Does HGVC ownership give access to Hilton Hotel nights?

[BJRSanDiego]

A friend of mine almost bought a HGVC timeshare. Actually they did buy it but, after talking to me, said they were going to recind.

They said that they were told by their TS sales person that if they bought an EOY timeshare from HGVC ($11 or 12K), that they would have access to all of the Hilton hotels - - either using their TS points or at a reduced cost.

Some questions:
1. Is this true?
2. How does this work?
3. Does this have real value?

 

[giowop]

A friend of mine almost bought a HGVC timeshare. Actually they did buy it but, after talking to me, said they were going to recind.

They said that they were told by their TS sales person that if they bought an EOY timeshare from HGVC ($11 or 12K), that they would have access to all of the Hilton hotels - - either using their TS points or at a reduced cost.

Some questions:
1. Is this true?
2. How does this work?
3. Does this have real value?

My understanding:
1. Yes, you can use HGVC points to transfer to Hilton Honors points, but...
2. It’s a super bad deal. The conversion rate is 1 HGVC point = 25 HH points. So a 5000 HGVC point deed - if you transferred al of it to HH - gets you 125,000 points. Which is good for maybe 1-2 off-peak nights (Waldorf or Conrad) in downtown Chicago (3-4 nights at a lesser establishment). By that time you are wasting the Maintenance fees you’d have to pay anyway on the deed you’re not making use of.

Side note: at my most recent HGVC pitch they really pushed the “there are Hilton (not HGVC) locations EVERYWHERE!” Very misleading to the uninformed...


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[tombanjo]

Any member of the public can join Hilton Honors and get the HH discount. As a HGVC member you become a HH member if you were not already one. if the discount is %2 and it cost 10k to get it instead of free by just signing up, you would need to spend $500,000 to get it back. in any case, you get the same benefit’s buying resale for far less. Buy a timeshare to use the timeshare. Forget about buying for access to hotels anyone in the world has the same access to.

 

[Talent312]

I concur with the other posts.
One should not buy a TS with the plan to access hotels via Hilton Honors.
Yeah, you get a Silver membership included. Nice, but that's not a biggie.

One should not but a TS with the plan to use HGVC points for hotel stays.
The conversion rate is poor. Trade 3N at a resort for 1N at Hampton Inn?
I think not.

But when used for their original purpose (TS stays), HGVC is a class-act.
Their resorts are uniformly high-quality and booking is nearly hotel-like.
They treat resale buyers well, with the same perks and benes as retail,
save only counting their TS toward elite-status (not worth a retail buy).
.

 

[RX8]

Echo everyone else. To put it in dollar terms, and using glowoo’s example, those 5000 HGVC points convert to 125,000 HH points. The value of those HH points is about 1/2 cent or $625 which is going to be much less than the MF for a 2 bdm deed.

 

[alwysonvac]

Some sales folks leave out the fact that the cash discount rate only applies to HGVC resorts

The reduced cost is for stays at Hilton “timeshare” resorts via HGVC Open Season Rates compared to HGVC rates offered on Hilton.com.

https://d1m2ucn09z2f8d.cloudfront.net/static/documents/a163e59f-184a-4b42-b884-fb0e66335f38/2020-HGV-Points-Open-Season-R6.pdf

 

[presley]

When I owned HGVC, I had 2 ways to do that:
1.) Convert HGVC to Hhonors points that would become available the following calendar year at 25:1
2.) Call in to use current year points to convert to hotel at 20:1

They are both extremely bad deals.

 

[natarajanv]

I agree with other posts, but it is also helpful in the sense if you are not planning on using the TS for a year to convert to HHonors points and stay some place where there is no TS, instead of banking it or to find a renter. You won't get the full value out of it, but get something back.

 

[CalGalTraveler]

Agree with all the great advice just given. It is a bad deal that will get worse because of devaluation over time. In the 1990s Marriott Vacation Owners could stay almost a month on their points conversions in Marriott hotel. No more. Those same points are now worth about 2 - 3 nights in a Courtyard. HGVC is the same way. The conversion direction always devalues so imagine what it will be like 15 years from now...

If you are in a pinch and cannot use, you would likely do better renting out your home week on Redweek or TUG - even listing as a last minute rental on TUG for $800 you would do better than converting at $625. If it doesn't rent for $800 or more, then you can convert at the last minute and get $625.

Alternatively, applying your points to MF is an option that *might* be a better option, but not a great deal compared to using the HGVC timeshares.

 

[natarajanv]

Alternatively, applying your points to MF is an option that *might* be a better option, but not a great deal compared to using the HGVC timeshares.

I don't think you can do this with "regular" points, only "bonus" points can be used to pay MF

 

[brp]

Some sales folks leave out the fact that the cash discount rate only applies to HGVC resorts

The reduced cost is for stays at Hilton “timeshare” resorts via HGVC Open Season Rates compared to HGVC rates offered on Hilton.com.

Yeah, this is the slime part. I've several times had the reps tell me tat I cpuld get "hotel" rooms to the point where it was unclear to me if they were being deceitful or if they really were confused as well. Needless to say, I was never able to find those "better rates" on the hotel nights

Cheers.

 

[BJRSanDiego]

Wow !!! Thanks to all for the quick and thorough responses. I'll forward on to my friend.