Forget Max, new new thing is Trust Points

[HuskerATL]

If they start naming things THC points, it's all going to pot.

Cheers.

It may bump up sales though...

 

[sponger76]

It may bump up sales though...

Especially of food sold at the in-resort markets and restaurants.

 

[CalGalTraveler]

We could rename Sales TS Math, THC Math!

 

[ChiefIlliniwek]

Just did an update at Elara. Apparently they are pushing people to give up their deeds and just have “trust points.” I walked to the bathroom and heard “trustpoints” about a dozen times as I passed the tables. This feels ominous to me especially since a couple weeks ago guest services passed me on to corporate when I tried to give Redweek permission to confirm my home week and I got quite a tongue lashing for attempting to rent my home week which I read the fine print and it is not against their rules. I’m guessing they are moving everyone to points with carrots and sticks so the home week loop hole will be eliminated. I could be wrong. Also want to note regarding pool at Elara had not a scrap of free shade all day. I had to rent a cabana for $50. Would have been $300 if I weren’t an owner there. Even tables with umbrellas had to be rented. They also close it at 8pm due to Nevada law requiring more lighting. My husband replied hilariously “Im going to write a letter to Hilton that Elara isn’t lighting their pool area enough!” First time I got to use the pool since it’s always closed when we travel there due to the season. Bless their heart at least they do cool it so it was refreshing in the 110 degree heat.

yeah...that's what I kept hearing last week at Parc Soleil in Orlando. The salesman must've said trust about twenty times. That was after he talked about his 104-year-old mom. Then he said if I "upgraded" by spending $8000, I never would have to pay a reservation fee again. I said to him "I thought you could reserve your home week without a fee." Then the other guy comes in and said I paid $12,000 for the old contract. I said I paid $34. Then he said "you bought a resale; I can't sell anything to you." And then he walked out.

I had no idea what the trust stuff was about. I assume everything these guys say is 100% BS. But I did get 80,000 Hilton honors points.

 

[chapjim]

Or blowing your nose and all the gunk comes out...

Or, all the scratches on the underside of your forearms from balancing bales of hay to push them onto the hay wagon?

For me, harvesting oats was the worst.

 

[PigsDad]

yeah...that's what I kept hearing last week at Parc Soleil in Orlando. The salesman must've said trust about twenty times.

For as hard as the sales staff is pushing "trust points", I'm thinking there is a much higher sales commission on those trust sales (HVC properties) vs. deed sales.

Kurt

 

[dayooper]

For as hard as the sales staff is pushing "trust points", I'm thinking there is a much higher sales commission on those trust sales (HVC properties) vs. deed sales.

Kurt

I know there are this on here that love the DRI product and use the perks of the system to make it work, but the cost of the program (MF’s and club dues) seems so much more for what you get. My guess is they have so much unsold DRI inventory that they need to unload it.

 

[HuskerATL]

yeah...that's what I kept hearing last week at Parc Soleil in Orlando. The salesman must've said trust about twenty times. That was after he talked about his 104-year-old mom. Then he said if I "upgraded" by spending $8000, I never would have to pay a reservation fee again. I said to him "I thought you could reserve your home week without a fee." Then the other guy comes in and said I paid $12,000 for the old contract. I said I paid $34. Then he said "you bought a resale; I can't sell anything to you." And then he walked out.

I had no idea what the trust stuff was about. I assume everything these guys say is 100% BS. But I did get 80,000 Hilton honors points.

Well, you didn't miss much. You should have just gone with the $12k. Obviously, if he thought you paid that, he didn't realize that you bought resale. They tend to give you the original amount as trade-in value, not what you paid as resale, toward a new deed. There is a lot of excess Trust points so they are really pushing them but I am also starting to wonder if they have combined sale's staff at Parc between the HGVC sale's team and the DRI sale's team that was also in Orlando. Obviously, you can trade in your resale for a new deed and it has been offered to me a Parc but it seems like this has come up for Parc not too long ago from another person also.

 

[escanoe]

There may be some truth and logic to that, but the fact is that the points I receive annually from my ownership at The Quin and The District are labeled as "By Hilton Club Points" on the owners' website. The initialism "bHC" relates to what the points are called by HGVC, though we could quibble about the capitalization. If you look at the Dashboard view as an owner of one of the by/a Hilton Club resorts you'll see a listing that starts out with the title "By Hilton Club Points Summary" and another with the title "Club Currency Summary". The Club Rules use the term "by Hilton Club Priority" for the reciprocal window for certain of the bHC resorts. Of course, they're a bit inconsistent and call them all "ClubPoints" in the rules.

The other thing I would note is that it's a slippery slope to go renaming these things. The ClubPoints used at The Hilton Club could wind up getting called THC points....

The owner website is the last thing to get updated (except for RCI).

 

[jabberwocky]

If they start naming things THC points, it's all going to pot.

Cheers.

It certainly would give a new meaning to booking a high floor.

 

[Shmiddy]

For as hard as the sales staff is pushing "trust points", I'm thinking there is a much higher sales commission on those trust sales (HVC properties) vs. deed sales.

