HGV Max - Diamond Integration Discussion in Owner Update

[Eric B]

Honestly, I am glad that our HGVC Legacy program remains intact. I was much more interested to see how that was being affected.

Completely agree with that. The one thing I'm wondering about is when reservations open up for HGV Max members from the DRI side to reserve at Hilton Club (i.e., bHC) resorts - do they have to wait until the Club window opens for non-Hilton Club owners or does their window open at 6 months? It would seem a bit too much of an advantage for DRI side HGV Max owners to be able to book W 57th, et al., at 6 months while the rest of the HGVC owners have to wait until 89 days or 59 days.

I'm actually kind of happy that they set the buy in so high for it. This makes the decision a very simple one. On the other hand, the one time initiation fee might be worth it for some HGVC owners to get access to the Inclusive Club Dues they would otherwise have to buy a Hilton Club resort to get. I could see it penciling out for someone in the position of having a lot of HGVC ownership and wanting to avoid reservation fees, but since most of my ownerships are in other systems it just wouldn't make sense for me.

 

[ConejoRed]

I wonder if they may do a one-time offer to all current HGVC owners to pay the 'ala carte" membership fee and then set a cut off date for resale owners. The wording says "not available to persons who "acquire" an ownership interest" not "have acquired or acquire" an ownership interest so there is some wiggle room to say only future acquired resales will not be eligible and still offer it to current resale owners. They are leaving a LOT of $$ off the table I think if they don't and trying to sell a $7,000 fee is going to be hard enough as it is without leaving a large part of their current membership out to begin with.

Since I already have access to the Diamond through their DEX exchange since I own a legacy deeded week at their Lake Tahoe Resort, I will not pay the fee, but it will be interesting to see what exactly is offered since all my HGVC weeks are resale weeks.

 

[Eric B]

I wonder if they may do a one-time offer to all current HGVC owners to pay the 'ala carte" membership fee and then set a cut off date for resale owners. The wording says "not available to persons who "acquire" an ownership interest" not "have acquired or acquire" an ownership interest so there is some wiggle room to say only future acquired resales will not be eligible and still offer it to current resale owners. They are leaving a LOT of $$ off the table I think if they don't and trying to sell a $7,000 fee is going to be hard enough as it is without leaving a large part of their membership out to begin with.

Since I already have access to the Diamond through their DEX exchange since I own a legacy deeded week at their Lake Tahoe Resort, I will not pay the fee, but it will be interesting to see what exactly is offered since all my HGVC weeks are resale weeks.

Whether or not they do, I'm out. At $7K, it would make much more sense for me to buy a legacy deeded week in DEX or some DRI points if I really want to go to any of those resorts. I only bought what I have in HGVC to go to specific resorts anyway, but I would be somewhat shocked if they are able to persuade anyone to pay that level of a fee for a program that they retain the right to terminate at any time without any notice and don't have any mechanism to return the initiation fee for if they do.

 

[GT75]

The one thing I'm wondering about is when reservations open up for HGV Max members from the DRI side to reserve at Hilton Club (i.e., bHC) resorts - do they have to wait until the Club window opens for non-Hilton Club owners or does their window open at 6 months? It would seem a bit too much of an advantage for DRI side HGV Max owners to be able to book W 57th, et al., at 6 months while the rest of the HGVC owners have to wait until 89 days or 59 days.

Yes, I am also very interested to see DRI HGV Max booking rules. I don't think that they will be able to book bHC at 6-month mark. But need to what and see.

 

[NiteMaire]

Whether or not they do, I'm out. At $7K, it would make much more sense for me to buy a legacy deeded week in DEX or some DRI points if I really want to go to any of those resorts. I only bought what I have in HGVC to go to specific resorts anyway, but I would be somewhat shocked if they are able to persuade anyone to pay that level of a fee for a program that they retain the right to terminate at any time without any notice and don't have any mechanism to return the initiation fee for if they do.

Agree. HGVC owners are bettter off buying DRI deeded week; just as DRI owners are better off buying HGVC week (presuming buyin is similar for DRI).
HGV may have accidentally set off a run on resale week purchases for both HGVC and DRI resorts.

 

[Eric B]

Agree. HGVC owners are better off buying DRI deeded week; just as DRI owners are better off buying HGVC week (presuming buy in is similar for DRI).
HGV may have accidentally set off a run on resale week purchases for both HGVC and DRI resorts.

That may be why they included the ability to terminate the program without notice. That could happen pretty quickly, too....

 

[dayooper]

That may be why they included the ability to terminate the program without notice. That could happen pretty quickly, too....

I saw that and thought the same.

 

[dayooper]

Whether or not they do, I'm out. At $7K, it would make much more sense for me to buy a legacy deeded week in DEX or some DRI points if I really want to go to any of those resorts. I only bought what I have in HGVC to go to specific resorts anyway, but I would be somewhat shocked if they are able to persuade anyone to pay that level of a fee for a program that they retain the right to terminate at any time without any notice and don't have any mechanism to return the initiation fee for if they do.

I think the high cost was done purposely. Encourage those who want in to buy new deeds at very high prices. I don’t see many current owners purchasing a low point lousy deed just to get HGV Max. They will spring for the trade in or new higher point deed.

