Las Vegas"Good morning, have you received any complementaries from Planet Hollywood?" This was the question we were asked on our first day staying in the Planet Hollywood Hotel in Las Vegas. Thinking they were going to offer some meal or gambling vouchers, we said "no, nothing".

The lady led us to a guest services desk where we were shown a book of flyers for shows and asked if there were any we wanted to see. We said we would like to see Stomp Out Loud and then we were asked what else, so we picked a magic show with Nathan Burton.

We were then asked if we had 90 minutes to spare to listen to a presentation about the new developments at Planet Hollywood Resort, and if I earned more than $50,000 (€35,790) per year and had a current major credit card. Yes to all, we were then offered a further two-night stay in the hotel free, if we would go to a presentation.

It seemed like a good deal and lunch would be thrown in as well. They asked for a refundable $20 (€14) deposit and I signed a form to say I was not pressured into attending the presentation.

At 12.30pm we were shown up to a big conference room where almost 200 people were being talked to by a battery of salespeople. The penny dropped: it was a timeshare presentation. We had thought they were selling the new apartments under construction beside the hotel.

Our salesman, Bob led us to a table where he then began to talk to us about our holidays. How much we would usually spend and where did we like to go? How Las Vegas is developing and all the investment pouring into the city.

He talked us through what was obviously a script, with illustrations to show the pros and cons of holidays against ownership of a timeshare. He told about the development of the Planet Hollywood Towers by Westgate, a timeshare developer, the 1,200 unit, 3.2 million sq ft development, already under construction.

We also heard how we could become members of Interval International and use the timeshare in hundreds of other properties for a small fee each year, we need never visit Las Vegas again, despite owning a piece of property there!

Every so often a bell would ring and everyone in the room would clap and welcome the newest customers to the Westgate timeshare family.

Then we went to see a mock-up of an apartment. It was very nice in an Austin Powers' kind of way, red leather sofas, glass coffee tables, Jacuzzi bath in the main bedroom. Apparently the two bedroom apartment could be divided into two one-bedrooms giving you a choice of taking two weeks for your one week bought.

By this stage we were getting curious about price and daughter was getting bored, so Bob led us back to the table for the close. Son and I were dying to know.

The two-bedroom unit was around the $54,000 (€39,000) mark, with additional costs for maintenance, Interval International membership, closing fees, etc.

And we could pay the deposit by credit card and the monthly repayments, over 60 months at 17.99 per cent interest.

Shocked at the 17.99 per cent interest rate I asked if you could pay in full. Bob went off to find a colleague to ask. The new man said yes we could pay by cash and reduced the price to around $44,000 (€32,000) as he had an apartment from the first phase that had suddenly become available. He could hold that price for 120 days, if I paid the deposit of around $1,100 (€787) then.

We said that we had not come to buy and were not sure what we were buying. So then they offered to sell us a timeshare for every second year and it would be half the cost. Still I said no. Everyone was very polite and Bob went off to get the customer services guy to check us out and give us the gifts.

The customer services guy turned out to be another salesman, who wanted to sell us a holiday in Florida or any of their other properties for $1,295 ( €933) for a week and membership of Interval International, which we could use for four other holidays, I think. At this stage I was getting confused.

Finally I said I would consider it and get back to them. We then escaped to the checkout desk, where we did get three tickets for two shows and a voucher for a return visit to some resort, not necessarily the same one as it turned out, and the $20 (€14) deposit.

Over the next few days, I was approached a number of times by staff inviting me to "complimentaries", but I knew to say "sorry I've done the timeshare tour already". I think they were on commission too.

As the saying goes, there is no such thing as a free lunch. But we did enjoy the shows.