Clarifying what the HICV Silverleaf purchase will mean to us
Tank, Sandy, Andex, Skotrla - Thanks for all of the responses. I have decided to hold on to both of my Silverleaf weeks for now and wait to see how this shakes out. Sandy - I found your thread from a couple of years ago that detailed your conversion experience from Desert Club so that was helpful - thank you. I've thought about picking up another upgraded Silverleaf resale week on the cheap to take advantage of the (likely) upcoming conversion, but think I will just stand pat until I have more details. From what I understand, I would still have to pay the annual existing MFs going forward (post conversion) on top of the conversion fee itself so that gets a little expensive 3x and I don't take that much vacation anyways
Will keep everyone posted should I hear anything. Thanks again.
So, I'm new to the conversation, but just got out of a members meeting at Silverleaf so have some information (or misinformation) to add, as well as questions that I would love for someone to answer as I try and wrap my mind around these changes.
At our info. meeting of course the main objective is to get you to buy. So we were shown a new color chart. Before, in Silverleaf, the color chart was broken down into the Red (Prime Peak) White (Peak) & Blue (non Peak) time periods with variations of the spread of colors depending on the resort; with some key resorts being mostly red. Anyway, the new chart called the "Club Access Time Chart" had Green (Prime Peak) Orange(Peak) and Yellow (Non-Peak). We were told that this is the system that Orange Lake uses and that we were already converting to that system. Is that true? Is this the system that HIVC uses?
Funny thing is, that even though we own 2 Red Prime Peak weeks on the old chart which would be considered prime peak time, the exact weeks for those resorts on the new chart fall on Orange (peak) instead of Green (Prime Peak).
Who rated this new chart already with some our properties downgraded? HIVC?
So, while we were told our "red" privileges within the Silverleaf system would not be taken away EVER, "SHOULD and IF the HIVC & Silverleaf programs get combined, then our weeks would not have prime peak when it came to using the HICV resorts".
However, and here was the clincher...if we bought a new week today under the new color chart, then our other two existing weeks would get linked in to this new membership and would now be counted as Prime Peak weeks in the new color chart. Does this sound fishy to someone else, or did we pass up a valuable opportunity to buy into the new system before it costs as they said a whole lot more?
Of course we would have had to pay a lot more for their cheapest non peak week than we did for our other two units a while back ago, but we were still told that it would be a lot cheaper than what's coming. They said there was this "big announcement" that is coming in January
that just might (speculative) be the one that gives Silverleaf members the ability to use HIVC properties. At that point, buying new weeks into the HIVC system will cost a lot more...which is kind of what y'all are saying in terms of holding on to Silverleaf weeks that may be worth more by virtue of being in the HIVC system.
But then they didn't say anything about simply having a conversion fee to buy into the program like what was mentioned happened at the Vegas property. Was that a one time fee? That sure beats having to buy a new week.
However, they did say this current new week we would be buying did not have the free bonus time Sun-Thurs like we own on our other two weeks....so that makes me wonder if we can loose bonus time if we convert to the HIVC system along with our other Diamond member & Plus Program privileges.
I would rather trade through RCI to stay at an HIVC resort than loose my bonus time or other privileges. I know that HIVC or pretty much anyone else in the industry does not have bonus time anymore, but I was wondering if they really can't take this away? Savvy Silverleaf members? Also, I was wondering what the HIVC maintenance fees are like for a regular unit at Orange Lake.
It's all pretty confusing and I've learned to distrust half of what I'm told and to muddle it even more, when we declined the deal, they offered us the existing equity on our paid week 52 in Galveston towards the payment of the new week and yet somehow get to keep the deeded week.
This was odd and something we've never heard of in the 13 years we've owned and been to these meetings, so I'm not sure what their angle is or why their having our equity but not the week would do them any good if we don't have to pay it back? Thoughts? Anyway, I do want to say that we have enjoyed our Silverleaf timeshares and are glad
we bought them when we did, though I guess some folks have bought them second hand and paid a lot less, but that's another discussion. I would appreciate any feedback that relates to this new merger. Thank you!
