Where does HGVC fit into your annual vacations?

[letsgobobby]

I thought it'd be interesting to see how others "roll" and where HGVC fits into your year. How has your HGVC ownership evolved over time? Where do you see it going in relation to the rest of your traveling?

We will soon own 3 deeds, one of which is EOY. We make that into an average of 2 trips per year. When the kids leave home (youngest is in middle school) we will probably get smaller units, maybe go off season, and stretch that into 3-4 weeks, or sell off the EOY deed. I stayed in the same HGVC property for many years before taking the pandemic plunge and buying my first deed. I don't see us getting into more deeds because HGVC is not everywhere/most places we travel and we don't plan most of our trips far enough in advance.

We do a lot of other traveling, mostly small road trips to hike and camp nearby; a backpacking trip at least once a year; and tons of overnighters for kids' sports. We like to take cruises but can only squeeze that in every five years or so, maybe one more before the kids graduate.

We own an RV so that is good for 2-3 of those camping trips per year, the rest we tent camp. We try to do one long RV trip per summer, a week or longer, though this year we stayed closer to home with diesel over $6 per gallon.

We recently went back to Europe for the first time in a decade and plan to go back next year. If that becomes a regular trip we will start to run out of vacation time! But I don't see us using HGVC in Europe, we prefer either small quaint towns or major capitals where we don't need a car and there is lots to walk to to see, eat, learn, not sure any of the Scotland, Portugal, or Italy property locations appeal too much.

We are mid-late career professionals, in fact my wife retired in the last year so it's just me working now. I will probably start ratcheting down my workload in the next couple years with the goal of working just over half time by the time the kids graduate, at which point we should have lots of time for travel. There is one HGVC location (the ones we own at) where we could, during retirement, spend 4-6 consecutive weeks every winter, that is the only circumstance where I could see us buying more deeds.

 

[escanoe]

The South Carolina beach resorts are where my family consistently goes. A couple of short stays in NYC. Hope to make Hawaii in the next few years.

 

[HuskerATL]

We used to own only 1 deed in HGVC so we would use it, then use other stuff like hotels, what used to be called the Government Employee Travel Opportunities (which we used many times in the Caribbean and Europe....$299 for a week and sometimes they had bogo deals so $299 for two weeks...we did two weeks in a resort in St. Maarten and another time in St. Thomas for $299 for 14 days...in a 2 bedroom fully furnished place...not as fancy as HGVC but very comfortable), and now the Heros Vacation Club (the Government Employee Travel Opportunities became this) plus there is the Armed Forces Vacation Club. I haven't used the last two but am a free member of them. Since I have traveled a lot for work, I typically have had a ton of points so we have used hotels all over but now that we have gathered more deeds, I tend to stay at HGVC's only. We have burned a few unused points in RCI but mostly HGVC. This year we have booked 10 HGVC stays and working on 2023 right now.

Just to add, since we are in ATL, we tend to stay in SE resorts that we can drive to, so MB each fall, HH, Orlando, and SW FL. We have flown to others but tend to drive the most.

 

[dayooper]

We use HGVC for our large family trips. Because we have 22400 points, we can be very flexible. Last year we took 2 family trips and a trip with just the wife and I. This year we took a large group (2 units) for over a week. Next year we have a family trip and a wife and I trip. The following year is a family trip and giving a week as a wedding present.

The smaller trips with just the 2 or 3 of us are done in hotels.

 

[1Kflyerguy]

For HGV, we own one mid level Kingsland deed, as well as 7K MVC points. We mostly use our HGV deed to book a week to 10 days in Hawaii each year, and then use the MVC points for a different Hawaii location, or more recently other locations like Marco, Hilton Head, etc. We bought into MVC to get access to Maui and Kauai, as well as other places like Marco and Hilton Head Islands. We also usually do several long weekends or even week in hotels sometimes.

 

[brp]

We use it for Big Island, multiple annual NYC trips and the occasional Vegas visit. The rest is typically Hyatt (jotel, not Vacation Club).

Cheers.

