# HIlton Club New York Maintaince Fees And Club Dues



## Carlsbadguy (Nov 21, 2009)

Recently received my bill for 2010 for my Dues and for 5000 points it shows $1343.50 including Club DUes of $207- why are the Club Dues so high.

This is my first bill received as I bought resale last year.


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## Talent312 (Nov 21, 2009)

Maybe 'cuz its NYC!... and city-units carry a premium point-value which outclasses the rest of us mere HGVC-mortals. So they 'spect you to pay thru the nose with all sorts of nuisance fees, without whimpering.


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## Piper (Nov 24, 2009)

The yearly fees at Hilton Club include everything so you won't be nickeled-and-dimed each time you go to the resort. We had switched ownership to W 57th before returning to Hilton Club. The annual fees there were less -- but you had to pay a booking fee each time -- or an annual fee of $102 for unlimited bookings (this is included in the Hilton Club annual fee) -- plus the housekeeping fee of $85 for stays less than 3 days. Personally, I prefer to pay the higher annual fees and not pay more each time I book a stay. I enjoy it a bit more if the payment $$ is separated from the vacation


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## brp (Dec 3, 2009)

This is somewhat related to the last post as it pertains to ownership switch between W. 57th and Hilton Club.

We purchased W. 57th in October. At the time, our sales rep told us that the $85 short stay fee was "definitely" going away. As our use pattern is 3-4 stays of 1-2 nights a year, this is a big deal as it adds quite a bit to the effective MFs, and makes it not a good deal. We got some pretty good perks for a developer purchase, so that's why we did it in the first place...but it definitely doesn't work with the fees in place.

So, they're not going away- got official word from the property GM today. We don't have this in writing, but our Quality Assurance Manager is very willing to work with us.

The current proposal is to move our purchase to Hilton Club. We're going to want about the same thing- a week's worth of points there (we had Gold season at W. 57th but may go for Platinum at Hilton Club...assuming that the systems work the same way).

Any notions of the associated costs through the developer for a package like this at Hilton Club? I can find resale values, but I don't know the current developer prices on their "direct" resales.

Are there any particular gotchas we should look for? I understand that this one expires in 2032 while W. 57th was in perpetuity, so that will factor in. Also, we will tend to book maybe a month or two out for generic (non-Holiday) weekends. Does this present any problems.

Since we're long past the rescission deadline, and have nothing actually in writing on this promise, I'm glad they're willing to work with us and won't push too hard. But knowing any sticking points up front can help.

Cheers.


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## yumdrey (Dec 3, 2009)

brp said:


> We don't have this in writing, but our Quality Assurance Manager is very willing to work with us.
> 
> The current proposal is to move our purchase to Hilton Club. We're going to want about the same thing- a week's worth of points there (we had Gold season at W. 57th but may go for Platinum at Hilton Club...assuming that the systems work the same way).



I don't know what kind of offer Hilton will present you, but don't spend any more money for their new offer. For resale prices of Hilton Club, there are ebay sales history on TUG (not BBS). If you search "hilton Club" on resort review section, you will find NY hilton club and can see sales history. 
At this moment, W. 57th has much higher resale prices than NY hilton club.
Hope it helps.


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## brp (Dec 3, 2009)

yumdrey said:


> I don't know what kind of offer Hilton will present you, but don't spend any more money for their new offer. For resale prices of Hilton Club, there are ebay sales history on TUG (not BBS). If you search "hilton Club" on resort review section, you will find NY hilton club and can see sales history.
> At this moment, W. 57th has much higher resale prices than NY hilton club.
> Hope it helps.



Oh, we definitely won't spend more, and I'm assuming that it will be less. I just don't know the current pricing on Hilton Club sales through Hilton since those will be higher than the external resale avenues...and we're pretty much tied in to buying from them. We'll get the same perks as we would have with the other deal, so it won't be too bad, I believe.

I was just wondering if anyone had recent experience with Hilton Club purchases from Hilton.

Cheers.


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## Piper (Dec 3, 2009)

brp said:


> Oh, we definitely won't spend more, and I'm assuming that it will be less. I just don't know the current pricing on Hilton Club sales through Hilton since those will be higher than the external resale avenues...and we're pretty much tied in to buying from them. We'll get the same perks as we would have with the other deal, so it won't be too bad, I believe.
> 
> I was just wondering if anyone had recent experience with Hilton Club purchases from Hilton.
> 
> Cheers.



We purchased HIlton Club about 4 years ago. We "upgraded" to W 57th but were unhappy with the switch in part the reason you mentioned. We complained to HIlton.  They told us that they were very serious about claims of mis-representation of their product. We explained that our sales agent did not make the housekeeping fee structure clear -- and the annual charge for making reservations was also an add-on. (That is included in the annual fees for Hilton Club.) What had been pitched as an annual savings that essentially covered our cost of the "upgrade" would be eaten up in these nickel-and-dime charges. Hilton actually allowed us to un-do our W 57th purchase and we returned to our Hilton Club membership. I realize this is different that your situation since you weren't with Hilton Club before -- but i was impressed that they were willing to work with us to make us happy. We LOVE the Hilton Club and are thrilled to be back there again.


