Advice on Hyatt Exit

[Carmel23]

I have just joined this forum and looking for advice on Hyatt Exit and Rental options.

I have two contracts at Hyatt Residence Club
1) HRC deeded legacy program 1 bedroom @ Highlands Inn, fixed week 9, annual usage (2000 points)
Owned for 8 years but the maintenance fees have increased year over year and latest at ~$2,300

2) In 2020, right before the Covid lockdown I went to an owners presentation and took the Portfolio Program option with 660 points.
Reading the forums, this was a huge mistake and I now have ~$900 annual maintenance fees on top of my already high ownership fees for Highlands Inn

I contacted Hyatt and they have offered a direct deed back, at no cost.
I am thinking the best thing to do is relinquish ownership of the Portfolio Program back to Hyatt so I no longer have maintenance fees and then either rent/sell the Highlands Inn.

Anyone had experience of the Hyatt buyback program? Any thoughts are greatly appreciated!

 

[Kal]

Is Hyatt offering a "deed back" of the Carmel unit? You don't own a deed for Portfolio Points as there is no property to deed. If they are letting you out of Portfolio at no cost, I would immediately go for it. For Carmel, you can sell it on the resale market and probably do well. There is no reason to just give it back to Hyatt when you can sell it.

 

[Carmel23]

Is Hyatt offering a "deed back" of the Carmel unit? You don't own a deed for Portfolio Points as there is no property to deed. If they are letting you out of Portfolio at no cost, I would immediately go for it. For Carmel, you can sell it on the resale market and probably do well. There is no reason to just give it back to Hyatt when you can sell it.

Thank you for your advice!

 

[mjm1]

I have just joined this forum and looking for advice on Hyatt Exit and Rental options.

I have two contracts at Hyatt Residence Club
1) HRC deeded legacy program 1 bedroom @ Highlands Inn, fixed week 9, annual usage (2000 points)
Owned for 8 years but the maintenance fees have increased year over year and latest at ~$2,300

2) In 2020, right before the Covid lockdown I went to an owners presentation and took the Portfolio Program option with 660 points.
Reading the forums, this was a huge mistake and I now have ~$900 annual maintenance fees on top of my already high ownership fees for Highlands Inn

I contacted Hyatt and they have offered a direct deed back, at no cost.
I am thinking the best thing to do is relinquish ownership of the Portfolio Program back to Hyatt so I no longer have maintenance fees and then either rent/sell the Highlands Inn.

Anyone had experience of the Hyatt buyback program? Any thoughts are greatly appreciated!

I agree that you should be able to sell the Carmel unit. If you want to handle the sale yourself you can list it in the Marketplace here on TUG as well as redweek.com. If you don’t want to handle the details you can use a broker to help you. I would recommend Bill Gabrielli. He is a former HRC sales rep and had run his own brokerage for years. His number is 775-690-2653. He lives in the Reno, NV area. We have purchased a few units through him.

Best regards.

Mike

 

[ScoopKona]

It's a shame my Key West maintenance fees aren't all that much lower than Carmel.

I'd gladly swap my week for your Carmel week. I plan on going to California for "post coffee harvest vacation" every year. I'll never go to Key West again -- I live "tropical paradise" year 'round. If for some reason you have a burning desire to own a December week in the nicest unit at the Beach House, get in touch.

 

[hcarman]

I have just joined this forum and looking for advice on Hyatt Exit and Rental options.

I have two contracts at Hyatt Residence Club
1) HRC deeded legacy program 1 bedroom @ Highlands Inn, fixed week 9, annual usage (2000 points)
Owned for 8 years but the maintenance fees have increased year over year and latest at ~$2,30052

2) In 2020, right before the Covid lockdown I went to an owners presentation and took the Portfolio Program option with 660 points.
Reading the forums, this was a huge mistake and I now have ~$900 annual maintenance fees on top of my already high ownership fees for Highlands Inn

I contacted Hyatt and they have offered a direct deed back, at no cost.
I am thinking the best thing to do is relinquish ownership of the Portfolio Program back to Hyatt so I no longer have maintenance fees and then either rent/sell the Highlands Inn.

Anyone had experience of the Hyatt buyback program? Any thoughts are greatly appreciated!

