<prompt> Human: I see on reddit a some comments about how owning timeshares can be a good deal and thought it was prudent to point out this is just not true in any evidence I could find. They are a really predatory and deceptive business whether resale or points based and especially when bought from the developer. Lets go through the options if you own a timeshare: You buy from a developerdirect -They immediately decrease in value if bought from the developer, sometimes to literal worthlessness or even negative value. Every. Single. Timeshare. Decreases. I dont care if its Disney Vacation Club or whatever the salesperson told you. You buy it from the developer and you just wasted tens of thousands of dollars. Check Ebay if you dont believe me or literally any of the resale sites. You just lost thousands of dollars. Find a single one that has increased in value vs inflation, post the link and Ill buy the first person gold. Even DVC which is considered the most valuable timeshare currency sells for under initial purchase value when accounting for inflation. You buygifted from a resellerfamily member -Lets say you get it for literally zero dollars on ebay. Pretty sweet right, free vacation? Wrong. Maintenance fees will be very expensive. At least 500-800 yearly. So you are paying 500-800 a year, to hopefully go on vacation to the same place at the same time if the word points just jumped into your brain, go to the next paragraph. This may be a discount of 0-50. So this is the one thing I will conceded this may provide you with a small discount. So a small discount to have a liability and complete lack of flexibility in a vacation is a terrible financial tradeoff. People that post that the same roomcondo would be 5k that week! are always quoting the developers stated rate which is not market at all and basically made up. Give me an exact example if you think Im wrong along with screen shot of your maintenance fees and again, gold to the first person. But 16semesters, I get points! I have plenty of flexibilityPoints are garbage. Garbage. They oftentimes include an additional fee to use a different resort. No matter what the salesperson told you, there are byzantine rules on dates, switching out, etc. They are restrictive and expire after at most 3 years. They sell for fractions of their value on resale sites. Why would points be selling for so little on the resale market if they are such good deals? Wouldnt it be prudent to just buy the points at a significant discount and use those instead? Let me know your company your timeshare is through and I can promise Ill find points well below retail.A lot of people also get second hand information on these things from family members that may be inaccurate or outdated so Id caution passing off well my aunt only pays X unless youve seen some proof. Its okay if youve been scam by a timeshare or someone in your family has. Ive been scammed on other scams before, it doesnt make you stupid. I write this post on the personal finance subreddit so that people can be informed moving forward. If anyone has disagreements or something I missed let me know.  <response>: A timeshare is just a hotel bill you can never, ever cancel. 