My wife upgraded to HGV Max a year ago while in St Maarten. Since then, we cobbled together using points accumulated during COVID to take a 4+ week trip to the Canary Islands Santa Barbara Club (Tenerife), Spain Los Amigos (w of Malaga), and France Les Mougins (near Cannes) properties last fall. Meanwhile, we have compared notes with my cousin who with his wife have been to the Catalani Italy and the Paris properties in the past couple of years. We plan to book the Catalani property soon, as we can combine with Expedia to be there during that hilltop village's annual fall festival in October over a two-week period.
Re the Canary Islands, Malaga and Les Mougins properties, all were nicely appointed for stays with included kitchen facilities. All were a good 1/2 hour by vehicle away from the main tourist areas, though Les Mougins property is a 5-minute taxi from a gorgeous classic French hilltop village with classy restaurants. With car rental, we exhaustively covered the whole French Riviera from Marseille/Avignon to Monte Carlo within 10 days--tip--do NOT accept a forced rental upgrade to an SUV when they have run out of small cars--tip 2--the compensating factor was GPS inclusion--a must in that part of the world. Paris we are told is also a ways out from downtown Paris. Catalani is smack in the middle of a great-looking village and my cousin raved about the location, and its proximity to other places like Assisi, reachable by car on day outings.
Overall, your points go a lot further at these places, and we have enjoyed every stop along the way so far.