 

[weems637]

We acquired our HGVC property in Orlando when our two boys were young, and Disney and Universal had begun expanding. The boys, of course "out grew" Orlando. We used the points at the Embarc property in Destin, FL and also the property at Hilton Head Island. The boys got married, and the wives discovered our gem in Orlando. Now we are taking granddaughters to Orlando. Full circle, twice!

 

[HuskerATL]

We acquired our HGVC property in Orlando when our two boys were young, and Disney and Universal had begun expanding. The boys, of course "out grew" Orlando. We used the points at the Embarc property in Destin, FL and also the property at Hilton Head Island. The boys got married, and the wives discovered our gem in Orlando. Now we are taking granddaughters to Orlando. Full circle, twice!

Our 25 year old took the intro to SCUBA at Tuscany when he was about 12 and then our 16 year old took it when he was about 12....

 

[Talent312]

We use our points annually for Eagles Nest (Marco Island),
(should prolly buy there), and make shorter trips elsewhere,
sometimes thru RCI.

Our only other annual trip is to Tennessee to see DW's family.
It's a life-sentence... 1-week, every friggin' year, for life.

This year, 3 weeks in Europe non-HGVC means unused points,
(I'll have to save 'em).
,

 

[letsgobobby]

We use our points annually for Eagles Nest (Marco Island),
(should prolly buy there), and make shorter trips elsewhere,
sometimes thru RCI.

Our only other annual trip is to Tennessee to see DW's family.
It's a life-sentence... 1-week, every friggin' year, for life.

This year, 3 weeks in Europe non-HGVC means unused points,
which I'll have to save 'em.
,

How do u get Marco Island without owning there? It's not on my radar but I don't see any openings at Eagle's Nest within the nine month window...

 

[alwysonvac]

I thought it'd be interesting to see how others "roll" and where HGVC fits into your year. How has your HGVC ownership evolved over time? Where do you see it going in relation to the rest of your traveling?

Over the years, I’ve bought and sold several timeshares. I primarily use my timeshares as follows

• HGVC for stays on Oahu
• Vistana for stays on Maui
• WorldMark for trades with Interval International and RCI (for Disney, Marriott, Four Seasons Residence Club, Vistana and HGVC)

I don’t stay at HGVC every year since I own other timeshares. My personal resort preference hasn’t changed over the years except for trying to stay in Hawaii longer by coordinating back to back stays with HGVC and Vistana.

Over the last 20+ years, I’ve stayed multiples times at the Hilton Hawaiian Village
But I really haven’t used the HGVC system for much else. I’ve booked the following resorts over the years (see below). NOTE: My Orlando and Vegas bookings were 10+ years ago.

• NYC: West 57th (twice)
• DC: District (once)
• South Beach: McAlpin (once)
• Orlando: Tuscany (twice)
• Vegas: Boulevard (once)
• Orlando: SeaWorld (gifted my cousins a stay)
• Vegas: Paradise (once)

I’ve also stayed at the following HGVC resort via an RCI exchange

• Kings Land (once)
• Hilton Club New York (twice)

Also, in addition to timeshare stays, we cruise from time to time.

I plan to retire within the next five years and will eventually cutback on my timeshare ownership soon after. Which one(s) I’ll keep, will depend on the cost of ownership. I actually like the idea of spending two to three months in Hawaii once I retire but honestly, I’m a little worried about the need to show a profit via escalating fees (HOA management fees, annual membership fees, transaction fees and resort fees) by developers and exchange companies.

 

[Talent312]

How do u get Marco Island without owning there? It's not on my radar but I don't see any openings at Eagle's Nest within the nine month window...

A lot of searching and luck...
I usually find availability in or near Summer months.
We are going the last week of this month (August).
.

 

[dougp26364]

We originally purchased an EOY deed at the Karen Ave location in Las Vegas. At the time it was the only points system we’d seen and liked the idea of points based reservations. We were also vacationing in Vegas upwards of 4 weeks each year, so it fit our plans well. We later upgraded to a standard 2 bedroom EY unit at LV Blv because we liked the resort feel better and felt it had a better location. At the time there was a lot of promised (but never completed) casino expansion going on around that area.

