Time Share? How to Get Out (1 Viewer)

Many years ago, when the children were younger and we were on vacation we made a (horrible) decision to fall for a timeshare pitch from BlueGreen. For about 10 years we utilized the club and went to some really great places - but as the children got older we had more activities and no time to spend on vacations. So the timeshare is bought and paid for - but we are still charged a yearly maintenance fee and real estate taxes. Not a problem, but since we don't use it we decided to see if we could sell it back or even give it away. But...we are told that no one is buying so we are stuck in perpetuity paying maintenance fees and taxes on something we can't even use. Researching resellers all I read about is scams and having already fallen for the time share scan we don't want to get caught up in another scam.

Anyone else ever have experiences with trying to get rid of a paid off timeshare? Even if we could just give it away or abandon it we would be fine - just sick of paying maintenance fees and taxes for something we don't use. Any lawyers have any ideas?

Always Sunny in Philadelphia had a great episode about time shares.

http://itsalwayssunny.wikia.com/wiki/Mac_and_Dennis_Buy_a_Timeshare

You got got

Ever try renting out your week to others? I do that with ours when we don't plan on using it. More than pays for the fees and a little dough in the pocket.

Mr. Know-It-All said:

Many years ago, when the children were younger and we were on vacation we made a (horrible) decision to fall for a timeshare pitch from BlueGreen. For about 10 years we utilized the club and went to some really great places - but as the children got older we had more activities and no time to spend on vacations. So the timeshare is bought and paid for - but we are still charged a yearly maintenance fee and real estate taxes. Not a problem, but since we don't use it we decided to see if we could sell it back or even give it away. But...we are told that no one is buying so we are stuck in perpetuity paying maintenance fees and taxes on something we can't even use. Researching resellers all I read about is scams and having already fallen for the time share scan we don't want to get caught up in another scam.

Anyone else ever have experiences with trying to get rid of a paid off timeshare? Even if we could just give it away or abandon it we would be fine - just sick of paying maintenance fees and taxes for something we don't use. Any lawyers have any ideas?

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I have an idea. Stop paying the maintenance fees and taxes.

The Commish said:

Ever try renting out your week to others? I do that with ours when we don't plan on using it. More than pays for the fees and a little dough in the pocket.

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If you are willing to be realistic compared to what other properties go for in the area, I would imagine you could easily rent out points for the Orlando location in the disney thread on FBG's.

Joe T said:

Mr. Know-It-All said:

Many years ago, when the children were younger and we were on vacation we made a (horrible) decision to fall for a timeshare pitch from BlueGreen. For about 10 years we utilized the club and went to some really great places - but as the children got older we had more activities and no time to spend on vacations. So the timeshare is bought and paid for - but we are still charged a yearly maintenance fee and real estate taxes. Not a problem, but since we don't use it we decided to see if we could sell it back or even give it away. But...we are told that no one is buying so we are stuck in perpetuity paying maintenance fees and taxes on something we can't even use. Researching resellers all I read about is scams and having already fallen for the time share scan we don't want to get caught up in another scam.

Anyone else ever have experiences with trying to get rid of a paid off timeshare? Even if we could just give it away or abandon it we would be fine - just sick of paying maintenance fees and taxes for something we don't use. Any lawyers have any ideas?

Click to expand...

I have an idea. Stop paying the maintenance fees and taxes.

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Certainly an option as long as it doesn't constitute a default. Last thing you want is something like that on your credit profile/records. I'd check the paperwork in the agreement.

FWIW, we are in the same boat - long paid for but hardly ever use now that the kids are grown.

There's a company that advertises with either Clark Howard or Handal on the Law that supposedly can get you out of it. Evidently they've found some laws that can pierce the contact. They say you don't pay unless they are successful.

On the other hand, there must be some wickedly good deals on time shares if people can't give them away.

Went through a BlueGreen pitch and was tempted to buy something on the secondary market a few years back. I forget all the terminology and the perks...but...I would imagine some FBGers would be open to buying your points for their Vegas property. Might get back a chunk of those fees.

chet said:

On the other hand, there must be some wickedly good deals on time shares if people can't give them away.

