...but it's not a 'time-share'

Hi,
We had a weird sense of the ridiculous... We like to torture ourselves by sitting through the "90 minute presentation" in hopes of getting great free stuff. The Time-Share Scam is our chosen form of comedy entertainment for this purpose on occasion.

Our honeymoon in Key West Florida scored us $100, dinner at a nice seafood restaurant and a kayak ride around the island, all for spending a couple of hours not being impressed with the concept and frustrating the poor saleswoman who needed to fill her quota of suckers for the day.

A tip to Las Vegas got us a tour of the property, yet to be built, of the Hard Rock Cafe time-share where for $500,000 you got a glitzy shoe box to stay in. We walked away with $200 in casino chips for our effort which Marshall then turned into $175 in cash at the blackjack table... The glitch was you had to use the $25 chips at their casino, you couldn't just cash them in, so he had eight hands of blackjack to play and in 15 minutes at the table we had cash, and split.

Last week I received a letter looking like it was from US Air telling me we were elidgable for two free airline tickets. I called to see what the deal was to redeem this fabulous offer..... The very nice young man I spoke with told me it "was not a time-share", but a new concept in travel agency looking to promote itself. Austin repeated "It was not a time-share" at least four times in our conversation, so I knew it was some sort of time-share, me thinks thou doest protest too much, came to mind.

Off we go 2 nights later, to the wilds of north-east Philadelphia to a commercial business park with bad lighting. No signage on the door at the address is my first clue to this fly-by-night operation. Sure enough, its a time-share show! I have to say the presentation was more entertaining than most. Our group of elidgable couples was more than willing to play the game and the two men making the pitch were completely believable in their senserity.

The product, for $159 a week, gets you into a vacation property,  it its not a time share.  A one bedroom condo unit of at least 1200 sq.ft., not right at DisneyWorld but close enough for us to shuttle you there. Las Vegas only gets you 3 nights for the $159 and you lose the rest of the week but hey, it's Vegas! Oh, and did we forget to mention the $389 yearly membership fee, but you only pay that if you take a vacation, its "optional". Air fare?  Yes we can book it all for you, no savings there but your week away will only cost you the $159 dollars for your room. Wait, now we need to hit you up for the 'joining ' fee. $11,900 gets you up to four week of vacation spots and your life time membership and its FOREVER. Your kids and grandchildren with love you eternally as you saddle them with this thing when you pass on.

But wait, there's more!

Our special offer tonight bring the membership fee down to our reduced rate of only $8,900 if you
will sign on the dotted line right now!

By the time we left, the price had shrunk to $6,900, for the first two new members to sign on, just because we all were such wonderful people. We even had the VP presenter personally do us a big favor by offering a special one week deal for $2,900... You do the math.

The only bummer was once I read the brochure on how to collect our free airline tickets for participating, it wasn't anywhere near free. A $4.95 processing fee was listed up front, but on the back the fine print had a $50 fee per ticket attached, plus black out dates, restricted flight accessibility, taxes, license and everything else they could think of was not included. Hell for that aggravation I can use airmile points and get where I need to with less hassle.

Oh well
But it's not a time-share.

M