FilthyForever
TUG Member
- Joined
- Sep 16, 2022
- Messages
- 71
- Reaction score
- 135
- Location
- California
- Resorts Owned
- HGVC Anderson Ocean Club, HGVC On The Boulevard
Hello Fellow HGVC Tuggers!
My name is Rich, and I've been following this forum for a long time. Given I've owned in the Hilton system for 10 years now and just completed my first successful resale purchase, I figured it was time to join the conversation.
My brief timeshare history is back in 2012 while I was living in DC, I went down to Myrtle Beach on a vacation package from Hilton and purchased a gold studio annual week at Anderson Ocean Club (1600 / 2560). Yes, that was a full retail purchase of ~$10K, but I saw it as a relatively low cost entry point into the system (and made sense based on the limited information I had in the sales presentation).
Two years later, I found myself living on the west coast (proud military spouse here) with newfound proximity to Las Vegas and more importantly Hawaii. I spent the next several years doing annual trips to Waikiki and Waikoloa (after a few years just Waikoloa, benefit of nonstop flights between OAK and KOA) and Vegas a few times a year for the buffets and the various pop star residencies.
After years of reading this forum, I took the plunge this summer and bought a gold 2 bedroom plus week at Boulevard (5800 / 9280) for ~$4K. Based on recommendations here, I worked with Diane Nadeau and had a positive experience with a fairly quick closing and deposit of points (about 2 months start to finish). I focused on getting the right amount of points at a low MF to enable my ideal annual trip to the Big Island (check in Monday, check out the following Friday) without the need to save or convert unused points (I ideally wanted one of those elusive 6200 / 9920 point deeds but they are very hard to come by).
You might wonder how I was able to do annual Hawaii trips with just 1600 annual points. Using a lot of the tips and tricks in this forum, I would stay at the ground floor phase 2 standard 2 bedroom units at Kings Land on gold season weekdays only. This was just 2000 points in the old valuation, and by borrowing future year points I could do this 4 years in a row before running out of points. I would sometimes pair this with open season stays for the weekends before or after. And after using my initial bonus points, I've always used open season to stay in Vegas.
My HGVC ownership has allowed me to go on over 20 "grand" vacations over the last 10 years. I've been able to stay at Kings Land (love ground floor units), Kohala Suites, Bay Club (love the villas), Grand Waikikian, Lagoon Tower, Hokulani, Elara, Boulevard, Flamingo, Trump, Anderson, McAlpin, and Palm Desert (when it was club intrawest, very excited to potentially have access to this property within HGVC again).
My next trip is to - you guessed it - the Big Island for my birthday later this month (Bay Club Villa + Kings Land 3BR + Kohala Suites 2BX). I was pleasantly surprised that I could already borrow the 2023 points from my resale purchase to supplement this trip for myself, my husband, and 4 of our friends :]
Before I go, I'd like to thank some specific users in this forum for the help and guidance over the years. Specifically, many thanks to @GT75 for the maintenance fee tracking and spreadsheets (helped me figure out which units to focus on resale), @dioxide45 for the ROFR database (helped me figure out a fair offer), and @Clifbell for the detailed video reviews of different resorts and unit types (helps me plan and dream).
Anyway I thought I'd introduce myself and say thank you. I'm looking forward to learning and sharing a lot more!
My name is Rich, and I've been following this forum for a long time. Given I've owned in the Hilton system for 10 years now and just completed my first successful resale purchase, I figured it was time to join the conversation.
My brief timeshare history is back in 2012 while I was living in DC, I went down to Myrtle Beach on a vacation package from Hilton and purchased a gold studio annual week at Anderson Ocean Club (1600 / 2560). Yes, that was a full retail purchase of ~$10K, but I saw it as a relatively low cost entry point into the system (and made sense based on the limited information I had in the sales presentation).
Two years later, I found myself living on the west coast (proud military spouse here) with newfound proximity to Las Vegas and more importantly Hawaii. I spent the next several years doing annual trips to Waikiki and Waikoloa (after a few years just Waikoloa, benefit of nonstop flights between OAK and KOA) and Vegas a few times a year for the buffets and the various pop star residencies.
After years of reading this forum, I took the plunge this summer and bought a gold 2 bedroom plus week at Boulevard (5800 / 9280) for ~$4K. Based on recommendations here, I worked with Diane Nadeau and had a positive experience with a fairly quick closing and deposit of points (about 2 months start to finish). I focused on getting the right amount of points at a low MF to enable my ideal annual trip to the Big Island (check in Monday, check out the following Friday) without the need to save or convert unused points (I ideally wanted one of those elusive 6200 / 9920 point deeds but they are very hard to come by).
You might wonder how I was able to do annual Hawaii trips with just 1600 annual points. Using a lot of the tips and tricks in this forum, I would stay at the ground floor phase 2 standard 2 bedroom units at Kings Land on gold season weekdays only. This was just 2000 points in the old valuation, and by borrowing future year points I could do this 4 years in a row before running out of points. I would sometimes pair this with open season stays for the weekends before or after. And after using my initial bonus points, I've always used open season to stay in Vegas.
My HGVC ownership has allowed me to go on over 20 "grand" vacations over the last 10 years. I've been able to stay at Kings Land (love ground floor units), Kohala Suites, Bay Club (love the villas), Grand Waikikian, Lagoon Tower, Hokulani, Elara, Boulevard, Flamingo, Trump, Anderson, McAlpin, and Palm Desert (when it was club intrawest, very excited to potentially have access to this property within HGVC again).
My next trip is to - you guessed it - the Big Island for my birthday later this month (Bay Club Villa + Kings Land 3BR + Kohala Suites 2BX). I was pleasantly surprised that I could already borrow the 2023 points from my resale purchase to supplement this trip for myself, my husband, and 4 of our friends :]
Before I go, I'd like to thank some specific users in this forum for the help and guidance over the years. Specifically, many thanks to @GT75 for the maintenance fee tracking and spreadsheets (helped me figure out which units to focus on resale), @dioxide45 for the ROFR database (helped me figure out a fair offer), and @Clifbell for the detailed video reviews of different resorts and unit types (helps me plan and dream).
Anyway I thought I'd introduce myself and say thank you. I'm looking forward to learning and sharing a lot more!
