How do I book at the Grand Wailea on Maui

[l8racer]

I'm a brand new owner so please bear with me.

The salesman found out we enjoyed vacationing on Maui and really played up the Grand Wailea Resort. I've spent a lot of time on the HGVC website and cannot figure out how to book there.

Do we have to use HH Points or RCI?

Please help.

Thanks

 

[slum808]

I believe you would have to use HH points. The Grand Wailea is a hotel and not in RCI.

Did you by direct from Hilton?

 

[Talent312]

Grand Wailea is a Waldorf-Astoria branded property in the Hilton hotel family.
Thus, you would have to book it either with cash or HHonors poirnts.

If you bought direct from HGVC and are still within your rescision period, it is imperative that you rescind now, and buy on the resale market, which gets you nearly all the same perks for much less. If you are outside that period, do not worry. You are still in a fine, very flexible system system.

Go to this website to check out the resort...
http://waldorfastoria3.hilton.com/e...a-a-waldorf-astoria-resort-JHMGWWA/index.html
For May, I found rates from $332/Night or 80,000 HH-Points/Night.

Notes:
Converting your HGVC points to HHonors is not as simple as it sounds.
(1) The exchange rate of 1:25 looks good, but does not get you much.
(2) You can only convert next year's points (2013), not current year points.
(3) The points will not post to your HHonors account until early January.
(4) Use current year points to book directly and the rate is worse, effectively only 1:20.

Its far better to augment your HH-account with an Am-Ex or CitiBank affiliated credit card, which greatly adds to you HH-balance.

 

[l8racer]

Yes we bought directly from Hilton. Looks like that was a bad decision on our part.

I'm upset that we didn't ask more about the HH points thing. The salesman made it sound like it was like any of the other properties and we could swap our week for a week there. Wrong! Our week equals a day and a half there.

I'm beginning to think we got played.

 

[slum808]

When did you make your purchase? In most states you have 10 days to recind. It should be spelt out in your contract. If you can no longer recind, don't worry lots of people pay to much for their first timeshare. Best thing to do now is join TUG and learn how to get what you want. If you provide some details on what you own and what locations you'd like to visit, we could help you out. Welcome to TUG!

 

[DeniseM]

Yes we bought directly from Hilton. Looks like that was a bad decision on our part.

I'm upset that we didn't ask more about the HH points thing. The salesman made it sound like it was like any of the other properties and we could swap our week for a week there. Wrong! Our week equals a day and a half there.

I'm beginning to think we got played.

Well, yes... but so did most of the regulars here - with our first purchases.

Timeshare ownership almost always has the most VALUE when you use it for timesharing. Forget 95% of what the salesperson told you, do a lot of reading and asking here on TUG, and focus on learning how to use your timeshare for timesharing.

BTW - Even if you had asked, TS sales people are one step down on the food chain below used car sales people. They lie....