Is this a good TS / fair price for my needs>

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&item=140242299596

I'm considering bidding on the ebay item listed above for 7000 HGVC points. My question is what might I expect to be a reasale purchase price for this reslae. i'm not tyng to steal it, I just want to pay "fair market value"

I also see they list list 2008 maintenance (900), closing cost (399) and transfer fee (200) as required items. is this normal?

If it helps, I live in Arizona and go to Vegas 2-6 times per year, but usually 3-5 days per visit, not a full week. I travel 10-20 days per month for my work so I like to stay over in new cities on my own dime for extra weekends and enjoy my company paid airfare. So, it would alos be atracive to me to be able to use points to stay at a Starwood, Hilton, Marriott type of resort for 2-3 day stays 6-8x per year in various cities.

Great site, glad I found TUG. be patient with me as I am a newbie not wanting to get taken advantage of... I'be been to developer presentations for Shell, Hilton and Marriott and all I gotg was confused.

My guess is that you aren't ready

to make this type of purchase.

Why?

Because of the questions you are asking.

When you know what will work for you, then you will have answered most of these questions.

1st, this is for Hiltons Grand Vacation Club, not points to be used at Hilton,Westin, Marriott hotels.

2nd, 7000 annual points will get you a prime 2 bedroom unit for a week, or smaller units for longer periods.

It won't get you 3 or 4 days at a time 6 or 7 times per year.

The going rate for a 7k platinum ownership is around 12k, and yes the closing, transfer, annual fees are normally collected from a new owner.

You might email a moderator and see if they can move this to the HGVC board, where the HGVC folks tend to hang out.

jmho,

Greg

Greg is right that this is for a TS stays and not for hotel stays. BUT HGVC is one of the only Hotel TS systems which allow resale owners to convert their TS points to hotel points. (Although most of us don't think it is normally a good value). So you could buy this and convert it to hotel points.

7000 pts should sell for around the $12K which Greg guessed but you maybe able to get it for $10K.


If you are willing to stay in a studio at one of the TS, you should be able to strech your points out to cover at least 2-3 weeks of TS stays. Less the bigger the units you want to stay in. BUT yes, you can stay 2-4 days at a time at the HGVC TSs in vegas. Also since there are 3 HGVC TS in Vegas you could stay at any one of them.

Good Luck

I think you need to calculate how much you usually pay for hotels on those Vegas trips in a year. Then see if that is more than the M/F 917 plus the cost of capital for purchase price. I tend to use 5% for my own calculations.

As said, this is for HGVC the timeshare and not for the hotels. Conversion to hotel points is possible but not a great deal since the conversion rate was somewhere around 20 per HGVC point.

If you travel a lot for work and company tend to pay for your airfare and you use your own dime to book the extra nights, you might want to consider changing your CC to one or two of the hotel CCs such as SPG AMEX or Hilton CC since you can rack up points that way.

rockafellerskank said:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&item=140242299596

I'm considering bidding on the ebay item listed above for 7000 HGVC points. My question is what might I expect to be a reasale purchase price for this reslae. i'm not tyng to steal it, I just want to pay "fair market value"

I also see they list list 2008 maintenance (900), closing cost (399) and transfer fee (200) as required items. is this normal?

If it helps, I live in Arizona and go to Vegas 2-6 times per year, but usually 3-5 days per visit, not a full week. I travel 10-20 days per month for my work so I like to stay over in new cities on my own dime for extra weekends and enjoy my company paid airfare. So, it would alos be atracive to me to be able to use points to stay at a Starwood, Hilton, Marriott type of resort for 2-3 day stays 6-8x per year in various cities.

Great site, glad I found TUG. be patient with me as I am a newbie not wanting to get taken advantage of... I'be been to developer presentations for Shell, Hilton and Marriott and all I gotg was confused.

Click to expand...

The other posters are probably right about you not being ready yet...but let me attempt to answer the questions you posed:

Generally you'd expect to pay about $2 a platinum point with HGVC. Sometimes a bit more, sometimes a bit less...so $14K would be about what it should go for plus or minus $1k. HOWEVER, it might go for as low as $10K if you are lucky.

MF's and closing costs are pretty standard when the existing year usage is available. There are several nice things to say about HGVC. They system is flexible and allows for owners to use their points in a variety of ways. If you go to Vegas quite a bit, HGVC is a good bet with the three properties there. HGVC allows you to convert points to the hotel side HHonors program. Some catches though, it must be done prior to the start of that HGVC year, and I belive it's for the entire years worth of points.

As mentioned earlier the exchange reate isn't so great and you can supplement your HHonors account with a credit card which will provide you HHonors points for spding with the card. One senario which you've placed before us might be to convert the 2009 points to HHonors, using these for hotel stays outside of Vegas. Hilton has many different brands and there is often on of them near where you are headed.

Since you are already in the 2008 year, you'd use whatever ponits you can for this year and rescue (save. bank whatever) the remaining HGVC points for u usage in 2009. This would then provide you with HHonors points for Hilton Hotel stays and HGVC points for HGVC stays and a bunch of flexibility.

Not really a bad route to consider for tS.

Conversion to HH points is usually a bad economic decision. One exception, as a HGVC owner you are automatically a silver HH customer and eligeble for their VIP global package. It makes sense if you use them for the very high priced hotels.

