Cheap holidays without timesharing

Okay, it has been a long time since my last Blog post because I'm no longer that excited in Trendwest.

Sales continue to occur on eBay at around A$1/unit and some people still have fantasies that they can get people to pay out their over-financed unitholdings.

The reality is, there's other ways to get cheap holidays, such as finding existing Worldmark unitholders and having them "rent" some accomodation to you. They'd probably be happy to receive some income to offset the annual maintenance costs!

In my case, somebody referred me to RCI Family and Friends. RCI are the people who do holiday swaps between timeshare programs, allow (for example) Worldmark South Pacific owners to go on cruises or holiday in other parts of the world.

I didn't know what Family and Friends was, but I joined since it was free. It appears that they mostly resell Breakfree accommodation in Australia. I then went to book a holiday in Queensland and found that RCI charged half the price of purchasing from Breakfree directly. I got a week of accommodation in November at $549 compared to $1149 direct from Breakfree.

So, it seems that RCI uses its buying power to get cheap accommodation and is happy to also make it available to free "Family and Friends" members.

I'm happy, and I'd highly recommend people to join -- and you can get some of the benefits of timeshare without the upfront cost!

Have you heard of other great offers? Let me know!

-- Fabbo

Tags: trendwest worldmark