The short answer to this question is: It depends on the offer. The more detailed answer includes a little bit of history about how these free vacation/sales presentations came to exist in the first place.

Back in the 1960s and 1970s, when timeshares were a brand-new concept that almost nobody in the United States had ever heard of, developers felt they needed a hook to get people interested in listening to their ideas. Some of these developers were above-the-board businessmen who gave away a free night's stay to entice people like you into listening to their sales pitch. It was much like the marketing methods used by banks in those years: Open a checking account, take home a free toaster — just a little something extra for your time and the opportunity to earn your business.

Other developers, though, were hucksters who didn't care whether you could afford their timeshare product or not. They simply wanted to get your body into their pressure-cooker presentation and bully you until you agreed to fork over whatever amount of cash they wanted. If they couldn't get you to open your wallet, they would bring somebody else into the room to work you over. And if he, too, failed to get you to cave, a third sweaty-toothed bully would be waiting in the wings to deliver the knock-down punch.

This is the image that most people still have today of timeshare presentations, and in some cases, the fear is valid. In many cases, the sales presentations you will be forced to sit through will be high pressure, and you will not be able to leave until you have complied according to the terms of your free or reduced-rate vacation.

Companies that market timeshares know that the notion of a high-pressure sales pitch is likely to turn you off from visiting their resort at all, so they sometimes conveniently “forget” to mention that it will be part of your vacation package. This does not mean you will be able to forgo the experience. It simply means they are saying whatever they must say to get you to agree to visit the resort in the first place.

On the other hand, many of today's timeshare sales presentations are far more respectful than the ones you or your parents may remember from the days of old. Let's face it: Salespeople do not want you to be wasting their time any more than you want them to be wasting your time. If they peg you off the bat as a person who is just sitting through their presentation in order to enjoy a free vacation — who really has neither the money nor the inclination to buy a timeshare in the first place — then they really have no reason to bombard you with high-pressure tactics. They realize they would be smarter to focus on other people in the room who are more likely to be potential clients.

Even better, if you are a qualified buyer who is genuinely interested in learning more about the timeshare units for sale, you can learn a great deal of information during these sales pitches — and even buy from developers at what are sometimes substantially discounted rates.

Some people who own multiple timeshares make a practice of attending as many as a half-dozen sales presentations each year, just so they can keep tabs on what the different resorts and exchange companies are offering in comparison to one another. They find that the sales presentations offer a unique opportunity to ask pointed questions of timeshare salespeople, as well as the chance to inspect properties firsthand and compare them with others they might choose instead from other resorts.

What you need to develop, as a timeshare sales presentation rookie, is the same level of inquisitiveness that these veterans have honed while maintaining your own personal level of comfort in terms of what you do, or do not, want to buy. In other words, you need to do as much preparation as possible before you sit down to listen to the sales pitch — and you need to have a game plan for what you will have left in your pockets when you stand up to leave.