Is timeshare ownership actually worth it? We’ll there’s no clear-cut answer to this as it depends on a number of variables, such as, the timeshare scheme itself, how often you travel, the level of ownership, number of people travelling, where you travel to, levies or maintenance costs and your own personal experience and opinion.
So, what is timeshare ownership?
Timeshare, also referred to as a timeshare scheme, timeshare ownership, vacation ownership or vacation club, is a form of shared ownership, or use rights of a property or properties for holidays. This means multiple buyers own the rights to use the same property at different times. Depending on the timeshare scheme and how it operates, the times in which you can use the property or properties for holidays varies. You should check with each difference timeshare scheme to find out how their scheme works. However, there are generally two types of timeshare schemes;
Specific time-period schemes, these are the more traditional timeshare schemes, where you use a specific property, sometimes even the same apartment, for a given amount of time, such as one week per year, sometimes it will need to be the same week every year.
Points or Credit based schemes, which means you purchase a given amount of credits, and these credits can be used to book apartments or hotel rooms at the properties that are part of the scheme, at anytime of the year, these types of timeshare schemes give you more choice and flexibility over your holidays.
How much does timeshare cost?
The cost of purchasing a timeshare ownership varies greatly, however, often ownership starts around the AUD20,000, depending on the scheme, the location, the time or points purchased and standard of accommodation.
On top of the initial purchase price, you will have annual maintenance fees, often referred to as levies, for the property or properties. You must pay these every year, even if you do not use your timeshare. Often the amount of your levies will depend on your level of ownership as well. You may also have membership fees each year. The scheme will have a PDS with outlines all the costs associated with the ownership, however these do add up, especially if you look at the whole term of the contact, which is usually around 60 years. Also remember, like everything, these levies will increase over time.
There’s also the cost of interest, should you take out a loan to purchase your timeshare ownership, which most people do. As well as any other the fees associated with the loan.
Things to consider before buying a timeshare
Other than the costs associated with purchasing and maintaining your timeshare ownership, some other things to watch out for when looking to purchase timeshare are;
The location of the resort/s, some of the resorts in timeshares are way out on the edge of the city or town, or away from attractions, meaning you will almost always need to hire a car for the duration of your holiday, which adds to the cost of your holiday.
The time of the year that you are travelling, or are purchasing your timeshare for. Even point or credit-based timeshare schemes may have a higher booking value and/or a minimum night requirement at peak times of the year.
The destination which the resort/s are located, some destinations are extremely popular all year round making it very difficult to book these destinations. Make sure you consider this if one or more of the destinations on offer are a driving point for the purchase of the timeshare. These destinations may also be classified a peak all year round meaning you will always require more points or credits to book, regardless of the time of the year you choose to travel.
Timeshare is a long-term commitment, with most timeshare contracts being around 60 years, that’s a big commitment to holidaying as well as the on-going costs associated with timeshare
Usually, the only way to get out of a timeshare ownership is to sell it. However, that sounds a lot easier than it can actually be. Timeshares can be difficult to sell and most people make a loss when they sell them.
In 2019 an ASIC report on timeshares, revealed that many timeshare owners, felt their timeshare expectations were not met and that many owners felt that they were not getting the expected value from their timeshare ownership. Some timeshare owners had experienced financial stress, due to unexpected changes in timeshare ownership fees or levies, or in some cases, to their personal circumstances. While timeshare schemes usually have a financial hardship clause, remember they do not have to let you out of your contract.
Where do you buy timeshare?
More often than not, Timeshare ownerships are usually bought following a 2-3 hour sales pitch, often referred to as a “seminar” or information session. Usually, you end up at one of these sales pitches because you have purchased cheap tickets or been given tickets, to a show or attraction, in exchange for attending the seminar or information session.
These sales pitches are usually full of high pressure and urgent sales techniques, describing the timeshare as “prepaid, free or cheap holidays”. After the sales pitch, they will try to get you to “sign up” or buy an ownership before you leave, by creating a sense of urgency that you’ll miss out if you don’t buy then and there.
Always remember, you can take the time to think about it and do your research and check with your financial advisor, if you have one, before committing to the sale. The timeshare scheme will have your contact details on file and may contact you again in the future to see if you are interested. They will also have a note of any “deals” you were offered during the sales pitch, should you call up to purchase at a later date, you may not get these same deals, but you can use them to your advantage in the negotiations, because if you were to go to another sales pitch, they would be offering you a “deal” there.
Timeshare schemes are also considered to be a financial product, falling under the managed fund category, which means, in Australia the scheme operator must;
hold an Australian financial services (AFS) licence
register the scheme with ASIC
give you a product disclosure statement (PDS)
Before you buy a timeshare ownership, you can check the company has an AFS licence on ASIC Connect's Professional Registers. If they don't have an AFS licence on ASIC, don't buy a timeshare from them.
Our experience with Timeshare
We have done the sales pitch in exchange for cheap tickets. Once in Las Vegas and once in Surfers Paradise.
