While walking along the shores of boracay, a man in white tshirt approached us and offered us a free buffet dinner. Wow, I was amazed and curious about it so my girlfriend asked what's the catch. The guy told us that there's nothing, it's just a way of promoting the Astoria hotel.
So we decided to go with it, after all the free dinner is a win win for us. The dinner starts at 6:00 pm so just past 6 we walk our way to station 1 where it is located. As we approach the hotel, we were introduced to one of the managers. He told us the we can have the free dinner and after that there will be 90 minute presentation about the hotel. With a live band and good dishes we enjoyed our one hour free dinner. The food was great. However, we are still wondering what’s in exchange for this wonderful dinner.
After the sumptuous dinner we were introduced to one of the salespersons. She started her talk by getting to know more of us. She then introduced the new marketing strategy of Astoria, the timeshare. It is a form of ownership or right to use a property usually a hotel or condominum. For more info on timesharing, you can refer to this wikipedia link .
To avail of the benefits of their timeshare, you must have to pay the membership fee and on top of that is an annual maintenance fee which is almost 10,000 pesos. The membership fee is quite big but she warned us at the start that if the membership fee would largely affect our financial status then it’s better not to avail it. The membership fee ranges from 300k to 500k but because they are in promo they oferred us a 20% discount. She presented some payment terms to pay the membership fee and a 25K is needed at the start.
We told her we don't have that big amount of money. We asked if we can have more time to research about it but she insisted that the offer only stands for just one night. She was very firm with the “one night only” offer so we declined it.
We thought that this was a very big financial decision for us so we needed more time to research and think it over. We thought that the offer will be good for those above middle class family who are constantly having their vacation. We also think that the “one night only” is not a good marketing strategy. We believe that clients should be given time to research and consult among their circle of influence.
Upon getting home, I googled Astoria, and read some good and bad comments about it.
Our advice is, before jumping to any financial decision, you must do your research.
~till then
tama..tama..i so agree with you.
ReplyDeleteMy boyfriend and I spent our 5th Anniversary in Boracay just last weekend and we experienced the same thing. We already expected that we will be offered a travel package of some sort after the meal but we didn't expect it to last for so long. We went to have dinner at 6pm and went out of the hotel at 10pm. We felt like our four hours were stolen from us. Like you, we also declined their offer as we were given so limited time to think about it and decide.
Eto pa, the "agent" who was talking with us that night told us in secret that she was still under evaluation and asked a favor from us if we please help her out. She already knew before the presentation ended that we wouldn't accept their offer but it would reflect badly on her evaluation because she wasn't able to convince us to join. She wanted us show her manager that we seem really interested, take a lot of time to reconsider and negotiate, but politely decline the offer saying that we don't have that kind of money with us now and not to discuss about our priorities and financial obligations in front of her manager.
I thought that was unfair because it wasn't her who invited us for dinner in the first place, another person was assigned to do that, and she was only then assigned to talk to us after finishing our meal.
I feel sorry for her..I don't know how much she's paid working for Astoria but she said they only get 1 dayoff per month and living expenses in Boracay is very expensive compared with living in Metro Manila. I even advised her to go back and find work in Metro Manila instead if she can.