Best Strategy buying HGVC?

[Clearwolf60]

Hey All:

I just rescinded a 9280 pt deed at Lagoon Tower 32k w/ 2394.00 MF per year (2 bedroom Gold). They gave me a bonus of 28k, but I felt it was too much especially having to pay the Max club dues that we will most likely never use any of the former Diamond properties. Can the gang respond with this particular TS, Was it worth it? Desirable?

Now that I've found resale, we want to get 14-18k pts annually and use them across the HGVC portfolio. My question is how do I go about strategizing. I've seen many smaller deeds, but how does the MF's work if you buy several of them? I understand the MF's vary by location and are also based on size of the room your deed is for. I don't want 1-2k in MF's for each Deed.

I love Wikiki Beach, but I don't see us going every year, so to pay MF's out there after thinking about it didn't make sense. I'd like to pay lower MF's for the points we want, since a point is a point.

Do we just purchase a larger TS out of the gate? or we do decide to get 2, do we benefit buying at the same location from a MF perspective?

Thanks for all the help in advance.

 

[Janann]

Congratulations on rescinding! You saved a ton of money.

@TUGBrian Maybe this post would be better in the HGVC forum?

 

[TUGBrian]

yee haw! 32,000 bucks back in your pocket and the knowledge of resale?

you are going to have some AMAZING "free" vacations in the next few years! Welcome to TUG!

 

[HuskerATL]

It just depends. You can get a larger point deed but those tend to have higher purchase prices. Look at the MF sticky to get an idea of MFs. You can get two low price resale that have low MFs and it may be lower than one larger point deed so you need to look through the MF sticky to get an idea and then compare to what is for sell in the TUG marketplace, eBay, directly from a resort like Craig Lodges, redweek, or something else.

 

[BingoBangoBongo]

Great decision on the rescission. A point is a point, so depending on how long you expect to use the TS you would likely look at a low cost of acquisition slightly higher MF/pt or a higher acquisition cost low MF/pt. Some of the best low MF deeds are in Las Vegas, but there are some outliers out there that have a decent amount of points with low MF's. You should look through the MF spreadsheet that @GT75 put together. From a personal perspective, it seems like it's pretty easy to burn through points. I started in late 2020 with an EOY Kings Land deed that now has 20,160 points (outlier 1BR Premier with a current MF of just under $1600/yr) thinking that would be enough and quickly realized we could easily burn through more. With the four deeds (three of which are EOY) I now own I have an average of almost 32,000 points per year and currently find myself using 2025 points for 2024 reservations. Keep in mind that you can be a borrower from a future year to make a reservation for free, but it costs $ to save points to a future year. I'm actually considering a fifth deed, but I'm not sure my wife wants to hear that atm. We are both still working, but I can see that when we are fully retired that we could use more than we have now.

Read through as many threads as you can and focus on the points made that you think are applicable to your situation.

 

[letsgobobby]

Hey All:

I just rescinded a 9280 pt deed at Lagoon Tower 32k w/ 2394.00 MF per year (2 bedroom Gold). They gave me a bonus of 28k, but I felt it was too much especially having to pay the Max club dues that we will most likely never use any of the former Diamond properties. Can the gang respond with this particular TS, Was it worth it? Desirable?

Now that I've found resale, we want to get 14-18k pts annually and use them across the HGVC portfolio. My question is how do I go about strategizing. I've seen many smaller deeds, but how does the MF's work if you buy several of them? I understand the MF's vary by location and are also based on size of the room your deed is for. I don't want 1-2k in MF's for each Deed.

I love Wikiki Beach, but I don't see us going every year, so to pay MF's out there after thinking about it didn't make sense. I'd like to pay lower MF's for the points we want, since a point is a point.

Do we just purchase a larger TS out of the gate? or we do decide to get 2, do we benefit buying at the same location from a MF perspective?

Thanks for all the help in advance.

congratulations on rescinding!

We bought 2 Br plus Lagoon platinum 13,440 annual for $8000 resale. So your deal was horrendous. If you want Lagoon as your home resort buy resale platinum and pay 1/5 retail.

