vacations & a timeshare is a less expensive way to do that. The salesman did a recurring payment, future value calculation to prove how much $$$ we'd spend on vacations over the next 20 yrs, then argued that the timeshare costs less than that.
3. You have great ability to exchange your property for other locations throughout the HRC network.
4. You can also travel almost anywhere in the world by exchanging for II properties, which has almost 3,000 properties in their network.
My responses to those arguments are:
1. We do plan to spend $$$ on vacations during the next 20 yrs but, using a future value calculation is simply a technique to sway people who don't understand the time value of money.
2. Using present value is the most accurate way to evaluate options for purchasing almost anything, including 20 yrs (or whatever you timeline is) worth of vacations. My calculations consistently show that I could pay for 20 yrs of HRC quality vacations for about the same 'present value' as would be required to pay the annual maintenance fees. In other words, I could stay in top quality timeshares for 20 yrs without paying the TS purchase price. Therefore, purchasing a TS (even on the resale market) is simply not the right approach for us.
3. I've looked at the HRC points exchange tables, and ownership @ HRC Kaanapali would place an owner in a good position to make trades elsewhere in the HRC network.
4. I have no personal experience with II, and I've done only a bit of research into this. And, there are, in fact, a lot of II properties for which one could exchange. However, my (admittedly novice) concerns would be the quality of those properties compared to the one purchased & all of the negative comments I've seen regarding II exchanges.
So, in the end, we did not purchase an HRC Kaanapali TS. But, I felt much better prepared for this TS presentation than I otherwise would have been because of research on TUG & Redweek. So...thanks TUG & Redweek.
