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Buying into Elara 2BR

brp

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For LV, Orlando and the more "common" places, that is most likely true. Where a HGV ownership can really make a huge difference in your lodging costs are some of the more "uncommon" places, such as ski location during peak ski season (Breckenridge or Park City) or ocean front units in Hawaii, South Carolina and SW Florida. If you use those locations, owning can save you a significant amount over renting.

Kurt

It's also worth taking into account what you get with ownership versus rental. It is usually possible to rent for less, but the accommodation may not be up to the same standard at the lower rate. And, of course, that may not matter. But is is a factor in the equation.

Cheers,
 

drucifer

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For LV, Orlando and the more "common" places, that is most likely true. Where a HGV ownership can really make a huge difference in your lodging costs are some of the more "uncommon" places, such as ski location during peak ski season (Breckenridge or Park City) or ocean front units in Hawaii, South Carolina and SW Florida. If you use those locations, owning can save you a significant amount over renting.

Kurt

And New York, and possibly Chicago or D.C. - urban locations - though for most of these locations, the deed cost and MF is on the unfavorable side (Compared to Vegas or Orlando), so it's important to pick the one you are actually going to really want to use in these cases.
 
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dayooper

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For LV, Orlando and the more "common" places, that is most likely true. Where a HGV ownership can really make a huge difference in your lodging costs are some of the more "uncommon" places, such as ski location during peak ski season (Breckenridge or Park City) or ocean front units in Hawaii, South Carolina and SW Florida. If you use those locations, owning can save you a significant amount over renting.

Kurt

And New York, and possibly Chicago or D.C. - urban locations - though for most of these locations, the deed cost and MF is on the unfavorable side (Compared to Vegas or Orlando), so it's important to pick the one you are actually going to really want to use in these cases.

If you plan on staying in a studio in Vegas, it might be cheaper to rent or book at a resort. Anything larger than a 1 bedroom? I would say my points would be the bargain. When we went to Vegas with 2 other couples last summer (2021) we booked a 3 bedroom (M-Sat) at Elara. We spent 4400 points and that wound up being a total of under $650 for the stay ($130 a night). Yes we should to add on $12 a night for the club booking fee (we were using one of our free bookings from May 2020 and just kept changing the booking until we got the dates we wanted).

The rack rate for Hilton Hotels was $8800 for the same 5 days (outrageous but someone paid it as it was gone about a month before our trip) so that was a huge savings there. Taking that out of the equations, we would have had a hard time staying in a place that had the room and amenities (the master bedroom view alone was incredible) like a full kitchen, large dining room table, ect. We would have had to book 3 hotel rooms to have the privacy we had with the 3 separate bedrooms. Even now, we would have to stay at a low level hotel or casino to get the $50 a night for the 3 couples to stay.
 

BingoBangoBongo

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If my math is right, renting isn't too far off the cost of buying anyway.

Giving you a real life example of the potential savings using a low MF deed...I have 13 nights reserved on the Big Island next month. 10 nights in a 1BR at Kings Land and 3 nights in an Ocean View Studio at the Ocean Tower. My avg cost per night is just under $125 per night.

While not everyone wants to or would, this year I rented out my Fixed Ski week at Valdoro for about $2000 and the MF was just under $1200. Deducting that profit from my total MF's brings the cost per night on the BI down to $108 per night.

This does not take into account what I paid, but I feel pretty good about the deals I got and am pretty comfortable that I could recover most of my initial outlay if I wanted to.
 

chromeo

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I'm never going to Hawaii, I would go to Asia if I were going that far. I would book Airbnb for ski season, and for ski country in general. Even summer Valdoro with cheap Vegas points just didn't make sense to me. The points were crazy! There are plenty of nice hotels or Airbnbs for way less than that one.

I need a 2BR+ in Vegas in the summer. It seems like this would be a good use for a timeshare, but I have to admit buying into some yuck resort to do it does have a yuck factor. I even tried to pitch that Seaworld is upping its game and is the hot new park in Orlando, LOL. This argument did not go well.
 
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SmithOp

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HGVC King's Land 2BR Premier 23.040K Points.
I've rented Elara 2br+ in the past to a couple of families that take their kids to some type of competition, maybe cheerleading. It was very cost effective for them when splitting costs from a points owner vs cash rental from Hilton.

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