The Regency Collection is available to HGVC Premier owners and is a new addition since last fall. But not all the perks offered are available to HGVC Premier owners. We found out the hard way.
Our story begins with our upgrade to Premier in January 2016. This was HGVCs second attempt to get us to upgrade. We cancelled a contract last year while we were staying at Parc Soleil and for the life of me I can’t begin to understand why we went to contract this year except to say we fell for the Regency collection kool-aid they poured into us. I swear there’s something in the water or the air that makes their offers irresistible for us.
Whenever we do these owners’ updates, they always ask what we like and dislike and where we like to stay, what changes we’d like to see. We tell them more East Coast HGVC resorts, not Myrtle Beach, and don’t point us to RCI because the quality just isn’t there for us. We stay on the Outer Banks of North Carolina every other summer and book a house with cash which seems silly considering our point level but there really isn’t anything through RCI that meets our needs.
We met with a Regency Collection Expert at Parc Soleil and he shared his great and powerful knowledge with us about how wonderful going Premier would be because of the Regency Collection. Not only did we share our vacation preferences to the outer banks but we also shared that we cruise once a year and use our points to pay for the cruises. He told us we were doing it all wrong because of the MFs and the cost of the cruise; whatever, I don’t fully remember or understand what he said. I’m sure a bunch of you guys know what he’s talking about.
He proceeded to tell us how wrong we were to use our points for cruises and then presented a plan for the future based on our cruising costs and vacation needs in the Outer Banks. We made sure to let him know that our cruises are always with Celebrity and never any other cruise line. We made sure to tell him how important cruising is to us and that we enjoy it very much. He told us that upgrading to Premier would give us the advantage of using points to obtain credits for cruises. And that it would be a better use of the points (less points to cruise). He also showed us a property on the Outer Banks in Duck that looked pretty decent.
We signed on the dotted line and never looked back. Please don’t judge. That’s the way we wanted to do it. However, if I had it to do over, I would have gone the resale route just to get more points and Premier, Diamond Hilton Honors for LIFE! And Regency Collection be damned.
A few weeks ago, I called the Regency Collection travel concierge and asked about cruises and points to credits. I had booked a future cruise onboard in January and the transfer-to-travel-agent 60-day window was rapidly closing. I wanted to see how efficient the use of my points could be, for the cruise through the Regency Collection.
Imagine my surprise when Libby, the travel concierge, told me that the cruise option isn’t available for HGVC Premier owners. I said WHAT! She had to be mistaken, please check again. Nope, she said for some reason, HGVC Premier owners aren’t allowed to use the cruise option.
I sent a scathing email to Flavio Aragao. In a nutshell, I demanded answers or we wanted out. I said that we were angry and that we were mis-lead and that the primary reason we upgraded was for the more efficient way to use points for cruises as promised by our sales rep, Regency Collection expert. I demanded 50,000 bonus points to repair our relationship and if that couldn’t be given, then we wanted to cancel our contract.
Our sales rep called me and was upset by my email. He agreed to look into the problem immediately and he did. He found out that I was right. Apparently, I had uncovered a hornets’ nest of a problem with the Regency Collection program. As of Monday and after a meeting with the Director of the Regency Collection of RCI, our rep confirmed that HGVC Premier owners do not have access to the cruise option. Nobody knows why. None of the reps or sales managers or trainers knew about this (or so they claimed). It’s now in negotiation to get it on the program. It may happen. It may not. Nobody is promising anything. Our rep insists he will hound the powers that be until this is available.
In the meantime, we now have 50,000 bonus points. We’re going to make the best of our new level with HGVC, suck up the extra MFs which we’d have to pay whether we bought this way or resale way. And as others have said, make these points count and enjoy the years of vacationing. We now have enough to snow bird in Florida in a one bedroom for 2 months every year if we wanted to.
Bottom line, if you hear a presentation that promises The Regency Collection, be aware that it’s not completely what they are selling you. Hopefully, some new training has already been implemented and the cruising option has been eliminated. Funny thing is, it’s in the hard cover book we received in the mail and on the website which just makes me madder than a hatter every time I see it.
And I can’t believe the shoddy way of doing business that this uncovered. The next time we're at Parc Soleil or any HGVC property and we're asked to attend a presentation, we will let them know what we think of the way they run their business; the next time and every single stinking time we're offered a presentation or owner update. What fun we will have.
