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Why I am done with HGVC from an Elite Premier Member

CalGalTraveler

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As someone who purchased HGVC developer for our first purchase, I agree with the OP that HGVC does little for the developer buyer. It's very transactional with little/no benefit if you buy more. Whereas MVC seems to have developed incentive programs to enroll/upgrade and continue the relationship such as point rentals market. I believe this is what the OP is referring to. The ability to rent out your points in a matter of minutes is a frictionless approach vs. the risk of being a landlord over the course of months to rent out your unit. I believe DVC does this too.

I have heard that long-time MVC owners that have underwater MF to rental cost units have used their points to rent out points at a small premium. This prevents a flood of deedbacks/delinquencies. It enables the owner to get more out of that original purchase to recoup the cost vs. sitting on a boat anchor.

HGVC has given us zero incentive to buy anything further direct from them except to feel bitter about a developer purchase that rapidly lost a lot of value with few ways to recoup except to use it for expensive locations, and receive presentation goodies and discounted stays. And now Open Season as an option to recoup value has died as reflected in another thread. I think this difference is what the OP was talking about.

I am sticking with HGVC because our resale helps us to get more value out of our developer unit but may transition and increase our position in MVC/Vistana in the future depending on HGVC actions.
 
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TravelTime

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We have over 40,000 annual points in HGVC, including Barbados and Sunrise Lodge that were developer purchases (rest resale). We recently decided to make a Marriott Vacation Club purchase because we anticipate a regular trip to St. Thomas where HGVC has no offerings. We ended up with a 29,000 point annual package with MVC. We have since made the decision to slowly unwind most of our HGVC ownership because of how superior MVC is.

I thought it might be helpful to share our experiences and thinking, particularly the comparison between the two systems (I know folks also love Disney, but the limited offerings there make that choice an apples to oranges comparison). This is a long post, and represents years of experience over the past 9 years with HGVC. It is long because I am primarily writing this: (1) for someone considering buying into HGVC now, who might be interested in comparing HGVC to MVC; and (2) if anyone at HGVC cares to save their company and ends up reading this, for constructive criticism of a system that I used to really enjoy but now want to leave.

Please don’t consider this a troll poss. As far as the properties go, we absolutely LOVE HGVC. I have never had a complaint about HGVC’s properties. We still love Eagles Nest and our Bay Club Kona Villa and will probably keep those properties just because we love staying there. We have never had a bad experience and have stayed at most of the US HGVC properties. That same positive comment applies to staff, room size, amenities, cleanliness, furnishings, etc. The foregoing is the reason we have stayed within the HGVC system so long, despite the warning signs discussed below.

Also on the positive side, HGVCs maintenance fees are generally (if you choose properties, unit sizes, and seasons with maintenance fees in mind) lower per week than a comparable MVC property. That is why we avoided MVC in the past...

With all of that, you would think that we would just want to stay with HGVC where we have spent so much time and money. However, our recent MVC experience really brought home how many problems HGVC has and explains why HGVC is having problems in the investment market (see the other post re poor HGVC financial performance and possible takeover rumors).

1) Balkanization of HGVC. One of the biggest problems in HGVC is that every property presents a fundamentally different ownership - a point is NOT just a point. For example, owners at the “Hilton Club” in NY and DC have almost exclusive access to their own properties while they also get full access to my properties. This creates a new tier where you must buy into those properties in order to get full access. As discussed in my other post, Barbados has so few units that it hardly an option and the maintenance fees exceed market rental rates. Many properties have “event weeks” that are completely unavailable to ordinary Elite Premier owners (Sunset Lodge for example has the only week we want as an event week but that was not disclosed to us). Why such disparity? The answer, I think, lies partly in HGVC’s go to market strategy that it refers to as “capital lite” - e.g., they actually brag about not spending capital on new development. What this actually means in practice is that HGVC is just a brand and management company that is used on a third party development project. Whatever the reason, though, it is frustrating. Buying from HGVC now requires a careful analysis of which property’s developer is offering the best deal, reading through complex disclosure statements to find the gotchas that vary from project to project, and having faith that there will not in the future be a better deal from a different developer that you will be forced into to maintain real status (e.g., the Hilton Club situation). MVC has some of that in its “legacy” weeks system, but its newer DC points system is straightforward and egalitarian. The only way to get a leg up on other owners in the DC point system is to buy more points (giving a 13 month reservation advantage at 7000 points), but even that vanishes if you are willing to use extra points to get the 13 month window (which is an allowed move in the system). “Event weeks” in MVC similarly just require more points, they are not allocated to any particular owner (except for legacy weeks that are no longer sold). The “city” clubs like NY and Boston within MVC similarly require more points, but are open to all on an equal basis.