We had always wanted to go to Hawaii. Hiltons points system seemed like the easiest way to book a Hawaiian vacation, so that had some appeal for us. We eventually booked our first Hawaiian vacation in the lagoon tower on Oahu. Because of the cost of travel we thought it be a once in a lifetime trip. Turns out it wasn’t. We booked another week staying at the Grand Waikakian and later booked into the Bay Club on the Big Island.

Hilton didn’t expand their portfolio of resorts fast enough to meet our travel need so we never expanded past that 2 bedroom Las Vegas unit.

Today we use the club reservation window and book shorter stays at Elara, which has become our preferred resort when we go to Las Vegas. We prefer the Grand Plus or Premier units, so it eats up our points fairly well. Nest year were literally burning our point by staying in a 3 bedroom plus unit with friends.

For future trips we’ll likely stick with Elara for our Vegas needs. I’d like to return to the Big Island at some point and Hilton has good availability and a variety of accommodations for the Big Island. We love Park City and Sunrise Lodgehas some appeal for us. We’ve spent a few night at Valdoro Mountain Lodge in Breckenridge, but they never seem to have availability when we want to be there in the summer, so I stopped looking and just bought a week through BGV that fit our needs.

For us booking what we want when we want it thru Hilton has been a struggle. It’s part of why we never expanded our ownership and part of why Hilton will be one of the first to go when I begin off loading timeshares, although that day is a long ways down the road at this point. I enjoy their product and their fees have always been reasonable. We’ve just never found them to be as user friendly as our other ownerships when it comes to booking anywhere other than Las Vegas or the Big Island.

 

[brp]

Nest year were literally burning our point by staying in a 3 bedroom plus unit with friends.

That's the great thing about Vegas. If you get a 3 bedroom unit, you can always find friends to share it...just sayin'

Cheers.

 

[weems637]

How do u get Marco Island without owning there? It's not on my radar but I don't see any openings at Eagle's Nest within the nine month window...

We have stayed at two Marco Island properties, Ft. Myers, and two Sanibel properties, getting them here and there over the last ten years, usually in August. Summer is the off season. The owners at these HGVC managed properties have to give up their for them to become available to the rest of us.

 

[HuskerATL]

We have stayed at two Marco Island properties, Ft. Myers, and two Sanibel properties, getting them here and there over the last ten years, usually in August. Summer is the off season. The owners at these HGVC managed properties have to give up their for them to become available to the rest of us.

Same for us. We have stayed at Charter Club in Marco and then Sanibel but it takes a bit of luck and persistence for peak season....we have done Christmas week there and it is not a bad place to spend that week if you can get it.

 

[dayooper]

That's the great thing about Vegas. If you get a 3 bedroom unit, you can always find friends to share it...just sayin'

Cheers.

The strip side 2/3/4 bedroom at Elara is an awesome room. We were on floor 32 and our views were amazing! The master bedroom is huge and has that huge bank of windows that shows the south end of the strip and the mountains in the distance.

 

[natarajanv]

For the last 3 years we have been doing 1 week in Myrtel Beach and 1 week in Hilton Head.
2019 Christmas week at Divi Aruba (RCI exchange)
2018 Christmas at Lagoon Tower for 9 days
2017 Christmas week in Charter Club Marco Island (RCI exchange)

 

[90_Min_Sales_Pitch]

We're very new to this, but this are our initial intention with 5440 points. We're planning to take 2-3 short trips per year, usually Mon-Friday, off season, in a 1-bedroom. One trip will be to Las Vegas, which we live near, likely staying at Elara. Another trip will be towards the ocean, either Hawaii, Myrtle Beach, Florida, etc. Outside of Vegas, we'll likely stack these stays onto a larger road trip, or island hopping in Hawaii. We purchased Club Wyndham specifically for Sedona, but I'm sure we'll be stacking both timeshares together at times, especially with their Wyndham Rewards hotel points.

