Deserae and I are amazing at getting free to almost-free things. If you’d like, we can give you the rarely requested “free” tour of our house, where we point out all of the free things we own – this couch, those TVs, that soundbar, etc. During the tour, we are at our most insufferable.

We are especially good at going on vacations for free. Thanks mostly to credit card sign-up bonuses, we’ve booked trips to Bermuda, the Bahamas, Hawaii (multiple times) and Australia for basically free.

So when we got a poorly written, poorly designed invitation in the mail to a time share presentation that promised a free 3-day/2-night vacation with flights for two just for attending, we could not have been more excited.

We called the number on the flyer where we answered two questions (Are you both over 25? Yes! Do you both have jobs? Yes!! You qualify! YES!!) and were reassured multiple times that this is not a time share presentation. The only instruction was to bring a driver’s license and one other form of identification – like a credit card! (Mini life lesson: When someone suggests bringing a credit card for “identification,” that person is probably hoping to sell you something that is very expensive and very unjustifiable.)

When we arrived to the presentation located in a cheap office unit, we were offered cheap donuts and led to the event room by a guy in a cheap suit with a cheap smile. While we waited, we filled out a questionnaire that asked what we’d like our free gift to be. We happily chose the free vacation over a crummy Android tablet.

We were eventually joined by 10 other couples ranging in age from 65 to 80. While everyone sat around uncomfortably, clips from 2005’s “Best of America’s Funniest Home Videos” played on the TV at the front of the room presumably to “loosen us up.” Nobody loosened.

Then this guy with rolled-up sleeves and a disarming smile walked to the front, turned off the TV and proceeded to charm the pants off of every 70-year-old in the room.

“‘Whatever they say, we are not buying anything! We’re just getting our free vacation and leaving!’ How many of you had that conversation on the elevator?”

Whatever they say, we are not buying anything! We’re just getting our free vacation and leaving!

Plenty of chuckles and sheepish raised hands.

“I totally get it. I said the same thing to my wife when we came. All we’re doing is giving you some information. This isn’t a high-pressure time share or anything like that. I do think you’ll like what you hear, though. 40 percent of people who come to one of these presentations end up becoming members of our vacation club because we offer such a good value.”

He went on for about five minutes about how time shares are the absolute worst and people who use manipulative sales tactics should be ashamed of themselves.

He then spent the next 90 minutes trying to manipulate us into buying something that sounded an awful lot like a time share.

Here’s a brief summary of his presentation:

• Vacations sure are expensive!
• You know why people die sooner in the United States? They don’t take vacations.
• Why would you spend your vacation in a tiny hotel room when you could stay in a big condo where you have to make your own bed and meals?

He covered the whiteboard up front with a confusing collage of diagrams and numbers and vacation destinations. He was putting on a master’s class in swindling, and I admired him very much for it.

The only times his presentation faltered a bit were when he asked for feedback from the audience.

“I’ll go around the room, and you tell me where you spent your last vacation.”

“Myrtle Beach.”

“Gatlinburg.”

“Family in Minneapolis.”

“Hawaii.”

“Oh!” He smiled at the two youngest people in the room. “For your honeymoon?”

“No. Well we went there for our honeymoon, but we just wanted to go back.”

“I hope you don’t mind sharing, but I’ll bet it was pretty expensive right?”

“No, it was pretty much free.”

“Oh.”

That young couple in the back was smiling smugly, and they were so insufferable.

Finally, after an hour and a half, he revealed the price of membership into his exclusive vacation club.

$20,000 for a lifetime membership!

Buuuuuuuuuut, if you join today, $10,000!

Buuuuuuuuuut, since today’s a special day, $8,000!!! _{Plus $500/year maintenance fee, plus $450/week for the condo, plus airfare, plus taxes, etc.}

And if you spend even one day thinking about it, the price goes back up to $20,000, and you never get a chance ever again to get this special price, and you will most likely regret it for the rest of your life and die early. BUT THIS IS JUST AN INFORMATION PRESENTATION, SO NO PRESSURE!

He then passed us on to his “friends” in the back of the room who would answer all our questions and give us our free vacation. We turned around to see that he had made friends with a bunch of old, overweight guys with mustaches and one attractive young brunette. The mustaches called out the names of the new friends they had been assigned, and sure enough, we got the only person under 60.

“So,” the young brunette said once we sat down at a table, “What did you like most about the presentation?”

“Oh, we already travel for free,” I said.

“But wouldn’t you like to travel around the world?” She nodded and smiled.

“We do already with credit cards sign-up bonuses.”

Her smile faded a little bit. “I’ve never heard of that before.”

I turned the worksheet over and happily diagrammed how it works. Deserae kicked me under the table to stop, but I was too busy being insufferable. She kicked me again. Finally, I wrapped it up.

“We don’t want to waste your time, so would you be able to give us the paperwork for the free vacation?”

She looked nervously around the room. “Uhhhhh well, what did you like most about the presentation?”

We just stared blankly at her. It became clear that she’d be in big trouble if she let us go after five minutes. We went around in circles for a while longer before she brought over her friend Daryl to answer more of our questions.

Daryl was much less amused by our credit card exploits.

“So you two just go to a bunch of these things to get free vacations, right?”

“No! This is the first one we’ve ever been to.”

“You just work the system, waste everyone’s time?”

“You invited us. We came and listened to the presentation, and it’s not for us.”

He stared me down for a little bit. I’ve got to say, as far as sales tactics go, it was VERY low pressure.

Our friend looked at Daryl. “Can I let them go?”

“Sure.”

She gave us our voucher for the free vacation and let us escape to the elevator. In the parking lot, we saw another couple who survived the presentation. They chose the tablet, which looked like it cost $40 at Big Lots and would break within two weeks. What fools would choose that over a 2-night vacation?

When I arrived home and started reading the voucher, however, I quickly discovered who the real fools were.

Although our mailing promised weekend trips to Orlando, Miami and Las Vegas, it turned out that the only places you could go without paying an extra fee were Detroit and Fargo from Feb. 7-18. And you could only leave on a Monday or Tuesday. And you had to pay a $200 fee before you booked. And two more pages of restrictions that made the voucher unusable.

I wish I could hear Daryl tell the story about how he put one over on that smug young couple that travels the world for free. I’ll bet he’s insufferable.

LIFE LESSON #21

A crummy tablet in the hand beats a two-night vacation in the bush.