Looking at the photo's, it really appears that this is Hilton's attempt at Marriott's failed Ritz timeshare program with some tweaks that make it a little more attractive to us "common" timeshare owners. The unit quality looks similar to what we've seen at the Ritz Carlton Club units we've been too. It's interesting the Hilton has managed to find the sweet spot for these upgraded units by marketing them to regular timeshare owners whereas Marriott appears to have failed with their marketing program directed towards the more wealthy/elite cliental.
I think it’s a bit better market segmentation and marketing.
HGVC was the first to get us to say yes to trying timeshares. We were always NO WAY ON TIMESHARES. Bought the $99 3-night package to Vegas and was able to get a high room at the Elara. This gave us a taste of the potential of HGVC. We were impressed and could see ourselves taking more trips with HGVC but would need a lot of points.
The dilemma for us was fractional ownership, what group to buy into and what budget should we have as a buy in $10,000, $50,000, $100,000, +++ (there was a limit) and what annual expense to allocate. I know of people who buy a Snow Condo, say $2M-$3M, use it as much as they want and allow into a rental pool where they claim they net $100,000/year. That is way beyond my budget, but that the model. The Factional Ownership I looked at were also a bit too complicated and tied up too much money for us to be able to afford…..
This is where the Higher End Timeshare Market I think has moved.
They need ROI, they know buying a Retail Timeshare doesn’t pencil out. I also suspect some of this affluent market took longer to return to travel post COVID. No politics, but a few months ago we went out to dinner with some friends that was their first time out of the house in years. I have no idea how many of these people there are but there is NO WAY they are back in the market and may not return.
Most Timeshare sales are impulse buy under the FAKE TIME PRESSURE and are far too few points to be of value to the Buyer. Also, the way MFs are done, they are just Terrible.
For the mildly affluent I think the salespeople and management need to do more to get larger deals sold. I think they should buy the Hawaii Penthouses back and more desirable units quicker in ROFR so they can BUNDLE into a Package Deal that the BUYER CAN FEEL GREAT ABOUT POST SALE. The weeks have value say 2-5% of the unit real estate value and $100,000 for a peak ocean front week or snow season in a large unit might be what they could markup from.
Anyway, we looked like easy marks to the salesperson. We were agreeing with everything until the offer price of something like $50,000 for 10,000 points, which they would finance at 15% (or some crazy rate) and then the Maintenance Fees on top. Having looked at TUG and known the Zero Resale value we were done. The TO (Take Over/ Sales Manager) tried we have a lower cost, but the points dropped to 5,000 EOY and we wouldn’t get that week in Hawaii in a 1-bedroom. The Coffin was nailed shut. The Final Plea came to us with the VIP Program, and we decided it was worth a shot and would probably save us some money on a nice trip.
in my post.
