Wednesday April 16th

Dear Family,

This is a time share email, you will not be receiving a free gift for reading this, so buyer beware. I think the ones who will enjoy this most are Derrald and Davin. If anyone else wants to read it, do so at your own risk.

Timeshare presentations have been around since the beginning, I am certain Satan himself developed this marketing ploy. It has manifest itself in the past 25 years and has been perfected with time. Remember Kay’s favorite past times are hunting, fishing and beating the system. Welcome to Kay’s world.

We have 4 timeshares bought 5-22 years ago on the second hand market. He paid $700-1500 each. They have low maintenance fees so they have been good to us. We have our kids use them. We have been to about 10 presentations before our trip. You should NEVER, NEVER buy. If you do want one, talk to Kay to find out how to get one.

The reason people go to timeshare presentations are the free gifts for listening to their 90 minute (who are they kidding- 4 hours) presentations. We have received store credits, ski passes but never have we been so tempted. Puerto Vallarta is a time share Mecca. Construction is everywhere. Because of my restrictions on getting in water, what else was there to do? Timeshares.

Before I go on I should explain how this works. The guy on the street gets anywhere from $350-$1000 to bring in a married couple from the US or Canada who is staying at a 4 or 5 star resort, has 2 major credit cards and makes over $40,000/year. He can split as much as necessary with the couple to convince them to go. The salesman is paid as well and gets a bonus if the couple buys. If there is no sale everyone makes money except the developer who forks out advertising dollars to make the system work. We are told over half the presentations end in sales (poor suckers) and the developer is making huge bucks. A two bedroom unit is making the developer at least a million dollars.

We arrived at our hotel and were offered a free breakfast buffet, city tour, 10% off our bill and $100 Room credit to attend their presentation. We agreed. Meanwhile we took a walk and were offered $200 to see another property so we were able to use that to our benefit and negotiated with our resort for $200 room credit to keep with the competition. We went to our resort’s presentation, had breakfast and listened. Kay tells them they don’t take into consideration the use of his $200,000 (can you believe it??) and timeshare vacations don’t make sense anymore. They have become too expensive and there is no resale value. That took us 4 hours but we did enjoy most of our meals at the hotel on our room credit. The last hour of our trip I had 50 dollars to spend and had a hard time finding something (anything) I wanted at the boutique.

1) We went to Walmart shopping and were offered $300 to go to a presentation, we accepted then went back and re-negotiated #2 from $200 to $250. We went to #2, had their all- you –can- eat- breakfast, stayed the agreed time and when we were checking out ,our check out guy asked if we would go to another one right then for $300 plus lunch. That’s $550 in one morning, we said OK.

2) We took a cab to #3 and listened to their time share, ate lunch on them and didn’t buy. We got a little too comfortable and forgot to negotiate our cab ride home.

3) The next morning our Walmart guy picked us up and we attended our FINAL (I SAID NO MORE) timeshare presentation, ate our free breakfast, listened to their presentation and went back to our hotel. Everyone’s presentation is supposed to be “different” from all the rest. NOT.

Remember this is a sport for Kay, He graduated in Finance at BYU and it doesn’t matter how much money he has, he is game for a game.

Wednesday, after our bull fight we took the bus home and saw our #2 timeshare guy and visited with him, giving him the low down on what timeshare we liked and didn’t like. He asked us if we wanted to go to another one and I said NOOOOOO!!!!! He said this one is $400. Well…… OK.

4) Who can resist another free breakfast and $400? It was my decision. Doing this timeshare would make our trip almost free… Kay doesn’t get to do this sport too often, I may even give him a medal in this sport, he is so good. We were picked up at our hotel at 8AM (a little earlier than others) and driven to a hole in the ground. This timeshare was pre-construction. They had an outdoor reception area where we sat and waited to show them our id and get prequalified etc.

Someone came and filled out a 2 page pre-qualification on us and made us wait. We recognized a family from our city tour and pulled our chairs up to their table and visited with them. I recognized the NJ accent (Nutley). We then were separated (this was before breakfast) and told by a representative of the developer we didn’t make enough money to qualify. They hadn’t asked us how much we made but apparently made a judgment call based on the information he had…we own cheap timeshares, take budget vacations and our appearance... This was the BEL-AIRE… I wear a timex, not rolex and was carrying an Olympic volunteer purse. Kay had a scruffy beard, shorts, tee shirt and a hole in his sock. The developer’s representative sized us up as a couple who couldn’t afford their lifestyle (these were going to be the nicest in the city) and decided to get rid of us and the other 2 couples in holding before he had to pay the agreed $400 or give us our breakfast.

With flashy sunglasses, expensive clothes and a “you’re not good enough for us” attitude he told us how much the average buyer in his development is worth and makes. Kay told him we were over both of those but he didn’t believe us. Kay told them they didn’t have to give us the presentation if they didn’t want to, we would be happy to take our gift and leave. The head of sales who was angry with the developers staff for sending us (and his bounty) away, said the developer wouldn’t give us the gift because we hadn’t stayed the required 90 minutes so we, and our new friends with the NJ accent, decided to wait out the required 90 minutes to collect our gifts. After ten minutes or so the head of sales apologized and said he would give us $100 out of his own pocket and a cab ride home. I agreed, Kay reluctantly agreed. On the way home Kay remembered he had brought his taxes and had his 2006 tax return and bank statement which more than qualified us. I told him “they insulted us.”

Kay and I talked about this and he wanted to bring in his tax return to show them. I wanted to drop it. A few minutes later Kay asked me what that word was again. Insulted. Later he asked again what that word was. INSULTED. He said it several times. We realized he had never really been insulted. People insult him all the time but he thinks of insults as compliments. He thinks being told he doesn’t look like he has money is a complement and not an insult. He likes being cheap.

The following day we picked up our rental car right by the BEL-AIRE. Kay took his bank statement in and asked to see a manager. When the head of sales came over, Kay remembered to use his new word (we practiced just before) and told them he was INSULTED. The head of sales smiled and was happy to see Kay. He took the bank statement back to the developer representative who INSULTED us and came back with the remaining $300 in cash. He thanked Kay because now he could get his pay for bringing in qualified prospects. Win win.

4 ½ sales presentations +$1450 +4 free meals +Tours of the finest resorts in Puerto Vallerta +free city tour+New friends + beating the system + new vocabulary word= priceless Love, Janae and Kay