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You can get some for literally $1 (plus taking the fees on in perpetuity, of course).

RUSF18 said:

chet said:

On the other hand, there must be some wickedly good deals on time shares if people can't give them away.

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You can get some for literally $1 (plus taking the fees on in perpetuity, of course).

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I have actually seen people pay someone to take over their time share they wanted out so bad.

My parents bought into a few of these. Their permanent one my mom will keep is in Ft. Myers for two weeks out of the year. They bought another one in Hawaii that they convert to Hilton points to use for other stuff, but it still costs $1,700 year in maint. fees. It remains to be seen if total points from Hawaii = $1,700. Now that Dad is gone, we are trying to help her sell the Hawaii one through Hilton. They have a re-sell program, but I think they take out a pretty good fee for doing this. Not sure if there are any other options.

How about making time to use it? Go on vacation. Show your children the world. Not many other activities I'd rank higher than that kind of experience.

offer it to us here and see if we can rent it out in the meantime?

FWIW....ours is awesome...incredibly flexible. Our "home" is Harbourside at Atlantis, but we can use it at a dozen or so identical resorts (minus location) all over the country. We've used it while at Disney. We've used it to go skiing out west and they just added three locations (two in Hawaii and one in Mexico) that are options. If those don't work we can roll our time over into a different vacation group (for a fee) or convert it to SPG points.

We know pretty quickly if we aren't going to use it for the year, so if that's the case, we just sell our week online. That more than makes up for the maint fees, especially if we get someone who wants to go to Atlantis. A week down there takes care of two years worth of maint fees on average. It can be a PITA sometimes to manage but it's not terribly bad.

My folks used to have one in Orlando. Believe they sat with their lawyer and ultimately managed to ditch it via charity auction.

The Commish said:

Ever try renting out your week to others? I do that with ours when we don't plan on using it. More than pays for the fees and a little dough in the pocket.

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1st thing I thought of too. Doesn't get him out of it, but at least it handles the cost.

I have no idea why anyone ever buys these things.

How much is the annual maintenance fee? Do they have the ability to report on your credit?

xulf said:

I have no idea why anyone ever buys these things.

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A cousin of mine bought into one with a buddy. I think he was about 23 when he did it. It worked out awesome for him for a couple of reasons...

He was single and childless until his early 30s, he was a teacher so had plenty of options when it came to when he could travel. He told me after he did all the math he saved all kinds of money over the years.

Officer Pete Malloy said:

xulf said:

I have no idea why anyone ever buys these things.

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A cousin of mine bought into one with a buddy. I think he was about 23 when he did it. It worked out awesome for him for a couple of reasons...

He was single and childless until his early 30s, he was a teacher so had plenty of options when it came to when he could travel. He told me after he did all the math he saved all kinds of money over the years.

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Is your buddy's name Pofficer Meat Polloy?

I know people that own two months at some place in Grand Cayman. No clue how much they're in for, or how much the maintenance fees cost them, but it's a #### investment. They could've used that money on a condo twenty years ago instead.

Bucky86 said:

I know people that own two months at some place in Grand Cayman. No clue how much they're in for, or how much the maintenance fees cost them, but it's a #### investment. They could've used that money on a condo twenty years ago instead.

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Two months????? Even if timeshares were all that they're supposed to be that kind of defeats the purpose.

A one time fee of $2000 or the equivalent in Invigoron.

Christo said:

Bucky86 said:

I know people that own two months at some place in Grand Cayman. No clue how much they're in for, or how much the maintenance fees cost them, but it's a #### investment. They could've used that money on a condo twenty years ago instead.

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Two months????? Even if timeshares were all that they're supposed to be that kind of defeats the purpose.

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They go down the entire month of December and a few times during the year. Believe me, I don't quite understand it.

Thorn said:

Officer Pete Malloy said:

xulf said:

I have no idea why anyone ever buys these things.

Click to expand...