2) Corporate vs Local HGVC. A related issue is the constant battle between obviously commissioned sales agents representing a particular development (e.g., the local sales team at a property like Sunrise Lodge) versus the Orlando corporate team. They literally fight each other for your business, each claiming to have the best deal. There are all kinds of tricks documented in this forum for maximizing that fight to get the real best deal. Because of the balkanization issue, getting the best deal requires that you know quite a lot about the HGVC system (for example, knowing about he South Florida Hilton resales, NY Club advantages, using resale trade-ups, local event weeks, etc.) in addition to the basic $/point economics. This is ultimately an exhausting way to buy a timeshare though. In contract, dealing with MVC was a dream. There was no competition, no infighting, they all talk to each other work together as a team (even between local and corporate teams).

3) Lying HGVC Sales Team. We have had three situations where the HGVC sales person has lied to us, or promised things that never happened after closing. The latest example (which may have been our final straw when combined with the great experience we had buying from MVC) is instructive. As part of a complex deal we traded a 3 bedroom premier unit at Sunrise for the new Barbados property (plus cash from us). One of the drivers to this deal for us was that our bastard child - a Grand Pacific Palisades 3 bedroom that we bought not realizing that it could not be registered with HGVC - would be brought into HGVC ownership. This was not just a passing promise, we had it in writing and reconfirmed several times. Of course, it never happened and the Grand Pacific local sales team (see points 1 & 2 above also) say no one ever talked to them and they refused to move our GPP unit into HGVC ownership. Ultimately, though, no one at HGVC cares enough to fix the issue (or they can’t because of the balkanization issue). In comparison, we dealt with at least 4 different MVC reps including local and corporate.. surprisingly they all worked together as a team, there was no fight for commission visible to us, and they all worked hard to get our deal closed AND to fulfill promises made AFTER closing.

4) Limits on (Legal) Rentals Kill Big Ownership Economics. According to HGVC rules, you may only rent your home week (you are not legally permitted to rent a Club point reservation that is not a home week). You also cannot “rent” HGVC points, even to another HGVC owner. Other options for using excess points are extremely unattractive financially. This all means that I have to plan carefully a year in advance for points I need, then reserve home weeks at the properties I will rent... then post on VRBO (which has been increasingly taking more and more of the rental fees), find a renter for my home week, and deal with each week rental. In a few cases (Anderson Club, Sunset Lodge, Eagle’s Nest) we have consistently seen rentals easily made above maintenance fees. But, it is a huge hassle and other properties (Kona, Orlando, Vegas, Barbados) are difficult to impossible to rent above maintenance fees. And without any option to rent points, unused points end up as Hilton HHonors points that have very limited use (HHonors has become one of the least valuable points systems over the past few years, and even at 25:1 transfer ratio it is better to spend cash than points). In comparison, I was able to “rent” over 24,000 MVC 2020 points that we can’t use for about $15K. It took me 3 days from posting to completing the transfer with MVC and paid my maintenance fees for 2020 plus a good return on invested capital.

5) Geographic concentration of inventory. HGVC is heavily concentrated in Orlando, Vegas, the Big Island of Hawaii, and Honolulu. A few other choices with limited inventory (Sunset Lodge, Barbados) and the Hilton Club properties round out the offerings. No Caribbean offerings of any import (as discussed above and in my other post, Barbados is a bad joke). While MVC also has a massive amount of inventory in Orlando, it also has a much much wider spread of offerings across the for example: Hawaii (including Maui and Kauai), multiple Florida locations like Ft Lauderdale not covered by HGVC, Arizona, Boston, St. Thomas, St Kitts, etc. etc.

6) Instability due to IPO. The spin out of HGVC from the larger Hilton organization had exactly the effect I feared - disastrous. They are now fending off offers from private equity that would clearly milk existing owners until the whole thing collapses. Financial performance has not been on par with Wall Street expectations. It all points to a very uncertain future, without the backing of Hilton.

Where do you rent your unused MVC DPs?
 

JBLKY

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I am at the HGVC Elite plus level and own two weeks with MVCI. We have been with HGVC since 2001 and MCVI since 2011. Both systems have their advantages and disadvantages. The advantage of being in both systems is greater flexibility and exchange power than either system offers by itself. Participating in both RCI and II has also given us more options.

We have stayed at The Crane via an RCI exchange and had excellent service despite a hurricane. This was prior to the establishment of HGVC at The Crane. I would like to know why the OP considers the Barbados property a joke. We anticipate trips to the HGVC properties at Myrtle Beach and a Hilton Head in the near future. A new HGVC resort is currently under construction in Los Cabos and Maui. So, it seems that HGVC is making a concerted effort to expand its internal options.

We will spend 5 days in a Rome at The Hilton Cavalieri using HHONORS followed by a nine day Greek Island Cruise using HGVC points later this year. We will have two timeshare exchanges prior to that via MCVI and II. Not a bad way to start my retirement.
By any chance, are you on the Explorer of the Seas departing on August 30th?
 

pianodinosaur

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