A timeshare is a form of vacation property ownership. With timeshares, the use and costs of running the resort are shared among the owners. While the majority[citation needed] of timeshares are condominiums or cooperatives at vacation destinations, developers have applied the timeshare model to: houseboats, yachts, campgrounds, motor homes, cruises and private jets.

The notion of a timeshare was originally created in Europe in the 1960s. A ski resort developer in the French Alps innovatively marketed his resort by encouraging guests to "stop renting a room" and instead "buy the hotel". The developer was successful in increasing occupancy and the idea spread worldwide. While a useful tool for many, the timeshare industry has also become a magnet for attracting illegal and barely legal methods for the sale and resale of property.

Timeshare is a business model whereby a company buys something and sells small timeslices of it to customers. This concept is most frequently used for vacation condominiums/homes, but it has also been used for high end private jets. In general, "timeshare" refers to the former rather than the latter.

• Use their usage time
• Rent out their owned usage
• Give it as a gift
• Exchange internally within the same resort or resort group
• Exchange externally into thousands of other timeshare resorts

Recently, with most point systems, owners may elect to:

• Assign their usage time to the point system to be exchanged for airline tickets, hotels, travel packages, cruises, amusement park tickets;
• Instead of renting all their actual usage time, rent part of their points without actually getting any usage time and use the rest of the points;
• Rent more points from either the internal exchange entity or another owner to get a larger unit or more vacation time or at a better location;
• Save or move points from one year to another.

Some developers, however, may limit which of these options are available at their properties.

Timeshare owners can elect to stay at their resort during the prescribed period, which varies depending on the nature of their ownership. In many resorts, they can rent out their week or give it as a gift to friends and family.