HGVC Elite survey

I received an email survey from HGVC about the Elite program.

In it I suggested that a good way to reward Elite members that have committed so much to HGVC would be to allow us to have a larger window to book into the W57th club in New York. After all we have spent just as much as someone buying into W57th to get to the Elite level. The only other benefit we get that I think is worthwhile is the Gold VIP status in HiltonHonors. As far as the rest, well how extra useful is a room key that says "Elite" or a one year booking window to a random resort, unless that happens to be just the one you want to go to. A larger booking window at W57th would really be a true benefit.

So, if any one else gets this survey, I hope you agree with me and suggest this as well.

JW

houtexjim said:

I received an email survey from HGVC about the Elite program.

In it I suggested that a good way to reward Elite members that have committed so much to HGVC would be to allow us to have a larger window to book into the W57th club in New York. After all we have spent just as much as someone buying into W57th to get to the Elite level. The only other benefit we get that I think is worthwhile is the Gold VIP status in HiltonHonors. As far as the rest, well how extra useful is a room key that says "Elite" or a one year booking window to a random resort, unless that happens to be just the one you want to go to. A larger booking window at W57th would really be a true benefit.

So, if any one else gets this survey, I hope you agree with me and suggest this as well.

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I agree that would be a great benefit. I hope it is not looked upon as unreasonable. However I disagree on the most valuable benefit to being Elite... I think if I had to choose, it would be the $49 fee waiver for 1-week reservations (and $10 discount or others). I have saved hundreds of $$$ every year with this benefit.

P.S. Welcome to TUG (for your first post!)

I agree with you both!
I completed my survey today and asked for both, a longer reservation window (12 months for all resorts) and more actual benefits like the savings on reservations. I too believe that as we have spendt the $ to become "Elite" we should see more tangable benefits. I have to say that I made several other requests, eg. Free valet parking, Elite lounges in each property, welcome e-mails with the club's activities included...etc.
I tend to use the HHonors benefit the most and agree that it is my most prefered benefit.
Here's hoping that they take the responses and do something with them.

Heres what I posted:
To become an elite status member, one must purchase directly from Hilton, which means paying very high prices when compared to resale market. Yet, reseller purchasers have all the advantages that direct purchasers do (excepting for Elite status benefits). Frankly, the elite benefits are not nearly worth that pricing difference. The reseller purchasers all laugh and ridicule direct purchasers!! So, what to do? Hilton wants folks to purchase from Hilton rather than resale in general I would suggest. Why should these folks be the "fools"? The Elite benefits should be of much much MUCH more value as an incentive imo. Some suggestions of increased benefits might be:
. conversion to HHonors at 50 to 1 instead of 25 X 1 at Elite Plus & beyond without limitations of number of Club points to be converted
. ANNUAL Bonus Point Allocation thats meaningful: of say 15K, 30K, 45K per current 3 tier elite levels
. free or significant discounts for services and activities at HGVC resorts including those offered by 3rd party vendors (eg Disney Park Passes, eg 1/2 dinners, tours etc - similar to 'members update' attendees gifts). If you can give away to them, why not to Elites?
. Diamond HHonors status should start at Elite Plus
. Special Resort access with 12 month reservation window at more than just one resort. This would provide increased 'priority' of booking to Elites.
. Elite Plus & Premier should have increased access into West 57th street. Maybe Club window access. Perhaps with a 7 night maximum per year allotment?
. Plus, retention of all current benefits

First, thanks for the welcome JonathanIT.

Yes I can see the fee reduction being a major benefit for you. I typically don't stay the week so I can't take advantage of that very often.

However, I do a lot of work as well as leisure travel so for me the Hilton VIP gold benefit of being upgraded to the executive level w/lounge access and/or free breakfast is perfect. Ether way, for the money we've put in, they should make it truly special!

I hope HGVC doesn't consider extending the reservation window unreasonable, after all it doesn't really cost them anything more for the benefit. It would only impact them if they sold a lot of units at W57th and had a ton of reservations. Given the economy, who knows?

If you're going to dream, then DREAM BIG.....

