Similar reason in terms of forcing us to take vacations. However I though maybe we could save a dime or two with a timeshare over time.
I think it can, depending on how you valuate and value the different opinions and opportunities.
For instance, for us, I think we do save money for what we get. Many people with HGVC also stack their AE Aspire/Surpass with HH points to get additional value. If I base the HH point to be 0.5¢ each, and the FNC to be worth $500 (which is a conservative estimate, I got about 0.7¢ and $700 for the FNC based on the cash prices of my redemptions this past year), I got abou $2200 in value from my spending/bonus points and FNC value from my aspire, and $1300 from my Surpass…this actually covers my maintenance fees for my Elara 2BR and my W57th Studio+.
Other value that is yours for the taking…we just stayed at a 1BR+ at W57th last night,, and they offered an “owners update” at a convenient time for us for 200,000 HH points…yeah we took that (that’s $1000 of HH points using HH “math”). And we got a shortened meeting, less than 45minutes out the door. So that basically gave us a free stay+ today.
So could we have traveled to the same places cheaper? Sure, via Hampton inn/motel6/sleazy 8 motels. Would it be as enjoyable as we travel now? Definitely not.
But, how do you amortize your initial costs? That will surely subtract from the value, and I am ignoring those as sunk costs for my purposes…I don’t obsess over that in order to not take away from my enjoyment at this point.
Of course YMMV.