Example: your 7K hgvc pts = 175K HH points. Thats enough for 6 nites at any top hilton hotel. We spent 6 nites at the Roma Cavaliera Hotel (420 euros for a base unit(6500 euros for the penthouse) and the place was full) and used 175K hhpts to pay for it. Now thats a buy.

Little known fact: If you use your VIP package, you can extend it for 30K HHpts a nite.

Excellent point

derb said:

Conversion to HH points is usually a bad economic decision. One exception, as a HGVC owner you are automatically a silver HH customer and eligeble for their VIP global package. It makes sense if you use them for the very high priced hotels.

Example: your 7K hgvc pts = 175K HH points. Thats enough for 6 nites at any top hilton hotel. We spent 6 nites at the Roma Cavaliera Hotel (420 euros for a base unit(6500 euros for the penthouse) and the place was full) and used 175K hhpts to pay for it. Now thats a buy.

Little known fact: If you use your VIP package, you can extend it for 30K HHpts a nite.

Click to expand...

Your point is well taken. A very convenient way to accumulate lots of HHonors points is if you use a Hilton American Express Card. Points are accumlated when you do your normal spending and megapoints are accumulated if you stay at a Hilton affliliated hotel. I have yet to convert my HGVC points to HHonors points. However, we have done redemptions to vacation at the Embassy Suites Lake Tahoe, Embassy Suites San Diego, Caribe Hilton in Puerto Rico, Hilton Los Cabos, Hilton Budapest, and Hilton Amsterdam. We stayed at the HGVC Hilton Hawaiin Village Lagoon Towers and ate at the hotel. The meals were billed to our room. We paid for it with the HHonors American Express and earned numerous HHonors points while staying at a Time Share.

There's also an HHonors Visa issued by Chase...fyi.

I use my cash rewards Costco AMEX most of the time, and my HHonors visa at the places which don't take AMEX, and when I stay at a hilton property.

Good news on this sale - no ROFR

This is for Flamingo, so it's conceivable that the auction could for under Hilton's typical price per point structure and there would be no Right of First Refusal for Hilton. Isn't Hilton usually exercising their ROFR for about $2 per point in Platinum? If so, getting in under $14k is a pretty good deal here, and $10k would be great, because at just about any other location you'd probably lose that type of purchase to Hilton.

aliikai2 said:

to make this type of purchase.

Why?

Because of the questions you are asking.

.

jmho,

Greg

Click to expand...

the guest asked to be helped- not judged

rockafellerskank said:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&item=140242299596

I'm considering bidding on the ebay item listed above for 7000 HGVC points. My question is what might I expect to be a reasale purchase price for this reslae. i'm not tyng to steal it, I just want to pay "fair market value"

I also see they list list 2008 maintenance (900), closing cost (399) and transfer fee (200) as required items. is this normal?

If it helps, I live in Arizona and go to Vegas 2-6 times per year, but usually 3-5 days per visit, not a full week. I travel 10-20 days per month for my work so I like to stay over in new cities on my own dime for extra weekends and enjoy my company paid airfare. So, it would alos be atracive to me to be able to use points to stay at a Starwood, Hilton, Marriott type of resort for 2-3 day stays 6-8x per year in various cities.

Great site, glad I found TUG. be patient with me as I am a newbie not wanting to get taken advantage of... I'be been to developer presentations for Shell, Hilton and Marriott and all I gotg was confused.

Click to expand...

Welome
Sorry about allikais 2s earlier post- hes not even a HGVC member and hes already saying you are not ready-
There is some wisdom - in getting all the info you can- b4 purchase- Do some research while you have the time-

Just the same,
HGVC is a great and flexible program- should be perfect for you as you visit vegas quite a few times a year.HGVC has 3 resorts in vegas.Some hints and suggestions:
1)Learn everythingyou can ablut the HGVC program while visiting tUG - Bill and Seth Nock a broker who frequents often are fountains of info
2) most HGVC purchases are subject to rOFR - I hear /flamingo is not---
If this is so get it as low as you can - IMO I wouldnt go over 11000 or 12000
3) check myresortnetwork.com just to have an idea what Flamingo would sell for-then check with a broker llike seth - so you armed with pricing info.
4) you can do 3 day stays - if you stay weekdays they cost around half the points weekends do
5) You can alos do 2 day stays - but I think these are only allowed in OPEN season - reservation needs to be made one month before at the most-
6) Hilton trades with RCI- not II- so you may be unable to exchange to Marriott or starwood, lot sof affiliate resorts - so you should be able to find what you need.
7



Get

First, thank you for starting this thread. I hadn't looked at eBay for quite a while. It appears there are some good deals out there. Based on this thread, I started looking and got a 7000 point platinum Flamingo for $9800. Not the one you referenced, but another one.

Second, the unit you pointed out went for just $9500. That's a steal! I hope you were the high bidder. If not, keep your eyes open. The eBay prices I'm seeing are a rare bargain.

I agree with everything benjaminb13 says. Take your time, make sure HGVC is the right program for you. I love it, but we all have different needs. Also take a look at the HGVC FAQ at http://www.tug2.net/advice/hgvc.htm

Again, thanks! And good luck.