Our story begins with our upgrade to Premier in January 2016. This was HGVCs second attempt to get us to upgrade. We cancelled a contract last year while we were staying at Parc Soleil and for the life of me I can’t begin to understand why we went to contract this year except to say we fell for the Regency collection kool-aid they poured into us. I swear there’s something in the water or the air that makes their offers irresistible for us.
Whenever we do these owners’ updates, they always ask what we like and dislike and where we like to stay, what changes we’d like to see. We tell them more East Coast HGVC resorts, not Myrtle Beach, and don’t point us to RCI because the quality just isn’t there for us. We stay on the Outer Banks of North Carolina every other summer and book a house with cash which seems silly considering our point level but there really isn’t anything through RCI that meets our needs.
We met with a Regency Collection Expert at Parc Soleil and he shared his great and powerful knowledge with us about how wonderful going Premier would be because of the Regency Collection. Not only did we share our vacation preferences to the outer banks but we also shared that we cruise once a year and use our points to pay for the cruises. He told us we were doing it all wrong because of the MFs and the cost of the cruise; whatever, I don’t fully remember or understand what he said. I’m sure a bunch of you guys know what he’s talking about.
He proceeded to tell us how wrong we were to use our points for cruises and then presented a plan for the future based on our cruising costs and vacation needs in the Outer Banks. We made sure to let him know that our cruises are always with Celebrity and never any other cruise line. We made sure to tell him how important cruising is to us and that we enjoy it very much. He told us that upgrading to Premier would give us the advantage of using points to obtain credits for cruises. And that it would be a better use of the points (less points to cruise). He also showed us a property on the Outer Banks in Duck that looked pretty decent.
We signed on the dotted line and never looked back. Please don’t judge. That’s the way we wanted to do it. However, if I had it to do over, I would have gone the resale route just to get more points and Premier, Diamond Hilton Honors for LIFE! And Regency Collection be damned.
A few weeks ago, I called the Regency Collection travel concierge and asked about cruises and points to credits. I had booked a future cruise onboard in January and the transfer-to-travel-agent 60-day window was rapidly closing. I wanted to see how efficient the use of my points could be, for the cruise through the Regency Collection.
Imagine my surprise when Libby, the travel concierge, told me that the cruise option isn’t available for HGVC Premier owners. I said WHAT! She had to be mistaken, please check again. Nope, she said for some reason, HGVC Premier owners aren’t allowed to use the cruise option.
I sent a scathing email to Flavio Aragao. In a nutshell, I demanded answers or we wanted out. I said that we were angry and that we were mis-lead and that the primary reason we upgraded was for the more efficient way to use points for cruises as promised by our sales rep, Regency Collection expert. I demanded 50,000 bonus points to repair our relationship and if that couldn’t be given, then we wanted to cancel our contract.
Our sales rep called me and was upset by my email. He agreed to look into the problem immediately and he did. He found out that I was right. Apparently, I had uncovered a hornets’ nest of a problem with the Regency Collection program. As of Monday and after a meeting with the Director of the Regency Collection of RCI, our rep confirmed that HGVC Premier owners do not have access to the cruise option. Nobody knows why. None of the reps or sales managers or trainers knew about this (or so they claimed). It’s now in negotiation to get it on the program. It may happen. It may not. Nobody is promising anything. Our rep insists he will hound the powers that be until this is available.
In the meantime, we now have 50,000 bonus points. We’re going to make the best of our new level with HGVC, suck up the extra MFs which we’d have to pay whether we bought this way or resale way. And as others have said, make these points count and enjoy the years of vacationing. We now have enough to snow bird in Florida in a one bedroom for 2 months every year if we wanted to.
Bottom line, if you hear a presentation that promises The Regency Collection, be aware that it’s not completely what they are selling you. Hopefully, some new training has already been implemented and the cruising option has been eliminated. Funny thing is, it’s in the hard cover book we received in the mail and on the website which just makes me madder than a hatter every time I see it.
And I can’t believe the shoddy way of doing business that this uncovered. The next time we're at Parc Soleil or any HGVC property and we're asked to attend a presentation, we will let them know what we think of the way they run their business; the next time and every single stinking time we're offered a presentation or owner update. What fun we will have.
No this wouldn't be for us. But I see your point. I like having HGVC points for land vacations as well as cruises. My point is that we were sold this upgrade based on mistaken information. Hoping others will be aware of this.