My takeaway as a new timesharer just back from my second week is - if you want a nice apartment away from home and don't massively care about resort amenities, then HGVC and their RCI portal works really well IMO like a Sam's Club membership for vacations. You pay a bit for the HGVC retail and I guess MFs are inversely related to purchase price and availability, but at least for me, the payback time on immediate purchase not taking any other things like time/value of money, inflation etc into account was still over 7 years to go from "high MF" but easily available for resale purchase to "low MF" but harder to find and double the upfront cost. Of course, this is all subject to change.
I generally have liked the deals available as extra vacations on RCI via HGVC, something like $600 for a week in a lot of cases in shoulder seasons (i.e. like my last trip to Smuggs) in a 2BR. I'm usually interested in going places to see the places, so aside from if I can use the kitchen, can sleep in the beds, and if there's a hot tub - I don't care much about the resort itself. I'd say much of RCI is a step below HGVC - but I won't *know* that till April of 2024 when I finally manage to get to an HGVC location.
More generally, people on TUG seem to suggest getting non-affiliated "traders" and JUST use RCI or II. I guess I'm still a little shy about that, figuring a bigger system internally means less chance of totally screwed up management or special assessments etc.
However, it seems like you're really interested in luxury, which means the RCI trades are probably right out, if you found a HGVC lacking. However, I still think buying can make sense, but make sure you do buy into an upscale system or the specific place you want to go. I would bet that the math still probably works out vs multiple hotel rooms if you're comparing upscale hotels to upscale time shares.
The one thing is - from all I've found, timeshares work best if you're thinking I want to go *somewhere*, let's see what's available cheap and go there. And if you can plan 10 months out or so. I.e. the more flexible you are, the easier it would be to rent, do extra vacations, and grab those last minute deals. If you *need* to go place X on date Y, you need to plan ahead and vie for inventory potentially at midnight X months out (Usually around 10, but varies by system), or you need to own that place and date in a fixed week sort of thing, or looking for rentals and hotels is going to be best, but cost more.
I however really don't want to go back to hotels unless I have to (usually in cities) now that I've stayed 2 times in a mid level timeshare.Because not only can those hotels cost $600 a night per room, but you often can't bring home leftovers due to tiny fridge or no fridge, and often no microwave - forget about cooking in the suite, which if you're going out for every meal is A LOT post covid.