 

[GregT]

Over the years, I’ve bought and sold several timeshares. I primarily use my timeshares as follows

• HGVC for stays on Oahu
• Vistana for stays on Maui
• WorldMark for trades with Interval International and RCI (for Disney, Marriott, Four Seasons Residence Club, Vistana and HGVC)

I don’t stay at HGVC every year since I own other timeshares. My personal resort preference hasn’t changed over the years except for trying to stay in Hawaii longer by coordinating back to back stays with HGVC and Vistana.

Over the last 20+ years, I’ve stayed multiples times at the Hilton Hawaiian Village
But I really haven’t used the HGVC system for much else. I’ve booked the following resorts over the years (see below). NOTE: My Orlando and Vegas bookings were 10+ years ago.

• NYC: West 57th (twice)
• DC: District (once)
• South Beach: McAlpin (once)
• Orlando: Tuscany (twice)
• Vegas: Boulevard (once)
• Orlando: SeaWorld (gifted my cousins a stay)
• Vegas: Paradise (once)

I’ve also stayed at the following HGVC resort via an RCI exchange

• Kings Land (once)
• Hilton Club New York (twice)

Also, in addition to timeshare stays, we cruise from time to time.

I plan to retire within the next five years and will eventually cutback on my timeshare ownership soon after. Which one(s) I’ll keep, will depend on the cost of ownership. I actually like the idea of spending two to three months in Hawaii once I retire but honestly, I’m a little worried about the need to show a profit via escalating fees (HOA management fees, annual membership fees, transaction fees and resort fees) by developers and exchange companies.

I am similar to what Phyllis has posted.

I am happy to use my HGVC units to travel to either Oahu or Big Island. Originally, I was very focused on booking travel 9+ months out, and HGVC was perfect for that. Now, thanks are simplifying and I can travel 30 days out and HGVC is even better. I love the Hawaii properties.

But as noted above, I think about the other systems too - and Starwood is great for Bahamas/Caribbean so it’s a bit of a balance between systems. I would not commit to only one system (HGVC or Vistana or Marriott) but see which ones offer you the most opportunity and ease of access — it truly is about securing the reservation you want.

Best,

Greg

 

[frank808]

We also think HGVC and MVC compliments well. We also own DVC but son is of age where Disney has taken a back seat.

We used to use HGVC for Lagoon stays to watch Juky 4th fireworks shows annually. Since son turned 9 we no longer stay over 4th but try to stay mid July to mid August at HHV.

Wife and I love going to Washington DC. We have actually been to the District more times than HHV the past couple years.

Timeshares has let my family and I make some very fond and awesome vacations. We certainly would not have been able to make these great memories.

Sent from my SM-T290 using Tapatalk

 

[Lodemia]

We are almost empty nesters, all three kiddos are in college, and one is engaged, so when we travel, we travel as a family of 6, making hotel stays very costly. I am a perpetual bargain hunter, and spend a lot of time deciding what to buy, and then executing quickly as soon as something hits my price point. We currently own the following:

2 weeks gold at boulevard (16k pts), 5 weeks 2br platinum at Colyumbridge (11,200 per), 1 week 2br plat at Craigendarroch, and we just made an offer on a 1BR at West 57th that is going through ROFR right now. We’re elite premier as a result of the Scotland purchases. We’ve paid about $34k for all these weeks, and we pay about $6100 in maintenance, depending on the exchange rate. We are also shareholders in a Dominican Republic All-Inclusive Resort, which gives us a $5k resort credit a year (basically a free vacation for 4), which we paid $30k for resale. We have two Aspire Cards, and put our Hilton purchases and maintenance fees on those to maximize value.

We got into this because we want to travel while we’re still relatively young (under 50). I’ve had both Nationwide and Global jobs my whole life, so we have friends and acquaintances in most major cities. Our recent NY trip we spent with a coworker. The district trip will be with another coworker.

