Where to start

[ATEX21]

1) Is there a vacation destination you wish to visit most of the time or on a regular basis? if so where?
We live in Texas, just starting a family and a big reason is to get access to II so when thinking of destination we aren't too worried. We travel frequently to Florida and have family out west as well. So if i were to pick based on those details, I would think Park City or Lake Tahoe

2) Do you want to visit your home resort at least half the time, or do you want to trade more than half the time?
Probably trade

3) What are your 5 top trade destinations?
Hawaii, Park City, Florida, Tahoe, Arizona Scottsdale

4) How many people do you usually travel with - total, including yourself?
Minimum 4
5) Can you travel any time, or are you locked into the school schedule?
Currently any time, but eventually school schedule
6) Can you make firm plans 12 or more mos. in advance?
Yes, my wife is good at this, me not so much
7) Can you vacation for a full week at a time?
Yes
8) What level of accommodations do you prefer on a scale of 1 to 5 stars?
3.5 stars and up.
9) How much can you afford to spend upfront, without financing?
~3K
10) How much can you afford to spend every year for a maintenance fee that will come due right after Christmas, and increase each year?
~3K
11) Are you a detail oriented planner?
Yes
12) Do you understand that once you buy a timeshare, it may be very difficult to sell or give away, and you are responsible for all fees, until you do?
I think I do which is why I would rather get in earlier so I have it longer.


I have currently been looking into Park City as they had some cheaper buy options, but i'm trying to get a good source of weeks and how to find platinum weeks for cheap to help leverage trading power.

 

[jp10558]

So, I'm generally going to recommend one of the existing systems because I feel like they'd be the easiest to give away later, and "in general" seem to manage well enough to avoid special assessments or super high MF increases (so far in my time, which isn't super long). The two I'm using are HGVC and Wyndham. The downsides is for HGVC the buy in for a "good" week is more like $5,500-$10,000 resale, and MFs are not the absolute cheapest in the easier to get locations (Great for 11,200pts is around $1,000 MF, easy to get OK is $1,500 - which is what I have.) Wyndham is much cheaper to buy into resale, often available free, or if you're impatient you can get a decent load of points around $1,200 on ebay plus closing, so $2k total, which again is what I did. But if you wait you'll often see free ones each year on the forum here. Both Wyndham and HGVC have better and worse MFs depending on resort, and Wyndham also has CWA which IMHO is a waste of money if you can avoid it, it's a large group of resorts together so tends to be higher MF per point than the bottom half MF costs at specific resorts - with the only real benefit of a slightly longer booking window at more resorts. Both of these options are more MF yearly than some inexpensive more independent resorts, but IMHO those resorts are harder to get rid of later. The benefit of the more independent resorts is you can trade in II OR RCI depending on which you decide to do business with, or both - but you can only use one company for one week you own to trade. I.e. if you only own one week, you can choose each year to trade it in II OR RCI, but not both. Of course, you do need to check the specific resort because some are still only affiliated with one company.

HGVC and Wyndham only trade in RCI. I know both do Hawaii and Florida, and I think Tahoe - you might have to trade via RCI for the other locations, but Wyndham does have a lot of locations. The reason I suggest HGVC or Wyndham is both currently don't really restrict resale owners very much compared to other systems that either just don't allow you to use a lot of the system features, or require you to "Re enroll" at often double the resale amount to actually use their system (Marriott charges $3/pt to re-qualify from what I've gathered). What you lose in HGVC is "Max", which is a very short booking window of 6 months into the "lesser" systems Hilton has purchased, Diamond and Bluegreen. So you won't get access to all the resorts in the marketing material, you get "Legacy HGVC", which TBH is pretty much fine IMHO. Wyndham is the same, you don't get access to affiliate resorts I think or Worldmark resorts they bought. However - in both cases, if you *really* want Diamond or Worldmark resorts, it's cheaper and better IMHO to buy into those systems vs paying the developer prices just to get a short booking window that probably won't have much availability left.

The other thing is for *me* I find that a lot of availability is opened up using RCI, at the cost of the exchange and resort fees. These aren't cheap, often around $500 for a week. Which means your week in the wider RCI system might cost you more like $2k one year vs $1,500 if you stay inside the resort system of HGVC or Wyndham. That said, I also find Extra Vacations in RCI usually a much better deal if I'm doing a second, third, fourth etc week over and above my owned week(s) in a system, because those are straight cash, and can be $529 all in, no trade / points needed, or $700 or $1,100. Those are the regular kind of steps I've seen where I'm looking.

All my pricing is assuming 2BR suites everywhere. These are good for 4-6 people, depending on how they like to share beds, rooms, and if some will sleep on the pull-out sofabed. I'd guess this would be the minimum you'd want with 4 people going, and TBH, the minimum I personally think makes timeshares a no-brainer if you work the system(s). When you're looking at 1BR it gets a lot more iffy IMHO, and Studios are directly comparing with Hotel Rooms IMHO.

