Snowbird Flown South Sunshine and happine in the south.

[Mich 0]

Here I am in Kissimmee, Florida. We bought a weeks stay at a resort here for $300. The offered us $100 cash to take a tour of the resort and listen to their 'Buy our Timeshare' offer. We took the tour and the $100, but not the offer. Tomorrow they will pay us $50 more cash to give them feedback in the form of a Quality Assurance Survey. We get to tell them how we feel about their resort. This made our whole weeks stay cost a net of $150. For a place that charges a usual $120 a night, this isn't so bad, is it? Sometimes it pays to be a snowbird. Edited February 4, 2011 by Mich (see edit history)

[Iniyila 2]

hmm nice price, you have stayed there for 150$ but if you want to stay only 2 days you have to pay 240$ so they are giving huge discounts, these situations doesn't happen all the time. on vacations we usually go to hotels that are provided with huge discounts form where my dad works, the yhave contracts with some hotels and they give huge discounts like 80 percent of the whole price but for using these discounts you have to go to specific hotels and you can not go to any hotel you want. but i haven't seen any place for staying only for 150$ a week even with our 80 percent discount, so you were very lucky.

[Mich 0]

Update on the so called Quality Assurance Survey. We spent about 5 mins answering a few vague questions about how things were going for us at the resort and then it turned into a sales pitch for a vacation club of some kind. There were these great savings benefits, which didn't sound half bad since we do travel a lot and can use all the discounts available. We took a pause at the annual membership dues of $299/yr. Still finding the pitch somewhat interesting, we continued to listen. Then the bomb. To get into the club you must purchase your way in at a cost of $11,000 which eventually was reduced to $6,400 just for us. Wasn't that precious? I looked at the sales rep and said 'You have got to be kidding.' Which was countered with, 'You didn't think you would get all these benefits for $299/yr?' Needless to say we said 'No Sale' and exited promptly to collect out $50 cash gift.

What really upset us is the misrepresentation of this 'sales pitch' as a Quality Assurance Survey. We will be taking this issue up with the resort management.

Edited February 4, 2011 by Mich (see edit history)

[sheepdog 10]

We did a deal like that some years ago, got a couple nights stay at a hotel in Florida, then a trip to the Bahamas, and a couple nights there. It was great! I'd never been on a ship before, so that was a real trip. Never been in a spot before where I couldn't see anything around me but water. I'm used to seeing hills and trees, not water. I really enjoyed it. The sales pitch went on a bit longer than they claimed it would, but still all in all, it was well worth listening to their sales pitch for all the goodies we got out of the deal. I don't remember what the cost was, nearly nothing, great way to get a cheap short vacation.