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lve2raft

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I have just booked a dream vacation to The Waldorf Astoria Beach House, in the Maldives. In an over the ocean suite. The trip is for 9 nights, and would normally retail for around $15,000 for those nights after taxes/fees etc.

I am paying ZERO! I converted my HGVC points into Hilton Honors points, and used those.

I do not imagine I will ever actually use my HGVC points anymore for HGVC properties when there are so many amazing properties Hilton owns out there. Next stop - Grand Wailea in Maui!

This is a GREAT program. Been a member for 3 years and its already paid for itself twice over.
 

itradehilton

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I was just wondering, how many HGVC points did you convert and how many Hilton Honers points did it take to make the reservation?
 

Craigvince

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Interesting

I've always been VERY disappointed trying to convert HGVC to HH.

At only 25 HH points per HGVC point, I've never been able to convert my annual allotment to anything more than a Hilton Garden Inn (motel). I'd be curious how your math worked to get you a 5-star resort.
 

pianodinosaur

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I have just booked a dream vacation to The Waldorf Astoria Beach House, in the Maldives. In an over the ocean suite. The trip is for 9 nights, and would normally retail for around $15,000 for those nights after taxes/fees etc.

I am paying ZERO! I converted my HGVC points into Hilton Honors points, and used those.

I do not imagine I will ever actually use my HGVC points anymore for HGVC properties when there are so many amazing properties Hilton owns out there. Next stop - Grand Wailea in Maui!

This is a GREAT program. Been a member for 3 years and its already paid for itself twice over.

I hope you have a wonderful time. I have been a member of HGVC since 2001. During that time we have not converted HGVC points to HHonors points because the conversion rate is so poor. If you get a HHonors AmEx, you will find that the points accumulate very fast. We have had numerous hotel redemptions using HHonors including Los Cabos, Puerto Rico, Budapest, San Diego, Barcelona, and Lake Tahoe. I assure you that the HGVC properties in Hawaii are much nicer than most of the hotels. HGVC does not have a property in Maui. However, converting HGVC points to help with a dream vacation in a posh resort when you do not have enough HHonors points in reserve is certainly a reasonable option.
 
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dja1980

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Wow... my wife and I actually looked into this exact vacation several months ago. We were estimating roughly $20,000 when you factor airfare and misc. expenses.

I just checked rates for September 2012, and the King Water Villa at Waldorf Astoria Maldives came in at $1,180/night or 60K HHonors Points/night. So, 7 nights would run either $8,260 or 420K HHonors Points. I thought the last time I checked, they offered 7 nights for less than 420K, but maybe the program changed.

Anyway, I own 4,800 HGVC points, which could be converted to 120K HHonors points/year. MFs are roughly $900/year x 3.5 years = $3,150 compared to $8,260... not too bad if I did the math correctly.
 

lve2raft

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Hi All,

So I have an 8200 points ( im pretty sure its 8200 pts) 3bd platinum. I own in Scotland. I traded my points last year (2011) to HH as they never expire. I think I got about 205,000 points or around that much. Then in 2012, i did the same thing. I do have a Hilton Amex card, and that got me another 100K + points, but I didnt get anything extravagant on the card...just routine bills, gas, etc.

So, basically it was two years worth of points and a vacation valued at more than the cost of the entire timeshare purchase (minus MF fees of course) My purchase price for the HGVC unit was $13,500 US (then there was some fees on top..i think about 14,500 when the dust settled...I used Judi)

One more thing, the 60K points per night is A LOT compared to other Hilton Properties. This is because it is a Waldorf Astoria property which have their own special point structure. Any other Hilton property would have been signifcantly less. You could have a 7 night vacation at a category 7 (everything except Waldorf) for about 250K points or maybe a bit less.

Also, a few other thoughts:

If you have a AMEX card, you can qualify for special VIP point redemption discounts with Hilton on vacations longer than 4 days. THere is another type of special as well. I think it is called GLON or going global or something. Here is a link with more information than you ever wanted about Hilton Honors points.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/hilt...reward-options-axon-glon-everything-else.html
 
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dja1980

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lve2raft - The link you posted is a great source of information... very well organized, and I find the comparison graphs especially useful!

If you don't mind me asking, what are the MFs for your 8,200 Platinum Scotland TS?
 

lve2raft

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Flyertalk is a great forum to use in conjunction with my HGVC membership!

This year it was about $1000, but i had some transaction fees becasue i wanted to pay with my Hilton AMEX card so that I got 9 points per dollar used. So I had to pay the foreign transaction fee.
 

sml2181

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I hope you will like it - we love it.

Last time we converted it took 45K points per night for the water villa (10 nights stay). But we have also once used 37.5K per night during summer.

We were used to visiting the Conrad which is great as well, and I have heard that the Hilton is very nice too.

Too bad we do not have the HH cc here...

Have a wonderful time.
 

dja1980

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Hmmm... when I quoted myself a stay yesterday using points, the system gave me a straight rate of 60K points/night = 420,000 points for 7 nights.

According to the Flyertalk thread, the site should have applied a 25% points discount for Waldorf-Astoria Collection VIP Reward for 6+ nights. Am I missing something?
 

lve2raft

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The normal rate is 80K per night, so it did give the discount. I think if you tried for 3 nights or something it would show 80K per night. Also, if your a diamond member, i think you get a discount too.

You can also try the Conrad Property, but its harder to find a standard room. Also, their standard room is on the beach and not over the water like the Waldorf property.

Finally, just as an FYI...there is a Coup ongoing right now in Maldives, but experts agree that travel/tourism will not be affected as it is the lifeblood of the country.
 

sml2181

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Sometimes it will only show 60K rates when it is a Diamond rate; meaning that it is not possible for others to reserve it.

(I had this when I checked the WA Park City: at first it didn't show any availability on points at all; later it changed to 60K per room per night because there was only 1 room in that category, but when more "standard" rooms became available, the points rate was changed to 45K per room per night. I never made it to the hotel btw other than for lunch, we used SPG points for the St Regis instead.)

It may be that they changed the number of points required. We went there the first winter season after it was rebranded to the WA, and at the time, the reviews were not very good (we loved it then though). I haven't checked points requirements lately.
 

itradehilton

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Thanks for the reply, that makes sense now, it took two years worth of points to take the vacation.

I looked at the rooms online and they look great. Enjoy your vacation.
 

lve2raft

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Thanks for the reply, that makes sense now, it took two years worth of points to take the vacation.

I looked at the rooms online and they look great. Enjoy your vacation.

No problem! Yes, it took two years worth of points. Probably would have been worth 3-4 years of points!
 

Tamaradarann

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No problem! Yes, it took two years worth of points. Probably would have been worth 3-4 years of points!

Has anyone noticed that the number of Hilton Honors points to book rooms at various hotels vary depending on the accommodations/views etc. I was wondering do they have rooms available at the lowest points for that level or are the available rooms that you can use your points for the better accommodations and views and, therefore, many more points.
 
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