I thought I had Amy sold the year prior but now that she had a year to think on the whole deal, she was having second thoughts. We read about the Marriott time shares other people experienced. Some were horrible and some were great. We went through the presentation / sales pitch the second time and I was still sold and Amy still argued that it was not a good thing to do. But I begged and begged, and Amy caved in and we actually bought into it. Amy told me I was dead meat if this didn't pay off and we couldn't go wherever we wanted when we wanted to. As we walked out you could almost hear the sales people saying "Suckers". That's a joke and as I tell more of our time share stories, you can decide if we were suckered or if it was a smart purchase.
The real value in a timeshare, in my opinion, is that it forces you to take vacations and in taking vacations you get quality time with your family/friends. You are forced to take vacations because if you do not, then you are just throwing money away.
Here are the details of the timeshare purchase:
- Trade based - trade your Marriott timeshare for another's in another location. To be able to trade to another location (Marriott to Marriott), it would have to be available before you could get it. There are high usage times where you most likely would not be able to book what you wanted. In fact the first thing we tried to do was book New York. It was impossible to get it we were later told because people who purchase in that location do not bank it for trade. Its not perfect by any means but try to get a condo in New York and see what happens.
- Since Las Vegas is a prime location, we figured it would be easier to get what we wanted when we wanted
- With a large amount of Vacation Club points, we could take big vacations such as London, Hawaii, etc.
- The entire 2 bedroom condo can house eight (two families).
- Fees: Yearly maintenance fee, a fee to trade in toward a non-Marriott location, a fee to use the company to get a non-Marriott location. Lock-off fee (splits the one week in the 2 br condo into 2 weeks - one in the main side and one in the smaller side)There are others as well but those are the main ones. Sounds horrible doesn't it. It really would be if I showed how much each fee was. By the time we took our vacation we probably could have done it with our own money for the same price but not for a resort this nice. These vacations are for a full week.
- Points are accumulated each year based on what you have purchased. The room is big enough to split in two (lock-off). You could take 2 one week vacations by splitting the room or exchange your week for Marriott reward or vacation club points. You use the points to take vacations far away (out of the country or in tropical locations) possibly including airfare.
- There are over 50 Marriott locations to trade for.
- Purchased property is deeded so that it can be willed to your children or whomever you like.
- Share with family members; they go on vacation in your place as a gift.
Since we had been to Las Vegas a year prior and did most everything, we took it easy this trip. We would go around gambling and having fun being together. We watched Amy's favorite magician at the Chris Angel (Mindfreak) Believe show and sat close to where his Mother was sitting in the audience. It was a cool show. We went through Madame Tussauds 
and laughed and had a good time taking pictures with all the different wax characters. We saw the Blue Man Group and they brought out a bowl 
of Cap'n Crunch and handed it to me to hold along with a flashlight while they performed out in the audience. That was awesome... until they took it all back ;)
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