Hilton Timeshare Offers: What To Expect & Are They Worth It?

I purchased a Hilton Grand Vacations marketing offer, attended the presentation, and got my 95,000 Hilton Honors points and a very cheap stay in the process! While they can be great deals, you need to know what to expect when you get to your hotel and to your presentation. 

I’m here to share all the details of my experience so you can enter your timeshare presentation ready for the task at hand of saying no.

What Are Hilton Timeshare Offers?

Hilton Grand Vacations offers timeshare presentations with incentives to attract potential buyers. Essentially, through lower room rates and added bonuses such as Hilton Honors points, they hope to be able to sell timeshare properties to attendees (which, of course, the profit for them far outweighs the initial cost of the bonuses offered).

The current public Hilton timeshare offers can be found here. Depending on your destination, you typically will be able to choose between two or three properties to stay at at a very discounted cost. Hilton may also offer elevated or special offers on their timeshare presentation packages from time to time, which is exactly when I decided to take advantage of this opportunity.

The process for taking advantage of one of these offers is simple:

The timeshare presentation will typically be booked for the day after you arrive, meaning that you should plan for that in your schedule. You will go over the specific date and time when you book your vacation package. The presentation itself is typically two hours in length. 

Which Hilton Timeshare Offers are a Good Deal?

It’s important to remember that while the cost of accommodation is low, as it is subsidized as part of this offer, and the Hilton Honors bonus points offers can be worth $250-$500, if you don’t want to travel to any of the locations on offer, you’re spending money that you otherwise wouldn’t have.

There are a few specific locations I find valuable for most people, such as Las Vegas and Orlando, and recently, I’ve seen Park City, Utah, pop up as a destination. Park City isn’t always available, but especially during ski season, accommodation savings can be massive as nightly rates creep up above $300 USD.

Regarding how many points you should expect, I personally wouldn’t go through the experience again for anything less than 90,000 Hilton Honors points. That being said, if you have a Hilton redemption in mind to book soon and are planning to travel to one of the marketed destinations on offer, a minimum of 50,000 bonus points would be my floor.

The base offer to attend timeshare presentations is 15,000 points, which I would certainly avoid.

What to Expect During Your Hilton Grand Vacations Timeshare Package

After you purchase your package online, you’ll need to call Hilton Grand Vacations to book. I didn’t encounter any extra fees when booking, but the terms and conditions state that during peak season, you may be asked to pay additional fees. 

The booking doesn’t take long over the phone, but your sales presentation may be at a different location than your hotel. It’s not specifically stated in your confirmation email, or when you check in to the hotel, so it came as a bit of a surprise to us on the morning our sales meeting was supposed to start. 

Speaking of check-in, because these properties are typically Hilton Grand Vacations-owned, rather than Hilton Resorts properties, there are no status benefits you’d typically receive, like a food and beverage credit. We were booked into the Hilton Tuscany Resort in Orlando, which feels a bit more like an Airbnb than your typical Hilton hotel.

It’s worth noting that housekeeping is offered only every 4 days at most Hilton Grand Vacation (HGV) properties, which also contributed to the below-average hotel experience. But when you’re paying $199 for 3 nights of accommodation, I can accept the shortfall. The kitchen was relatively well equipped, at least enough to make a cold breakfast every morning.

Another contributing factor to this hotel feeling less premium was the outdoor hallways, but thinking about it after the fact, outdoor hallways are common in warm-weather climates. Even the lovely Hilton Tulum had outdoor hallways, and we loved it. The rest of the property was nice with fountains and a few outdoor pools as well.

As briefly mentioned earlier, on the morning of our sales presentation, we walked to the sales center at our resort and were told they didn’t have us scheduled and that we were likely at Parc Soliel for our presentation, but they didn’t know for sure. 

After some confusion in looking for the confirmation email (you’ll end up with many marketing emails from HGV to sort through), we found it and saw that our presentation details had a simple address listed, rather than the name of the resort. It was not clear at all that we would be off-site for our mandatory presentation. 

This set us back a bit on our timeline for the day, but when we arrived at the Parc Soliel HGV location, they checked us in easily with Canadian ID and told us we’d be in the 9:30 am welcome presentation. There are some free snacks while you wait, and eventually, a “Vacation Specialist” will greet you at the bar-height tables in the waiting area. Our specialist was perfectly friendly and asked some qualifying questions, such as:

• “Have you considered Vacation Ownership before?”
• “How much do you travel?”
• “What do you do for a living?”

I told our specialist that I write about points and miles to try to deter her from selling us too hard, but it didn’t faze her enthusiasm. The salespeople here are well-trained and reminded me a lot of my short stint selling cars at a Chevrolet dealership, before I moved into luxury vehicle sales. 

The welcome presentation was about 20 minutes long and took place as a group, where one of the managers showed all the great properties you can book with HGV and how much more you get by buying a package.

The presentation clearly worked for some folks, as there was much more enthusiasm in the room afterward, which surprised me. Our vacation specialist met us and brought us into a cubicle that was pretty technologically advanced, with a touchscreen built into the table and another screen mounted on the wall. 

There were some more questions about how much we spend per night on cash nights and how many nights a year we pay for hotels, and those were plugged into a calculator to show our 10-year hotel cost at about $15,000. 

From that point, the presentation focused on building value in HGV and on the fact that we’d be “fighting inflation” because we’re investing in our vacation costs. There’s a big emphasis on owning your vacation, which, of course, isn’t true; you’re just pre-paying for hotel stays with an annual cost of maintenance fees that will continue to increase every year. 

