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What club is easiest to book

T6770rc

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Buying one now Bluegreen
Can anyone tell me what TS is the easiest to book? I’m interested in Wyndham, Hilton, Marriott or Bluegreen.

I keep hearing over and over the difficulties people have in booking the place they want at the times they want.

At the end of the day is it easiest to just set aside $10k a year and book the location you want vs buying into a TS for next to nothing and paying the $2000/yr maintenance???

Thanks!
 

HDiaz1

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Wyndham Panama City Beach, Wyndham Bali Hai Villas, Marriott Grand Chateau, Worldmark the Club.
For Wyndham you have
Club Wyndham access which gives you advance reservation priority at 13 months for most resorts. The maintenance fees tend to be higher at $6.50/1000
You want at least 250,000 points which would be an estimated annual fee of $1,625.00
Club Wyndham plus gives you ARP at 13 months for your home resort only. The MF’s tend to be lower under $6/1000 so 250,000 points would be less than $1,500.00

At 10 months points are points and you can book any resort.

From my experience it’s very easy to book whatever you want at 10 months. If you can plan 10 months ahead then you should be fine.

If you want a specific week, let’s say 4th of July at Clearwater Beach, I would buy a Clearwater deed.

As for flexibility, Wyndham is great because it’s points based. Most resorts do require a 2 or 3 night minimum so you should be able to book as many nights as you need at 10 months.

If you can’t plan ahead and take a lot of last minute trips or a lot of small trips (1-2 nights) then I would say stick to hotels.

From what I’ve seen it’s best to book summer at Florida panhandle, Clearwater beach and Myrtle Beach right at 10 months as those are very popular spots or holidays at popular locations. Everything else seems to be fairly easy to get.
 

hurnik

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For Hilton, there's a bunch of different booking windows. I'm paraphrasing here as you'll get way more info on the HGV forums.

For non-"by hilton club" locations, the owners home-week is bookable 12-months in advance (each resort has its own home-week check-in date). Club bookings (ie, you're NOT using your home week, even if you're booking at the resort that you "own" at), those are 9-months in advance.

If you don't own at by hilton club, you can book 60 days in advance. (ie: W57th in NYC, etc.)
There are some resorts that you *cannot* book period unless you own there (Hilton Club in NYC I believe is one).

When you buy HGV (regardless of whether resale or direct) you're buying a deeded week in a specific unit size. HGV doesn't guarantee you can actually book said unit, BTW. That unit size (and the points required) is your "home week". For example, a 2 BR Las Vegas Blvd week in Platinum Season is 7,000 "club points". If you want to book your home week, it's bookable 12 months in advance and it uses ALL your 7,000 points for an entire week in a 2 BR unit. You cannot book a smaller sized unit, nor can you book a shorter/longer stay using Home Week.

However, if you're willing to book only 9-months in advance, you can use Club Points (ie, you have 7,000 points). You can still book a 2 BR during Platinum season at "your" resort. However, if you wanted to book a 2 BR in say Gold season, it may only cost you 4,800 points. You can book elsewhere (ie, Orlando or Hawaii).

To be fair:
I've never had much of an issue booking 9-months in advance. Even for Hawaii. You may need to be up at midnight Eastern Time to secure your week or book a 3-night stay and slowly add nights as other folks are "walking" their reservation.

For by hilton club though, I would say you have a very slim chance that for NYC you will not get an entire 1-week at 60-days. You can probably get 3-5 nights, but it depends on WHEN. (ie, I highly doubt you'd ever see 5+ nights available during December at only 60-days prior).

For Hiton this is why "we" recommend to buy where you want to stay the most often (unless you're willing to be very flexible).

There's some resorts in Hawaii that have other/odd booking windows.

Most folks I see on the FB pages for HGV that complain about booking are either booking things way too late (like try to get Christmas week 3 months in advance--not gonna happen probably). Or it's a very new resort (Barbados) with very limited inventory (Hilton is building more buildings).

