HICV Question

[timpyacker]

Hello,

I am new to this site and just went through a presentation at the branson location for HICV. We were honestly very interested as we sat through it and asked a bunch of questions in the process. They offered us a "starter package" that was 60k points every two years with a $400/yr maintenance fee for $5000 initial cost. This seemed valuable to us at the time because we could use our points for the following two years ahead and go somewhere nice like Hawaii (studio option). They told us about the ability to rent a week from the range of $199-$499 at any of their resorts and also offered a special bonus of free bonus time Sun-Thursday at their 13 primary resorts. This made us very interested. We decided not to purchase and do some more research and I'm very glad they we didn't purchase then as it seems that the 60k in points is such a small amount that it's nearly unusable except in non peak times at non peak resorts. I had some questions about the bonus time because with a family of 6 total, we thought it could be a nice perk to slip down to branson for free. The main issue with this being that you have to book it 2 weeks before, which makes me think that it's probably worthless because they are booked up. They didn't mention black out dates for that but I'm sure they exist in major ways. All in all, I'm super glad we didn't buy it. Also, after reading on this site it seems like you lose points booking with RCI versus HICV which they did not mention at all. We did get roped into the 7 night vacation that can be used at about half of their resorts for $1099. We figured we could try out a place like the HICV in Myrtle Beach to see how we like it, plus they take that amount off the total cost of the TS if we decided to buy at their 90 minute mandatory presentation at the resort. I'm a little concerned that we will have trouble booking it so I'm curious if anyone has any experience with this? Overall, am I understanding this all correctly? What am I missing? Is there any way we can get screwed just using the one week vacation that we purchased?

Also, I do have the HICV points spreadsheet that has been posted on here and I was wondering if that was up to date? The points that they mentioned at the presentation seem to be really different than this and they didn't have the silver/gold/platinum/diamond levels on it. It just showed a point total for studio-4 bedroom and cost in points for that with no difference in those levels. The guy at the presentation mentioned that he took his family to Disney last year on week 52 and he only used 112,000 points staying at the Animal Kingdom through RCI I believe. How could that even be possible?

 

[jackio]

I own 98,000 annual points for a 1 BR in Las Vegas. I can't answer some of your questions, but 60,000 points won't get you a 2BR unless it's a discounted week at a late check in date. It can get you partial weeks in some resorts. I just booked 3 nights in my home resort for 73,000 points for a 2 BR.
The HICV points are twice the number of RCI points, but it doesn't affect anything. You have to go through HICV to make an RCI reservation, so if they tell you the exchange is 60,000 HICV points, the week is worth 30,000 RCI points.
I don't get bonus time (at least that I'm aware of) and I've never seen an offer to rent time cheaply. Either that is for a higher tier, or they are talking about RCI Extra Vacations.
Also, there is a yearly fee to be in the HICV system, payable yearly even if you only get your points every other year. That will include your RCI membership.

 

[Tank]

Thats a $126 yearly fee
$59 per reservation fee, and a $35 point saver fee = $94 a reservation
The $1099 you spent is not waisted , you will get a nice vacation. You can rent directly from Holiday Inn these same units. You will be surprised how much they can cost. Both high and low depending on when your traveling.


60,000 points is pretty useless , you would have to travel in off time only. We can rent to you for that and no headaches to go with it.
They have no units to rent for $199 to $499 (unless they are talking about per night fee)
They do offer a $199 3 night stay , you must commit to a sales pitch.
Bonus time you are talking about with the 13 Silverleaf properties now HICV only. Would not bank on that, Silverleaf owners are battling it out for those rights.
if you read the fine print, bottom line HICV can , and do change the rules without notice.

Read up on aftermarket sales here on tug, knowledge is power!
I like my HICV. If I had to do over again I would just rent. You figure the money you will have in it plus the yearly fees you could rent about 8 years of vacations with no drama.
Dave


Take Myrtle Beach for example , here are the points needed to reserve a stay depending on the season. Branson is below.

Holiday Hills Resort - Branson, MO