Las Vegas Vacation (Sales Pitch)

The only reason that Brian and I came to Vegas was because I "won" a free vacation. When I went to Canada in April, I called Avis to rent a car. After I made my reservation, they told me that I was eligible for a free vacation from Fairfield Resorts.

Yes, Brian and I went to a timeshare presentation this morning. (Wipe that smile off your face and don't roll your eyes!)

When we first got there, they sat us in a room where we filled out some information. They had a referral program, so to be funny, Brian and I put the names of some of our friends to be contacted. Soon, they will probably receive a call!

We met Jeff and he offered us food and drink before sitting at a small table with us. He was really nice and used great sales techniques. He got to know us, joked with us, got us excited about vacations, and made us feel really comfortable with him. He told us all the great advantages to owning a timeshare and showed us why we couldn't live without one.

When Jeff asked Brian if he had a girlfriend, Brian looked at me, patted me on the shoulder and said, "This is my girlfriend." We all laughed.

We watched a video of current timeshare owners who said, "We went to the presentation because of the free vacation. We weren't going to buy anything, but when we saw all the advantages to owning a timeshare, we knew we had to have one."

After the video, Jeff took us to the Fairfield Resort just off the strip. It was so nice! The "cheapest" room had a living room and kitchen. Then we saw the penthouse... Let's just say that someday, I want to be able to only stay in penthouses in hotels because they are so incredible.

When we came back from our field trip, I plainly told Jeff that everything we saw today was incredible but we weren't ready to commit lots of money to vacation. He said, "Well, I haven't shown you the numbers. How can you say that you can't afford this?" Instead of backing me up, Brian laughed and agreed with him. Jeff got up and had another guy come over and show us how affordable owing a timeshare could be.

While Jeff was gone, I asked Brian if I killed the mood. He said I did and said that I should have waited. I didn't want to wait and spend more time with Jeff thinking he's going to make a sale. I was just trying to me nice.

The man Jeff brought over asked if we lived together and we told him yes. I don't remember how it came up, but we told him we were gay. Jeff looked surprised and later told us he didn't know we were gay. He asked how long we were together and if living in Salt Lake is hard. We told him that since we're not big flamy faggots, we don't get any grief for it.

We used the "we're both going to law school next year and will have lots of debt" excuse for not buying and that seemed to work well. It afforded us the luxury to say, "In 4 years, we'll be making way more money and owning a timeshare will be possible."

Once Jeff and the guy knew we weren't going to buy anything, they thanked us for our time and had a customer service guy come to us to survey us about the presentation. After a few questions, he said, "Now I can offer you something special that you haven't seen yet." He basically offered us a ten day stay in Hawaii for $2000. We kindly said no, and Brian later told me he was really, really tempted to say yes at that moment.

Brian and I walked out of there feeling badly, but proud that we said no. Brian's boss, Perry, told Brian before we left that he's never met anyone who has not come back from a timeshare presentation without a timeshare. One of the reasons that it was so easy to say no was because Perry challenged us to say no.

Owning a timeshare is a big investment. The cheapest package we could get would cost $10,000 for 7 days at a Fairfield Resort. If I had the money, I would totally do it because it's actually a really good idea. You get 7 days for the rest of your life and you can give the timeshare to your children. Theoretically, you pay $10,000 and you get one week vacation for the rest of your life.

Was I sold on timeshares? Yes, absolutely. Brian and I are going to go on more presentations to get free vacations until we can buy a timeshare to travel. Seriously, its the way to go.