I agree that buying a time share is NOT - repeat - NOT an investment! The return stinks!

However, I bought mine (WorldMark) for not very much money (far less than the $20K previous posters were talking about) because I like to take long weekends and get away from the Bay Area and because I wasn't locked into a single physical location. Yes, RCI is available, but I don't even have to use that because I can go to any of the 22 different resorts in my time share club. We used one location for part of our honeymoon, one location for a Valentine's Day weekend getaway, and yet another location for a getaway over July 4th weekend 1.5 years ago. The maintenance with WorldMark has been superb - never a problem - and the quality of the rooms have generally been far superior to all except five star hotels. I've never had a problem booking a reservation either.

Oh... and I got a free vacation to Las Vegas, NV, on them as well! Had a GREAT time!