Wow - you are in the exact same situation as us. We also own a week at Hyatt Carmel - week 52. And a few years back we too were talked into the Portfolio Program at 660 points. The program was very new at the time and we have learned so many reasons why it is a terrible deal for us. Since we own week 52, we basically have to decide two years out whether we want to put our legacy week into the Portfolio program - and this means paying double the maintenance fees. This will never happen at $2500 for the annual fees now. Also, we were told we could book further out since we would have status - this is only true if we put our legacy week into Portfolio. Recently we learned that with the 660 points we can only book 6 months out - they referred to the 660 points as some inferior program. We have tried to get rid of it but they always offer stupid solutions like taking our Carmel week and converting it to Portfolio points so we are all Portfolio. Not going to happen since the legacy week still has value. I understand the Portfolio Points don't. We may need to consider what you are doing even though it is a tremendous waste of money giving it back. I assume you have Portfolio paid in full and that is why they are willing to take it back? Initially we still owed on it so they wouldn't even consider that. We own Marriott as well and the Destination Program is way superior to Portfolio - so many flaws with Portfolio. I actually feel pretty stupid about the whole thing because I am pretty good at doing my research but there wasn't much on this program at the time - and I believed it was like Marriott's program - not even close. Good luck on your decision. If you wouldn't mind posting about how the deed back experience was - I am sure there would be many owners interested in hearing about your experience.

 

[rdc]

Hi all, I have two Hyatt contracts 1) Windward Pointe Week 22 and 2) Coconut Plantation Week 41. Our vacation choices have moderated over the years, and I have found trades with II becoming a bit more challenging to obtain locations where we are interested in and am considering exiting. In looking on Redweek I see listings for both resorts with a wide range of pricing but doesn't appear to have any "sold" activity. I have not reached out to Hyatt to inquire about the "buyback" program, but just curious if anyone knows if these locations are not in popular demand anymore. Just considering what options might be available, ie list sale but might take time, along with TUG marketplace and Redweek other areas to list, etc. Constructive comments, suggestions are most welcomed - thanks.

 

[AJCts411]

Try listing for sale here on tug, redweek or use an agent. I think both weeks have some value. Until you sell rent them out, you should be able to more than cover your maintenance fees.

 

[rdc]

Thank you for your advice, much appreciated.

 

[GTLINZ]

You also can get a feel by searching Ebay listings. Make sure to look at "completed". You may not find exact matches and you may need to isolate a questionable seller - but it does not hurt to look.

I also think you will get reasonable information if you post another thread in this forum on the value of each. A lot of tuggers have a good feel if they own there.

As for my opinion - Windward point week 22 is gold season and would be disirable. Coconut Plantation week 41 is bronze season and years ago you would have had to give it away but with current demand you could likely get something for it (but I would not think much).

 

[rdc]

Thanks GT. Funny about week 41, but I get it. Aside from the hurricane threats during that part of the year, I have always found October as a comfortable month to "extend" summer a bit more. Thanks again for your suggestion and info.

 

[SteveinHNL]

I don't think the issue with bronze relates very much to whether the resort is nice at the time of year, but to the fact that a bronze week only gets 1300 points annually but pays the same maintenance fees as a diamond week that gets 2200 points per year. If an owner's only intention is to stay in their owned unit in the owned week, I suppose there is not much difference other than resale value, but if an owner ever wants to trade into another week in another HRC resort, they are quite limited by the number of points they have to play with.

 

[rdc]

ahh, right. Understood...

 

[ScoopKona]

ahh, right. Understood...

Adding to this, conventional wisdom is "don't buy a timeshare just to trade it." But there are a lot of Hyatt owners who do precisely that. (Not Carmel, skiers or Maui owners, usually. But many properties have very high rates of owners using points, not their week.)

1300 points is the minimum useful week -- good for at least a 2 bdrm anywhere in Interval. A 2200 point week can trade for at least a couple weeks each year. And depending on the owner, up to eight (!) studio weeks in a year. (Probably has never happened -- 8 low-season Interval studio weeks in a year. But it is theoretically possible.)

