By Dawn Gilbertson

LAS VEGAS -- You won't find the Bucky show listed in those glossy hotel-room magazines or on one of those flashy digital billboards

touting   celebrity entertainers. 

The 20-minute performance -- part travelogue, part cheesy inspirational speech -- is for invited guests only. And I had a primo seat on Monday.

Bucky is a timeshare pitchman, the affable opening act for a two-hour sales blitz for Hilton Grand Vacations, the publicly traded vacation-ownership company. I was in the audience to fulfill the fine print of a bargain Vegas getaway.

Hilton, Marriott and other major timeshare operators regularly flood the inboxes of their loyalty-program members with tantalizingly cheap stays in Las Vegas, Hawaii, Florida and other vacation spots.

The hitch? They are trying to goose their timeshare-owner pipeline. There are Reddit threads devoted to the deals, and tales of travelers who churn through them for cheap vacations.

My offer: $149 for a three-night stay plus a whopping 100,000 Hilton Honors points. It was the best deal I've seen outside of those free stays that casino players get for gambling a lot.

It even turned some heads at the sales center. (You can also find offers on the company's website, but they generally aren't as lucrative as the targeted offers.)

Seizing the moment

I bit last week when Hilton sent an email saying the offer was extended. You have 12 months to book the trip after purchasing the package, but I wanted to go right away. Las Vegas isn't oven-hot yet, college basketball is fun to watch at casino sportsbooks and the restaurant lineup is glorious.

The Hilton Vacations timeshare-reservations agent was surprised to find last-minute availability at Hilton's Elara timeshare resort, my first choice. It sits in a prime location, just off the Strip behind Planet Hollywood, and is connected to a sprawling mall. Other choices, including Trump International Hotel and Hilton's The Boulevard, where the timeshare presentation was, are away from the action.

The price on Hilton's website for my last-minute, three-night stay in a studio with a kitchenette: nearly $1,277. HotelTonight wanted $916. My all in price: $168. (That didn't include last-minute airfare, food, drinks and cash for slot machines and roulette -- those last two are between me and my bank account.)

The only ground rules: You had to show up for the timeshare presentation and you couldn't be intoxicated. Break one of those rules and you have to pay full freight for the stay.

I checked in on Sunday in time to watch UConn win its first NCAA Women's Basketball championship since 2016 at the pool bar. (I grew up 25 miles from the school's campus.)

The pitch

Monday was timeshare day. The preview center was buzzing with travelers on packages like mine or one of those timeshare offers you sign up for during a vacation in exchange for free tourist activities.

First up at the sales center: filling out forms (name, marital status, income range) and ticking off vacation preferences on a kiosk. I was then paired with a charming Bulgarian salesperson and we headed to a "cafe" stocked with snacks, soda and water.

I grabbed a Diet Coke, a couple of Old Wisconsin turkey snack sticks and some Tillamook cheddar cheese and settled in for Bucky's presentation. The couple next to me, on their first visit to Las Vegas thanks to a timeshare promo, showed up with their own snacks.

There were 15 people in my group, most of them couples. (Both members of a married couple must attend.)

Bucky started with a highlights reel of all the places timeshare owners can use their Hilton vacation-club points. More than 10,000 in 100-plus countries, he says. Hawaii! Chicago! New York City! Park City! Gatlinburg, Tenn., if you're outdoorsy. He showed photos of his parents on vacation in Europe.

"Folks, this is not grandma and grandpa's timeshare. This is Hilton. You will travel when you want, how you want, anywhere in the world with no restrictions."

He emphasized how timeshare owners check out of these hotels without a bill. And he repeatedly noted how hotel room rates are rising, but timeshare owners won't be subject to that.

How much does it cost?

That all sounds enticing, but as anyone on Wall Street will tell you, there's no such thing as free Tillamook cheddar cheese.

A timeshare, where you're basically prepaying for a lifetime of vacations that can be passed down, is a costly investment. And it isn't one most financial advisers would recommend. Buyer's regret fills timeshare-resale sites and travel forums.

One lower-level package that salespeople pitched me cost $23,980 for 5,500 annual timeshare points. (Don't confuse these with Hilton Honors points, though you can convert timeshare points to the program.) That would get me between 12 and 21 nights a year in a studio at a standard property or a week at an upscale resort, company materials say.

There's also an annual maintenance fee of $1,718 on this package. When I bristled at that, one salesperson told me that's merely the price of a long-weekend hotel stay these days.

Left unsaid until I asked: Those maintenance fees go up over time. Timeshare owners struggling to pay those fees regularly try to resell them on the cheap or give them away to someone who will take over the maintenance payments.

Then there's the industry's bad reputation, something big hotel players like Hilton and Marriott have been in overdrive trying to reverse. You no longer get a fixed week every year at a resort you might grow tired of over the years or struggle to trade for another location.

Living in the moment

The pitch worked for the woman next to me at the Elara pool on Sunday. She bought 30,000 points during a promotional stay in Hawaii in December. She told me she's booked four trips this year, including the trip to Elara, and is already looking to upgrade.

Three salespeople and Bucky couldn't sway me to buy a Hilton timeshare Monday. All took no gracefully, though the closer wouldn't shake my hand when I left to check out.

I'm not going into debt for vacations and don't have tens of thousands sitting around to pay cash. My boss said no to expensing it, so I'll continue to pay for vacations as I go, in cash or (non-timeshare) points.

Plus, I already live by Bucky's advice to live in the moment. He closed his show by sharing a sad story about his dad dying of cancer after putting off trips, and encouraged attendees to "go live that dream."

"You deserve it," he said. " You don't need Bucky to tell you that."

Would I do it again, hard sell and all? Absolutely for a bargain vacation and a bundle of loyalty points. But you don't get invited back right away when you say no.

Write to Dawn Gilbertson at dawn.gilbertson@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 09, 2025 21:00 ET (01:00 GMT)

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