A cousin of mine bought into one with a buddy. I think he was about 23 when he did it. It worked out awesome for him for a couple of reasons...

He was single and childless until his early 30s, he was a teacher so had plenty of options when it came to when he could travel. He told me after he did all the math he saved all kinds of money over the years.

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Is your buddy's name Pofficer Meat Polloy?

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I wish. I got married at 24.

The Commish said:

FWIW....ours is awesome...incredibly flexible. Our "home" is Harbourside at Atlantis, but we can use it at a dozen or so identical resorts (minus location) all over the country. We've used it while at Disney. We've used it to go skiing out west and they just added three locations (two in Hawaii and one in Mexico) that are options. If those don't work we can roll our time over into a different vacation group (for a fee) or convert it to SPG points.

We know pretty quickly if we aren't going to use it for the year, so if that's the case, we just sell our week online. That more than makes up for the maint fees, especially if we get someone who wants to go to Atlantis. A week down there takes care of two years worth of maint fees on average. It can be a PITA sometimes to manage but it's not terribly bad.

Click to expand...

How's it going SPG buddy? Our home is in Cancun. Haven't made it out to Atlantis yet, but it is planned. This year we traded everything to pay for an upcoming Europe trip. Have you been to St. John's yet? We're about ready to plan that one. I think it helps to not have kids when owning a timeshare.

Seriously, if you add up a normal trip you can likely spend less, not be trapped, and have way more flexibility...oh you want to inherit this hell on to your kids? GREAT!

My In laws have one and it's cool and all now cause they treat and the kids are little. But I know one day it will fall on us/me. Wife is one of 3 sisters - one will say they don't use it so why should they pay, the other will say she can't afford it. But they will be the first to come knocking for their $0.33 when we sell

xulf said:

I have no idea why anyone ever buys these things.

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We bought DVC on the resale market and could sell ours tomorrow for a profit and have rented extra points almost every year.

So I guess that is why we bought ours.

zamboni said:

Joe T said:

Mr. Know-It-All said:

Many years ago, when the children were younger and we were on vacation we made a (horrible) decision to fall for a timeshare pitch from BlueGreen. For about 10 years we utilized the club and went to some really great places - but as the children got older we had more activities and no time to spend on vacations. So the timeshare is bought and paid for - but we are still charged a yearly maintenance fee and real estate taxes. Not a problem, but since we don't use it we decided to see if we could sell it back or even give it away. But...we are told that no one is buying so we are stuck in perpetuity paying maintenance fees and taxes on something we can't even use. Researching resellers all I read about is scams and having already fallen for the time share scan we don't want to get caught up in another scam.

Anyone else ever have experiences with trying to get rid of a paid off timeshare? Even if we could just give it away or abandon it we would be fine - just sick of paying maintenance fees and taxes for something we don't use. Any lawyers have any ideas?

Click to expand...

I have an idea. Stop paying the maintenance fees and taxes.

Click to expand...

Certainly an option as long as it doesn't constitute a default. Last thing you want is something like that on your credit profile/records. I'd check the paperwork in the agreement.

FWIW, we are in the same boat - long paid for but hardly ever use now that the kids are grown.

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No thought up offering it up to your fellow FBG friends if you aren't going to use it?

koby925 said:

My In laws have one and it's cool and all now cause they treat and the kids are little. But I know one day it will fall on us/me. Wife is one of 3 sisters - one will say they don't use it so why should they pay, the other will say she can't afford it. But they will be the first to come knocking for their $0.33 when we sell

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Then sell it as soon as they are gone.

Christo said:

koby925 said:

My In laws have one and it's cool and all now cause they treat and the kids are little. But I know one day it will fall on us/me. Wife is one of 3 sisters - one will say they don't use it so why should they pay, the other will say she can't afford it. But they will be the first to come knocking for their $0.33 when we sell

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Then sell it as soon as they are gone.

