cardinal93
TUG Member
[LONG POST WARNING]
After a month as a card-carrying member of the HGVC timeshare system (never owned or even rented a timeshare before), I have come to the following realizations:
1. Researching time-share ins and outs (i.e., reading TUG) is addictive.
2. It takes planning and flexibility to get the most out of your timeshare.
3. It will cost you more money now because you're going on so many vacation trips!
*********************
I've made a short list of things that I have discovered that will be helping me leverage my HGVC points and work the system:
1. Be aware of the low seasons weeks (bronze, silver and gold) for the various resorts you want to go. If you can swing vacationing in those resorts during the low seasons, your points will go a long way.
For instance, November through December 15 are SILVER season at Orlando Seaworld. Book early for Thanksgiving week, and you can splurge on the 3 bedroom penthouse (and ask your friends who go with you to pay for half your points). And enjoy good weather instead of hot and humid weather.
Another example is the Las Vegas Flamingo. SILVER season all January (awesome weather + Christmas still up and Lunar New Years decorations are in progress) and first 2 weeks of December (again, awesome weather).
2. If you're already getting a 2 bedroom, the incremental points cost is very small to get the 3rd bedroom. Invite another family and have them share half your points total. That's what we plan to do when we go to Orlando. Just get the 3 bedroom and split the points cost with my sister and her family. Supposedly the 3 bedroom accommodates 10 people comfortably.
3. If it costs me alot to fly out to a resort (like Hawaii next spring break, where we'll pay 2500 just for flights from CA for 4 people), my wife has no qualms about burning points to upgrade to the PLUS or ocean view. Who knows when we will be back, so might as well make it worth your time and money.
4. Skip a weekend night if you can. Our Hawaii trip will be from Sunday and returning Saturday, thereby skipping a Saturday night stay. Saved myself 1000 points, and I still get to see the Friday night fireworks from the Lagoon. 6 nights are plenty for us, since we need a day or two to unwind from our vacation anyways.
5. Make plans in advance and book early. Before I joined HGVC, I had heard about the competition for kids school vacation weeks. Well, it's 9 months to spring break 2014 and there is still plenty of availability for the April 13th spring break week in almost all unit sizes. I already went ahead and booked my rooms at the Hawaii Lagoon tower and adding a day every night at 9pm pacific time. I have a feeling that in a few weeks or maybe 1 month, there wont be much availability in the exact dates you want. My feeling is that there are alot of people who don't plan well, and will then complain about why they can't get reservations. The early bird gets the worm!
6. RCI exchanges: I haven't done any, but I have been looking around comparing. My takeaway is I would only exchange into a resort that would cost me more to rent externally. For instance, for our future Cabo trip, I would exchange into the Playa Grande 1 bedroom (3400 points + 199 exchange fee). 3400 x $0.135/point = 459, so total cost is $658 for the week (spring break week, mind you). On redweek, I don't see anything approaching 658 dollars for a spring break week for this resort.
7. Know your resorts open season availability. It helps if you actually live near those resorts and want to go there, hence the advice of buy a system with internal resorts you want to go to. In many cases (except if you can book the resort using Silver or Bronze season points), it makes more sense to just pay cash. However, you actually need flexibility to take advantage of open season
.
8. I didn't realize that you can change your club point reservation a couple of days before your check-in date without losing your points or cancellation fee. Just go into your reservation and change it to another date (at any resort, doesn't have to be the same one) within the same calendar year as long as it's at least 30 days out from the current date.
One practical use of this "feature" is this scenario: You had booked a few nights at Resort A. About 30 days and 15 days prior to checkin, people start canceling or moving their reservations. If you find some nights open, you can book it using open season rates, which would be a new reservation. You can just move your old reservation out into the future and book something else that is the same or greater points used previously. This only works if you're still early in the calendar year (like before October or whenever), since you need to rebook within the current calendar year and 30 days out in order to not lose your booking fee. This also assumes that open season cash rate is agreeable to you, and that you have somewhere else you would rather use your points on in the future.
