How much would you pay for Max?

[archsof]

At Elite Plus in HGVC and being told the two Miami deeds I have were resell even though purchased through the local HGVC office, I would lose my status. It's the only reason I haven't sold all of them. Yes, I found TUG late but also have been told "how did you purchase these 4 deeds at such a low price?". I wish I had said "TUG". I learned a lot after the 1st purchase.

$0 for Max and if they keep rolling out similar programs, I'm out. I would rather spend $5K/year on VRBO properties than the MF's.

 

[trippka]

Highly doubtful that they care one whit about this thread (or this board). We're a minuscule portion of their universe and they should not be wasting their time with us. Plus, even if they did waste the time to care, we're not the folks they're targeting.

Cheers.

I am sure they have already gotten a lot of feedback from their customers. I do think they were surprised by the percentage of customers who aren't interested in paying specifically for Max. On the DRI side, you lose a lot of benefits if you are in the upper tiers. Those are likely the people who were most targeted as they have already made major investments in DRI vacations. On the HGV side, the resorts are admittedly not as nice (in general) so why pay for a resort with limited availability and in need of renovation? Years from now after the renos are done, it might make sense. In the meantime, if you want more vacations and they throw it in because you are a new purchaser, then fine. I am both DRI and Hilton and have added Max because I added some points. I wouldn't do Max as it stands now. I have noticed they are trying to sweeten the reasons to convert, but I gave up a lot of benefits for the Hilton leftovers at 5-6 months. They tell you 6 months, but it is from checkout date. I like stays of a month or so, so it becomes either a lot of reservations (more likely to work) or it is the leftovers from the Max folks as well. And, if you want cancellation insurance you have to pay separately for each reservation. DRI had an annual policy which was much cheaper overall.

 

[TravelinZiggy]

I opted for the $1-$499 amount. We have no status with our legacy deeds so we do not stand to lose any of those elite benefits. That being said, we really like the HGVC legacy properties we have access to and if we really wanted to dip into DRI or BG, we will use RCI (even if additional fees). I think that having access would be worth something under $500 for us, but it would have to come with waived fees (as we stay anywhere from 2-4 times a year) and NO MORE UPDATES (lol!)

 

[escanoe]

Should I pull the poll?

That is just silly. If they pay much attention, they already know everything said here.

HGVMax was never designed to be marketed to people on TUG.

 

[ljmiii]

HGVMax was never designed to be marketed to people on TUG.

Obviously it is their company and they can do what they want...but it has always surprised me that HGV doesn't offer a product tailored to knowledgeable/resale buyers.

When you go to a MVC 'owner update', the salesrep (of course) tries to pitch their 'retail' full price product. But if you say you don't want to buy (and/or say that you might be interested in a hybrid purchase) they look to see if you have previously bought resale (or bought hybrid) and if so MVC allows you to buy at around $7-8/point - about half the 'retail' price and comparable to buying resale.

If they offered to 'enroll' resale buyers in MAX for $500-$1000 (only online...so there are no sales costs) they could make a fair chunk of change.

 

[rboesl]

We own a 10 year starter package with DRI. We're staying at Turtle Cay Resort in Virginia Beach and went through "the pitch" for Max upgrade. It was very strange.

The sales guy was quoting an excerpt from an announcement document about Max. Tried to make it sound like if we transition to Max we'd get 8,100 points and if we ever wanted out it could be done with no issues. PLUS, we'd get $68k in equity back. Huh?

When he stepped away I took a closer look at the preprinted paper he was using to illustrate. It clearly stated that $68k was the cost to upgrade to Max. Minimum down was $4,700 and the remainder could use 120 month financing at 10.9%.

Um, no thank you. I like what I have and it's done in 6 years.

 

[cd5]

hmm. with 4 out of 5 respondents saying they'd pay under $500, I'm wondering if this thread is giving HGVC any bad ideas. Like seeing how worthless most of their most knowledgeable customers view Max, will they start to get some devious ideas about driving us into it? Such as kneecapping the existing HGVC resale program? Should I pull the poll?

According to their sales, urmm..."experts" 8 out of 10 members/owners are buying into Max after a presentation (reported as being said by many Embarc/Diamond members, as well as experienced by myself). It's a standard line they appear to be using during their sales pitches which I HIGHLY doubt is true. Based on Embarc members who report back after attending, it's and about 1 out of ten who attend presentations who actually buy into Max.
But since they seem to have such a great rate of buy-in (according to them), why bother worrying about what HGV may do?

 

[cd5]

We own a 10 year starter package with DRI. We're staying at Turtle Cay Resort in Virginia Beach and went through "the pitch" for Max upgrade. It was very strange.

The sales guy was quoting an excerpt from an announcement document about Max. Tried to make it sound like if we transition to Max we'd get 8,100 points and if we ever wanted out it could be done with no issues. PLUS, we'd get $68k in equity back. Huh?

When he stepped away I took a closer look at the preprinted paper he was using to illustrate. It clearly stated that $68k was the cost to upgrade to Max. Minimum down was $4,700 and the remainder could use 120 month financing at 10.9%.

Um, no thank you. I like what I have and it's done in 6 years.

It's not an "upgrade", it's a purchase of new points with Max tagged on as the Exchange program.

 

[Mowogo]

Obviously it is their company and they can do what they want...but it has always surprised me that HGV doesn't offer a product tailored to knowledgeable/resale buyers.

When you go to a MVC 'owner update', the salesrep (of course) tries to pitch their 'retail' full price product. But if you say you don't want to buy (and/or say that you might be interested in a hybrid purchase) they look to see if you have previously bought resale (or bought hybrid) and if so MVC allows you to buy at around $7-8/point - about half the 'retail' price and comparable to buying resale.