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If there's a market by then. Sounds like it's already a problem now.

koby925 said:

Christo said:

koby925 said:

My In laws have one and it's cool and all now cause they treat and the kids are little. But I know one day it will fall on us/me. Wife is one of 3 sisters - one will say they don't use it so why should they pay, the other will say she can't afford it. But they will be the first to come knocking for their $0.33 when we sell

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Then sell it as soon as they are gone.

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If there's a market by then. Sounds like it's already a problem now.

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Have we figured out what the actual worst case scenario is if you refuse to make the payments? Even if it's a major hit to your credit, why not just have the in laws default when they're getting up there in age, have the house paid off, maybe a retirement property secured, and can handle the ding?

timeshareexitteam.com

I don't even allow myself to go to the pitches. I have no confidence in my ability to not be convinced it's just a great bargain.

Fake your own death, move to Thailand, get Chlamydia, die for real.

Just happened to a guy at FBG and it worked like a charm.

parasaurolophus said:

xulf said:

I have no idea why anyone ever buys these things.

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We bought DVC on the resale market and could sell ours tomorrow for a profit and have rented extra points almost every year. So I guess that is why we bought ours.

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Sell now.

xulf said:

parasaurolophus said:

xulf said:

I have no idea why anyone ever buys these things.

Click to expand...

We bought DVC on the resale market and could sell ours tomorrow for a profit and have rented extra points almost every year. So I guess that is why we bought ours.

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Sell now.

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Sounds like you are well informed about DVC properties. I should probably take your advice immediately.

parasaurolophus said:

xulf said:

parasaurolophus said:

xulf said:

I have no idea why anyone ever buys these things.

Click to expand...

We bought DVC on the resale market and could sell ours tomorrow for a profit and have rented extra points almost every year. So I guess that is why we bought ours.

Click to expand...

Sell now.

Click to expand...

Sounds like you are well informed about DVC properties. I should probably take your advice immediately.

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same here..bought my DVC for a song resale. Could prob make $30-$40 per point on it now.

not that it add to this thread other then at least our DVC contract expires when I'm into my 70's. By then the thing will have paid for itself 10x over

glvsav37 said:

parasaurolophus said:

xulf said:

parasaurolophus said:

xulf said:

I have no idea why anyone ever buys these things.

Click to expand...

We bought DVC on the resale market and could sell ours tomorrow for a profit and have rented extra points almost every year. So I guess that is why we bought ours.

Click to expand...

Sell now.

Click to expand...

Sounds like you are well informed about DVC properties. I should probably take your advice immediately.

Click to expand...

same here..bought my DVC for a song resale. Could prob make $30-$40 per point on it now.

not that it add to this thread other then at least our DVC contract expires when I'm into my 70's. By then the thing will have paid for itself 10x over

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Can you guys provide your transaction details for your DVC purchases?

xulf said:

I have no idea why anyone ever buys these things.

Click to expand...

Ours made sense to us financially Why pay 50% more on individual visits?

Scoresman said:

The Commish said:

FWIW....ours is awesome...incredibly flexible. Our "home" is Harbourside at Atlantis, but we can use it at a dozen or so identical resorts (minus location) all over the country. We've used it while at Disney. We've used it to go skiing out west and they just added three locations (two in Hawaii and one in Mexico) that are options. If those don't work we can roll our time over into a different vacation group (for a fee) or convert it to SPG points.

We know pretty quickly if we aren't going to use it for the year, so if that's the case, we just sell our week online. That more than makes up for the maint fees, especially if we get someone who wants to go to Atlantis. A week down there takes care of two years worth of maint fees on average. It can be a PITA sometimes to manage but it's not terribly bad.

Click to expand...

How's it going SPG buddy? Our home is in Cancun. Haven't made it out to Atlantis yet, but it is planned. This year we traded everything to pay for an upcoming Europe trip. Have you been to St. John's yet? We're about ready to plan that one. I think it helps to not have kids when owning a timeshare.