Again, this is the "short" version (LOL).
Hilton doesn't treat resale any different than direct (for now). So you have the same booking windows whether you buy direct or resale.

It's where you *own* that gives you the farthest ahead booking window.
Also note that you can buy FIXED weeks (vs. floating weeks). Not easy to find on resale market, that I've seen. (ie, you really want say, Christmas week 52 in XXXX) you can buy that week. You'd still have your club points booking option AFAIK.
Those would usually come at a premium (unless it's an affiliate).
But I digest.
 

Passepartout

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Timeshare requires a plan ahead attitude. Hotels work on a 65-70% occupancy level. They adjust the price to achieve this. With timeshares WE are the owners. WE work on near 100% occupancy as much as 6-10 months before move-in date to hold costs down. So that means those 'last minute getaways' just don't exist in popular locations. Oh, there will be some leftovers- ski resorts in mud season, beach resorts in winter- or rooms with a view of the parking lot. But if you want to give your family great, memorable vacations- for the good reasons- plan and book as early as possible.

Jim
 

T6770rc

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Wow thank you that was extremely helpful!
 

T6770rc

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Buying one now Bluegreen
For Hilton, there's a bunch of different booking windows. I'm paraphrasing here as you'll get way more info on the HGV forums.

For non-"by hilton club" locations, the owners home-week is bookable 12-months in advance (each resort has its own home-week check-in date). Club bookings (ie, you're NOT using your home week, even if you're booking at the resort that you "own" at), those are 9-months in advance.

If you don't own at by hilton club, you can book 60 days in advance. (ie: W57th in NYC, etc.)
There are some resorts that you *cannot* book period unless you own there (Hilton Club in NYC I believe is one).

When you buy HGV (regardless of whether resale or direct) you're buying a deeded week in a specific unit size. HGV doesn't guarantee you can actually book said unit, BTW. That unit size (and the points required) is your "home week". For example, a 2 BR Las Vegas Blvd week in Platinum Season is 7,000 "club points". If you want to book your home week, it's bookable 12 months in advance and it uses ALL your 7,000 points for an entire week in a 2 BR unit. You cannot book a smaller sized unit, nor can you book a shorter/longer stay using Home Week.

However, if you're willing to book only 9-months in advance, you can use Club Points (ie, you have 7,000 points). You can still book a 2 BR during Platinum season at "your" resort. However, if you wanted to book a 2 BR in say Gold season, it may only cost you 4,800 points. You can book elsewhere (ie, Orlando or Hawaii).

To be fair:
I've never had much of an issue booking 9-months in advance. Even for Hawaii. You may need to be up at midnight Eastern Time to secure your week or book a 3-night stay and slowly add nights as other folks are "walking" their reservation.

For by hilton club though, I would say you have a very slim chance that for NYC you will not get an entire 1-week at 60-days. You can probably get 3-5 nights, but it depends on WHEN. (ie, I highly doubt you'd ever see 5+ nights available during December at only 60-days prior).

For Hiton this is why "we" recommend to buy where you want to stay the most often (unless you're willing to be very flexible).

There's some resorts in Hawaii that have other/odd booking windows.

Most folks I see on the FB pages for HGV that complain about booking are either booking things way too late (like try to get Christmas week 3 months in advance--not gonna happen probably). Or it's a very new resort (Barbados) with very limited inventory (Hilton is building more buildings).

Again, this is the "short" version (LOL).
Hilton doesn't treat resale any different than direct (for now). So you have the same booking windows whether you buy direct or resale.

It's where you *own* that gives you the farthest ahead booking window.
Also note that you can buy FIXED weeks (vs. floating weeks). Not easy to find on resale market, that I've seen. (ie, you really want say, Christmas week 52 in XXXX) you can buy that week. You'd still have your club points booking option AFAIK.
Those would usually come at a premium (unless it's an affiliate).
But I digest.

Thank you so much! I appreciate the input. I really like the Hilton properties.
 