 

[HuskerATL]

When you compare costs here are some examples to think about:
Our Tuscany Village is 8,000 pts and the 2023 MFs were $1,365
Our Blvd is 16,000 and were $1,982.
Our Craig Lodges are 7,680 and were $692.

As you can see, I can double our Craig Lodges by buying 2 and end up with 15,360 pts (each cost us about $2k to buy to begin with) and the MFs are about $1,384.

No benefit of having more at a specific location unless there is a specific week(s) at a specific location that you want to be at. I guess you would just get one MF bill versus more if you own in different locations but you pay the same. You pay the club fee just once so that doesn't matter. We have 7 at Craig Lodges and it is just one bill that we pay.

 

[GT75]

Our Craig Lodges are 7,680 and were $692.

Full disclosure. The Craigendarroch MFs are also affected by the British pound to USD exchange rate.

 

[HuskerATL]

Full disclosure. The Craigendarroch MFs are also affected by the British pound to USD exchange rate.

Very true

 

[TheDude]

I'm relatively new to HGVC and ended up buying a 11,200 annual 1 bedroom at the Elara and a 8,000 EOY 2 bedroom at the Boulevard. Pre-closing cost for both was around $6,000. I probably could have done better if I shopped around a bit more, but it wasn't worth the effort. I think a similar strategy would get you the 14-18K annual points you are looking for. I like the added flexibility of having an EOY. Good luck.

 

[tombanjo]

my few cents on the matter.
1) Platinum, not gold nor silver or yet never the lowly bronze.
2) Consider Two, One where you think you would like to use most, and one strictly for the low cost points
3) Owning a desirable location has the advantage of having a good booking window ahead of all the low budget punters.
4) You can always buy more. No need to max out at first. Sure, if you see a unicorn Hawaii penthouse for $1, you can always sell it if it is too much for with little downside.
5) If you have school age children or want to ski, realize the demand is high for specific places and seasons, and consider owning there for that season. It costs more, but if it gets your in at the times you need it is worth it.

 

[brp]

my few cents on the matter.
1) Platinum, not gold nor silver or yet never the lowly bronze.

I generally agree with this, but did recently buy a Gold. The price was so low that it would be about 20 years before the MF differential caught up with the likely price difference to a Platinum (of course, a more detailed search can get some good Platinum pricing). But Gold can be worth it in some cases. I'd not suggest going lower, though.

Cheers.

 

[HuskerATL]

I generally agree with this, but did recently buy a Gold. The price was so low that it would be about 20 years before the MF differential caught up with the likely price difference to a Platinum (of course, a more detailed search can get some good Platinum pricing). But Gold can be worth it in some cases. I'd not suggest going lower, though.

Cheers.

Just to add, some people like the gold season because it hits a week that they would like to use at the property....like Ocean Oak before or after the summer platinum season.

 

[elaine]

3) Owning a desirable location has the advantage of having a good booking window ahead of all the low budget punters.

for example, I pay more in annual fees to have Marco island, where I plan to go at least EOY.

 

[ernststarhemberg]

Just to add, some people like the gold season because it hits a week that they would like to use at the property....like Ocean Oak before or after the summer platinum season.

Agreed. Specific resorts that we prefer to visit in the off-season (e.g. Ocean Oak) may be worth a Gold deed. I like Ocean Oak in January/February, but it still isn't easy to get an oceanfront room even then, so a Gold deed to lock in a 12 month booking window may be worth it!

For resale pointsmaxing, and to preserve resale value, I'd aim for 1BR annual platinum deeds at desirable locations.

As others have said if you know you want to ski or surf, better to find deeds at resorts in those specific locations in order to have a home week booking advantage. If you don't have any particular interests in those areas, get the most points for the least MFs and enjoy the system. HGVC long term seems to be a good one to invest in, I see the hotel-affiliated timeshare programs outlasting and eventually consuming the rest.

 

[FilthyForever]

Another reason I like owning gold deeds is i end up with no wasted points. I use HGVC to travel to Hawaii at least once per year and exclusively during the gold season weeks in May/June and Sept/Oct. My gold points are perfectly divisible by the cost of a night during any week in that timeframe, so I never have leftover points.