Does anyone else feel that it's strange that we have so many first time posters on this thread - houtexjim, weaselwatchr and lindsey1
Maybe I'm too suspicous :rofl: ... but hey I'll play

There is a reason why the HGVC resort for the one year booking window changes for Elite Members. You're getting access to developer weeks at HGVC resorts currently not sold out. Once the HGVC resort is sold out then the owners are entitled to their weeks at the resort they bought. So, it's highly unlikely that anyone other than owners will have a one year booking window once a HGVC resort is sold out.

With W57 it is definitely clear that HGVC wants folks to buy if they want to stay there. I don't think HGVC is going to give it away regardless of what anyone spent in the past.

"The reseller purchasers all laugh and ridicule direct purchasers!!"
This is simply not true. A lot of TUGGERs bought their first timeshare directly from the developer. They just weren't aware of the resale market. Thanks to the internet more folks are becoming aware that there is another option.

The purpose of HHonors is to reward guests for their frequent hotel stays (not to reward HGVC members). We're given access to the hotel reward system to help HGVC sales but I don't think HHonors wants to dilute their frequent stay program therefore I won't count on Hilton giving away more HHonors points or HHonors status. They're in the business of making money.

Keep in mind.....Once you buy, a developer doesn't owe you anything
Disney Vacation Club owners are going through a similar situation .. wanting the developer (Disney) to give them discounted park tickets, free dining promotion, etc.

On a positive note... I think the suggestion for free valet parking, Elite lounges in each property, welcome e-mails with the club's activities included is a very reasonable request.

Welcome to TUG

Among other things, I told them I wanted direct online RCI booking capability.

nonutrix

houtexjim said:

However, I do a lot of work as well as leisure travel so for me the Hilton VIP gold benefit of being upgraded to the executive level w/lounge access and/or free breakfast is perfect. Ether way, for the money we've put in, they should make it truly special!

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I do agree that the HHonors Gold membership is a great benefit. I travel a lot outside of my HGVC stays, so I guess I should have mentioned that I am an HHonors Diamond level member on my own, earned from my many stays at Hilton properties.

nonutrix said:

Among other things, I told them I wanted direct online RCI booking capability.

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This is an excellent point; I would also like to add this capability for Club Intrawest properties. This would make a perfect compliment to our 12-month access window.

:whoopie:

JonathanIT said:

This is an excellent point; I would also like to add this capability for Club Intrawest properties. This would make a perfect compliment to our 12-month access window.

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I didn't realize elite owners had a 12 month window for the Intrawest properties. Based on your comment, I just looked at the resort page in the Member Guide and noticed Elite (instead of the normal Home Week reference) in the Reservation Windows Chart on each resort page. Thanks for mentioning this

Too bad HGVC doesn't clearly spell out all of the benefits in the Member Guide and too bad we don't have a TUG sticky detailing all of the HGVC Elite benefits.

I don't believe increased conversion to HHonors is an unreasonable request. In fact, purchasers at W57th already receive this.

For what its worth, imo, a welcome email is one-click away from the Delete button in its 'value' to me. An Elite lounge? I don't understand what 'benefit' that may be while on holiday? Is this 'lounge' to be similar to HHonors Executive level lounges complete with complimentary drinks & food, or just a meeting room? Why would Hilton build or convert space for this, with no benefit to them (since they're in the business of making money)?

Speculating, this Elite Survey is Hilton's attempt to find something else that may entice owners to 'upgrade' their points to an 'Elite' tier. Frankly, even my suggestions taken all together(ie all were offered) are still woefully short of an enticement for folks to upgrade (considering the costs of direct purchase). Its a start however, and I do not believe they are unreasonable.

lindsey1 said:

I don't believe increased conversion to HHonors is an unreasonable request. In fact, purchasers at W57th already receive this.

For what its worth, imo, a welcome email is one-click away from the Delete button in its 'value' to me. An Elite lounge? I don't understand what 'benefit' that may be while on holiday? Is this 'lounge' to be similar to HHonors Executive level lounges complete with complimentary drinks & food, or just a meeting room? Why would Hilton build or convert space for this, with no benefit to them (since they're in the business of making money)?

Speculating, this Elite Survey is Hilton's attempt to find something else that may entice owners to 'upgrade' their points to an 'Elite' tier. Frankly, even my suggestions taken all together(ie all were offered) are still woefully short of an enticement for folks to upgrade (considering the costs of direct purchase). Its a start however, and I do not believe they are unreasonable.