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## brp (Dec 3, 2009)

Piper said:


> and the annual charge for making reservations was also an add-on. (That is included in the annual fees for Hilton Club.)



Well, in partial defense of W. 57th, their club fee is $95, and one can add $102 (for a total of $197) and then there are no reservation fees. From the OP of this thread, this looks to still be slightly less than the club dues for Hilton Club, so that's a wash. Still, the short-stay cleaning fee is a problem.

The GM did say that they did discuss (and try to work out) getting rid of it as it is a sore point with owners. She said that recent increases in labor costs made it infeasible for 2010. In talking with her, I really felt that they did care, and did try.

Well, we'll see what sort of cost/point package they come up with at Hilton Club. From all I've read, I don't think we'll be disappointed there if we can get the numbers to work.

Cheers.


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## KathyA (Dec 4, 2009)

brp said:


> This is somewhat related to the last post as it pertains to ownership switch between W. 57th and Hilton Club.
> 
> We purchased W. 57th in October. At the time, our sales rep told us that the $85 short stay fee was "definitely" going away. As our use pattern is 3-4 stays of 1-2 nights a year, this is a big deal as it adds quite a bit to the effective MFs, and makes it not a good deal. We got some pretty good perks for a developer purchase, so that's why we did it in the first place...but it definitely doesn't work with the fees in place.
> 
> ...




There are no "seasons" at the Hilton Club.  I would be pretty shocked if they refunded any of your money, so I would suggest going for more points if you think they will go for it.  7000 points at the Hilton Club is about a week's worth of points in a studio, or three or four weekends (it depends on the time of year ad the day of the week you book).  I have never had a problem with making weekend reservations a couple of months in advance.  More points you can always use at any Hilton family hotels--they trade 1 Hilton Club point to 25 HHonors points.  We go to NY three or four times a year, plus in the past two years have used our points at Hilton hotels in Las Vegas, Barbados, Florence (Italy), Rome, Barcelona, and Madrid.  You will not regret being at the Hilton Club.


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## brp (Dec 4, 2009)

KathyA said:


> There are no "seasons" at the Hilton Club.  I would be pretty shocked if they refunded any of your money, so I would suggest going for more points if you think they will go for it.  7000 points at the Hilton Club is about a week's worth of points in a studio, or three or four weekends (it depends on the time of year ad the day of the week you book).  I have never had a problem with making weekend reservations a couple of months in advance.  More points you can always use at any Hilton family hotels--they trade 1 Hilton Club point to 25 HHonors points.  We go to NY three or four times a year, plus in the past two years have used our points at Hilton hotels in Las Vegas, Barbados, Florence (Italy), Rome, Barcelona, and Madrid.  You will not regret being at the Hilton Club.



Thanks for the input. To this point we've only put down 10% plus closing costs on the purchase, so we'll still be owing them money on this. But I'm assuming that it will be less than what we would have paid at W. 57th. Looking at the redemption charts for Hilton Club, I was thinking about 7000 points as our target. It seemed that there are "seasons" in that sense that different times of year require different numbers of points for a night- similar to W. 57th. Hilton Club had three different levels while 57 had 2.

We'll just have to see what they want to charge for 7000 points when they make their offer. I've seen resale figures as low as $1/point (and even a tad lower) but a direct purchase will be more than that 

Cheers.


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## brp (Mar 12, 2010)

KathyA said:


> There are no "seasons" at the Hilton Club.  I would be pretty shocked if they refunded any of your money, so I would suggest going for more points if you think they will go for it.  7000 points at the Hilton Club is about a week's worth of points in a studio, or three or four weekends (it depends on the time of year ad the day of the week you book).  I have never had a problem with making weekend reservations a couple of months in advance.  More points you can always use at any Hilton family hotels--they trade 1 Hilton Club point to 25 HHonors points.  We go to NY three or four times a year, plus in the past two years have used our points at Hilton hotels in Las Vegas, Barbados, Florence (Italy), Rome, Barcelona, and Madrid.  You will not regret being at the Hilton Club.



I wanted to revisit this as they've (finally) come through with their offer...and wanted to see what others thought of it.:

They're offering 5000 Hilton Club points for $19,900.
They're throwing in lifetime HH Gold for both of us (although I may try to negotiate for Diamond for one as we travel together )
400,000 HH points, or 15,000 HGVC points, non-expiring (I'd likely go for the HGVC points as we already transfer AA miles to HH points at 2:1).

Is this reasonable? Are there points where we can/should bargain (more HGVC annual or bank points, maybe price if they do that)?

Thanks for any input on this. We also have the option to just kill the deal at this point, and we could get the Surpass Amex and get Gold or Diamond on our own, and use HH points for New York stays, but this doesn't sound bad.

Cheers.


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## JackieC2 (Mar 12, 2010)

We looked at purchasing last year. They offered 6000 points for $22,000 with 250,000 HHonors points. Everyone purchasing at NY Hilton Club gets gold HHonors status until 2032 when the contract expires. Looks like our offer has a little less per point, but less HHonors points offered.


