Monday, February 12, 2018

The Inflation Pitch Is Flawed-Very Flawed

Back in 2000 when I started selling timeshare, we salespeople routinely used the ‘hotel inflation’ pitch to persuade consumers to purchase the timeshare. 

That pitch is, to the best of my knowledge, still being used. 

The problem is that it’s flawed. Very flawed. 

We used to use $100 as the price of an average hotel room. So far so good. Then we used an annual inflation rate of 10%. Annual inflation rate. Using that math, over an 18 year period, you’d figure that that ‘average’ hotel room would be going for over $500. 

Statistics from TripAdvisor show that the average hotel room in the US is about $126. Furthermore, a 4 star hotel room in places such as San Francisco, New York or Boston, where you’d be hard pressed to find a timeshare, averages less than $360. 

To make matters worse, the industry likes to put out nifty, colorful infographics comparing the 20 year cost of a timeshare to renting a hotel room. A careful look at their numbers show that they’re using a cost of over $400 to represent the ‘average’ hotel cost. They also ‘conveniently’ forget to factor in the cost of eating when tallying up the cost of the timeshare. 

But I digress. 

The point here is that the inflation pitch you’ll get from the timeshare salesperson is flawed. Use your own numbers. Do you own research before purchasing anything. 

A timeshare may very well cost you more than a hotel room even in the long run. If that’s OK with you, then go for it. Just remember not to fall for a flawed inflation pitch. 

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