Anyone want a Trendwest invite?
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A very short post to tell you that I’m going to a Trendwest sales presentation on Wednesday, and if you’d like to go to one, email me at bookchiq@gmail.com with “TrendWest” in the subject and your address and phone number in the message.
What is Trendwest? A timeshare-esque company that wants you to buy into their program.
Why would you want to go? They give you free stuff. The standard offer is a trip, but we didn’t want the trip (based on the unlikeliness of our actually taking it) so we asked about gift certificates—turns out they negotiate: we will be receiving a $50 gift certificate to the Home Depot and $20 at Olive Garden.
I’m going to try out a couple of strategies for dealing with the high-pressure sales tactics (we’ve been three times already, and flat out told the scheduler that we’re not interested in buying in, but they still want us, so what the heck, we’ll take their incentives…). I’ll report back and tell you which strategies were most effective later this week. In the meantime, email me if you want me to “refer” you.
As one who has attended one of these presentations, I can tell you that it is a VERY unpleasant high pressure sales situation where they will attempt to put a guilt trip on you if you dont buy that miniute(I.E spend 25000 dollars in 5 miniutes because thats what it’ll cost.) When my wife and I told them we wern’t interested the sales people became rude and borderline hostile, even when we said we wanted to think about it the salesman said to us :” this ain’t a car dealership, pal! We don’t hand out bussiness cards here! I’m giving you the best deal possible today but if you don’t want it thats too bad for you!” He said this in a VERY sarcastic tone. As a matter of fact, they weren’t frendily to us at all, even when we walked in the door. It was a very unpleasant experience and I will NEVER concider buying ANYTHING from them EVER because they treated us like CRAP the whole time we were there. The sales man was an obnoxious jackass that would not even listen to the answers I gave when to HIS OWN questions!! He would just feign interest and say ” yeah,yeah” and then continue with his scripted sales pitch without even concidering what we had said. I’d rather be branded with a branding iron than to sit through a Trendwest presentation again,even if they do offer complementery gifts.
I agree with pretty much everything in your comment, Mike, except that for us, it’s had the effect of making us more likely to take advantage of their free stuff. It’s an interesting psychology experiment for us, to try to analyze their tactics and figure out what works best to disarm them. I learned a bit more this time, which I’ll use next time to make the process even more expedient.
But yeah, bottom line, this is high pressure salesmanship. They once told my husband that he would get a “poke in the eye with a sharp stick” (I do the talking now
). It’s only fun if you don’t care, and have the ability to say “no” many times in the face of surprisingly sophisticated tactics (the sharp stick comment excepted!).
That sounds like fun. An hour of your time for $70 worth of food and home improvement stuff? Too bad I live in Southern California. I think my wife and I would be able to deal with the sales tactics. I wonder how many people actually buy into these properties? Trendwest and other companies must be making a profit.
Hey, Andrew, I think that they do presentations in SoCal, too.
As far as making a profit goes, yes, they definitely are. We asked our salesman about their conversion rate, and he said that the biggest determining factor is how the prospect was brought in. By far, the best case for Trendwest is people referred by a current owner, but he said that overall, they get about 15% conversion.
That surprised me—I would have guessed lower. But then again, a couple that was sitting in front of us in the group presentation, mocking it, ended up buying, so obviously the salesmanship does work.
It also helps that they pre-qualify prospects to make sure you have enough money that it’s at least a possibility.
Trendwest has been trying to get me to one of their presentations for years now. I was a little curious, but the fact that I made very little money at the time (I was a poor, starving college student when they first got my contact information) finally convinced them to stop calling. Or so I thought.
They called my mother’s cell phone while she was visiting me this week, so I talked to them. They said they got my contact information when I went to the county fair a couple of months ago. Funnily enough, I haven’t ever been to a county fair to my knowledge, let alone recently, and in that county. They had an old address from several years ago, and my wife’s first email address, which she hasn’t used in years. I went along with it anyway.
So, I’m scheduled to be pressured this Saturday, and in return I get a vacation, a $20 gas card, and a $25 gift card to the Olive Garden. We’ll see how it goes.
My girlfriend and I just got back from one of these presentations, and got a free 3 night, 2 day trip to Las Vegas! I knew it would be high-pressure, so I was prepared. I find the best thing to do is to say as little as possible, and then they have very little to work with. I don’t feel too much guilt in getting something for nothing, considering they told my girlfriend that she had “won” a trip when they initially contacted her. This company seems to have little ethics, and targets people who are the least deserving of more debt in their lives. In fact, the salesperson we had actually sold ownerships to a couple of her kids, who were barely out of college.
Wow, this is an interesting subject to talk about. I would love to try to go to those presentation, but I am not sure if I would be able to handle this pressure. I know my husband definately wouldn’t want to sit through things like that, but I would need his support to be able to go and get my free stuff. So is the Trendwest presentation over or are there any more chance to go?
I like Mikes comment: “I find the best thing to do is to say as little as possible, and then they have very little to work with.” Seems a great tactic to withstand the high pressure salesmanship. The sooner you disagree with them, the sooner they become rude and personal.
I have been a Trendwest owner for more than 5 years and the program works just like the sales person said it would. We have stayed in resorts that would have cost us three to five thousand dollars a week for just the cost of our initial membership. I never felt any pressure to buy when we did. I am a proud Trendwest owner and hope that when you people look at something you do it with an open mind.
Good to hear from an owner. I’m going to do another post (or maybe series) soon that looks at the program itself, so I hope you’ll return and add some feedback to that as well.