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We've owned for about 7 years now and with little kids we spend most of our time at Atlantis. I want to try them all at some point, but that may be after the kids are grown and out of our hair. Just the last couple years, I have explored selling our week, so I've done it a couple times. We've used it a ton in Orlando. We can stay there for two and a half weeks (if we wanted) on what would give us a week at Atlantis, so that's been really cool. So Orlando, Colorado and the Bahamas is what we've used. I didn't even realize St Johns was on there. I've been trying to plan a secret get away to Hawaii for the two of us, but maybe St Johns would be easier...need to check in to that.

If you purchase directly from DVC, how much is it per point?

chet said:

If you purchase directly from DVC, how much is it per point?

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It is insane these days. People are so devoted to staying at certain resorts and plan these trips so far in advance so they require the contract that nets them their "home" resort. I think it is like 150 bucks a point.

We typically stay at Old Key West, which is my wife's favorite. We bought 170 points at vero beach for $38 a point. Closing costs were 420 dollars. This usually gets us about 14 nights a year. My maintenance fees were about 1300 bucks this year.

Old Key West is easily worth 200 bucks a night to me. It actually costs more than that to book, but I don't think it is worth that.

So to me I get 3400 bucks a year in hotel rooms for 1300 bucks each year. Apply toward my initial investment of 7k and it was a no brainer decision. I have never had a problem getting a room. I had to waitlist a couple times, but I eventually got the room. I realize the dues go up each year, but so do the hotel rooms so thats kind of a wash.

I could easily sell my points each year and get 10 bucks a point with almost no effort. I could get more per point if I wanted to put forth some effort. We buy extra points each year from people selling theirs, so I am not to a point I am worried about our interest level going down.

If I wanted to, I could sell mine today for about 50 bucks a point as plenty of them for Vero have sold at that level. Disney drastically raising their prices and really going all in on these new resorts quality has lifted the whole resale market. The price we paid for ours would no longer even pass Disney's first right of refusal.

We recently put in a bid for another set of points. We were rejected because somebody put in a bid at two bucks a point above what they were asking.

chet said:

If you purchase directly from DVC, how much is it per point?

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right now they are only selling the Polly and Aulani directly through Disney.

Cost per point is $168 per point. So 100pts is close to $17K buy in.

100 pts won't get you much on property—Deluxe studio at Old Key West in the summer is 108, slower seasons about 76 is prob the cheapest points wise.

Dues average b/t $4.50-$5.50 per point depending on the resort you own at.

As for us, like Parasaurolophus—we bought resale about 3 years ago—230pts for OKW at $55/pp. Plus the contract has 120 points banked from the year before that were essentially free. Total $13k out of pocket, didn't finance—IMO that doesn't make sense.

Our annual trips were costing anywhere b/t $5,500 - $7 per trip (2 weeks at Bay Lake) just for the room, so in buying this, the contract paid for itself in about 2.5 trips (factoring in the dues each year).

Other resorts have a higher pp cost, but I have yet to stay at OKW b/c the points are good anywhere. Only benefit for buying at a "home resort" is that you can book your room 11 months out vs 7 months for any other members.

Right now, I could post my contract for $85-95/pp. And the best thing (as a seller) is that DVC has a first right of refusal clause. So if a buyer wants my contract and we agree, it has to pass by DVC first. If they approve, transaction goes through. If they squash it, the seller gets paid for the agreed upon sale price by DVC, and then they absorb the contract back. So for a seller, its win/win no matter what the outcome.

Plus, all contracts expire at a certain time. Upside of that is I can keep it until i'm in my 70's and prob too old to want to travel much there. Downside, is that the contracts will become less valuable as time goes on, bc as a buyer, the expression date doesn't change with new owners. So there will eventually be a flood of very cheap, short life contracts.

We have used ours every year except 1 and in that year we rented the points to family and it more then covered the dues.