If they offered to 'enroll' resale buyers in MAX for $500-$1000 (only online...so there are no sales costs) they could make a fair chunk of change.

I'd say you could even get away with some form of scale that works as a fee on resale. I think they could easily get people to pay $500 per contract to upgrade to Max. And given the activation fees they have for HGVC transfers, wouldn't be too hard to allow for people to pay the standard fee to get just their collection or pay an elevated fee to be Max. And with them allowing for the taking away benefits like Open Season on future resales, there would be a stronger argument then to pay the max upgrade on transfer.

 

[myip]

They want me to pay $25K to be Max...

 

[geist1223]

They want me to pay $25K to be Max...

LOL. What were they smoking?

 

[trippka]

LOL. What were they smoking?

More likely they want you to buy something new and Max comes with it.

 

[brp]

According to their sales, urmm..."experts" 8 out of 10 members/owners are buying into Max after a presentation (reported as being said by many Embarc/Diamond members, as well as experienced by myself).

Well, cool. I like being an outlier

Cheers.

 

[GT75]

According to their sales, urmm..."experts" 8 out of 10 members/owners are buying into Max after a presentation (reported as being said by many Embarc/Diamond members, as well as experienced by myself).

FOMO to the max.

 

[brp]

FOMO to the max.

And for those in the know, it's FOGS - Fear Of Getting Scammed.

Cheers.

 

[Mongoose]

I hear Diamond members say they lose benefits if they join MAX. What are those actual benefits? As a HGVC, I don't understand why you wouldn't accept MAX for free if it only gives you potential options with no downside.

 

[Mongoose]

According to their sales, urmm..."experts" 8 out of 10 members/owners are buying into Max after a presentation (reported as being said by many Embarc/Diamond members, as well as experienced by myself).

No way. I doubt its even 1 out of 10.

 

[Mongoose]

We own a 10 year starter package with DRI. We're staying at Turtle Cay Resort in Virginia Beach and went through "the pitch" for Max upgrade. It was very strange.

The sales guy was quoting an excerpt from an announcement document about Max. Tried to make it sound like if we transition to Max we'd get 8,100 points and if we ever wanted out it could be done with no issues. PLUS, we'd get $68k in equity back. Huh?

When he stepped away I took a closer look at the preprinted paper he was using to illustrate. It clearly stated that $68k was the cost to upgrade to Max. Minimum down was $4,700 and the remainder could use 120 month financing at 10.9%.

Um, no thank you. I like what I have and it's done in 6 years.

Snap that right up. Its only $191K over 10 years. And that's without MFs.

 

[brp]

No way. I doubt its even 1 out of 10.

I highly doubt it's this low. For those that don't know the details like we do, this can be made to sound like a good deal with the right spin. Likely not 8/10, but definitely more than 1/10.

Cheers.

 

[4TimeAway]

There are only a few DRI/BlueGreen resorts I would want. Cabo Azul, Maui and Kawaii from DRI and BlueGreen at Tradewinds in St. Pete's Beach Florida. Tradewinds is the only resort I would probably visit more than a couple of times and that's just because of the location.

Maybe I would visit Mountain Run at Boyne because that's a couple of hour drive for me, but I can get that with RCI and in 6 years of ownership, I haven't even looked at using points there.

Cabo Azul is on RCI exchange sometimes and that has been fine with us.

Not sure we would spend more money or want to have to relearn the TS Game again.

 

[Mongoose]

I highly doubt it's this low. For those that don't know the details like we do, this can be made to sound like a good deal with the right spin. Likely not 8/10, but definitely more than 1/10.

Cheers.

So I looked at the annual report. These numbers are a little fuzzy. HGVC has 529,000 owners with a net 2% growth rate. That's ~10,500 new owners per year. They perform 600,000 presentations. So new sales from presentations are 1.7%. It doesn't break down the difference between an new owner and an existing owner.

I was a little low, I guess I am biased toward TUG educated owners

https://s201.q4cdn.com/229588028/files/doc_news/2024/02/HGV-Q4-2023-Earnings-Release-2-28-2024_FINAL.pdf

 

[letsgobobby]

So I looked at the annual report. These numbers are a little fuzzy. HGVC has 529,000 owners with a net 2% growth rate. That's ~10,500 new owners per year. They perform 600,000 presentations. So new sales from presentations are 1.7%. It doesn't break down the difference between an new owner and an existing owner.

I was a little low, I guess I am biased toward TUG educated owners

https://s201.q4cdn.com/229588028/files/doc_news/2024/02/HGV-Q4-2023-Earnings-Release-2-28-2024_FINAL.pdf

wouldn't this underestimate success by not counting current owners who are successfully sold new deeds?

 

[Mongoose]

wouldn't this underestimate success by not counting current owners who are successfully sold new deeds?

It includes all new sales for new owners and existing owners. Now way to know if they are more successful selling to New or Existing. I'm sure that data is somewhere.

 

[letsgobobby]

so "10,500 new owners" is actually "10,500 new deeds"?

 

[ljmiii]

I hear Diamond members say they lose benefits if they join MAX. What are those actual benefits? As a HGVC, I don't understand why you wouldn't accept MAX for free if it only gives you potential options with no downside.

I'm uncertain as to whether you are saying "Diamond members have no benefits so they have nothing to lose" or "HGVC members don't lose their benefits".

The latter statement isn't true. HGVC members lose their Elite status if they join MAX - which can matter a great deal to higher level Elites.