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I agree their Elite Survey is Hilton's attempt to find something else that may entice more owners to 'upgrade' their points to an 'Elite' tier

FYI....

Here's what the w57 owners received.

From the 2009 Club Members Guide (see page 143)
HHonors conversion rate for entire allotment:
- 30 to 1 for penthouse
- 40 to 1 for one bedroom and studio premier
- 50 to 1 for studio plus
HHonors conversion rate for partial allotment
- 25 to 1

It's really not that much more of an impact to HHonors. According to various articles, w57 will only have 161 units so it's a small percentage of the overall HGVC membership.

According to a previous Elite thread there's an Elite lounge already at the Las Vegas strip resort. It sounds like it's similar to HHonors Executive level lounges complete with a separate check-in area and complimentary drinks & food - see http://www.tugbbs.com/forums/showthread.php?t=93987

I agree the Hhonors Gold for elites is a nice benefit, but I would prefer a slight change.

It would be good if they credited you yearly with the stays/nights that equate to a Gold level, and then you could earn Diamond by staying the number of extra nights that are the difference between Gold and Diamond.
I'm already staying about 40-45 nights per year at HGVC's (as well as 40-45 nights per year at other timeshares), and that makes it a little hard to manage the 28 stays required for Hhonors Diamond.

That's how my Marriott credit card works. I get credited with nights equal to Silver, so I only have to stay the number of nights that is the difference between Silver and Gold to reach Gold.

lindsey1 said:

Speculating, this Elite Survey is Hilton's attempt to find something else that may entice owners to 'upgrade' their points to an 'Elite' tier. Frankly, even my suggestions taken all together(ie all were offered) are still woefully short of an enticement for folks to upgrade (considering the costs of direct purchase). Its a start however, and I do not believe they are unreasonable.

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How about (in addition to ALL of your suggestions) crediting points purchased through resale if an owner agrees to upgrade directly into Elite Premier? I own 9600 pts every year (4800 purchased resale), and 4,800 EOY (purchased resale). If Hilton credited all of those points toward Elite Premier, I would consider purchasing another 20,000 pts or more directly from Hilton to get to Elite Premier. I was looking at Kings' Land and Grand Waikikan resale prices for larger units, and they are not substantially less than what is being offered by Hilton directly -- http://www.tugbbs.com/forums/showthread.php?t=95517&highlight=kingsland.

Nothing evil about it Alwaysonvac, just been lurking for awhile and finally got something worth contributing about (of course I've got a long way to go to catch up to you). As far as first time posters, I guess there are a lot of HGVC Elites out there that didn't have a topic to reply to til now.

I agree the window at W57th is a selling point for them. Buy here and get special treatment vs. everyone else. I'm just asking for some special treatment for being an Elite as well. Sure there aren't that many units for use at W57th, but how many HGVC Elites could there be ether compared with most members? It couldn't add that many more bookings. And the added goodwill would go a long way.

I do like DVC john's idea of credit for being HHonors Gold to make it easier to get to platinum.

JW

Off topic (a bit):

Just a friendly reminder for those HGVC owners who have recently joined, please take the time to respond to the ownership polls. There is a "sticky" post at the top of this forum with all the detail.

Thanks!
Kurt

I might be getting my wish...just got an email from HGVC saying that:

"Exciting Online Resource Coming Your Way… Soon

While it's not really fair to allude to benefits and not tell you what they are, let's just say, the world will soon be at your fingertips.

Here's a hint – It starts with an "R" and ends with an "I" and you can "see" the middle. Any guesses? More to come this June!"

Yeah! Finally!!!

nonutrix

nonutrix said:

I might be getting my wish...just got an email from HGVC saying that:

"Exciting Online Resource Coming Your Way… Soon

While it's not really fair to allude to benefits and not tell you what they are, let's just say, the world will soon be at your fingertips.

Here's a hint – It starts with an "R" and ends with an "I" and you can "see" the middle. Any guesses? More to come this June!"

Yeah! Finally!!!

nonutrix

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Yes, indeed!! Great news!

Best of all, it should not be just for Elite members, imo. It should be for all members, which Inside Track definitely implies.