We did that as well, to get three free nights in a resort. We signed up for the last possible slot in the day for the day we were set to check in to the hotel. We also borrowed a friend's baby (friend was traveling with us).

The salesman was tired and ready to go home. Instead of the regular 2-3 hours, we spent 15 minutes with him while the baby fussed a bit. Then he handed us our hotel voucher.

Just be strategic. Like most things.

Sounds like Bundy's vacation https://marriedwithchildren.fandom.com/wiki/Stan_Mendelson

> I would've rather paid for them.

You did pay for them. “Several hours of time” easily adds up to hundreds of dollars.

Think about it this way: How much would you pay to get 1 hour of your time back? Like paying for takeout instead of going to get it yourself. Or paying to get your lawn mowed. Or your house cleaned. That’s how much your time is worth to you.

The problem is that, for most people, the answer to how much their time is worth is nothing quantitative. I pay to get my lawn cut and for a once a month housekeeper, but those are basically luxuries to do tasks that I could do myself in 2 or 3 hours that I would rather not do. But I, like most people, am not actually forgoing paid work if I were to do them myself. So it's a luxury. My time is not actually worth hundreds of dollars an hour.

Let's suppose you have a 20-hour a week job that pays you $200/hour.

What are the odds that job allows you to work an extra hour any time you feel like it? In the other direction, if you drop a few hours a week when you feel like it -- how long do you remain employed? Not too long, unless you're actually being underpaid for a specialist position.

Let's suppose that you have a salary of $200K/year, and the boss generally expects you to be working on the company's problems 40 hours a week, with the occasional flex time when you or they need it. Do they pay you more on weeks when you work 42 hours? Less on weeks of 38 hours? No.

(At lower salaries, overtime is real -- but a corporation is quite likely to fire you if you make a habit of taking or dropping hours without advance permission.)

Almost nobody is in a position where they can directly and accurately value an arbitrary hour as income or loss of income.

You should absolutely know the value of your time. Leisure time has a value to you.

I pay someone to maintain my yard because I don't want to do it. I don't want to own the equipment either. It makes financial sense. So, even if I'm inside watching TV and hanging with my family, it's money well spent for me.

It certainly has value. It just does not generally have literal monetary value that relates to, for example, what your company pays you.

Some tasks may mean you can forego equipment purchases/maintenance but you're probably not literally saving money by having someone do something for you. Which is fine! It's perfectly OK to say I don't like doing yard work and can afford to pay someone to do it for me. You're probably both happier as a result.

If we start to believe in the difference between use value and exchange value then we'll somersault our way into difficult economic theories rather quickly. It's best to, instead, say that nothing has value unless it can be purchased, a process by which value is instantaneous reified.

This belief in the invisible hand pricing everything right is silly.

The alternative (difference in use value and exchange value) is chapter 1, page 1 of Das Kapital.

We have to conclude that children, love, friendship, &c are all valueless because they do not have an exchange value ie: price.

My kid usually mows the lawn and I do the edges. It's actually pretty good outdoor time with family, and usually I find more to do out there if I'm just out there.

> But I, like most people, am not actually forgoing paid work if I were to do them myself

There’s more to opportunity cost than money. That’s time with family, time to just chill, time for hobbies, all sorts of stuff.

Every time you pay to outsource a task you could do yourself by just putting in the time, you are explicitly saying “Having this time back is worth $X to me”. That is a direct measure of how much your time is worth to you.

I am not taking time off to mow my lawn. In practice there is zero elasticity to take time off to do garden work, repair the roof or whatever.

Of course. The only reason I went was to placate my partner. She wanted to split the cost of the vacation and this was one of her ways of doing it. I said I would've paid for the whole thing but she didn't want me to.

There were a lot of problems in the relationship. I try not to think about those days.

Free airline tickets were what we got offered in the mail. Went and sat through the presentation and got pounced on by the sales reps to sign for a timeshare after the presentation. When we refused they sent us to the "boss" and he tried to further convince us to sign up for a timeshare in his office. Still kept refusing and at the end, he slammed the vouchers for free airline tickets on his desk and said, "Here you go, have a nice night" with a pissy attitude.