Used Vacations.

On a trip to Goa, India, a year ago, Michael Lyall and his wife, Tracey, were bombarded with time-share offers. They stopped by a presentation at the Royal Goan Beach Club at Benaulim, and loved the resort's landscaped pool and miles of nearby beaches. The price tag-- 6,000 [pounds] for an annual week's stay in a one-bedroom apartment-- seemed exorbitant. Still, intrigued by the idea, they did some online research when they returned home to Leicester, England. Before long, they found a Thai owner who was reselling a larger unit in the same resort for only 2,500 [pounds]. "Needless to say, that is what we purchased," says Lyall.

Here's a new vacation motto: never pay retail again. There's a glut of time shares on the market, and that means great deals for folks who buy those one-week resort stays from previous owners instead of arm- twisting developers. "You can buy a resale for 50 cents on the dollar, but some areas will go for far less than that," says Bill Rogers, founder of Timeshare User's Group (tug2.net), a popular site where owners rate resorts, share price data, trade vacation weeks and gossip. For example, Rogers's site has reported recent secondhand time-share deals like a permanent week in Tuscany for $2,000; Crete for $500, and Alpenland, Austria, for $750.

The time shares themselves are better deals than vacationers might remember from the industry's scam-scarred beginnings in the 1970s. Most are at well-run, upscale resorts and give owners their week in the sun (or snow) as well as entree into the world of vacation trading. Owners like self-described hobbyist Lynda Bettcher of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, are loading up on secondhand deals. ...