 

[worldtraveler903]

I did the direct deed back to Hyatt for my portfolio program points and it was the best decision of my life (buying the portfolio program points being the worst decision of my life). At the time they were charging all sorts of fees (that were never disclosed prior to my purchasing the points). It was such a new program and such a scam that at each subsequent Hyatt timeshare presentation I attended I was explaining to their Hyatt Resident agents what the portfolio program did and did not include (they were clueless). At the time it required a cleaning fee. Later I found out in order to pool the HRC and HPP points together, I had to pay a transfer fee to use them. Then there was the annual membership club fee. Then there was the annual maintenance fee. Then only a few Hyatt locations could use the HPP points to book. Initially I wanted to combine the HRC and HPP points to book the Maui location. Later I found out Maui wasn't even part of HPP. Ridiculous. Anyways, I think the rules have changed. Hyatt does whatever they want with the HPP. Thats why I got rid of HPP and kept my HRC. Deed back was easy and free. I emailed the address listed here: https://www.hyattresidenceclub.com/exit. Then they email you an offer on which deed you'd like to sell back to Hyatt. I had 7 business days to reply back to confirm which deed I wanted to give back. Then they email back some documents for me to sign (must be notarized) and I had to mail back the documents with a pre-paid FedEX label within 14 business days. They offered Remote Online Notarization for an additional fee of $75 if you didn't want to leave your home to see a notary. Good luck!

 

[Kal]

I did the direct deed back to Hyatt for my portfolio program points and it was the best decision of my life (buying the portfolio program points being the worst decision of my life). At the time they were charging all sorts of fees (that were never disclosed prior to my purchasing the points). It was such a new program and such a scam that at each subsequent Hyatt timeshare presentation I attended I was explaining to their Hyatt Resident agents what the portfolio program did and did not include (they were clueless). At the time it required a cleaning fee. Later I found out in order to pool the HRC and HPP points together, I had to pay a transfer fee to use them. Then there was the annual membership club fee. Then there was the annual maintenance fee. Then only a few Hyatt locations could use the HPP points to book. Initially I wanted to combine the HRC and HPP points to book the Maui location. Later I found out Maui wasn't even part of HPP. Ridiculous. Anyways, I think the rules have changed. Hyatt does whatever they want with the HPP. Thats why I got rid of HPP and kept my HRC. Deed back was easy and free. I emailed the address listed here: https://www.hyattresidenceclub.com/exit. Then they email you an offer on which deed you'd like to sell back to Hyatt. I had 7 business days to reply back to confirm which deed I wanted to give back. Then they email back some documents for me to sign (must be notarized) and I had to mail back the documents with a pre-paid FedEX label within 14 business days. They offered Remote Online Notarization for an additional fee of $75 if you didn't want to leave your home to see a notary. Good luck!

How many points did you deed back? What was their compensation for thos points?

 

[AJCts411]

FAQ's...why does it take 120 days? Due to the high volume of portfolio points returns?

 

[worldtraveler903]

How many points did you deed back? What was their compensation for thos points?

I think I deeded back 880? I can't remember. I got ZERO compensation.

 

[hcarman]

I did the direct deed back to Hyatt for my portfolio program points and it was the best decision of my life (buying the portfolio program points being the worst decision of my life). At the time they were charging all sorts of fees (that were never disclosed prior to my purchasing the points). It was such a new program and such a scam that at each subsequent Hyatt timeshare presentation I attended I was explaining to their Hyatt Resident agents what the portfolio program did and did not include (they were clueless). At the time it required a cleaning fee. Later I found out in order to pool the HRC and HPP points together, I had to pay a transfer fee to use them. Then there was the annual membership club fee. Then there was the annual maintenance fee. Then only a few Hyatt locations could use the HPP points to book. Initially I wanted to combine the HRC and HPP points to book the Maui location. Later I found out Maui wasn't even part of HPP. Ridiculous. Anyways, I think the rules have changed. Hyatt does whatever they want with the HPP. Thats why I got rid of HPP and kept my HRC. Deed back was easy and free. I emailed the address listed here: https://www.hyattresidenceclub.com/exit. Then they email you an offer on which deed you'd like to sell back to Hyatt. I had 7 business days to reply back to confirm which deed I wanted to give back. Then they email back some documents for me to sign (must be notarized) and I had to mail back the documents with a pre-paid FedEX label within 14 business days. They offered Remote Online Notarization for an additional fee of $75 if you didn't want to leave your home to see a notary. Good luck!