Was the discount on the tickets worth the time spent at the sales pitch? No, it definitely wasn’t, we would have preferred to spend that time doing other holiday activities.
So why did we do it twice? We’ll the second time we weren’t too far from home, we knew what we were getting into and wanted to see what a different timeshare scheme had on offer. We were also open to the idea of purchasing.
What was our experience with the sales pitch, or information seminar, as it was worded to us both times.
Well, it was 12 years ago now, but the one we went to in Las Vegas involved meeting at a location at a certain time, to get a bus to the Las Vegas RCI resort, yes, the first timeshare sales pitch was for RCI. As we were on bus I remember thinking where are they taking us, we’re no where near anything now.
When we arrived at the resort, we were taken to a group information session and then for a tour around the property. I remember thinking the apartments were a good size and that this is nice. During the group information session, the location was touched on, and their reasoning for it being so far out, was that “in time Las Vegas will expand and the resort will end up amongst everything”, but also a lot of the guests like to be in a quieter area of Las Vegas, and just take the shuttle service to the strip when they wish to. I remember thinking at the time, yes we’re still on Las Vegas Boulevard, but that’s a lot of expanding the strip needs to do to catch this place. As I’m writing this post, I’ve just looked the resort up on google maps, and 12 years later the strip isn’t any closer to the resort, with around 4 miles between Mandalay Bay and the RCI resort.
While we could see some benefits in us owning a timeshare we weren’t completely sold. So, our sales pitch was over, but others were still going with theirs, so we were literally stuck at the resort, unable to get back until the next bus left for the strip.
The sales pitch in Surfers Paradise was much the same, it started off with a group information session, then we were taken on a tour of the property/resort. After the tour the sales pitch started. However, this time it was with Wyndham, now known as Club Wyndham South Pacific, and the model of the Wyndham timeshare scheme suited us better. We could see the benefits of becoming owners, however we weren’t in a position to purchase the full ownership, but we were offered their “trial ownership” product, Discovery, which was cheaper, had a shorter contact term and some slight differences, but gave you the general experience of being owners. Wyndham have restructured everything since then and their product offerings are a little different now, so if you were to attend one of there “information sessions” it may be different to what I have described here.
What’s it like being Timeshare owners?
For the first couple of years, we got some really good value out of it. Yes it was difficult to book some destinations, however we were told this during the sales pitch. We were also told that if you’re just looking to do weekends away this probably isn’t the right product for you, which we would definitely agree with, especially since you only get a certain number of housekeeping tokens a year, which means you need to pay for housekeeping once you use them up, from memory it was around the $200 mark last time we had to pay for it. However since COVID we definitely do not see the value in having timeshare as much as we used to. It seems all resorts in all destinations are hard to book, not just the popular destinations, even 11-13 months out when the booking window opens. Another thing that makes it harder to book, is that we now have a family so are ideally booking a two bedroom apartment, which when you look at the overall inventory of rooms, there isn’t many, some resorts don’t even have anything bigger than a hotel room or one-bedroom apartment, which we could make work, if they were allowing extra guests in the room type, however with two young children who go to bed early and are woken easily, it makes it a little more difficult.
So, what drew us to Club Wyndham over RCI? Well, it was the credit model and the added perks if you became a lifestyle member as well.
Let’s look at what we consider to be the pros and cons of being a Club Wyndham South Pacific Timeshare Owner.
Pros;
Credits – we purchased X amount of credits that we get every year to use at any of the Club Wyndham South Pacific resorts. Giving us more flexibility on when and where we holiday
Lifestyle Membership – for an additional fee per year, our ownership comes with additional perks such as, being able to exchange our credits to make bookings with exchange programs and timeshare schemes, like RCI, Wyndham Rewards and 7 Across, which opens up more potential inventory for us to book, especially internationally
Waitlists – if you are looking to book a holiday at a certain destination, but there is no availability for the dates you want, you can submit a waitlist request and if availability comes up for your dates and room type the Club will contact you to see if you would like to proceed with making a booking. We have tried this twice through Club Wyndham South Pacific and have gotten the accommodation we wanted. However, we haven’t had any luck with the waitlists through RCI
Prepaid accommodation – if we are travelling to a destination that has a Club Wyndham or affiliate resort, we don’t need to worry about the cost of accommodation, which saves us a big chuck on money in our holiday budget
It makes us go on holidays – before being Club Wyndham owners we would only use annual leave to go and visit family may be once a year, or for special events, like weddings, birthdays, concerts, etc, and just sit at home saving and dreaming about holidays. Now we go on a decent holiday once every year or two, as we have already paid the accommodation and don’t want that money to go to waste
The quality of the resorts – we definitely notice a difference in the quality of the rooms and apartments booking a Club Wyndham South Pacific resort, compared to affiliate resorts or even just booking through booking.com
Small gift - they used to give you a small gift when you arrived for your holiday, it was only small, like a bottle of wine, sometimes from the region or just a small Australian boutique winery, chocolate from a local chocolate factory, or gift samples of locally made skincare products. While only small, they were a nice little surprise and welcome gift to start your holiday. However, this seems to have disappeared since COVID
