Issues with what was represented for our timeshare

[Todd Williams]

My wife and I got back from Hawaii about two weeks ago, and I've finally gotten around to trying to book a hotel stay for our upcoming vacation. Our timeshare is a 5800 Point Parc Soleil 2-bedroom, and it was $28000. We made it very clear to the salesman that we needed to be able to use our Club Points for Hilton Hotel stays throughout the year. He showed us a spreadsheet where it showed that we would be able to book between 15-21 days in Hilton Hotels for our 5800 points, with the only caveat being that there would be a 3-day minimum.

I just got off the phone with a HGCV rep who told me that the only way to book Hilton hotels is to convert our club points to HHonors points. This would only get us about 7 nights in a 2 1/2 star Hampton Inn. Am I up poop creek, and was I lied to?

I've left a message with my salesman about the problem, and haven't heard back yet. I'm trying to make sense of all this, and I've checked through the FAQ threads here. I need help!

 

[Ty1on]

Unfortunately, you won't hear from your salesman. He got his commission off the $28K sale.

 

[Talent312]

Using HGVC points for hotel rooms converts those points to HHonors with a ratio of 1-HGVC to 20-HH.
Converting next year's points and waiting for them to post in January gets you a better ratio... 1:25.
Either way, it's a poor use of HGVC points, as their highest+best use is as intended: For HGVC resorts.

There's a saying 'round these parts: "How do you know a TS salesman in lying? ... His lips are moving."
Only the written contract is controlling. IOW, if that's not what the contract says... "Too bad, so sad."

My 2 cents: Learn to use your points as they were intended, to book HGVC resorts, and earn extra HH
points through affinity credit cards, like from American Express oor Citi-Bank.

.

 

[SmithOp]

Perhaps he was showing you how to stretch hgvc points from a 2 bedroom by booking studio units instead. I own a 2 bedroom Hawaii unit that I never plan on making a home booking, I can get 4 weeks by booking smaller units and maximizing weekday stays (which are half the number of points). The caveat on 3 day sounds like the minimum hgvc club season booking. There isn't a day limitation on booking hotels with hhonors points. Its not unusual for people to be overwhelmed with new terminology at a presentation and get confused. Buying a timeshare to book hotels is a terrible waste, there are some members here that book in Asia and make it work due to the amenities at the hotels there, a lot better than Hamptons.

I encourage you to learn how to use what you own, read TUG and the rules booklet.

http://www.hgvclubprogram.com/resources/club-rules/

 

[TUGBrian]

ugh, always extremely frustrated when an owner discovers they were lied to during a presentation.

if it were me, id still send in a rescission letter explaining the details about how the salesman lied to you to close the deal....its over a week late...but you really have nothing to lose by trying!

 

[Todd Williams]

Thanks for all the feedback. I did go ahead and send a certified letter of rescission, so we'll see what happens. We definitely were not told that Club Points would have to first be converted to HHonors points in order to book Hilton hotels...leaving us with only a fraction of the actual value. We stressed several times that we take short monthly weekend excursions, and that we would rarely if ever use the property that our contract was for. We even put on our survey that flexibility and being able to go anywhere at any time was the most important thing for us. Very disappointing, and I should have known better and done more research.

 

[Tamaradarann]

Thanks for all the feedback. I did go ahead and send a certified letter of rescission, so we'll see what happens. We definitely were not told that Club Points would have to first be converted to HHonors points in order to book Hilton hotels...leaving us with only a fraction of the actual value. We stressed several times that we take short monthly weekend excursions, and that we would rarely if ever use the property that our contract was for. We even put on our survey that flexibility and being able to go anywhere at any time was the most important thing for us. Very disappointing, and I should have known better and done more research.

I will reiterate some of the comments here to emphasize that if you can't get them to let you recind there are many worthy benefits to owning that you now have. You should definitely use your HGVC points to stay at club resorts where you get the most value. For some of the club resorts you can stay in a Studio for short stays with some advanced planning and the 5800 points will give you about 17 nights or so. Furthermore, there is the open season benefit(less than 30 days out) that you can use for stays at many of the resorts at very good rates without using your points. I know I could make those points and a little extra money(less than a thousand dollars) into 3 weeks of nice vacations every year at club resorts.