Travel with Zero Dollars (3): Saving money with timesharing programs

What is a timeshare program?

A timeshare program or package is when you sign up for a share in holiday bookings in advance. You pay a deposit and a monthly fee for a number of installments in order to be a member of a special vacation club.

Depending on how much money you have paid (and the structure of their plans), the vacation club usually entitles you to a few nights at any of their hotels on their list.

It could be up to 7 days, it could even be up to 14 or 20 days! (You can even accumulate days and roll them over to the next year giving you a month’s worth of holidays!)

Although you are paying some money upfront, the advantage of buying a timeshare package allows you to travel for ‘free’ dollars the moment you use up one of their dates.

Of course, someone you might not understand the jargon when you purchase such a package for the first time. You have to read your manual carefully and see where your savings are (50% to 70% of the initial retail price of hotel rooms) and where are the priority services.

Here are a number of things you can do with a timeshare package:

When you are not traveling, you can ‘rent’ out your rooms to another person and get them to pay you instead. Since you ‘pay’ for your rooms at a discounted price, you get a retail rate from the person who uses your room and you will be able to make a profit from it!

But here’s the real deal. Certain timeshare plans are linked with investment plans (you pay for a few years but you get all your money back later on – like insurance or mutual funds).

You can even get major discounts with some timeshare plans. Discounts off your flight ticket is one example. You can book a flight ticket for half the price and save lots of money for yourself and your entire family. You can even sell flight tickets to others. Some timeshare plans even offer you discounts on their affiliate merchants (such as theme parks).

At the end of the day, as long as you recover your investment in terms of value, you are essentially traveling for ZERO dollars. It is up to you how you want to spend it.

Filed under: Travel

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