photo credit: skyseeker
Two years ago my parents offered to give my wife and I a timeshare vacation club through Vacation International. We had dreams of traveling to Hawaii and laying on the beach doing nothing. The reality, we’ve yet to take a timeshare vacation and when we do travel, it’s for family weddings or conferences. This year my wife has a conference in Anaheim and the family is tagging along and going to Disneyland. Another factor, we have two small children and I don’t see us traveling all the way to Hawaii. If they could swim and snorkel, that would be different.
I’m frugal on many items, but will spend money on quality items that can have years of service. I had no problem spending $14,000 two years ago on a used 2002 Toyota Prius. My rationale was that this car had a fantastic resale value, gas mileage, and low maintenance, and great for carpooling. In fact, I could sell it for almost the same price I paid in 2006 as I have the HOV stickers for driving with one driver in a carpool lane. Another interesting California law! What I don’t like is paying for a service I don’t utilize. Paying for an expensive phone plan, when you don’t use all the minutes. Paying for a gym membership, and never visit the gym all year. And now, paying $906 when our family doesn’t utilize the timeshare.
We are just throwing away money, and it’s making me sick. I’ve started to do some research to see what options we have to sell the timeshare. I was told by Vacation Internationale not to pay anyone up front to list the timeshare for us. There are scam companies that will sell your timeshare for an upfront fee. You should never pay $200 or $500 to have someone list your timeshare. I’ve contacted several legit companies, but haven’t heard back, and the next payment is due in one week.
We do have several options available:
1. Allow friends and family to utilize the timeshare. But how can you charge family and friends to use a timeshare? We would just be giving away a two week free vacation.
2. Try and sell two weeks on ebay? I don’t even know if this is an option. What if they trash the timeshare and we are left with the cleaning bill.
3. Trade with another timeshare. We might use a timeshare if it were closer to home and didn’t have to fly. Airfare for a family of 4 would be at least $1,000. If we went to Hawaii it could be close to $2,000.
I appreciate the gift that we received from our parents, but a timeshare vacation club might not be the right asset for a young family with two kids. Can we justify spending $906 or more a year on a timeshare we don’t use? I don’t think so. I would rather use that money to pay down our mortgage or save more money for our kids 529 account. I would love to hear your feedback if you own a timeshare or ever thought about buying one.