If you truly owned something, you’d be able to sell the package to someone else, but there are plenty of services that can get you out of your timeshare for an extra cost. Not selling for money, which would imply you owned anything with value. 

After an hour and a half of pumping up HGV and a mandatory tour of the HGV room types, an “Inventory Specialist” was brought in, who is essentially just another manager. They offered us a $30,000 package, then a $15,000 package, and after we said no to both, they offered some bonus points that would expire rather quickly. 

Once we said no again to that, an “experience coordinator” stopped by to offer us a discounted HGV package in Hawaii for about $1,800, which included a week of accommodation, and the offer was only valid for that day; we couldn’t decide later. They also asked whether we didn’t buy anything because of our salesperson, which is a classic guilt-based sales technique used in high-pressure sales. 

After that, we walked down to the exit, where someone processed our 95,000-point gift, which appeared in my Hilton account instantly.

How to Avoid Saying Yes and Buying a Timeshare

Even if you walk in with the intention of not purchasing a timeshare, the salespeople are well-trained, and the lengthy process can be exhausting, so it eventually doesn’t seem like such a bad deal. One of the big things mentioned during the presentation is that their points redemption rate hasn’t changed since 1992, but this is misleading.

Unlike airline and hotel points, which keep a similar earn rate over the years, HGV points continually increase in cost to purchase, due to maintenance fees and as new members buy packages. So, rather than increasing award charts as costs rise, as loyalty programs do, HGV simply increases maintenance fees or the cost of purchasing a package to make up the difference.

So, wouldn’t that mean you should buy a package ASAP to get a good deal? No. 

The cost of the least expensive package is $15,000 plus maintenance fees, which brought my 10-year total cost to $30,000, accounting for increases in maintenance fees. You need to account for the opportunity cost of that $15,000, which could be making you money with other financial tools. And if you need to finance that $15,000, it’s an even worse idea.

The big thing the sales team kept bringing up is that I would save money in the long term, but I shut this down by putting my cost of cash hotel nights below $200 per night. Keeping your lodging costs low in their fancy calculation, which they do at the start of the presentation, allows you to easily point out that a break-even point for buying an HGV package would be 10-15 years in the future. HGV doesn’t have a package that covers such a small amount of lodging costs every year, rendering any pushy sales tactics relatively useless.

Is Buying a Hilton Grand Vacations Timeshare Ever a Good Deal?

For someone who is traveling a lot to vacation destinations and prefers an Airbnb-style accommodation rather than a full-service property, maybe?

It seems like booking the properties you want is harder than the salespeople make it seem, and there’s definitely nuance to maximize, just like the world of points and miles. There was an intriguing “cash rates” program, which offered super-discounted nights, sometimes lower than $50, only available to HGV owners. But the example we got was in Missouri, and there’s nothing wrong with Missouri, but if that’s the best sales example, how available is that program?

There are also “In Residence” experiences that are super discounted excursions that look very interesting. For example, there are many F1 activations because Hilton sponsors the McLaren F1 team. But when I asked more about that, I got the impression to book an eligible HGV stay during that time was more complicated than being on the cheapest points package.

There are quite a few downsides to be aware of, for example:

• You won’t earn any Hilton Honors points on your HGV spending, and Hilton stays can be very rewarding, with promotions easily delivering an effective 20% rebate on every dollar
• No Elite Benefits are offered at HGV properties, so you’d miss out on free breakfast internationally and F&B credits within North America
• As mentioned earlier, you need to have a high cash investment to get access to all the benefits
• Maintenance fees are due forever, and uncontrolled increases – allegedly only 1-2% per year, but just because that’s true now doesn’t mean it has to stay that way
• Partner redemptions are available for increased flexibility – unclear about the value or quality of these partner redemptions
• Points expire after 24 months, and you need to pay a rollover fee to extend an additional 12 months

Who Might a Hilton Grand Vacations Timeshare Be Good For?

I don’t think HGV is a terrible program for everyone. It certainly seems better, and bigger, than many traditional timeshare offers. If you have a large family you travel with and want easy access to laundry machines and full kitchens, and to use multiple bedroom suites on a regular basis, there’s likely value. But the risk is that these needs or travel plans change.

There’s also potential value for a retiree who plans to spend a large part of the year traveling, and who’s got all their finances in order and has moved on to the “burn” part of their financial journey. After all, you can probably only accrue enough free night certificates and hotel points for about 2-3 weeks of accommodation every year if you’re an expert. However, there’s also the game to be played with cheap cruises that could accomplish a similar effect, and not lock you into HGV-only redemptions. 

The last potential user I see this making sense for is someone who has a large amount of cash that isn’t otherwise making money. For example, if you’ve just got money sitting in a 2% savings account and you’re not comfortable taking larger risks, and you’re interested in traveling a lot, then there’s very little opportunity cost to the high cash investment in HGV. 

All of these potential customers still have the overhanging requirement that they like the HGV portfolio, are willing to learn the system inside and out, and don’t see their travel needs changing in the next 10-15 years. There are a lot of variables that make HGV a solid deal.

Conclusion

Hilton Grand Vacations marketing packages, otherwise known as “timeshare offers,” can be an excellent way to knock two birds with one stone. They often offer large bonuses of Hilton Honors points to attend a marketing presentation and have a low average cost per night for accommodation. 

However, be prepared for high-pressure sales tactics and a very convincing pitch that even gets the best of the most sure-footed travelers. If you’ve ever found yourself at a car dealership and been uncomfortable with the pressure faced, you likely won’t enjoy sitting through a 2-hour HGV presentation!