It's Vegas Baby!

[richlevy]

We will be heading to Las Vegas this year for a short vacation. We got an offer to view a timeshare (one of the big operations) which will give us a discounted stay. We'll be in the middle of the strip near Circus Circus.

I thought I'd give Onyx fair warning. :p

[wolf]

Resist the sales pitch to buy into the timeshare.

One of our doctor's did not.

He hasn't been back to Vegas since.

[xoxoxoBruce]

I thought I'd give Onyx fair warning.

You're a year late and a dollar short. Shes in NC.

[lookout123]

wolf, i absolutely adore my timeshare. i'm on a points system with RCI and the thing literally did pay for itself already. if you are going to buy i suggest a short trip to Sedona Pines in arizona. lowest cost for the points that i found nationally. because sedona is a prime location i get access to every RCI property in the world with no upgrade costs.

i wouldn't buy into a plan that gives me a certain number of weeks in a certain number of places though, i checked in to those and they looked... dicey.

[richlevy]

Originally Posted by lookout123

wolf, i absolutely adore my timeshare. i'm on a points system with RCI and the thing literally did pay for itself already. if you are going to buy i suggest a short trip to Sedona Pines in arizona. lowest cost for the points that i found nationally. because sedona is a prime location i get access to every RCI property in the world with no upgrade costs.

i wouldn't buy into a plan that gives me a certain number of weeks in a certain number of places though, i checked in to those and they looked... dicey.

One reason I would not buy a timeshare from anyone is that the markup is worse than a car. You can buy a $20k timeshare on Ebay for $7k. Imagine a car that lost %75 of it's value the second you drove it off of the lot.

It's not a bad deal, just not a great one. For $10k or $20k, you get a weeks vacation that would cost you $700-2000 a year. Unfortunately, you can pay about $500 per year in maintenance fees, meaning you have a much longer period to break even. The whole myth around timeshares is that you have equity. This is true. However, the sales markup is so high that as an investment you will never be able to recoup the money you put into it.
The same $20K invested would probably provide enough income to pay for a hotel for the same week.

If there was any kind of tax advantage, like those around owning a home, then that might make the odds better, but I'm pretty sure Uncle Sam has closed those loopholes.

In the end, the main reason to owning a timeshare is sort of a promissory note, an enforced vacation. While timeshares aren't completely use-it-or-lose-it, the amount of work going into banking points or subletting makes it more attractive to just take the vacation. And since the reputable timeshares are legally real estate, you do have a sense of ownership.

So if I bought one on the resale market and went in knowing everything, including what hurdles there would be to unloading it, I could maybe see myself buying into one. To really do a cost-benefit analysis, I would also have to look at costs associated with using the trading networks provided by the timeshare company itself and the third-party networks.

Still, there is absolutely no way I would pay retail for a timeshare unless I thought that the real estate value of the property would appreciate %500 in ten years, which might make up for the high sales load up front. Since most timeshares are dime-a-dozen operations, really nothing more than a transient version of a retirement community with a lake or pool, or maybe golf and/or tennis, usually near some natural or man-made attraction, there is no boom growth potential, which is why they are selling on Ebay for a fraction of their original price.

So I will go to the sales presentation and take the tour, and probably be polite and not bring up any of this during the group sales presentation. Since they are not providing free accomodations, just a reduced price, I am under no moral obligation to be overly condescending to them.

[wolf]

RCI is one of the better ones. I used to work for a company that sold the advertising space that wasn't devoted to condos in their Endless Vacation magazine.

I still have a set of EV mugs, and an umbrella somewhere.

[richlevy]

Originally Posted by wolf

RCI is one of the better ones. I used to work for a company that sold the advertising space that wasn't devoted to condos in their Endless Vacation magazine.

I still have a set of EV mugs, and an umbrella somewhere.

This one is Hilton Grand Vacations . Since they're associated with Hilton, I figure they value their reputation and so should behave themselves.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Do you get to hang with Paris too?

[richlevy]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Do you get to hang with Paris too?

You mean the home movies haven't made it to the Internet yet?

[OnyxCougar]

Do me a favor, Rich, if you're not a vegetarian, go to a Brazilian BBQ place called Yolie's on paradise, near the hard rock.

Have the buffet for me. It's the only thing about Vegas I miss.

[richlevy]

Originally Posted by OnyxCougar

Do me a favor, Rich, if you're not a vegetarian, go to a Brazilian BBQ place called Yolie's on paradise, near the hard rock.

Have the buffet for me. It's the only thing about Vegas I miss.

Thanks, I might try it if my wife will agree. I went to a Brazlian BBQ outside of L.A. on a business trip. You had a stick in the middle of your table that was painted red and green. If you kept the green side up waiters would come to your table with skewers of meat, sausages, squabs, etc. Most of the items were just roasted meat and chicken, but there were some odd things like chicken hearts

It was fun.

I found a review of Yolies . It looks like the same deal.


and another

At Yolie's, as at many restaurants of this genre, the routine is simple. If you order the grill ($26.95), the meats just keep on comin'. At Yolie's, dinner starts with the aforementioned soup or salad, and bread, and then a dish is delivered that's filled with side dishes -- in this case potatoes, squares of polenta, lima beans and carrots. We also were brought a bowl of a really wonderful sort of fresh sauce or salsa that tasted of parsley, cilantro, olive oil and garlic.

And then the parade began. Servers brought a succession of meats impressively laced onto huge swordlike skewers, which we'd earlier seen cooking over a fire separated from the dining room by a glass window. They'd slice off a serving and then go on to the next table. The idea is that you sample each, and then you can have all you'd like of your favorites.

I may be a little off on the order here -- it was a dizzying array of meats -- but the chicken was first and that was a good intro, deeply marinated to give it a wonderful flavor and grilled just enough, so that it was thoroughly cooked (always a good thing with poultry) and yet still wonderfully juicy and succulent.

[OnyxCougar]

**mouth watering** Damn. I miss Yolie's.

[SteveDallas]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Do you get to hang with Paris too?

Time to get checked out for my new contacts... I thought that said "Do you get to bang with Paris too?"

[mrnoodle]

The Colorado version of Brazilian BBQ is the Rodisio Grill (sp?). I love that place. A friend of ours from Brazil came with us to tell us if it was authentic. She's exceptionally cute, too, so all the waiters hung out at our table to talk Portuguese with her. We couldn't get rid of them long enough to empty our plates. My stomach still hurts, and it's been more than a year.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by SteveDallas

Time to get checked out for my new contacts... I thought that said "Do you get to bang with Paris too?"

It's not your contacts, it's your dirty mind. No wonder I like you.