Do any TUGGERs have other tips they would like to share?
After a month as a card-carrying member of the HGVC timeshare system (never owned or even rented a timeshare before), I have come to the following realizations:
1. Researching time-share ins and outs (i.e., reading TUG) is addictive.
2. It takes planning and flexibility to get the most out of your timeshare.
3. It will cost you more money now because you're going on so many vacation trips!
*********************
I've made a short list of things that I have discovered that will be helping me leverage my HGVC points and work the system:
1. Be aware of the low seasons weeks (bronze, silver and gold) for the various resorts you want to go. If you can swing vacationing in those resorts during the low seasons, your points will go a long way.
For instance, November through December 15 are SILVER season at Orlando Seaworld. Book early for Thanksgiving week, and you can splurge on the 3 bedroom penthouse (and ask your friends who go with you to pay for half your points). And enjoy good weather instead of hot and humid weather.
Another example is the Las Vegas Flamingo. SILVER season all January (awesome weather + Christmas still up and Lunar New Years decorations are in progress) and first 2 weeks of December (again, awesome weather).
2. If you're already getting a 2 bedroom, the incremental points cost is very small to get the 3rd bedroom. Invite another family and have them share half your points total. That's what we plan to do when we go to Orlando. Just get the 3 bedroom and split the points cost with my sister and her family. Supposedly the 3 bedroom accommodates 10 people comfortably.
3. If it costs me alot to fly out to a resort (like Hawaii next spring break, where we'll pay 2500 just for flights from CA for 4 people), my wife has no qualms about burning points to upgrade to the PLUS or ocean view. Who knows when we will be back, so might as well make it worth your time and money.
4. Skip a weekend night if you can. Our Hawaii trip will be from Sunday and returning Saturday, thereby skipping a Saturday night stay. Saved myself 1000 points, and I still get to see the Friday night fireworks from the Lagoon. 6 nights are plenty for us, since we need a day or two to unwind from our vacation anyways.
5. Make plans in advance and book early. Before I joined HGVC, I had heard about the competition for kids school vacation weeks. Well, it's 9 months to spring break 2014 and there is still plenty of availability for the April 13th spring break week in almost all unit sizes. I already went ahead and booked my rooms at the Hawaii Lagoon tower and adding a day every night at 9pm pacific time. I have a feeling that in a few weeks or maybe 1 month, there wont be much availability in the exact dates you want. My feeling is that there are alot of people who don't plan well, and will then complain about why they can't get reservations. The early bird gets the worm!
6. RCI exchanges: I haven't done any, but I have been looking around comparing. My takeaway is I would only exchange into a resort that would cost me more to rent externally. For instance, for our future Cabo trip, I would exchange into the Playa Grande 1 bedroom (3400 points + 199 exchange fee). 3400 x $0.135/point = 459, so total cost is $658 for the week (spring break week, mind you). On redweek, I don't see anything approaching 658 dollars for a spring break week for this resort.
7. Know your resorts open season availability. It helps if you actually live near those resorts and want to go there, hence the advice of buy a system with internal resorts you want to go to. In many cases (except if you can book the resort using Silver or Bronze season points), it makes more sense to just pay cash. However, you actually need flexibility to take advantage of open season
.8. I didn't realize that you can change your club point reservation a couple of days before your check-in date without losing your points or cancellation fee. Just go into your reservation and change it to another date (at any resort, doesn't have to be the same one) within the same calendar year as long as it's at least 30 days out from the current date.
One practical use of this "feature" is this scenario: You had booked a few nights at Resort A. About 30 days and 15 days prior to checkin, people start canceling or moving their reservations. If you find some nights open, you can book it using open season rates, which would be a new reservation. You can just move your old reservation out into the future and book something else that is the same or greater points used previously. This only works if you're still early in the calendar year (like before October or whenever), since you need to rebook within the current calendar year and 30 days out in order to not lose your booking fee. This also assumes that open season cash rate is agreeable to you, and that you have somewhere else you would rather use your points on in the future.
Do any TUGGERs have other tips they would like to share?
