During our recent visit to Elara, Mrs. Blues and I broke our 14 year streak of not attending any sales presentations. We were intrigued by a new incentive -- a 4 course dinner at the top of the Stratosphere, including wrist badges for the rides and lookout tower. Plus a $100 gift card when attending the owner update the next day.
At the dinner, we were at the same table as the "event organizer." He was originally from DRI, and said that DRI did all sorts of outings to incentivize their updates, including dinners, shows, etc. Apparently for their upper echelon owners. BTW, apparently we're some kind of preferred owners now, with 19,200 HGVC points, which is really not that many. Also, when checking in, we were escorted into a new (to us) elite check-in area of Elara, in its own room. Yay, I guess. Anyway, the dinner really was first class, and included an open bar.
We were hoping that we could get in and out of the update quickly by being upfront about the fact that we have no interest in HGVC Max, and have more than enough points for us. No such luck. In total, the advertised "60 minute max" presentation took about an hour and a quarter. It started with the slickly produced film showing scenes from various HGVC and DRI locations, as well as hotels and various partner perks, as if it was all available to anyone, any time.
Next, we toured floor 57 & 58 of Elara (the by Hilton level) Very nicely furnished, but they appeared to me to be smaller than the 1BR Grand Plus that we were staying in. OK, but not impressed. Then we sat down with our "counselor" (salesman) to get the pitch. Now, both he and the closer (see later) were very nice and low key, saying OK, if we didn't want it, no big deal, we could walk away. Apparently though, not without getting the pitch. Make that, multiple pitches.
First pitch -- buying into Max (which, again, we didn't want) was $50K -- a minimum of 5000 points at $8 per, plus a $10K activation fee. When we said no, we thought that was the end. But no, he was required (he said) to generate an offer on paper. Next question - if we were to want to buy in, would we want additional HGVC points or DRI points? He wouldn't let us say neither, so I picked DRI to get it over with. He went away to generate the paperwork, which reiterated the $50K number above. Big fat no.
Were we done? Of course not! He then went back and brought out the closer. And wonder of wonders, he found another deal. Being that we had never formally turned down the email offer when Max first came out, he could waive the $10K activation. And sell us the points at half price. With misc fees, it came to $22K. Funny how quickly the price came down to less than half.
Oh, and the information that others here may want (or may already know), concerning the booking windows. The salesman had previously acknowledged and agreed with me that a 6 month booking window was a joke. But he claimed that moving to Max would not adversely affect our HGVC points -- they would retain their 12/9 month windows for home/club bookings. Also, if we bought DRI points, they would get the DRI 13/10 month windows. It was (apparently) using Max to cross book (HGVC points for HVC, or DRI points for HGVC properties) that caused the 6 month booking limit. I didn't get into specifics for fear of extending the sales pitch even longer, so that's somewhat a supposition on my part. Thinking about it later, I'm sure that 5000 DRI points wouldn't get us much of a HVC stay -- maybe a studio week or off-season stay? And using HGVC points for an HVC stay would limit us to 6 months.
Anyway, we finally convinced him of "no". OK, we just had to get checked out to get our gift card. We sat at the table for 15 minutes, never again seeing the salesman or closer, before I finally got up, went to the front desk, and asked for our gift so we could leave. It's funny, the words were all gentle and low key, so it felt like a no-pressure pitch. But they sure wouldn't let us go.
Hopefully, that's it for another 14 years. At least.
At the dinner, we were at the same table as the "event organizer." He was originally from DRI, and said that DRI did all sorts of outings to incentivize their updates, including dinners, shows, etc. Apparently for their upper echelon owners. BTW, apparently we're some kind of preferred owners now, with 19,200 HGVC points, which is really not that many. Also, when checking in, we were escorted into a new (to us) elite check-in area of Elara, in its own room. Yay, I guess. Anyway, the dinner really was first class, and included an open bar.
We were hoping that we could get in and out of the update quickly by being upfront about the fact that we have no interest in HGVC Max, and have more than enough points for us. No such luck. In total, the advertised "60 minute max" presentation took about an hour and a quarter. It started with the slickly produced film showing scenes from various HGVC and DRI locations, as well as hotels and various partner perks, as if it was all available to anyone, any time.
Next, we toured floor 57 & 58 of Elara (the by Hilton level) Very nicely furnished, but they appeared to me to be smaller than the 1BR Grand Plus that we were staying in. OK, but not impressed. Then we sat down with our "counselor" (salesman) to get the pitch. Now, both he and the closer (see later) were very nice and low key, saying OK, if we didn't want it, no big deal, we could walk away. Apparently though, not without getting the pitch. Make that, multiple pitches.
First pitch -- buying into Max (which, again, we didn't want) was $50K -- a minimum of 5000 points at $8 per, plus a $10K activation fee. When we said no, we thought that was the end. But no, he was required (he said) to generate an offer on paper. Next question - if we were to want to buy in, would we want additional HGVC points or DRI points? He wouldn't let us say neither, so I picked DRI to get it over with. He went away to generate the paperwork, which reiterated the $50K number above. Big fat no.
Were we done? Of course not! He then went back and brought out the closer. And wonder of wonders, he found another deal. Being that we had never formally turned down the email offer when Max first came out, he could waive the $10K activation. And sell us the points at half price. With misc fees, it came to $22K. Funny how quickly the price came down to less than half.
Oh, and the information that others here may want (or may already know), concerning the booking windows. The salesman had previously acknowledged and agreed with me that a 6 month booking window was a joke. But he claimed that moving to Max would not adversely affect our HGVC points -- they would retain their 12/9 month windows for home/club bookings. Also, if we bought DRI points, they would get the DRI 13/10 month windows. It was (apparently) using Max to cross book (HGVC points for HVC, or DRI points for HGVC properties) that caused the 6 month booking limit. I didn't get into specifics for fear of extending the sales pitch even longer, so that's somewhat a supposition on my part. Thinking about it later, I'm sure that 5000 DRI points wouldn't get us much of a HVC stay -- maybe a studio week or off-season stay? And using HGVC points for an HVC stay would limit us to 6 months.
Anyway, we finally convinced him of "no". OK, we just had to get checked out to get our gift card. We sat at the table for 15 minutes, never again seeing the salesman or closer, before I finally got up, went to the front desk, and asked for our gift so we could leave. It's funny, the words were all gentle and low key, so it felt like a no-pressure pitch. But they sure wouldn't let us go.
Hopefully, that's it for another 14 years. At least.
