Forth Bridge Corporation - Timeshare Information

Benefits

What are the benefits of timesharing? Wow! That depends upon the answer to the question, “Compared to what?”

Timeshares offer you the opportunity to vacation at nice resorts all around the world, generally for a week at a time. If that’s how you like to vacation, then timeshares can be a wonderful experience for you. On the other hand, if you want to take an RV into the woods and camp out, or if you vacation for long weekends only, then they might not work. So let’s assume you like the resort environment, you like going to nice places, you like beaches and ski mountains and metropolitan areas, you like having a nice big place to stay with a kitchen and maid service, you like having a swimming pool, health club, spa, golf, activities on the premises, and you like being near all the major attractions in the area.

Timeshares are NOT a financial investment. If you buy from the developer at his very high prices, you will lose 50% of your money when you sell the timeshare to the next guy. (See the pages on this site for “Selling Timeshare” and “Buying Timeshare” for an explanation of why this is so.) Even if you buy a resale and get a bargain price, you should not expect your timeshare to increase in value over the years. It just doesn’t happen. Therefore, timeshares are an investment in your vacations, and you should compare them to other vacation styles to see how timeshares can save you money.

You may use your timeshare for your own vacation at your Home Resort, let friends or family use it, rent it out for income, donate the use of it to charity, exchange it for vacations at other resorts all around the world, resell it to someone else, or leave it to your heirs. It’s a valuable asset in your portfolio.

When you buy a timeshare, you pay an initial purchase price, like buying a house. Then each year, you pay your home resort an annual maintenance fee, your share of the operating expenses of the resort. If you own one week at the resort, you only pay one week’s maintenance fee, and someone else pays the other 51 weeks of the year. So your first comparison is to compare owning a timeshare with owning a vacation home at the beach or a cabin at the lake. With those properties, you pay the expenses for all 52 weeks every year, but you may only use the property a week or two each year. With your timeshare, you only pay for the number of weeks you use.

Next, you could compare timeshare ownership to renting in a hotel. Timeshares are generally apartments or townhouses with living rooms, dining rooms, kitchens, and extra bathrooms. Hotels give you a bedroom and a bathroom, maybe a small sitting area, and everybody is crammed into one room along with all your luggage. It’s hard to hang a financial number on the value of extra living space, but after a week of vacation you’ll say it’s worth a million bucks!

Suppose you could rent a timeshare unit at the same resort where you would own a timeshare. You will find that the rent for one week is at least 2-3 times as much as the maintenance fee for the timeshare owner, and in the more exotic destinations it can be even more. Resorts often charge you $250 - $350 per night to rent (that’s $1,750 - $2,450 per week), and the timeshare owner pays a maintenance fee of perhaps $500 - $700 for the same accommodations. Compared to renting, there’s no comparison.

Generally, there are no extra surprise charges that you sometimes find on your hotel bill. Hotels have a habit of quoting you a low nightly rate, but they “forget” to mention service fees and taxes. Most timeshares don’t have those costs. Having said that, it’s not true everywhere. Some resorts where the cost of electricity is high will bill you for electricity usage, either by metering or charging a flat fee per week.

They do this because the cost of power is high, and to encourage you to turn off the air conditioning when you go out for the day and do your part to conserve. In some islands, we’re seeing the Caribbean version of the “Gotcha!”, where the local government levies a tax on timeshares and it gets added to your bill when you check out. They figure by this time you’ve had a nice vacation, and they can hit you with a sneak tax, which you will pay and get on the plane and go home. It’s easy to tax the tourists.

With a timeshare, you can save on both time and money spent on meals. Timeshares have kitchen facilities, so you can prepare some or all of your own meals. You know that buying in the grocery store is cheaper than buying from a restaurant or even from a snack bar. And if you have kids, you can save a couple hours a day getting them ready to go out, eating out, and returning to change back into their bathing suits. That’s a lot of hassle you don’t incur!

Your timeshare is an asset in your personal portfolio. It has value, and you can resell it to someone else when you’re done with it, thereby recovering some or maybe all of your initial purchase price. If you buy from the developer, you can’t recover. But if you shopped the resale market and made a good deal, chances are your timeshare will hold its market value. Buying a resale at least lets you minimize your loss when you sell, and that’s a small price to pay for all those years of great vacations!

Perhaps the most significant benefit to timeshares is your ability to trade your timeshare with other timeshare owners and go to thousands of resorts worldwide. There are major corporations that facilitate exchanges between owners, and the process is well-established and smooth-running. There are over 3.5 million exchanges made every year, so you know this is a big deal! For more information on exchanging, please refer to the “Exchanging” page on this web site.

The exchange companies also offer lots of membership benefits, above and beyond the ability to trade. For example, they accumulate extra timeshare weeks in their inventory, so they make them available to members only for some very low prices. These “Bonus Weeks” or “Getaway” weeks are priced from $100 to about $900 for a week in a resort. You can purchase as many of them as you want each year.

Exchange companies also offer travel discounts, because they also operate large travel departments with lots of purchasing power. They also own some of the well-known car rental agencies, so you can save on auto rentals for your vacation. They often have discounts available for dining and shopping.

And another big benefit is the ability to exchange your timeshare for accommodations on a cruise ship. Don’t want to stay on land for your vacation? Exchange your timeshare for a cruise. Most of the well-known cruise lines participate in this plan. Please see the “Cruise Exchange” page on this web site for more information.

For more information on the benefits of membership in an exchange company, you can refer to their web sites www.rci.com and www.intervalworld.com