 

[brp]

Another reason I like owning gold deeds is i end up with no wasted points. I use HGVC to travel to Hawaii at least once per year and exclusively during the gold season weeks in May/June and Sept/Oct. My gold points are perfectly divisible by the cost of a night during any week in that timeframe, so I never have leftover points.

But this only really works consistently if one goes for a whole week (whether booked during Home Week or not). Many don't in which case this might not work. For example. we own in Vegas (a mix of Platinum and Gold), but we would never go there for a week. And we more typically use our points in Hawaii for various lengths. In this case, owning the Gold has no real advantages except for sometimes having a substantially lower buy-in.

Cheers.

 

[dayooper]

Another reason I like owning gold deeds is i end up with no wasted points. I use HGVC to travel to Hawaii at least once per year and exclusively during the gold season weeks in May/June and Sept/Oct. My gold points are perfectly divisible by the cost of a night during any week in that timeframe, so I never have leftover points.

Wasted points…For us that’s funny. We’ve already used 1/4 of our 2024 points for 2023 trip and we used almost half of our 2023 points on 2022 trips.

 

[ernststarhemberg]

Yeah I almost never do full week trips. Usually do Sunday to Friday if I can help it. Saves a ton of points (and crowds) avoiding weekend stays. And five days is usually plenty for CONUS trips. We can always go back!

 

[brp]

Yeah I almost never do full week trips. Usually do Sunday to Friday if I can help it. Saves a ton of points (and crowds) avoiding weekend stays. And five days is usually plenty for CONUS trips. We can always go back!

When we do full week (or longer) trips, it's not where we own, so Home Week doesn't help anyway

Cheers.

 

[HuskerATL]

When we do full week (or longer) trips, it's not where we own, so Home Week doesn't help anyway

Cheers.

Even when we stay a full week where we own, we haven't used HW.

 

[FilthyForever]

But this only really works consistently if one goes for a whole week (whether booked during Home Week or not). Many don't in which case this might not work. For example. we own in Vegas (a mix of Platinum and Gold), but we would never go there for a week. And we more typically use our points in Hawaii for various lengths. In this case, owning the Gold has no real advantages except for sometimes having a substantially lower buy-in.

Cheers.

I should clarify that I don't book full weeks. I typically do Monday through the following Friday (11 nights) broken into 2 reservations. My point is to have your entire bucket of points perfectly divisible by the points per night cost of the unit/season you tend to book. Taking a 2-bedroom plus platinum deed worth 13,440 annual points as an example and booking a 2-bedroom plus in the gold season at 928/1,856 per night, you'll have 448 points leftover that will need to be borrowed/rescued/deposited/converted (you can book up to 14 weeknights or a full week plus 4 weeknights). My goal is to not have those 448 points go to anything other than a night at HGVC.

 

[brp]

I should clarify that I don't book full weeks. I typically do Monday through the following Friday (11 nights) broken into 2 reservations. My point is to have your entire bucket of points perfectly divisible by the points per night cost of the unit/season you tend to book.

I see. We book different things at different times, so we couldn't make this work. But it's always possible to save or, better yet, borrow even if things are not neatly divisible.

For 2024, for example. we've already used almost 20K or our 23K regular HGVC points on one 2-week reservation. We'll probably use another 15 K or so at some point and just borrow from 2025. Eventually we'll catch up with ourselves going forward.

Cheers.

 

[rc51]

As someone newly interested in all of this and working out how to maximize the system, I really appreciate this thread a lot. Also, I wish so much that points didn't expire; vacations shouldn't need so much strategy!

 

[HuskerATL]

I should clarify that I don't book full weeks. I typically do Monday through the following Friday (11 nights) broken into 2 reservations. My point is to have your entire bucket of points perfectly divisible by the points per night cost of the unit/season you tend to book. Taking a 2-bedroom plus platinum deed worth 13,440 annual points as an example and booking a 2-bedroom plus in the gold season at 928/1,856 per night, you'll have 448 points leftover that will need to be borrowed/rescued/deposited/converted (you can book up to 14 weeknights or a full week plus 4 weeknights). My goal is to not have those 448 points go to anything other than a night at HGVC.

The best way to not have left over points is to always be borrowing. We are booking 2024 right now with 2025 points.