Travel - Around The World
Timeshare Alternative ?
By Fred K
Jan 24, 2007 - 6:25:17 PM

Everybody loves to travel and take vacations, but if you have four or more people in your family, it can be very costly everytime you take a trip, especially on hotel or resort costs. Due to that, many people have turned to buying Timeshare as an alternative.

Most timeshare costs anywhere between $10,000 to $40,000 or more just to get in. Then, you would have to pay for yearly maintenance fee and property taxes. Which could cost anywhere from few hundreds to over a thousand dollars or more just to use the same property for one week out of a year. You still have to pay for the fees even if you couldn't use the property for whatever reasons. If you stop paying the fees, they would foreclose it and sell it to someone else, you would then loose all the money you have put in.

Another problem most timeshare owners face is, when they are tired of going to the same property every year, they would then list it with a timeshare exchange listing service and hoping that other timeshare owners would be interested to use their property, and vice versa.

Actually, there is a better alternative, I found that buying a resorts membership makes more sense in the long run. First of all there are no yearly maintenance fee or taxes to pay. Most resorts membership is just one-time membership fee and you can enjoy the whole inventory of resorts at hugely discounted member rates. Best of all, you are not limited to only one resort property for life.

Resorts membership could cost anywhere from few thousand dollars to few hundred thousand dollars. I have seen membership as high as $375,000 (deposit) with a $15,000 - $25,000 yearly fee. Every company has different resort inventory, quality, and membership cost, you just have to shop around.

The best company I found so far, has a one-time cost of $2,995 for a Lifetime Membership with no yearly maintenance fee or taxes, and the membership is transferable. The company also offers a 5-year membership for $1,995, but I wouldn't recommend it. I would go for the $2,995 Lifetime Membership, it's a no brainer, it would be a smarter long-term investment.

The best part about this membership is, you are not limited to only a few resorts. This company has over 5000 plus 4 and 5 star private resort inventory worldwide. No restricted weeks, no blackout dates, you can go anytime, and there is no limit on how many times you can use your membership.

The exact same membership has been selling for over $10,000 in the last 20 years until recently. They have just started a referral based marketing division and re-introduced this membership at a much more affordable price for the masses. Now you have a chance to grab this same membership at a fraction of what it used to sell for, enjoy the benefits for a lifetime, it then can be transfered to anyone in your family, and can be passed down to many generations.