What do we get for this $64k outlay and $6100? This year will consist of:
1 Week Dominican with Family
5 Nights New York Hilton Garden (honors pts) as a couple
5 Nights Toronto Doubletree (honors pts) as Mother/Daughter trip
1 Week Anderson - Myrtle Beach as Wife+her Sister ‘girls trip’
1 Week NY Residences as a couple
1 Week Kingsland as a Couple
1 Week Orlando as a family - 3br
2 Nights Charlotte (honors pts)
1 Week District as a Couple
5 Nights Colorado Springs Embassy Suites (honors pts) as a family - 2 rooms
2 Nights Denver Embassy Suites (honors pts) as a family - 2br presidential suite
plus multiple nights in the Hilton Chicago Ohare when we need to catch an early flight

Next Year, we have both a 50th birthday and 25th wedding anniversary.
1 Week in the DR - extended family birthday
1 Week in Chicago - bigger family trip - 4 rooms during spring break
1 Week in NY as a couple
2 Weeks in Scotland (we own back to back weeks in Craig/Coly)-25th Anniversary trip
1 Week in Carlsbad as a couple
+whatever other frugal/points stretcher type of travel we can dream up!

As an elite, I can transfer points to honors at any time. While this isn’t always the most frugal option, it is the most flexible option, and it’s one that I see discounted here quite a bit As “not a good use of points.” I disagree, the sweet spot is 5 night stays - pay for 4 and get one free. We combine that with the aspire card free nights and points from paying maintenance with the card, and it makes travel, especially last minute travel, a no-brainer.

As you can see, we try to maximize our spend, and a lot of the hotels/resorts were chosen based on some sort of promotion at the time.

From a cost perspective, using an arbitrary $200 per night value to a bedroom, we would have easily spent $15k just in hotel rooms this year. If I really wanted to calculate it out, I’m sure our savings are much more than that.

What’s the future look like for us? I’m mildly interested in Max, as It opens up more locations. I am mildly interested in switching out our vegas gold deeds for platinum ones to cost average our points down. If Hilton would make me a great trade in deal for my vegas deeds toward a Quin or Central & 5th, I might pull the trigger on that. It would give us more flexibility in booking New York, and we would have two weeks in a 1BR. But there’s always resale too ;-).

 

[HuskerATL]

We are almost empty nesters, all three kiddos are in college, and one is engaged, so when we travel, we travel as a family of 6, making hotel stays very costly.

Sounds very similar to our situation with the timeshares and kids. We have a Tuscany, 2 blvds, and 6 Craig but just as a word of warning...the college kids who become post-college kids still mooch but then bring their girlfriend/boyfriend....so things just become more costly...

Thanks for the information that you provided. It is interesting to see how someone, with similar point levels to us, we have a little over 70k, uses them each year.

 

[Lodemia]

Sounds very similar to our situation with the timeshares and kids. We have a Tuscany, 2 blvds, and 6 Craig but just as a word of warning...the college kids who become post-college kids still mooch but then bring their girlfriend/boyfriend....so things just become more costly...

Yeah, but at least then, they will be buying their own airline tickets Our last trip to Vegas was + 1 Fiancé, +1 Friend, and +1 Cousin, and it was COSTLY. Interestingly enough, I don't mind paying for rooms in Vegas - if you know how to play the Priceline game, you can stay in the Bellagio or the Venetian for less than $100 per night. It doesn't feel like a good use of points to me.

Thanks for the information that you provided. It is interesting to see how someone, with similar point levels to us, we have a little over 70k, uses them each year.

Yw. Seems like we have almost the exact profile! We are flexible and just like to collect memories at this point. If our 57th goes through, we will be at 97k.

 

[brp]

Yw. Seems like we have almost the exact profile! We are flexible and just like to collect memories at this point. If our 57th goes through, we will be at 97k.

We currently have a mere 32K of the "new" points (23.5K HGVC, 8.5K bHC) and I just Saved some as we're still hard-pressed to use them. But retirement looms, so this will change.

Also, we have no kids, so we tend to get smaller rooms. And we do a lot of hotel travel as well. Not sure we could ever take enough trips to use 97K points.

Cheers.