I know this is an old post but just seeing it. We may need to look into the same thing you did - though I think it is crazy they give you absolutely nothing for the points in this program that they claim is so wonderful. I agree 100% that the sales people have been very clueless about the program. We even had the sales manager admit that at the time they sold the points to us they didn't know some of the things they now know - but they wouldn't budge on taking it back as we still owed on it. Their solution was to sell us more points or take our Carmel week in exchange for points and another $16,000. No chance. For us, we owned week 52 and were having to make a decision whether to convert to Portfolio points 1 year and 9 months out. But the icing on the cake was when they told us we would have to pay double the maintenance fee (pay it a year in advance). They told us we would have a premier level with our legacy week points and the portfolio points - but that we learned was only on years we converted our legacy week into destination club points. And then there were housekeeping fees. The portfolio program has nowhere near the flexibility of the Marriott Destination Club program and Hyatt has a fee for everything - as you mention above. A fee for housekeeping, a fee to transfer points to Hyatt Hotels points, a fee for guest certificates, etc. In my opinion, Hyatt should be a bit embarrassed of this product.

 

[ScoopKona]

In my opinion, Hyatt should be a bit embarrassed of this product.

Since Hyatt is now owned by Marriott, Marriott took what they learned about selling the same units over and over and applied it to Hyatt. They will continue to push the envelope and see just how much people will put up with before ditching the very concept of timeshares.

 

[AJCts411]

It is unfortunate that deed owners at a resort would unlikely vote for a special assessment of say $100.00 to be used to buy back unwanted/distressed weeks at a fair/reasonable value to be resold as weeks only (not to MVC portfolio). At a small resort like Sunset that's about 200,000! Yes there will be a small budget increase to cover the maintenance fees, but think about it, MCV portfolio would have to fund this special assessment and a pay maintenance increases as well! Dreaming on, the HRC deed weeks would increase in market value since finally there is a fair mechanistic to "sell" your owned week, a REAL way out! And yes I know... MVC lawyers.

 

[Maryfella]

Hello WorldTravler 903 and others. I'm new here and learning so much. We bought into the Hyatt Portfolio Program last March at Pinion Point after a misleading presentation, thinking we were buying a pool of points that would help to lower our maintenance fees at HRC Maui (which we bought 2013). Thought we were sort of prepaying maintenance fees and getting a pool of points in exchange... for $23,000. I still can't believe we were so conned. We were buying points, but we had to sign 23 pages of legalese with a notary. Should have been a clue...duh! We were totally shocked in October when we recieved an invoice for $1700. for fees. We paid it thinking it was for Maui and wow... the fees did go down a bit! When we got to Maui in November and mentioned this at an owners update, they were astounded. No, no... what you bought was more "deeded" points and nothing applied to Maui. That was maintenance fees on the new points (pieces of unsold resorts at other locations) we had bought. In Maui, they said we should write to someone in Florida office about this... as it really was misleading (and so confusing, why would we have done that??) So back to you, WorldTravler903... can we get out of this? We have not used any of the points (hundreds!) they gave us. Can we deed this back to them?

 

[boraxo]

Wow - you are in the exact same situation as us. We also own a week at Hyatt Carmel - week 52. And a few years back we too were talked into the Portfolio Program at 660 points. The program was very new at the time and we have learned so many reasons why it is a terrible deal for us. Since we own week 52, we basically have to decide two years out whether we want to put our legacy week into the Portfolio program - and this means paying double the maintenance fees. This will never happen at $2500 for the annual fees now. Also, we were told we could book further out since we would have status - this is only true if we put our legacy week into Portfolio. Recently we learned that with the 660 points we can only book 6 months out - they referred to the 660 points as some inferior program. We have tried to get rid of it but they always offer stupid solutions like taking our Carmel week and converting it to Portfolio points so we are all Portfolio. Not going to happen since the legacy week still has value. I understand the Portfolio Points don't. We may need to consider what you are doing even though it is a tremendous waste of money giving it back. I assume you have Portfolio paid in full and that is why they are willing to take it back? Initially we still owed on it so they wouldn't even consider that. We own Marriott as well and the Destination Program is way superior to Portfolio - so many flaws with Portfolio. I actually feel pretty stupid about the whole thing because I am pretty good at doing my research but there wasn't much on this program at the time - and I believed it was like Marriott's program - not even close. Good luck on your decision. If you wouldn't mind posting about how the deed back experience was - I am sure there would be many owners interested in hearing about your experience.

I would like to know why you find Marriott superior. I have an option to purchase some Marriott weeks and would like to understand how the programs compare. Specifically I prefer to do partial weeks and my understanding is that is difficult at Marriott. Also I understand all Marriott trades must go through II which I despise.