HGV agrees to purchase BlueGreen Vacations

[brp]

And if someone was considering buying more timeshares, why not get Diamond or Bluegreen resale vs Max?

That's our eventual plan with Diamond Hawaii Collection.

Cheers.

 

[CalGalTraveler]

I get that timeshare salesmen are good at what they do, and all new owners have Max already, and I guess they often don't know what they're being told anyway. But for upsells, I feel like 6 month (vs 9-13 month?) access, which has to mean (extremely?) limited availability (as discussed from the few Max members on the board) doesn't actually sound like that great a deal to get anyone to purchase. I would still find it more compelling (but not enough to pay retail) if Max was the same availability as the various "legacy" systems, or at least way closer. I guess I don't see why anyone vaguely savvy wouldn't just use RCI. My currentbooking at HGV (Diamond) Wynchor Park was RCI via the HGVC RCI portal (though it was an extra vacation).

And if someone was considering buying more timeshares, why not get Diamond or Bluegreen resale vs Max?

I know I'm silly thinking there should be any consideration of making a compelling product anymore to drive sales, but it seems to me the sales pitch I'd rather see (especially for these more downmarket added resorts) would be "we've added more resorts to the system, so you've got more places to own or stay at - so consider adding a week." Sell the lower end resorts cheaper, they get less points, but people can combine 2 weeks at a mid tier resort of points for one week at more standard HGVC properties.

Nope just nope. Keep the limit to 6 months for access to HGVC. Diamond owners tend to have more points even with the 1.6x conversion of HGVC. Putting Diamond on par with HGVC owners to book at same time would flood HGVC as Diamond owners would arbitrage into higher end properties. HGVC owners would never have access to the properties and system that they bought. I believe from comments in TUG from Diamond Owners that they feel the same way about HGVC.

There is a lawsuit for Ritz Carlton Vail about this problem with Marriott owners. Not sure how it turned out but there were very many unhappy RC Vail owners.

 

[timsi]

Aside from the bankers who are going to make a nice commission, who is happy about this deal?

 

[raddoc]

Here’s a graphic from when HGV merged with DRI

View attachment 83726

Aligns with Tru and their new Spark brand along with Hampton Inn and Home2Suites.

I think their chart may be a bit optimistic. I've stayed in two Hilton Club locations (W57 & the District). While both were nice, I don't think I would ever equate them with staying at the Waldorf. Just sayin'!

 

[dioxide45]

Aside from the bankers who are going to make a nice commission, who is happy about this deal?

Bluegreen shareholders are happy. The value of their investment doubled in just a few minutes.

 

[CalGalTraveler]

I think their chart may be a bit optimistic. I've stayed in two Hilton Club locations (W57 & the District). While both were nice, I don't think I would ever equate them with staying at the Waldorf. Just sayin'!

Agree. It is a manufactured chart. Have you ever heard the term, "Upper Upscale" before? The relative guidance is good if you overlook the categories.

 

[DRIless]

Well, when you don't indicate your source. you are going to get stuff like that. It also isn't that you called it, you apparently were told this by someone else who "called it".

What an asinine reply.

 

[dioxide45]

What an asinine reply.

You are certainly welcome to your opinion.

 

[escanoe]

I am replying to something from @DRIless's original post on this deal that lacked sourcing.

@CalGalTraveler said in a post there "BTW...this sales rep and his/her manager as employees of HGVC could be accused of spreading insider information if this OPs claims are is true...Martha Stewart served jail time for this."

I made a reply that spreading the information was not a crime, but anyone with inside information (inside the company or with a connection inside the company) making money on it in a trade would have criminal exposure.

IMHO, HGV handled this merger very poorly from a corporate risk management perspective. They should have either kept it secret OR tipped someone in the press off so the notion of what was going on was public information. If they have an employee somewhere that found out about this and profited by buying BG stock before it went up 50% when the deal was announced -- anyone making such a trade has real exposure and HGV could have a black eye. It was clear sales staff/weasels knew this was in the works and were spreading the information. Not smart that they were not managing the information better within the organization.

