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| - Here's how our story began: My boyfriend and I are Las Vegas locals, and we discovered our favorite Strip show is leaving for good. Naturally, we decided to buy tickets for closing night so we could see it one last time, so we drove on down to The Rio (the hosting hotel/casino) to get our tickets.
We arrived at 9:30 and were told the box office didn't open until 10:00, so while we were musing about whether to get some breakfast and coffee while we waited, we were approached by someone asking if we were looking for show tickets. We told her the show we wanted to see, and she reeled us in with the promise of cheaper (or free) tickets to the show. Now don't get me wrong -- my boyfriend and I are both well aware that our tickets would be at the expense of some sort of timeshare presentation, but we were prepared to endure that for the sake of the tickets. (We were teachers on Winter Break, and could afford to pay for our tickets with our time.)
So we booked ourselves a presentation with Wyndham at one of their locations, WorldMark, for the following day at 12:30. The first thing that rubbed me the wrong way with the entire experience was that the people checking us in insisted that we were scheduled for 2:30. We'd been told 12:30, we'd arrived at 12:20, and I explained that there was no way we could make an appointment for 2:30 (especially since this presentation was supposed to be two hours long). So they said they'd try to fit us in at 12:30.
I was already irritated, then, as my boyfriend and I took a seat to wait and see if our original appointment time could actually be accommodated. At around 12:45, we were informed that it would be. Yay.
Our salesperson (a very personable gentleman) greeted us and led us back to get some lunch before the presentation. The food was cafeteria-style mystery chicken, mashed potatoes, and warm vegetables -- not great, lol -- but that's neither here nor there.
We sat at the back of a room with about 50 other people for the long presentation. Our presenter was great at his job and presented the product very well, but I did grow tired of his mildly condescending and sexist remarks. (I lost count of how many times he commented that men should be taking "their women" on vacations, and how women were entitled to that sort of thing from "their men.")
Anyway the duration of the presentation consisted of an interactive experience asking people to consider where they've vacationed, where they'd like to vacation, and how much taking those vacations would cost over a lifetime. They then presented some numbers to show everyone why their product provides cheaper vacations. We also watched a video featuring couples who claimed to have entered their own presentation only for the "free stuff," but decided to buy the product, and how it was the greatest decision they ever made. You know. It was about an hour and a half of that. Every once in a while, the presenter would make some statement that he apparently thought was self-explanatory for the product, throw his dry-erase marker into the air, and announce, "I'm done," as though there was really nothing more to say. He did that, like, three times even though plenty of people had plenty of questions, and most questions seemed to be answered with canned responses that didn't directly answer anything.
After that, we were taken on a tour of the property and then sat down with our salesperson to complete the obligatory sales pitch before being given our free tickets (and the rest of our gift, which included a 3-day, 2-night stay at one of the resorts, and $25 cash).
HERE, though, is where the LARGEST PART of my low rating comes from. At one point, a different salesperson came over to address one of our concerns about the product, which had to do with my 12-year-old son. This other man passive-aggressively, and extremely condescendingly, attacked my parenting choices (as well as our effectiveness as teachers) in what seemed to be a desperate, low-blow attempt at a sale. I almost left right then and there, had we not been so close to the end of the entire ordeal. But that guy (and I forget his name) was appalling. You'd think that when trying to sell someone on something, you'd steer clear of personal insults, however much you insultingly mask them as "questions" of your own. Not for this guy.
Anyway, the only reason I gave our experience two stars instead of one was because of our main salesperson, who was, overall, a pretty decent, straightforward guy. He promised there would be no pressure, and then proceeded to add on pressure, but I totally get that it's his job to not take "no" for an answer. The experience with him was overall pleasant.
Long procedure, lots of pressure, condescending tactics, and numerous red flags on this one, but in the end we did get what we came for -- our show tickets, resort stay, and cash back.
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