Kurt

Higher maintenance fees - they charge by the point and not based on location/#BR. Most likely being pushed by corporate and incentivized. Right now you can own a 2BR in Vegas with low MF and use those points in Hawaii, where MF are way higher.

 

[SmithOp]

How did DRI end up with so many trust points? Did they stop selling deeds and put everything into the trust collections? Now that's all they sell and Hilton inherited it?

 

[T_R_Oglodyte]

How did DRI end up with so many trust points? Did they stop selling deeds and put everything into the trust collections? Now that's all they sell and Hilton inherited it?

Yes. When the Hawaii Collection was set up by Sunterra, Sunterra stopped selling individual deeds and started selling trust UDIs (undivided interests). When Sunterra convinced an existing deed owner to upgrade to the Club, they tried to get the owner to surrender the deed in exchange for a trust UDI with equivalent points (while still selling a trust UDI for the privilege of joining the Club). When a deeded owner surrenders a deed in the Transitions program, when that deed is resold it is added to the trust and sold as a trust UDI. Same thing happens with any foreclosures.

The net effect is that the fraction of resort deeds owned by the trust is monotone increasing. Deeds are added to the trust, but never exit the trust.

IMHO - down the road this is going to create a squeeze for deeded owners. When deeded owners decline to ~10% of total resort ownership, how will the resort be able to manage inventory allocations between deeded owners and the trust, when the simple math is that the deeded inventory fraction will be so small that the deeded inventory pool cannot have availability for all checkin days and view categories.

 

[GT75]

When deeded owners decline to ~10% of total resort ownership, how will the resort be able to manage inventory allocations between deeded owners and the trust, when the simple math is that the deeded inventory fraction will be so small that the deeded inventory pool cannot have availability for all checkin days and view categories.

The resort need to remain inventory. It just means that deeded owners will have less inventory to pick from.

 

[CalGalTraveler]

We had a similar discussion on the Vistana/MVC board. There is nothing to stop the developer from cherry picking the best weeks and then leaving the mud weeks for deeded float owners to force them to upgrade.

MVC has historically not pursued this and has evenly allotted weeks to their trust system. based on DPs shared over the past 10 years by owners. However there is no rule from stopping HVC from doing so.

Similar to Vistana, this will take a decade or two to make an impact. DRI started this process almost a decade ago so deeds on the DRI side are dwindling. This could be a reality in that system in the next decade. HGVC hasn't begun the process yet.

 

[T_R_Oglodyte]

MVC has historically not pursued this and has evenly allotted weeks to their trust system. based on DPs shared over the past 10 years by owners.

~15 years ago I spent some time with the individual at Poipu who handled that process. (Patty Ornellas, for those who have been around for awhile.) The process she described was exactly as described, viz., for every check-in day, they would split the available inventory between the trust and deeded owners, prorated between the trust and non-trust inventory.

 

[escanoe]

IMHO - down the road this is going to create a squeeze for deeded owners. When deeded owners decline to ~10% of total resort ownership, how will the resort be able to manage inventory allocations between deeded owners and the trust, when the simple math is that the deeded inventory fraction will be so small that the deeded inventory pool cannot have availability for all checkin days and view categories.

I don’t disagree with this theoretical concern. But I will also put forward something else. As @dayooper has said in the past … for HGVC the resale market basically is the exit plan.

For the DRI Trusts (where my understanding is resale points are close to worthless) the developer-backed exit plan is how a lot of people leave. That probably yields them a bunch of points that they are desperate to resell. Versus HGVC where they basically just pay a bit more to exercise ROFR when they need to … but don’t have a bunch of deeds coming at them that they have to take.

If I had a good deed at POP or somewhere, I’d hold onto it or sell in the resale market. Not much reason to devalue what you have going to points or giving it back to them for free when it has resale value.

 

[CalGalTraveler]

Good point @escanoe This may be why HGVC reported that they have a large backlog of inventory in DRI. They may need to ease some resale restrictions in order to make the Trust more attractive to new buyers and make it easier for owners to exit on the open market.

MVC properties are higher quality than DRI on average and they charge a $3 fee per point to requalify resale points to access the entire system or add deed sales at international locations. This is what they use to incent resale buyers to upgrade to developer purchases and it seems to work.

I could envision HGVC enabling HGV/DRI resale trust owners to requalify into MAX by buying an HGVC deed or a $ per point enrollment fee similar to MVC. Easy cash flow and no presentation gift required.

IMHO...I will never buy trust points from anyone. Deeds are the way to go.

 

[cd5]

I think it may have more to do with the complete lack of a resale market for Diamond properties. They have de-valued resale within their system so much that you can't give it away to get out, you have to pay Transitions & give it back to the developer, therefore increasing the inventory at a much faster rate than timeshares that have some resale value.

