I can't justify more points

I've looked at all sorts of scenarios, including getting a 7000 point annual for free, and I still can't justify expanding what i have now (which is 5000 EOY).

Let's say to make it simple that my MF is $1000 and my points will get us a week in our home resort. That comes out to $143/day.

Now let's assume I want to book another week in Open Season. That would cost $760 or $108/day. So booking Open Season is less expensive than another year of maintenance fees.

The only place we ever go to is Orlando and Orlando never has a problem handling Open Season bookings. You may not get Christmas week but we don't come here for Christmas week anyway, we normally come in March, July and September/October.

So if we want to go to Fiji or London or the Turks and Caicos we have our 5000 points, which will get us a 2br week through RCI. If we wanted some uberfabulous vacation (which I don't have time for anyway) we can borrow points to do it. Then we would be back to booking Open Season until we get back to enough to book again.

Am I missing something that would make buying an annual worthwhile? It's so cheap it's tempting but I just can't see how it's worth it.

We only own 1 TS and it's 7000 pts on Karen Street in Vegas.

I guess it would be nice sometime to own a lot more like lots of people here do. But for us this has just been fine.

In fact now that our kids are grown and one has "left the nest", we plan on doing more hotel vacations. For example, I just spent a week in Vegas at a hotel. Sure I guess it would have been nice to have more room and cooking ability etc, but the hotel provided me all the comforts that I wanted and needed.

For our three big trips to Hawaii, we have always borrowed points and it's always worked out A-OK.

Besides this, with TS rental prices being quite reasonable, you can rent your vacations, so why pay MF's?

Just my two cents....

I left out renting from owners, which would probably bring the cost down even more and get around having to wait for Open Season, just to keep it simple. But you are correct. So I basically pay $500/yr for a guaranteed week eoy and access to the system.

Purseval said:

The only place we ever go to is Orlando...

Click to expand...

If this is the case, then do not buy anything. All kinds of stuff is available below MF for Orlando most of the time.

We just bought more points after going back and forth with the same arguements for and against. The reason we decided on more is that we like to stay at the Flamingo Las Vegas and need a two bedroom since our daughter, son in law, and 2 year old go there once a year with us. It is hard to get a two bedroom open season there so you cannot anticipate openings when you need them. The other reason is we go once as year to Hawaii and since airfare sales make it necessary to book in advance and are mostly non refundable we book at least part of our stay at HGVC and try for open season for the rest. We stay about three weeks in Hawaii so points are never quite enough but we always start from a reservation and fill in. Hawaii can be tough to get in open season when you need it. So, depending on need having more or less points can or cannot make sense. Curt

Right on!

You have learned what someone else reported on this forum a while back. The open season rates are approximately equal to a yearly maintenance fee. So if you're flexible, just book at open season and avoid being locked in to another set of maintenance fees for life. We often travel to Vegas, where there is open season availability pretty much all the time if you're not stuck on Flamingo. In fact, I visited 5 times last year and now I'm burned out for a while. Just couldn't resist those cheap direct fares through Allegiant Air I guess-LOL. Some of those visits were at open season rates. I think the open season program, and the option of using less than a week at a time is one of the many features that makes Hilton stand out from the rest.

I use most of my HGVC points at NYC, and my 14000 points has worth to pay MF yearly. I use open season for Orlando or Vegas trips and I have had no problem to reserve a desired week or days so far (not event weeks). I am looking for another 7000 points packages now, HGVC is the one I use for myself each year among my many TS.
It is case by case, I would not buy more points for use at Orlando.

I agree with the OP. With a good system like HGVC where borrowing points is an option. As well as good trading, My purchase of 2 5k points may have been overkill. I could have gotten by with 7k or perhaps just one 5k. Oh well. It looks like some of my friends and family will get hooked up!!

We own 4800 @ LV Strip and find that plenty for us. As retirees we have enjoyed several week-long vacations using RCI LAST CALL (45 days out) --2-3 BR's go for $289 for the whole week and no points used -- you will find quite of number of gold crown and silver crown resorts in the Orlando area for most of the times OP mentioned, although July/August are more sparse than the other times.

yumdrey said:

I use most of my HGVC points at NYC, and my 14000 points has worth to pay MF yearly. I use open season for Orlando or Vegas trips and I have had no problem to reserve a desired week or days so far (not event weeks). I am looking for another 7000 points packages now, HGVC is the one I use for myself each year among my many TS.
It is case by case, I would not buy more points for use at Orlando.

Click to expand...

I'm with you. For Orlando, it's easy to get great places to stay for less than 1/2 open season rates. So, I don't use Open Season for Orlando.

I use Open Season and my points for Hawaii. It's available all the time. I own 7000 HGVC points and I need another 7000 or so since it costs so many points to go to HHV.

But, I agree with the OP that they don't need any additional points given how they like to travel.

lvkcwalker said:

We own 4800 @ LV Strip and find that plenty for us.

Click to expand...

We only own 4800 points also, and it is enough. We go to Orlando a lot and use open season some or just stay in a studio, and tend to trade out for 1brs using RCI or take the family offseason to a FL oceanfront resort (this takes a lot of time of the phone to hit on an affiliated resort).

Purseval,

I'm like you. I've found that 5000 EOY is a great value with all the open season and RCI deposits.

I've been very glad that I owned HGVC just for the open season in Orlando because I tried in March to get something in a 3 bedroom suitable for our family and neither RCI nor II had not one good unit available, so I was very happy that I had HGVC which saved the week for us.

DVC would have been way too expensive points wise to do a 3 bedroom and it would have been impossible to get within a months notice like we got Tuscany.

If I find I need more points in the future, another EOY to compliment what I own shouldn't be much even if prices begin to increase again.