Before You Buy a Timeshare: What to Know

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When I was a child, my family took two kinds of vacations: camping (beach camping in summer and desert in winter) and one week in our timeshare. My family owned a timeshare at the San Clemente Inn that we stayed in every summer. We rarely stayed in a “regular hotel.” Even as I got older, I would still meet up with my family every year for our annual August timeshare stay. Then I got to the point where I needed to decide if I should buy a timeshare of my own.

When my husband and I got married, my mom gifted us a week in one of her timeshares for our honeymoon. I was able to search through thousands of places to find one that we wanted to use. We ended up booking at a resort in the Bahamas.

During that trip, we went to a timeshare presentation. They were talking about the price of our breakfast and saying to imagine paying for three meals a day every day of a vacation for us and for our kids (that we’d have someday). The low-end price for eating out with a family of five would be $200 a day. But if you buy a timeshare, it will have a kitchen. That means you can cook all or some of your meals there, saving a ton of money. And that intrigued me.

How It Works When You Buy a Timeshare

Different timeshares work in different ways. But they all have the same general idea — you own a certain amount of time (typically a week) or a certain number of points that you can use each year. When you buy a timeshare, you pay a large amount of money up front to “own your week.” But a lot of people don’t realize that you also pay a decent amount of money each year for maintenance fees. Our maintenance fees are somewhere around $1300 annually, but I’ve seen some as high as $3500 a year.

Reserving Your Timeshare Stay

Most timeshares don’t guarantee you a certain week or unit. For instance, you wouldn’t be guaranteed to stay over 4th of July week every year. You have to go through a reservation process to secure your week.

You reserve whatever size room you own (studio, 1, 2, or 3 bedroom), but you likely will not stay in the same unit each time. Some timeshares have options to own “peak” or “non-peak” weeks. For a timeshare at the beach, a peak week might be June – September. And it typically costs more to own than a non-peak week.

Some also have options to own every other year, so you would only pay half of the annual maintenance fees, but you would only get to stay at the resort every other year.

Many timeshares are part of a large network of timeshares. Therefore, rather than staying at your home base resort (the resort you own a week at), you can likely exchange your week to stay in another property within your network. If your property is a standalone property, you can join a larger network of timeshares (for a fee). But then you would have thousands of resorts to choose from.

How Are Timeshares Different Than Hotels?

Besides the fact that you technically own a timeshare, there are a few other differences between a hotel and a timeshare. Timeshares are usually full of amenities that the standard hotel doesn’t always have. Full kitchens or kitchenettes is a common amenity offered in timeshare units. As are activities for both kids and adults. Such activities might include coffee and donut socials, rock painting, poolside yoga, movie rentals and more.

Is it Worth It to Buy a Timeshare?

This is the number one question I get about our timeshare. And while I find that there are many benefits of timeshare ownership, it’s not for everybody. But if you will use it, you will likely get your money’s worth. The problem I see the most is that people just don’t use theirs. Either they can’t get the time off of work, or they are waiting for some big trip, so they don’t book their week in hopes that this will be the year they book that amazing getaway.

Tips & Tricks to Timeshare Ownership

I have several tips on how to make sure you get the most out of your timeshare purchase.

First and foremost, you can likely buy a “used” timeshare on eBay or through another resale site and save tons of money.

Timeshares don’t often appreciate in value. So, when people get tired of paying the annual maintenance fees, they often just want to get rid of the unit and will sell it for cheap. In fact, you can find several for $0.99 on eBay, and you just need to cover the cost of the title transfer fee (usually in the ballpark of $500 or so). If you do end up buying a used timeshare, just be sure that the maintenance fees are up to date. Otherwise, you’ll need to get current on all overdue fees before you can make future reservations.

Another big tip is to buy a timeshare at a resort that is relatively close to your house (maybe within 1-4 hours drive). This way, you can use it every year, even if airfare is ridiculously expensive. Our home base resort is one hour away. Even when our summer is full of work and sports, we can still manage to get up there and commute back for things we really need to be at. Then on years that we are looking to get further away, we exchange our resort. We’ve stayed in places in Hawaii, Cancun and the Bahamas. But having a place that’s in close proximity can ensure that you won’t waste weeks in those busier years.

What Happens if You Don’t Use Your Timeshare Week?

If you can’t use your week, there are ways that you can rent it out privately or through exchange websites. Your resort might even buy your week back from you so they can rent it out. Many people lose money because they don’t know that these options exist.

This brings me to my final tip, which is to purchase at a place that you genuinely like to stay at. If you’re always exchanging your week, you will be paying additional fees every year, and that can add up. We use our week at our home base resort about 75% of the time. When we exchange our week, we have to pay about $200 to exchange it, and then whatever resort fees that come with the place we exchange for. Sometimes it’s nothing, but one I was just looking at is $30/night, so a total of $210 more dollars.

When we visited Kauai last year, we exchanged our unit and paid more than $800 fees. We paid $239 to exchange, plus about $75 to upgrade to a 2-bedroom, then $50 to check in (I’ve never seen this fee anywhere else), $17 a night for parking, $25 a night for Wi-Fi and towels, a state tax of $22.77 a night, and a TOT tax (not even sure what that is) of $17.96%. The resort, Hanalei Bay Resort, was a GORGEOUS place and would have cost a fortune to stay at otherwise, but those fees were a lot to swallow.

Final Thoughts on Whether or Not to Buy a Timeshare

Overall, we love our timeshare and always make time to use it. But honesty, now that Airbnbs and VRBOs are so popular, people have more options. There are many more ways you can have a full kitchen than just owning a timeshare.

If you are interested in buying a timeshare for yourself, just follow my tips, and I hope you will have a positive experience like we have every year.

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