To get 3BR it's more limited, but doesn't have to cost a lot more - in HGVC you can do 3BR for as low as 13300ish points, Which would potentially be the same or similar MFs from what I've seen. I kind of wish I'd gone for more points, but availability on the resale market and up front cost were less. Wyndham at least some places have 4BR for ~400,000-450,000pts, which I got 405,000 and pay around $2,800 a year for. So YMMV - I won't say you can get 4BR in a lot of places either. The other places I've seen 4BR is Vacation Villages, which is kind of a "tiny" system, and I know trades in RCI, IDK about II. I think they run a bit cheaper than HGVC for trades like for like, a 4BR in Williamsburg was 9,200pts in an exchange.

 

[ATEX21]

This was amazing! Thank you! So I’m not too familiar with the point system and from HGVC and I’ve been looking more towards the deeded weeks. However would you say the points compare with cost of weeks?

 

[jp10558]

This was amazing! Thank you! So I’m not too familiar with the point system and from HGVC and I’ve been looking more towards the deeded weeks. However would you say the points compare with cost of weeks?

So in HGVC, the vast majority of weeks are enrolled and generate points automatically. "Most people" buy HGVC by points the deed gets vs MFs. You do have an underlying owned week at a specific resort, but it's not fixed. Instead you get an earlier booking window during the "Home Week" reservation window. Everything is figured by days before the reservation date that you can book. So you get from I think 364-290ish days before where if you are booking the home resort and owned unit type using ALL your points for that week. During that time you are only competing with other owners of that unit type at that resort. Then from 290ish days to ~180ish days you're using "club booking" in which all points are points, and anyone in HGVC can book if there's availability and they have the points. The vast majority of the time, if you can book right at 9months club booking, there's availability so many people never use their "home week". However, for some resorts it's difficult enough to get in that people buy THERE no matter the MF if they MUST have access. Florida, Las Vegas and Hawaii pretty much always have some availability, though perhaps not in the exact specific resort, but in the area. The booking window gets more complicated from 180 days on, but think of that like a free for all, and basically you'd be looking to try and scoop up a cancellation or something at that short a notice. PLAN on 9 months out.

So when you look at HGVC (NOT HVC(formerly Diamond), Not Hilton Club(sub system for extra fancy in NYC and other big cities)) you want to figure out what the point values are you need for the sort of room you want. 11,200 is a good minimum, and I'd suggest 22,400 is a good maximum starting. Something like 80% of Legacy HGVC has 2BR for 11,200 in the most expensive season, but some Hawaii are a lot more (the newest resorts) and larger 3BR are more like ~14,000. The other thing to understand is some weeks are cheaper - I booked a 2BR at Flamingo in Vegas for end of August into September, and while it's the same accommodations / room as the 11,200 in high season, apparently that is a lower season, so only cost me 8,000.

So - specifically to your question, HGVC weeks are generally thought of as points values - i.e. how many points they give you. But you are actually buying a deeded week at a specific resort for a specific week. I think I own week 44 in a 2BR, but it basically "never comes up" because you don't get assigned that week automatically, you still have to book during the home week period. HGVC doesn't charge for points access beyond the most basic club fee, which is $299 I think every year, and usually mandatory. This is only charged once per account, you can have a lot of weeks if you buy and pay MFs for them.

 

[letsgobobby]

If you want to consistently ski at Park City with HGVC you should buy a week there. reservations nine months out for non Park City HGVC owners is scarce during high season. you might get lucky especially 30-45 days out as cancelations roll in, but nothing you could plan a family ski vacation around. This also means you'd need to plan on a seven day trip , because that's what home week reservations are.

hgvc doesn't have a Tahoe location, you need another system for that.

always always always buy resale. period.

 

[Janann]

hgvc doesn't have a Tahoe location, you need another system for that.

Tahoe is now available thanks to the acquisition of Diamond resorts -- Hilton Vacation Club Lake Tahoe Resort South.

 

[letsgobobby]

Tahoe is now available thanks to the acquisition of Diamond resorts -- Hilton Vacation Club Lake Tahoe Resort South.

HGVC bought DRI and rebranded it HVC. Access is not available to HGVC owners. It is only available to Max owners.* You cannot be a Max owner with a resale only HGVC deed, you have to buy retail, which is the number one no no in timesharing.

*there have been a few stray exceptions reported

 

[jp10558]

Tahoe is now available thanks to the acquisition of Diamond resorts -- Hilton Vacation Club Lake Tahoe Resort South.

Yea, but HVC doesn't do anything for HGVC owners, they'd have to RCI trade in anyway unless they're in Max, which wouldn't be a resale purchase.