T6770rc

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Timeshare requires a plan ahead attitude. Hotels work on a 65-70% occupancy level. They adjust the price to achieve this. With timeshares WE are the owners. WE work on near 100% occupancy as much as 6-10 months before move-in date to hold costs down. So that means those 'last minute getaways' just don't exist in popular locations. Oh, there will be some leftovers- ski resorts in mud season, beach resorts in winter- or rooms with a view of the parking lot. But if you want to give your family great, memorable vacations- for the good reasons- plan and book as early as possible.

Jim
We are pretty good about this currently. Turks is booked 2 years in advance as well as some of the other big vacations. It’s the ski trips and other few places each year that are quasi spur of the moment. But even those we are flexible on our destination. Thanks Jim
 

T6770rc

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For Wyndham you have
Club Wyndham access which gives you advance reservation priority at 13 months for most resorts. The maintenance fees tend to be higher at $6.50/1000
You want at least 250,000 points which would be an estimated annual fee of $1,625.00
Club Wyndham plus gives you ARP at 13 months for your home resort only. The MF’s tend to be lower under $6/1000 so 250,000 points would be less than $1,500.00

At 10 months points are points and you can book any resort.

From my experience it’s very easy to book whatever you want at 10 months. If you can plan 10 months ahead then you should be fine.

If you want a specific week, let’s say 4th of July at Clearwater Beach, I would buy a Clearwater deed.

As for flexibility, Wyndham is great because it’s points based. Most resorts do require a 2 or 3 night minimum so you should be able to book as many nights as you need at 10 months.

If you can’t plan ahead and take a lot of last minute trips or a lot of small trips (1-2 nights) then I would say stick to hotels.

From what I’ve seen it’s best to book summer at Florida panhandle, Clearwater beach and Myrtle Beach right at 10 months as those are very popular spots or holidays at popular locations. Everything else seems to be fairly easy to get.

Thank you so much! I was wondering how many points to purchase and 250k was the number I kept coming back to.
 

geist1223

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Worldmark 97,000 Credits
DRI Cabo Azul 50,500
Royal Solaris San Jose del Cabo
To make sure any timeshare (other than a set Deeded Week, same timeshare, same week, same unit every year) you need to take the time to learn the system (what ever time share),. Then you have to be able to plan 12 months+ in advance. Reserve as soon as the Booking date open. This can mean staying up late if the Booking Window opens at midnight or getting up early if the Booking Window opens at 6am.

Most people I have met that really hate timeshares and wish they had never bought into one want to plan only 3 to 6 months in advance. Then do not understand why they can never get high demand Resorts such as Hawaii, etc. With Worldmark the Booking Window is 13 months to the day and online it starts at 6am. So I am up and ready to go by 5:30am. With DRI the Collection window for the Collection one belongs is 13 months and 10 months for other Collections. So I Book as early as possible.
 

SteelerGal

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The season is often the reason for difficulty. Whale season. Spring Break. Summer vacation. Major holidays. Spring Training. Major Sport Events. All affect availability.

My children’s Spring Break is during Music Festival time in Palm Springs. So even w/ a high season, I know it will be midnight booking. Similarly if we want to go to Scottsdale in March. One just must plan ahead.
 
Last edited:

T6770rc

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Buying one now Bluegreen
To make sure any timeshare (other than a set Deeded Week, same timeshare, same week, same unit every year) you need to take the time to learn the system (what ever time share),. Then you have to be able to plan 12 months+ in advance. Reserve as soon as the Booking date open. This can mean staying up late if the Booking Window opens at midnight or getting up early if the Booking Window opens at 6am.

Most people I have met that really hate timeshares and wish they had never bought into one want to plan only 3 to 6 months in advance. Then do not understand why they can never get high demand Resorts such as Hawaii, etc. With Worldmark the Booking Window is 13 months to the day and online it starts at 6am. So I am up and ready to go by 5:30am. With DRI the Collection window for the Collection one belongs is 13 months and 10 months for other Collections. So I Book as early as possible.

Understood- I’m the type that will do what I have to to get the trip we need.

Thanks for the input. Much appreciated.
 
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