 

[CalGalTraveler]

@escanoe is right. Even though it is not stock, it could be argued that HVC sales employees were attempting to financially benefit from insider information by selling timeshares based on this data. This is not something to mess around with.

 

[pedro47]

Is this a win-win, for Diamond and Bluegreen owners?.

 

[dioxide45]

Is this a win-win, for Diamond and Bluegreen owners?.

I would say it is a win for Bluegreen shareholders.

 

[escanoe]

I would say it is a win for Bluegreen shareholders.

I'd say it has the potential to be a looser for BG timeshare owners that may be fresh meat for those selling Max. And for HGVC timeshare owners who will now be getting the Max sales pitch on the new and wonderful access to BG resorts they can get through Max.

 

[geist1223]

I was surprised to see this announcement since HGV is still absorbing Diamond.... However, one thing I did notice in the frequently asked questions was that if you are an HGVMax owner, no additional purchase is required to get access... Possibly another reason to push HGVMax onto current owners.... Just returned from three different DIamond properties (Point at Poipu, Ka'anapali Beach Club, and Hilton Vacation club in Lake Tahoe... Diamond owners I spoke to (Rather Random) weren't interested in joining the Hilton side... Even the Salesperson (HGV) said Diamond owners were loyal to Diamond and not wanting to join HGVMax.

We are DRI members. We have no desire to join MAX. Nor do any of the DRI Owners we have talked to.

 

[rapmarks]

I'd say it has the potential to be a looser for BG timeshare owners that may be fresh meat for those selling Max. And for HGVC timeshare owners who will now be getting the Max sales pitch on the new and wonderful access to BG resorts they can get through Max.

Only if they go to sales presentation

 

[dayooper]

We are DRI members. We have no desire to join MAX. Nor do any of the DRI Owners we have talked to.

We are HGVC resale owners and we have no desire to buy into Max. I can count on 1 hand the DRI/HVC resorts that I would be interested visiting and those would not be an every year type of thing.

 

[Mongoose]

Here’s a graphic from when HGV merged with DRI

View attachment 83726

Aligns with Tru and their new Spark brand along with Hampton Inn and Home2Suites.

How's the quality at Bluegreen, chart shows it below Travel & Leisure?

 

[CalGalTraveler]

I am happy with our HGVC legacy. We own resale Vistana and an HGVC affiliate which use primarily in-house systems and can trade in II or MVC for the units we want. No desire for BG and can trade for the few DRIs we occasionally want.

Similar to Tuggers our portfolio changes with our needs and the rules which are constantly changing.

Perhaps the constantly changing rules are why we are limiting to our existing timeshares for now.

 

[JFrank]

I’m baffled, it’s strange how a company would tell everyone about this aqusition (obviously sales at BG and HGV knew) before it was official.

Edit: should have bought some BG stock. It went up 100%

Not sure what sales at HGVC in Vegas knew, but we definitely found the "owner update" to be a bit more aggressive than usual. Initially decided to upgrade to get Max, but reviewed things more (and found this site) and rescinded. Sales guy was definitely not happy, but tried to find a cheaper way into Max for us, that we ultimately passed on because the DRI properties seem subpar. He didn't even hint at BG coming on board. Still subpar properties from what I'm reading. Sad how management is devaluing the HGVC experience since the spin-off. How long has Hilton licensed the name to them? I can see the hotel chain deciding the timeshares aren't living up to the name at some point down the road.

 

[nuwermj]

Wonder how many people wanting to purchase a bass boat would be willing to attend a timeshare presentation in the corner office at Bass Pro? Perhaps, we will have another place to spend our elevated rewards dollars?

Actually, they sell mini-vacations -- three days and two nights, and the like -- at Bluegreen resorts. The presentation is at the resort.

 

[Mowogo]

Hilton Bland Vacation Club

Bass Pro is used to recruit people for a vacation package, pretending they've won it as a prize. Many BG resorts are well placed in the midscale section of the chart. I bet they will not be renewing their partnership with Choice Hotels, in favor of Hilton Honors.

