A benefit of having plenty of time, is that when the snow is taking a break and the slopes are getting icy, you don’t feel compelled to push yourself too hard and take a fall.

We found ourselves resting at the bottom of the mountain, enjoying the sun with a coffee and were approached by someone who wanted to “Show us around their club in case we wanted to stay there when we come back next time”. No mention it was a timeshare, but they were willing to give us $150 to spend on the mountain just for looking. We would be dumb not to. It would just take 1.5 hours.

We were collected by their shiny taxi and driven the 500 metres from our place to the Embarc club, previously known as the Intrawest club, but now owned by another company: Diamond Resorts. What then transpired can only be described as very casual lies, very cleverly disguised mind you. On the face of it this seemed like a good deal, buy in to part of the property by owning ‘Points’, these points recurring year on year. When you want out, you just resell the points on the open market. Simple!

The facilities that we were shown were impressive. What wasn’t mentioned until prompting was that there is a service charge to cover the upkeep of the building which equates to close to what we were spending on our current accommodation of a similar size and quality before you even figure in the cost of the points in the 1st place. The use of dubious (to put it lightly) simplifications of interest and inflation to make their point stronger was undone by us both having a good grasp of finance.

What was also not mentioned was that you can buy the point on the open market already. For $8k buying from a local realtor you could get the same points value as spending $70k direct. Of course, you don’t find that out until you escape and manage to get onto the internet to look things up. The offer on the table is only available there and then, not to be repeated… etc.

The sales method is very pushy towards the end, “pulling out all the stops to do you a good deal”, but it’s not a good deal, we decline and leave with our $150 in vouchers to spend on the mountain having lost 3 hours, but that’s not bad pay.

On reflection, going through this sort of thing is life affirming. The various tactics employed are designed to play on your emotions, even going as far as calling us cheap to trigger a response. Having travelled wide and run our own businesses it doesn’t work on us, it’s like water off a duck’s back. Who would sign up for spending $70k there an then? Must be some people I guess because they still do it.