We are currently in Orlando staying at the Hilton Grand Vacation Resort on International Drive. Prior to leaving Tulsa, I received a phone call from a lady asking if we had time while we were here to listen to their sales presentation about becoming an owner in the Hilton Vacation program.
She told us we would have breakfast and listen to the presentation and it would take about 90 minutes of our time. I agreed we’d attend.
We went this a.m. at 8:00 a.m. They gave us a wake up call at 7:00 a.m. so we wouldn’t be late.
We drove about 10 minutes to another property they have nearby.
When we arrived they took our name and then we got some coffee. We found the “breakfast”. It was donuts and fruit. Hmmm….
Finally, sales people started calling out names and taking the other waiting attendees away until we were standing there alone. For a while. So I told the ladies at the front desk that we had been forgotten and they said they had called the agent and she was on her way.
She finally came to get us and brought us back to her station where she found out that we are not current owners and told us that she normally presents to owners and we were on the owners floor. Now, mind you, we didn’t decide where to be, they gave us an invitation and they sent us to her floor.
We then filled out a form to give her an idea of how we travel so she could tailor her presentation to us. We told her that we do not use credit cards. We told her we travel around the world. We told her when we want to go, we go. We told her we learned about timeshares from Dave Ramsey.
She then said, “I don’t think this is for you. Why are you here?” I told her that we now have a granddaughter and we are interested in what they offer with Hilton Vacation Resorts and I told her that in the US we are brand loyal to Hilton. And I’d say that other than for occasional overnight stops like Friday night where we land in whatever hotel we are near, we are. I’d say we’re 98% brand loyal to Hilton.
She did her spiel, showed us the options in the form of actual rooms of what we would be buying. Then it came down to the selling, in her case hard selling, process. We told her that there was no way we were going to make that big of a financial decision before we walked out of the room today. She brought another hard selling lady in. We told her the same thing and that things are really too much up in the air for us to make a decision today and that, most of all, we need to discuss it. We have been married for 35 years because we discuss things like this. Plus, who pays 17% interest on a five year loan?
Then came the third guy. I told him that we might be interested in some point and how do we contact them in the future. He tried to sell us 18 months of time to make our decision for $1,795 dollars, a free trip to one of six places, and only $295 down today. We told him no. And he took his brochures and sent us, abruptly, on our way.
So I end up with this: I had one and only one chance to buy into the Hilton Vacation timeshare program and it was today. Only today. I have no number, no email, no idea of how I would purchase this in the future should I want to.
She didn’t listen to us. We told her how we vacation and even though she said it probably wasn’t for us, she continued to try the hard sell with us. She also tried to undersell us when we had told her which level we would buy at if we were buying. She condescended to us, told us several times that she usually talks to owners and we weren’t owners so some of these things wouldn’t apply. i.e. We would pay more than the prices she showed us.
If you’re going to sell something to me, I would expect you to be listening to what I am saying and not just continue on as if I didn’t say it. Oh, and if you’re going to expect me to make a $94,000 decision, you should probably serve me some eggs.