Though this solves the timeshare problem of Choice Hotels and their hostile takeover of Wyndham Hotels. Bluegreen goes to Hilton, and Travel+Leisure gets to be the official timeshare partner of Choice Hotels.

 

[T_R_Oglodyte]

Diamond owners tend to have more points even with the 1.6x conversion of HGVC. Putting Diamond on par with HGVC owners to book at same time would flood HGVC as Diamond owners would arbitrage into higher end properties. HGVC owners would never have access to the properties and system that they bought. I believe from comments in TUG from Diamond Owners that they feel the same way about HGVC.

I believe that MAX does not allow unfettered access across the portal, for the very issue that you suggest.

They have to maintain a balance of points/weeks on each side of the portal to assure that owners who are not in MAX have access to reservations consistent with their reservation rights. That points to me that access across the HGVMax portal has to be limited in someway to align with the ownership and usage rights of owners who are in HGVMax. Of course, that's not something they would ever mention in a sales pitch. I'll talk on the DRI side, since I'm most familiar with that operation. To throw out some numbers just for illustration. Let's say that the value of ownerships at a given resort amounts to 10,000,000 Club points, and the Hawaii Collection (trust) holds 7,000,000 of those points. (The other 3.000,000 points would correspond to the point value of deeds owned outside of the Hawaii Collection.) Then, let's say 5,000,000 of those points are part of the (formerly DRI) Club. (The other 2,000,000 points correspond to Hawaii Collection owners who are not part of the Club - this is where resale Hawaii Collection ownerships will end up.)

We're early in the HGVMax rollout period, so let's say that ownerships of Hawaii Collection owners who have joined HGVMax tally to 200,000 points. That then becomes the upper limit for the point value of Hawaii Collection reservations that could be made across the HGV max portal. And if those HGVMax members who are Hawaii Collection members have made reservations using their Home Resort advantage, that should also cut into the Hawaii Collection availability across the HGVMax portal.

If this is anywhere near correct, until HGVMax has a large block of owners, there isn't going to be a lot of access across the portal in either direction. And if they don't do something such as this, the system will be unable to reconcile ownerships and usage rights. A competent financial auditing team would issue a warning in their audit/

********

Also bear in mind that home resort early reservation periods still apply. An inventory that is available across the portal will be less than six months before check-in. So owners will have ample opportunity to reserve in their own resorts or collections before the portal opens.

***********************

FWIW - I went through that inventory control issue with a sales rep in an update, and the sales rep agreed with me. But I have zero confidence that she actually knew what I was talking about, let alone that the sales force had been briefed on that during their orientations and training.

 

[alexadeparis]

All i can say is this is not an incentive to join their Max program, any more than the addition of the Diamond properties were. Both are a downgrade. If they offered free access for HGVC i would play around to see what's available but i definitely wouldn't be regularly trying to access Diamond or Bluegreen. Personally i don't see a reason why anyone owning Hgvc would want to downgrade, let alone PAY to downgrade. No thanks.

 

[brp]

Personally i don't see a reason why anyone owning Hgvc would want to downgrade, let alone PAY to downgrade. No thanks.

Added locations, even if a quality downgrade. Definitely not enough reason for us, but I could see others prioritizing added locations.

Cheers.

 

[dayooper]

All i can say is this is not an incentive to join their Max program, any more than the addition of the Diamond properties were. Both are a downgrade. If they offered free access for HGVC i would play around to see what's available but i definitely wouldn't be regularly trying to access Diamond or Bluegreen. Personally i don't see a reason why anyone owning Hgvc would want to downgrade, let alone PAY to downgrade. No thanks.

It’s because most don’t know how much of a downgrade some of those resorts are. The properties that aren’t a downgrade are already snapped up. Yet most owners are not TUG members and believe what the salesperson says. Many are easy marks and even if they don’t buy then, they are setting the narrative for the next sales presentation.