I can see why people are always buying. Once you get the bug, it’s hard to shake. We are very happy with what we own now, but I am always seeing new ways to use points and am always checking out resale prices. A nice W57th deed or a week in Hilton Head are always on my mind.

 

[brp]

I saw that and thought the same.

That's always been in any program I've seen - hotels, TS, airline loyalty programs. They may have some specific ideas about it here, but this would appear to be standard wording.

Cheers.

 

[PigsDad]

That may be why they included the ability to terminate the program without notice. That could happen pretty quickly, too....

I wouldn't read too much into that. There is also wording that has been around forever that HGV can terminate the HGVC aka "the Club" at any point -- no points, no RCI exchanges, no Open Season, etc. You would just own the week(s) stated on your deed.

The chance of either of these programs being terminated is about 0%, IMO.

Kurt

 

[holdaer]

Whether or not they do, I'm out. At $7K, it would make much more sense for me to buy a legacy deeded week in DEX or some DRI points if I really want to go to any of those resorts. I only bought what I have in HGVC to go to specific resorts anyway, but I would be somewhat shocked if they are able to persuade anyone to pay that level of a fee for a program that they retain the right to terminate at any time without any notice and don't have any mechanism to return the initiation fee for if they do.

The $7K is a one-time buy-in. If you buy a legacy deeded week in DEX or some other DRI property wouldn't you have the purchase price + annual maintenance fee? I would imagine the annual maintenance fee will exceed the one-time buy-in over a 3-4 yr period. Just something else to consider in the cost/benefit analysis.

 

[Eric B]

The $7K is a one-time buy-in. If you buy a legacy deeded week in DEX or some other DRI property wouldn't you have the purchase price + annual maintenance fee? I would imagine the annual maintenance fee will exceed the one-time buy-in over a 3-4 yr period. Just something else to consider in the cost/benefit analysis.

YMMV. I wound up buying resale WorldMark points to add to my Wyndham ownership and get access to high demand WM resorts that are never available through Wyndham Club Pass as well as to avoid the extra fees for booking through there. I don't believe that $7K for a 6-month access that will likely not include high demand DRI availability would ever be worth it.

 

[ConejoRed]

Agree. HGVC owners are bettter off buying DRI deeded week; just as DRI owners are better off buying HGVC week (presuming buyin is similar for DRI).
HGV may have accidentally set off a run on resale week purchases for both HGVC and DRI resorts.

I tend to agree that the high fee makes actually makes buying resale better than paying $7,000 just to access the other systems' inventory. My resale LTVR resale week was only $1500 for a 2 bedroom lock-off unit (float 1-52) that I bought after the merger was announced. I bought it more to be able to use it and book this particular resort for a high season summer week a year out, but I did end up depositing this week's high summer week due to a scheduling conflict and ended depositing each side separately into DEX. Used half for a Thanksgiving week in a DRI resort in Sedona and still have another week left in DEX. Tons of DRI weeks are available in DEX. The only real limitation is that we can only exchange for another full week, but that is how we usually travel anyway. You are not going to find Lake Tahoe summer or ski weeks 6 months out that's for sure! If the pull the plug on everything for resale weeks, then we will just use our original weeks as we followed the rule of buying where we would like to go anyway.

 

[NiteMaire]

Tons of DRI weeks are available in DEX.

Yep. I'm very happy with the available inventory in DeX (DRI and affiliate/partner). And with the limit of Max being 6 months out, I'm not worried about availability at places we want to go. I do wonder, however, where HGV will put unsold inventory not owned by the Club(s).
As I've posted earlier in this thread or elsewhere, we're headed to The Grand Islander by HGVC this Friday thanks to an exchange through DeX. I think we'll continue seeing limited HGVC availability in DeX; heck, I wouldn't be surprised to see a little more than we do now.

 

[escanoe]

With all the different thread posts and discussions going on, I ponder if we have reached "peak HGV Max" yet?

 

[Eric B]

With all the different thread posts and discussions going on, I ponder if we have reached "peak HGV Max" yet?

I believe the altitude of the HGV Max peak is 7,000….

 

[escanoe]

I believe the altitude of the HGV Max peak is 7,000….

Perhaps. Or it may increase by the magnitude of 60% or 160%.

 

[GT75]

With all the different thread posts and discussions going on, I ponder if we have reached "peak HGV Max" yet?

I believe the altitude of the HGV Max peak is 7,000….

Perhaps. Or it may increase by the magnitude of 60% or 160%.

Yes, I think that this thread has reached peak HGV Max. I am going to lock it. Currently, we have two other HGV Max information threads going (so post in one of those):

Owner Update and HGV Max

So we are in Hawaii right now and staying at the Bay Club. We went to the owner's update today because I wanted to hear about the Diamond updates and get discounted tickets for the Luau. A big part of the update was about HGV Max. They said that we don't need to do anything if we don't want to...

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HGV Max in the Club Reference Guide

(This is my post from a different thread. I figure this should have a post in it’s own.) Looks like it’s $7000 to join HGV Max without a developer purchase. Here is a screenshot of the reference page from my account. Here’s another statement from the reference page about resale. Does this...

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