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## brp (Mar 12, 2010)

JackieC2 said:


> We looked at purchasing last year. They offered 6000 points for $22,000 with 250,000 HHonors points. Everyone purchasing at NY Hilton Club gets gold HHonors status until 2032 when the contract expires. Looks like our offer has a little less per point, but less HHonors points offered.



That's an interesting point about the Gold membership.Since we were originally looking at West 57th (with no end date),it was 'Gold for life." Seems that this terminates with the contract. I assume, though, that the Gold status is a perk for the purchase, and not for necessarily still holding the property. So, if one sold,they'd still keep the status because they made the purchase. I also imagine that the term of the Gold status is negotiable.

By the way- did you go ahead with the purchase?

Cheers.


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## JackieC2 (Mar 13, 2010)

Yes we did purchase. Stayed in December and loved it! The free breakfast and drinks and appetizers in the evening are a nice plus.


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## hvacrsteve (Mar 13, 2010)

You will love the Club!

Nice people!

That is where we go 90% of the time!


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## Carlsbadguy (Mar 14, 2010)

Have people noticed that the Club Points needed to reserve for other Hilton resorts have changed.  I was looking for a few days in Hawaii and studio units are a little less points than in the Hilton Club guide I have from 2007, while other size units are more.  The point values now follow the regular Hilton Resort Values i.e. 7000 points for 2 bedroom platinum week at any Hilton, except for the 3 that require more points.


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## JackieC2 (Mar 14, 2010)

Yes the points have changed. I was disappointed to see this since I never received a communication from the Hilton Club about the change. Nice if you book studios, but we usually book a one or two bedroom.


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## hvacrsteve (Mar 15, 2010)

They changed all the Honors points! There is nothing I know to do except don't buy any more of their product!

They have the right to do so, we also have the right to sell everything!

I don't think its moral to change the points required since we bought the units with the point level for for the amount of time we needed.
They also raise the maintenance fees every year already!

Maybe they can start a new social plan and throw us a bone soon!

Everytime I do an update or someone calls me I bring it up to them, they don't want to hear it, but they need to hear it from all of us!


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## brp (May 6, 2010)

brp said:


> I wanted to revisit this as they've (finally) come through with their offer...and wanted to see what others thought of it.:



So, the deal finally closed and we're in the system, so I wanted to come back and update this with the final deal:

We got 6000 HC/NY points for $18,000 total (inclusive of all fees). It was nice to get 6000 as 5000 would be too few and 7000 too many, and 6000 is not a standard contract that one can find resale, IME.

With no closing,transfer or agent fees, I figure we saved about $1500 or so over resale (others may have a more accurate figure). Brings the cost down to $16,500

We received 500K HH points. We can get at least $5000 of hotel use out of this (likely more, but that's a minimum figure). That brings us to $11,500.

We save about $227 a year in MFs for not having to buy 7000 points (the fee is for the extra thousand that we'd have to force to use). That amounts to about $5221 over 23 years,bringing us to about $6279 (yeah, I know that this one is a stretch, but we really would not use those points without making an effort to do so ).

So, that works out to about $1.05/point including the MF savings and $1.92 without. I've seen one report of a better rate, but research leads me to about $1.60 - $1.80/point for HC/NY.So this is not far from that in either case.

Plus, we got the Gold for life of the contract and a Mutual Account- which don't exist anymore. Also got to use a CC for the purchase and earn more hotel points (not sure if the HGVC resale folks take CCs, but some of the DVC don't.

Overall, pretty satisfied on our dealings with HGVC on this.

Cheers.


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## PigsDad (May 6, 2010)

brp said:


> We save about $227 a year in MFs for not having to buy 7000 points (the fee is for the extra thousand that we'd have to force to use). That amounts to about $5221 over 23 years,bringing us to about $6279 (yeah, I know that this one is a stretch, but we really would not use those points without making an effort to do so ).


Heck, you should have not bought another 5000 points and saved even more! 

Kurt


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## brp (May 6, 2010)

PigsDad said:


> Heck, you should have not bought another 5000 points and saved even more!
> 
> Kurt



Well, I did say that that bit was a stretch, but something has to be said for getting just the number of points one wants/needs, and not extra 

Cheers.


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## Talent312 (May 6, 2010)

brp said:


> So, the deal finally closed and we're in the system, so I wanted to come back and update this with the final deal...



Congrats. Now you get to lord it over the newbies wondering if they should take the plunge.


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## brp (May 6, 2010)

Talent312 said:


> Congrats. Now you get to lord it over the newbies wondering if they should take the plunge.



Naw...none of that.We're all here to help, right? 

Even though it just closed today, they were already holding a reservation for us starting tomorrow, and I just booked for October. Poof! One day in the system and our two trips are booked, points are gone (well, except for 400 orphan points.)

I'll know by Sunday whether it was worth doing this 

Cheers.


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## hvacrsteve (May 6, 2010)

Hilton Club is the Elite!  so its more expensive!

With the club, who needs Elite?


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