Life in Timeshareing befor the internet?

What was it like to do timeshareing before the internet era. By my estimation 1995 was the year the internet revolution really took on critical mass. I mean that was when you had middle school kids on the cover to Time magazine creating Web sites. Most people started to buy their first PC and go on to compuserve or AOL, or some mom and pop ISP. However I got my first PC in 1989 and had an aluminum case modem that was maybe 9600 baud. I even took out a personal loan for 2k to finance the dang machine! I remember those text based BBS sites. Nothing fancy. So what did you people do? Get on the phone to RCI and II? Read a printed listing in the snail mail? Please tell me? Or has the internet and WWW really been the catalyst for all of the inside information posted here?

Can not answer your question about TS in those days because I was not a TS owner back then. However, I do remember enjoying the Prodigy boards in the pre WWW days. Prodigy was one of the big boys ( if not the big boy) back then. Shared and received a lot of travel and other information on those boards even though they did look quite as nice as today's websites. Thankfully, the price of PCs as come down considerably.

TUG actually started as one of those "text based BBS" gimmicks =)

It's kind of hard to remember back in the olden days of timesharing before the internet. As I recall, we had the RCI directory of resorts and we'd call RCI and put in a request. They usually came through for us.

Without the internet I didn't know how easy it was to get an Orlando trade, so we traded our Hawaii week for an Orlando week and had a great trip. Now I'd use something else to trade into Orlando.

Karen, I know what you mean about the Orlando trades. The exchange companies made it sound you were lucky to get an exchange back then. I loved it when in 1997, we were able to get online with II and see the plethora of resorts in Orlando, and our fees + exchange fee are so much cheaper than people in Orlando pay.

The internet has changed timesharing considerably. Imagine having to take those vacation guides' choices for YOUR vacation. They just offer you junk when they can get by with it. Picking out our own trades is superior to accepting whatever RCI and II wanted to throw our way.

Pre Internet we didnt know about resales because there werent too many of them around then and unless you spent a lot of time on the ground at different resorts it was difficult to ascertain what was or was not a good deal.
We spent a week on the Gold Coast of Australia befoe deciding on our first resort. We had free breakfasts, free lunches, free boat trips and some of the most diabolical wine you could think of. At weeks end we knew the patter off verbatim as it was the same used by all marketing companies and is still in use today.
Oh how times have changed and if only We knew then what we know now.
Despite the patter that TImeshare was an investment in Real Estae we purchased as an investment in our future holidays and twenty years later are not disappointed.

It has made resale and rental easy to do

The Internet, far more than any other factor, opened the doors to easy timeshare rentals, resales and trades. It exposed the secret trade values and the "trade for anything" bull that allowed blue beach weeks to sold as though they had a value. Long term it will be a key reason that in the exchange world points (or at least a known, variable value) will end the nearly impossible to balance week for week trades. While those can work on a one to one basis or with a filter such as "only high season and top ranked accepted" they fall apart with large companies try to take in virtually anything and make a fair trade. Now buyers can discover that a mud week is only worth a week as bad or worse not that glam resort in Las Vagas on New Years the salesman said. And that a good resort that has 10,000 weeks isn't as valuable as a good resort with 100 weeks as supply can simply overwhelm even high demand. The flawed exchange models relying on uninformed users and secret back room valuations are doomed.

The Internet has to be the timeshare developers/sales weasels worst nightmare. All the old tricks can be unraveled in a 10 minute search. The only saving grace, we see it here just recently, is human nature says "this can't be true" when the buyer sees a resort for $1,000 resale that the developer just sold them for $26,000. So they still make the mistake of the first purchase in some cases but many also realize their error and rescind. We have the information super highway to thank for making all of timesharing a more informed and less costly place.

You know something

Despite the Information Superhighway, not everyone is as savvy as the people that peruse these forums. Yes the internet has most definitely leveled the playing field. But some folks with internet access just don't bother to exploit the information and advice imparted here. Some people just don't know how to navigate and drill down to the raw data.

I know of other people that own TS's and have internet access, but have never been on tug or ts4ms. Go figure.

I've been a member of RCI since April 1979. I can't imagine going back to "the old way" of depositing and exchanging. You were at the mercy of the vacation counselor. Many times you were told there was no hope of getting an exchange anywhere close to what you requested. Even now - often when you call to ask about a resort that you see on-line - the vc will say that they don't see that it's available. I'm so glad for on-line exchanging!

Karen G said:

It's kind of hard to remember back in the olden days of timesharing before the internet. As I recall, we had the RCI directory of resorts and we'd call RCI and put in a request. They usually came through for us.

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That's exactly the way I remember it too. Just look how much the exchange experience has improved with the internet - not.
Even when the internet first became usable for the general public there was a real shortage of information, naturally as bbs were in their infancy. Possibly more problematic was the lack of decent search engines to find what information was around.

Better Before

We liked it much better before the internet for booking. The employees at RCI used to be great. They were informative, willing and wanting to help send us to great places and made great suggestions. Some of them even told us of places they stayed at and if they were good or not.
Today, if calling and when calling you are lucky to get someone you can understand, understands you, and someone who could care about anything but their next dollar.
Yes, the internet is great for tech savy people but those of us on the ropes suffer. Give me a good person anytime.
Bart