Humm, I’m skeptical about this owner response (#8). Sounds too much like a Trendwest employee trying to paint a perfect picture? On the other hand, I will also tell you I am an owner, which I am, but I’ll keep it realistic. The presentation in Windsor Cal. was very good and everyone was pleasant. There were the typical hard sale folks afterwards however, we expected that and we intended to buy anyway. We have anther timeshare and we wanted this one simply for the opportunity to use “Bonus Time” and “Inventory Specials.” These options provide opportunities to stay at very nice resorts for say $30 to $40 a day, you can’t beat that.
One misleading items I would like to point out…. The gift. If you have an option to take some type of cash or gift purchase card, take it. The “free trips” are not totally free and you have absolutely no control over the arrangements other then the travel date. You have to pay “taxes” in advance and then you still don’t even know where you are staying. They simply tell you it will be at an “economy class property.” As for the flight, they choose what airport you are leaving from. For us, they said it could be SF, Oakland, Sacramento or San Jose. And then, flight time for departure has to be B/T 3pm & 10pm and return B/T 6 am & 1 pm.
So I would have to pay $95 in the blind and my itinerary could look like this!?
Flight: Drive 2 ½ hours away from home to San Jose and have to pay for parking.
Departure time: Let’s be optimistic and say 6 pm
Arrive: Humm, let’s say we arrive in Vegas and then, since we’re not at a big hotel, have to arrange and likely pay for transportation to the “Sleazy 8” economy motel” – Arrive 9 pm. Boy, that days shot. And how far is the Sleazy 8 from the Vegas strip, more cost for transportation?
Ok, now the return….
In Vegas for an entire day but don’t stay out late, might have a 6 am flight back to San Jose. Great, back in time for the morning commute so our 2 ½ hour drive is more like 4+?
Boy, that just doesn’t sound like a free fun filled trip to me. They also gave us a pass for a two hour day cruse but again, it’s virtually impossible to get any details on this cruise which only boards once a month, on a Thursday, at 2 p.m. in Alameda.
Bottom line – They looked like attractive gifts but, try to use them. We’re not going through the hassle to use either one.
There’s my two cents………. Ron
Ron, thanks so much for your insightful (and honest!) comments. I had a friend who took one of their trips and has since been telling everyone just how awful it is. We just told the scheduler that we weren’t interested in the trip and would prefer a gift certificate to Home Depot (since they’d offered us that option on a previous visit). They happily traded, so I’d definitely recommend attempting this.
More to come on Trendwest in the not-too-distant future….
Has anyone gone on one of their free gift vacations, and can give some info on how it was and how “free” it actually wound up being?
To the person who accused me of being a Trendwest employee, I will simply say that I am not. I also never used the free gift as we choose the 3 day trip to Orlando and it sat in a drawer until it expired.
I went to a Trendwest 90m presentation in Vancouver washington. I saw none of the high-pressure tactics that I have read on many mailing lists. This is probably an artifact of others having attended a sales conference in SO-Cal (which is full of jerks to start with). While there I asked tons of questions, and gt a kind honest answer for every one. I had the sales rep work numbers with me, and re-address points that I was unsure about.
The only pressure I felt was that the decision had to be made right then and there. But after doing some math, it is actually cheaper for me to buy into trend west and pay a ~$400 yearly fee, and of course the monthly payment on the financing i took, than to try and rent hotel rooms of equal stature myself.
As for the creditors situation. Don’t sign up for this if you cannot afford it. Basic budgeting. Don’t buy something you can’t afford. If you have a running balance on all your credit cards, then this is probably not a wise financial decision to make.
There is the 7 days total refund policy. If I find more things that make this ‘ownership’ program seem less attractive, I still have several days to back out.
The only thing left me with a less than glowing feeling was the aprox $400 fee in perpetuity. It seems as though you should only have to pay if you use your credits, and that it should be pro-rated based on your usage.
But, this world is not perfect, and Trendwest is not a charity organization. So, Caveat emptor.
I was googling about receiving Trip Rewards points with Trendwest/Wyndham timeshare purchase and found this site. As a new member, I thought I would add my comments, as I was once skeptical, also.
We went for a “free” weekend in the Spring of 2006 at Seaside, OR. It included a couple nights at a hotel (not the resort) and some gift certificates for food, and of course, a scheduled appointment to discuss the purchase of the timeshare. The gentleman who gave us our presentation was nice, but we decided not to purchase as we could not afford to at that time. Then they offered us a win-win situation–we would pay $695 over 6 months and it would give us 6,000 points to use in 18 months. We decided to give it a try!
Well we had one FANTASTIC weekend stay at the resort in Gleneden Beach, and then made plans to use the remaining points in Arizona. Unfortunately, I got diagnosed with a brain tumor (benign, thankfully!) and we were unable to travel until after I recovered from my surgery. The person at the booking department was so nice, and she talked to her supervisor and got our Trial membership extended so that we could use the points.
Well, we just got back from St George, Utah and one of the funnest vacations that we have ever had! The resort was so nice and we met a lot of people and made some friends. We decided to become owners because we can now enjoy the kind of vacations we enjoy, in the comfort similar to home!
I must add that during the times at the different resorts, we met many people who had been owners for years. They were all very happy with their membership, the services, the resorts and the BONUS time, which is the ability to book vacant rooms with short notice for short stays at a small portion of the cost. One person I met rented the Penthouse in St George, with a hot tub on the deck for around $45 a night! We could see through the window and it was beautiful!
Anyhow, we were sold by our experience and I am waiting for paperwork to come so I can start booking our next stay! And…I am a real person, a wife, mother and grandmother and I do not work for Trendwest/Wyndham!