 

[jsparents]

Just finished my Portfolio review at Parc Soleil. Was actually pretty painless and lasted just under an hour. I told the sales person immediately that I wasn’t interested in Max or Trust points. She asked how I knew about them and I told her I follow a few forums on the topic. She said oh Facebook. - nope. I asked what the fee was to upgrade to Max. She said Hilton has been very transparent on the pricing ( ya right). It’s $8.00 a point with a min of 5000 points. That’s $40k. Crazy. She said they were not selling any deeds.

what I found interesting is that I have two accounts with HGV, one developer and one resale. She had all the paperwork for the resale and when I pointed that out her jaw dropped. I paid $3k for my resale but the paperwork showed $21k. She realized there was no chance for a sale and excused herself to go find my other account and never came back. Another person came in just to make sure the sales associate was friendly and courteous even after I said no.

I took photos of “sales planner” and the sales center which is very nice and looks brand new. When I return home in a few days I’ll post the photos.

 

[HuskerATL]

Just finished my Portfolio review at Parc Soleil. Was actually pretty painless and lasted just under an hour. I told the sales person immediately that I wasn’t interested in Max or Trust points. She asked how I knew about them and I told her I follow a few forums on the topic. She said oh Facebook. - nope. I asked what the fee was to upgrade to Max. She said Hilton has been very transparent on the pricing ( ya right). It’s $8.00 a point with a min of 5000 points. That’s $40k. Crazy. She said they were not selling any deeds.

what I found interesting is that I have two accounts with HGV, one developer and one resale. She had all the paperwork for the resale and when I pointed that out her jaw dropped. I paid $3k for my resale but the paperwork showed $21k. She realized there was no chance for a sale and excused herself to go find my other account and never came back. Another person came in just to make sure the sales associate was friendly and courteous even after I said no.

I took photos of “sales planner” and the sales center which is very nice and looks brand new. When I return home in a few days I’ll post the photos.

Well, they do sell deeds because we have been offered them there and others have shown deed "upgrades" that have been recently offered there. It sounds like this person was from the HVC side versus the HGVC side. HGVC is only deeds. HVC is only points (currently being sold, all though, there are still DRI deeds floating around). Also, they have offered "upgrades" as low as $7k.

They are pushing HVC trust points right now because they have a lot of unsold inventory and probably need to pay for the DRI renovations to bring them up to HGVC standards.

You shouldn't have two HGV accounts. You would have two contracts. Each deed is a different contract but the associated points are combined into one HGV account for use.

 

[cd5]

Well, they do sell deeds because we have been offered them there and others have shown deed "upgrades" that have been recently offered there. It sounds like this person was from the HVC side versus the HGVC side. HGVC is only deeds. HVC is only points (currently being sold, all though, there are still DRI deeds floating around). Also, they have offered "upgrades" as low as $7k.

They are pushing HVC trust points right now because they have a lot of unsold inventory and probably need to pay for the DRI renovations to bring them up to HGVC standards.

You shouldn't have two HGV accounts. You would have two contracts. Each deed is a different contract but the associated points are combined into one HGV account for use.

Actually, Embarc is HGVC and is points. They're not the points they're offering though, because there aren't that many in the developer inventory (about 6% of the total, which is a finite amount based on the accomodations in the trust). They are trying to sell them to current Embarc members & visitors at Embarc resorts as a way to get into Max. I haven't heard of anyone being told $40k is the amount required though. Sounds a bit ambitious.

 

[HuskerATL]

Actually, Embarc is HGVC and is points. They're not the points they're offering though, because there aren't that many in the developer inventory (about 6% of the total, which is a finite amount based on the accomodations in the trust). They are trying to sell them to current Embarc members & visitors at Embarc resorts as a way to get into Max. I haven't heard of anyone being told $40k is the amount required though. Sounds a bit ambitious.

Embarc is really just HGVC in name only since no HGVC Legacy folks have access to them. Only Max from from either side have access, in theory but not even them yet.

 

[NachoDaddy]

Just did an update at Elara. Apparently they are pushing people to give up their deeds and just have “trust points.” I walked to the bathroom and heard “trustpoints” about a dozen times as I passed the tables. This feels ominous to me especially since a couple weeks ago guest services passed me on to corporate when I tried to give Redweek permission to confirm my home week and I got quite a tongue lashing for attempting to rent my home week which I read the fine print and it is not against their rules. I’m guessing they are moving everyone to points with carrots and sticks so the home week loop hole will be eliminated. I could be wrong. Also want to note regarding pool at Elara had not a scrap of free shade all day. I had to rent a cabana for $50. Would have been $300 if I weren’t an owner there. Even tables with umbrellas had to be rented. They also close it at 8pm due to Nevada law requiring more lighting. My husband replied hilariously “Im going to write a letter to Hilton that Elara isn’t lighting their pool area enough!” First time I got to use the pool since it’s always closed when we travel there due to the season. Bless their heart at least they do cool it so it was refreshing in the 110 degree heat.

This is funny as the Diamond resorts (at least at Branson and Daytona) are now pushing HGVC deeded weeks instead of HGV Max points.

 

[Maria Mccarthy]

Trust ownerships are also worthless.

A big advantage for owning a deed can be lower annual fees. The annual trust management fee is significant. It's a flat fee, so it less impact with larger point value ownership.

We read it was 10-15% for management fee in the annual report. It didn’t specify the type of property. Where did you see about the annual trust mgmt fee. I hope to get the documents shortly.