DVC is restricting any resale contracts (since we bought about 4 yrs ago) that resale points can't be used on the cruise line or for their premium vacation tours, but the point-value exchange for those was so astronomical, we felt it wasn't worth it anyway. Otherwise, we get all the same benefits as any other member.

so whats my overall plan? My kids are young and small – 9 and 5. So we did studios at Bay Lake and always had points in the bank to roll over. BLT is nice and close to the MK so its a breeze with strollers and such. This year, we banked all of the old points and are upgrading to a 1 bdrm suite for the 2nd 1/2 of the trip b/c kids are getting older and we need more space. As time goes on, we can start getting bigger rooms for less points in those resorts further away from the action like OKW b/c we won't be reliant on strollers and the kids will be older and more self sustainable. As they get older still and we go to other destinations, like Aulani (we have this in our sites for our 20th anniversary) we will bank up and use the points there. Then once the kids are out, we can do 2 or so smaller trips a year and do things we don't normally get to do like Food and Wine, or save up points and get large suites and do family reunion type trips. I can see us leveraging these points in various ways throughout the contract (and our) life cycle.

Bought one in Kauai on our honeymoon. So two worst life decisions a week apart for me. Beat that brohans.

glvsav37 said:

chet said:

If you purchase directly from DVC, how much is it per point?

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right now they are only selling the Polly and Aulani directly through Disney.

Cost per point is $168 per point. So 100pts is close to $17K buy in.

100 pts won't get you much on property—Deluxe studio at Old Key West in the summer is 108, slower seasons about 76 is prob the cheapest points wise.

Dues average b/t $4.50-$5.50 per point depending on the resort you own at.

As for us, like Parasaurolophus—we bought resale about 3 years ago—230pts for OKW at $55/pp. Plus the contract has 120 points banked from the year before that were essentially free. Total $13k out of pocket, didn't finance—IMO that doesn't make sense.

Our annual trips were costing anywhere b/t $5,500 - $7 per trip (2 weeks at Bay Lake) just for the room, so in buying this, the contract paid for itself in about 2.5 trips (factoring in the dues each year).

Other resorts have a higher pp cost, but I have yet to stay at OKW b/c the points are good anywhere. Only benefit for buying at a "home resort" is that you can book your room 11 months out vs 7 months for any other members.

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So before purchasing the time share, you were paying $400 a night just for lodging for your two weeks?

urbanhack said:

So before purchasing the time share, you were paying $400 a night just for lodging for your two weeks?

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for an on property, deluxe resort on the monorail loop....yea.

Granted you can get cheaper, moderates are around $200-350 and value is around $100. But I am on vacation and i enjoy the things deluxe resorts offer. Plus, when we found the DVC resale contract and could turn those $5-7K rooms into $1K per year, we jumped at it.

The Commish said:

Scoresman said:

The Commish said:

FWIW....ours is awesome...incredibly flexible. Our "home" is Harbourside at Atlantis, but we can use it at a dozen or so identical resorts (minus location) all over the country. We've used it while at Disney. We've used it to go skiing out west and they just added three locations (two in Hawaii and one in Mexico) that are options. If those don't work we can roll our time over into a different vacation group (for a fee) or convert it to SPG points.

We know pretty quickly if we aren't going to use it for the year, so if that's the case, we just sell our week online. That more than makes up for the maint fees, especially if we get someone who wants to go to Atlantis. A week down there takes care of two years worth of maint fees on average. It can be a PITA sometimes to manage but it's not terribly bad.

Click to expand...

How's it going SPG buddy? Our home is in Cancun. Haven't made it out to Atlantis yet, but it is planned. This year we traded everything to pay for an upcoming Europe trip. Have you been to St. John's yet? We're about ready to plan that one. I think it helps to not have kids when owning a timeshare.

Click to expand...

We've owned for about 7 years now and with little kids we spend most of our time at Atlantis. I want to try them all at some point, but that may be after the kids are grown and out of our hair. Just the last couple years, I have explored selling our week, so I've done it a couple times. We've used it a ton in Orlando. We can stay there for two and a half weeks (if we wanted) on what would give us a week at Atlantis, so that's been really cool. So Orlando, Colorado and the Bahamas is what we've used. I didn't even realize St Johns was on there. I've been trying to plan a secret get away to Hawaii for the two of us, but maybe St Johns would be easier...need to check in to that.

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For what its worth, I can vouch for both the Kauai and Maui properties. Both are excellent.