I've heard those lies as well at the presentations. I was told it would be a minimum buy in after the program was fully launched. I believe they said (choke) $40000. And that they are making all of the maintenance fees equal (???). Just how they plan on doing that I'd like to know. Not only that, in the new program they will only be selling trust points they told me. And "now and right now only" you can also put your deeded property into the new program but after it launches you wont be. What a crock of it! So many lies.... I'm looking forward to seeing them all unfold one by one.
That's the other issue... sounds like Max / diamond will be a flat MF, but legacy deed owners have our legacy MFs,... but the new MFs will be much higher. Right now I'm paying $0.07 -- $0.10 / point. heard max might end up being $0.22... but when you look at their "benefits" for the loyalty program, some are allowing you to buy additional points for as high as $0.30 / point... way too expensive, and not exactly enticing me to join.
benefit of legacy is that since we are deed owners, our HOAs determine our MFs, and they can't touch that.
The reason the new MFs for Max will be so high, (speculating), is that they just spent 1.5 Billion on buying Diamond, so you're literally paying them back for their horrible investment.
but yeah, on top of the lies, these sales people are arrogant and condescending.. I don't want to be called an "illegitimate member" because I didn't buy direct through them. especially since we are deed owners. we own real property. and not only is the amount that I paid none of their business, but also that amount is more than they think the property is even worth, since they passed on their right of first refusal. I'm like, if you're really selling these "all day every day", you're a real f*in moron to waive your ROFR. But of course that is a lie as well.
The other interesting play is they are trying to sell us crap inventory that no one wants to buy (even on resale market) for us to "get into Max." that almost proves that this has no value... their game plan was to buy a 1.5 billion vacation club just to trick people to buy up their unsold inventory that's been sitting around that nobody wants? sounds like a horrible business plan.
also the decision that the 7k buy-in isn't available to resale buyers is equally absurd. it's certainly not rational. if it's rational / profitable for them to sell a "max membership" to one HGVC member, it doesn't make sense that they can't sell it to another, just because I didn't buy my property direct through them.. Ahh... unless the reward tiers / max privileges are solely linked to "properties bought directly from us." then that might explain it some...
But the other point: what is the offer they are making to DRI members to get into Max from the Diamond side (i.e., having available the core HGVC resorts)? none of the DRI members "bought directly from Hilton." So are they required to make an additional purchase to get into this program as well? Or can they all just do a 7k buy in?
really crazy that they spent 1.5B without having a clear business plan on how to monetize / deploy this.
