All of the Embarc properties are being renamed under the Hilton Grand Vacations Club brand.
Are you seeing this in the Max interface or just the external resort marketing page?
Embarc won't be available in Max until some small changes are made similar to what they did with the HVC resorts (Diamond) where they re-aligned the points values so they would be in common with Hilton. No announcements, no dates given yet for Embarc changes - so no availability for some time yet.
But are they signing an affiliation agreement? The name alone is not enough.
Not sure what you mean by "signing an affiliation agreement". Embarc is now fully owned by Hilton - they don't need one. What they have to do is figure out schemes that don't contravert the master declaration but which allow them to make "changes" - which because of the Master Declaration, make it extremely difficult do what they may really prefer.
Who / what role was that person that told you this directly? Someone higher than a sales person? While I certainly think it is a definite possibility that Max will be required, it seems to contradict the words from Mark Wang, President and CEO (not that HGV has ever release contradictory messages before...
).
Not to nit-pick (but I am
), there are no "HGV Max properties". HGV Max is an exchange program, not a collection of properties. The list of properties that you can gain access to if you join Max is relative to what collection you currently own. If you are currently a HGVC or bHC owner, then you gain access to the HVC (former Diamond) properties, and if you are currently a Diamond owner, you gain access to the HGVC and bHC properties.Unfortunately, I think you are probably correct, but I think it contradicts the message from Mark Wang that I posted earlier in this thread.
The conversation about how access was going to cost money was with a Hilton VP. About 3 months ago - is that a good enough, recent enough source for you? In any event, they're already implementing it (HGV Max) with the Diamond properties. Embarc will be a variation of that. What would be the purpose of introducing HGV Max if access was going to be open and virtually "free"?Who / what role was that person that told you this directly? Someone higher than a sales person? While I certainly think it is a definite possibility that Max will be required, it seems to contradict the words from Mark Wang, President and CEO (not that HGV has ever release contradictory messages before...
Kurt
Who / what role was that person that told you this directly? Someone higher than a sales person? While I certainly think it is a definite possibility that Max will be required, it seems to contradict the words from Mark Wang, President and CEO (not that HGV has ever release contradictory messages before...
Kurt
Yeah, I'm a "sort of" board member, one elected entirely by member votes rather than by the developer... Not a Hilton employee in other words.
It would be interesting to see how much "Max" brings in though. Other than the initial upgrade, new deed, or ala carte fee, the annual fees are just a bit more than the HGVC club fee. For HGVC, there isn't a big draw to buy in ... Probably more so for DRI members.
His message came right at the beginning, just after they bought DRI, before they had really scoped out what was possible and what wasn't. I guess it was kind of asperational - but reality didn't make it feasible - they do want to monetize their investment.
And more importantly, well after they were selling "Max memberships". The message was to address "miscommunication, speculation and rumors around HGV Max", but in some ways has raised new conflicting messages.
I fully agree. If HGV management would focus on the long-term growth and health of the company, they would realize that trying to shake down all existing owners for extra dollars in the short term will most likely alienate a large percentage of their customers and will be detrimental in the long run. But that would require execs who think long-term, and they are a dying breed these days.
Not to nit-pick (but I am
Unfortunately, I think you are probably correct, but I think it contradicts the message from Mark Wang that I posted earlier in this thread.
Kurt
Yep, that's the name of the page on the web site; most likely made up by some IT person while programming the site because it was never specified in the design. But clearly in the content of the page, there is never a mention of "HGV Max Properties" as a collection, only "Properties Available During the HGV Max Reservation Window" (emphasis mine). To me, that is a pretty big difference, especially since HGV has come out and said there are going to be three collections of properties going forward: Hilton Grand Vacations Club, Hilton Club and Hilton Vacation Club. Never a mention of a HGV Max Properties collection. So I'll stick w/ my nit-pick.
Yeah
It won't be free. They're simply not ready. There's behind the scenes "work" to do first. They decided to start with setting up HVC/aka Diamond Resorts first. Embarc members haven't heard a word other than the name rebrands.
How can they be ready when nothing has been announced on the Embarc side? You need at least 2 sides to make an exchange & there's only 1 getting info so far. So far the Embarc clubs are only being rebranded not "made available" (or maybe they're parsing words there to make it sound like they are). I get that some Hilton members are anxious to visit Embarc locations but until there's a mechanism in place that allows the Embarc members to also give up their "points/weeks" to go to Hilton that won't happen. Rebranding is going to go on for some months more.