Value – when you divide the cost of the ownership by the number of years of the contract it works of to be very good value, especially the cost per night
It’s Willable – being a financial product your ownership is willable when you pass away. Just remember, whoever you will your ownership to will need to pay the annual levies
Sell or gift unused credits to family – while the club does not allow you to sell your holidays and does their best to monitor this, you can use credits you are not going to use to book holidays for family and friends, this can be done as either a gift or you may choose to ask them to pay part of your annual levies in exchange. This still works out to be very cheap accommodation for family and friends
Trail periods – sometimes when you purchase or upgrade your credits you will get given bonus credits or a trial period to see what the next level of ownership is like. It’s through these bonuses and trial periods that we managed to make up a lot of our value as owners in the first couple of years. One big one was when we got to trial the next level of ownership and use our credits to book a tour in Europe. As with most things when you use your points or credits for an item that isn’t directly part of the program or scheme you are a member of, the value of the points or credits is reduced, but when it’s saving you thousands of dollars and enabling you to have a 3 weeks holiday in Europe for two and only paying AUD6000 plus meals and spending money, you can’t really go wrong
Ability to borrow and rollover credits – You can borrow from the following year and roll credits over for the next year, for example, if you own 20,000 credits, you will get another 20,000 credits to use every year on your anniversary month. Say you don’t plan to travel this year; you have 2 years to use your credits so you can roll this year’s credits over to next year. Then say next year you are planning to do a big international trip and will be away from a few weeks, maybe even months, you can borrow your following years credits to book next year’s holiday, giving you 60,000 credits to use to book your accommodation. This can be a huge advantage if you do a big international holiday every couple of years to a destination that has Club Wyndham affiliate resorts or exchange program resorts
You can move expiring credits – you can pay a fee to move any credits you have expiring and won’t get to use, to RCI, if you are a Lifestyle member, this will give you another 2 years to use your credits
Information webinars – Club Wyndham is always holding webinars which give you tips on how to maximise your ownership and get the best value out of it. These sessions have great tips on using your ownership
Cons
Lack of availability - There are now so many owners that it’s more difficult than ever to get availability, especially on the larger room types and at the more popular destinations. This has gotten significantly worse over the last couple of years since COVID
Availability - The number of resorts available and the number of rooms available within those resorts does not seem to match the number of credits owned by owners, yes you can use those credits to book through exchange programs mentioned previously, but not all owners have access to these programs and you still need availability in the other programs to be able to book
Fees – The cost of the annual maintenance levies and lifestyle membership fees in now roughly the cost of 5 nights accommodation in a two-bedroom apartment in Brisbane, depending where you stay. The fees change depending on the number of credits you own, so the more credits you own the more your annual levies are, however when you only own enough credits to get you on average two weeks of accommodation a year, it definitely lessens the value
Makes us go on holidays – yes, I listed this as a pro, but sometimes it can also be a con, because some years our budget just doesn’t allow for the additional costs to get to that prepaid accommodation, the availability may also not be there when we want or need it, which means on occasions we have had credits go unused and expire
You need to plan ahead – you really need to know where you want to travel to, 13 months ahead so that you can stay up late or get up early to wait for the booking window on that destination to open, and then hopefully be quick enough to jump in and book. Yes, you can cancel or change your booking with in a certain time frame, however it’s not always possible to plan holidays that far in advance with some jobs, especially if there’s a possibility you may not be able to get the time off
Not for weekend getaways – while this was mentioned to us in the sales pitch, timeshare ownership definitely isn’t for weekend getaways. You really want to be booking week long stays or longer, to get the best value from your housekeeping tokens and your ownership
Limited destinations – you are stuck holidaying at the destinations that the Club’s resorts are located. It helps if your ownership gives you access to affiliate resorts or exchange program resorts, but you still may not find accommodation where you want. A big one for us is now that we live in central Queensland, we go to Brisbane once or twice a year, since it’s the closest city and a drivable distance with a baby and toddler. However, Club Wyndham only has resorts on the Gold Coast, not Brisbane and RCI’s inventory changes constantly, when they do have availability in Brisbane, usually at an Oaks, it’s not for the dates we want or need, for the length of time we want or need. However, this isn’t as much of an issue if you are looking to use your ownership for more international travel as there is a lot more exchange options available internationally.
I hope this post has answered some questions and given you a bit of an insight to timeshare ownership. One this to remember though is, regardless of how you choose to purchase your accommodation, there is always a cost associated with it, it just depends on how you wish to allocate that cost.
Disclosure, this post is an opinion piece and all information provided is general and or based on personal experiences. These opinions and experiences may be different from your opinions and experiences. You should also seek professional advice before committing to the purchase of a timeshare ownership.
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