I just received email that my four weeks 2 bedroom garden view in Hilton Hawaii village for end of January to February 2020 free upgraded to ocean view. All three. When I arrived, their is a free limo waiting for me. I enjoy being treated as vip. I can do All my transactions without worrying paying fees. I can request unlimited specific unit I want. We got Hilton diamond status and and Hilton hotel free upgrades too. We retired for a few years and travel more than half of the year. I can never stay vacationing around the world for so long and pay for hotel that can match a fraction of what I paid for maintenance fee. The feeling of satisfaction is priceless. Again it is personal opinion.
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I'm glad to see you're getting value out of it and living a dream retirement!
I can see how these would be attractive benefits for the free upgrades - is this a consistent benefit (i.e., can also get during summer peak season) or is it somewhat sporadic? I can see how that would add value if you spend a lot of time at HGVC as it is effectively a discount on the number of points required to book. Fee waivers are nice as well as being able to request specific unit. The limo is kind of a "meh" for me, max benefit here would be $150 one way if I book directly with the hotel - as or resort for pickup (although I usually rent a vehicle as we like to explore). Hotel Diamond status is worth something - $450/year to be exact if I were to get the Aspire credit card. I haven't found it worthwhile and as a Hilton Gold I can usually just pay an extra $40-50 and get an upgraded hotel room if desired - I'll usually get an upgrade and my two free bottles of water with my lowly status.
If you were able to get this elite status many years ago it could be obtained a fair bit cheaper than at current pricing. I do really like the HGVC timeshares and program - I think our next purchase will be HGVC - but that will be a resale unit (unsure as to location yet or whether I want to go "big" with large Hawaii contract or a smaller LV contract).
I think all of those are great (except for the limo, that’s just a little too much attention on me for my tastes). On the flip side, I don’t even want to know how much it would cost to get that status if bought through HGVC. Just a 7000 point platinum bought from a developer would be way more than what we would pay.
It’s all personal preference, but the cost to go elite is just ridiculous to me.
I just did a presentation on a stay promo in LV where they offered us a 14,400 point unit at the Grand Islander for the low price of $130,000. That would get us to the lowest elite levels. Our alternative offer was an 8,400 point week for $69,000 so you can extrapolate what the cost would be to get to 34,000 points developer. Even if I could navigate the developed vs. affiliate resort quagmire, find the right resales to trade-in and get credit for the original trade-in purchase price, I have a feeling it would cost an incremental of $90k to get those 34,000 points. $90k buys a lot of years of booking fees, Aspire credit card fees, limo rides and daily newspapers.
and maybe receive preferential treatment from those who want to maintain a favorable relationship with Grand Vacations Realty 
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