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How will Hilton buying Diamond affect owners of both clubs?

Ask RedWeek / March, 2021

How will Hilton buying Diamond affect owners of both clubs?

I saw Hilton Grand Vacations just agreed to buy Diamond Resorts. What's the big picture impact of this transaction and, more importantly, what does it mean for owners of both timeshare companies?

Big Changes Ahead for Hilton and Diamond Owners

Whopping changes are ahead for members of both clubs, but none will surface until after the deal is closed, and approved by regulators, this summer. But sometime down the road, the two clubs are likely to be combined under one roof — named Hilton — with all the brand-name benefits that Hilton Grand Vacations (HGV) already provides existing owners. For Diamond owners, that should be an upgrade, according to the industry experts who talked to us about Hilton's buyout of Diamond.

Short term, both companies will remain separate entities while their management teams figure out how to consolidate them into the world's #2 timeshare company, right behind #1 Wyndham Destinations and just ahead of #3 Marriott Vacations.

A year from now, or so, all vestiges of Diamond Resorts will likely disappear from marquees and lobbies as HGV absorbs Diamond resorts and rebrands them as part of a new Hilton entity, called Hilton Vacation Club. That will include a centralized call center for all members to make reservations through Hilton, new travel packages that incorporate HGV and Diamond properties, new sales presentations for prospective buyers, new upgrade offers for existing members, etc.

In the meantime, Diamond owners who have purchased Getaway or Sampler packages should pursue reservations through Diamond's existing reservations system. The companies provided no guidance on what happens to those pre-paid vacation packages after HGV completes the buyout of Diamond Resorts.

In late 2021 and 2022, the bigger-than-ever Hilton Vacation Club will then include 154 resorts and 720,000 owners with a global footprint that offers travel to mid-level, upscale and luxury resorts.

"Our plans are to re-brand Diamond properties to a new sub-brand of HGV, which will be called Hilton Vacation Club," said a spokesperson for HGV. "As Diamond properties are rebranded under the HGV umbrella, they will be available for rental on Hilton.com."

To book stays at non-HGV resorts and Diamond inventory, HGV owners will need to go through an exchange company — probably RCI or Interval International — to secure a reservation. For the shorter term, Diamond owners will have to go through the same exchange exercise to book rooms at non-Diamond properties.

"Over time, we will provide additional details on how these two clubs might function together," HGV said in response to our questions.

When the transition is complete, HGV's management team, headed by CEO Mark Wang, will run the combined company. HGV offered no information on what will happen to Diamond's executives.

The Big Picture? Consolidation Continues in Timeshare Industry

The pandemic gave all major travel companies, including timeshares, a yearlong timeout to recalibrate for travel to resume. The result, so far: Wyndham Destinations rebranded its entire company to shift towards a travel-club model that offers all travel services, not just reservations at timeshares. Marriott Vacations Worldwide bought independent Welk Resorts to add eight more high-touch resorts to its portfolio. And now HGV has made the biggest adjustment of all, buying Diamond, the largest independent timeshare company, to its portfolio. It's a world where, in times of economic crisis, the toughest survive.

On paper, the HGV buyout of Diamond appears to be a big win for HGV and a muddled ending for Diamond, which was bought by Apollo Global Management (an investment fund) in 2016 for $2.2 billion. On March 10 of this year, Apollo agreed to sell Diamond to HGV for $1.4 billion in a non-cash, all-stock transaction that will give Apollo 28 percent of HGV's stock and membership on its board of directors.

Two years ago, the tables were turned, when news reports surfaced that Apollo had submitted an offer to buy HGV. In August 2019, HGV announced it had hired an investment firm to review offers, which meant it was really up for sale.

At the same time, industry execs were fielding (and repeating) rumors that Diamond was simultaneously in talks with Wyndham about a potential purchase or buyout. All sides denied it, but kept talking about it, because a Wyndham-Diamond merger sounded like a good fit of timeshare cultures.

All for naught, until now.

The success of the buyout hinges on the following projections from HGV, including $125 million in "cost synergies" achieved by reducing payroll and consolidating operations over two years. HGV's expanded network will include 20 new markets and many drive-to destinations that Diamond offered to customers. According to Diamond CEO Mike Flaskey, HGV will also incorporate Diamond's "events and concerts platform" to deliver expanded vacation opportunities to owners.

The long-term success of the acquisition, analysts told us, will depend on HGV's plan to integrate Diamond's mid-level resorts into HGV's high-level resort portfolio while upgrading the overall customer experience of Diamond owners into HGV's culture. Not an easy task.

For a full view HGV's position on the acquisition, see this presentation made for investors.

Full disclosure: the author of this Ask RedWeek is a longtime owner at Diamond Resorts.

Comments (50)

Lorna T.
Mar 30, 2021

I own (have a deed) for a Diamond Resort property in Florida. What is this transition going to mean for me in regards to my annual maintenance taxes and banked weeks.
Valerie C.
Mar 31, 2021

I have the same situation as Lorna posted in the previous comment. I have a deed at Lake Tahoe Vacation Resort but use Diamond points. This will be complicated!
Hilton will be the 5th owner of that property since I bought it 17 years ago!
Michael L.
Jun 22, 2021

I hope you can provide me with some comments. I have been approached by PEMEX to buy my 30K Diamond points. It appears to real and not a scam but I remain concerned. The price per points is a small profit to what I paid over the years for my DRI gold status. I wonder if Hilton will dramatically increase my value and if I could sell it in the future for more than is offered now. Can you provide some industry guidance? ML
Donna F.
Jul 22, 2021

Thank you, Jeff, for your analysis. I am a Diamond owner at Polo Towers, week 52, 2 bedroom 2 bath. This sounds like a fantastic upgrade opportunity for quality Diamond Resort owners. I am excited to see how all of this unfolds. We appreciate your continuing updates to keep us informed. Best, Donna
Bruce B.
Aug 18, 2021

What this means for current DRI i.e. Polo Towers/ The Club paid for & deeded owners is higher annual maintenance fees. Nothing good will come from it for those of us that own with paid off memberships.
Christine A.
Aug 28, 2021

Since Diamonds was acquired, can we get out of contract? We were majorly scammed. We're very unhappy and want out.
Clifford S.
Sep 02, 2021

I own properties in both Hilton (Las Vegas) and Diamond (LakeTahoe). How is going to effect me?
Michael M.
Sep 29, 2021

Diamond Club Members beware! Presentations will tell members that they have to buy in to use the Hilton properties and benefits and at huge prices.
Bob W.
Oct 22, 2021 (edited)

we owned deeded weeks 51 and 52 and another 52 , 3 weeks at parkway international resort for the last 32 years and its had several owners, every time they say it needs a major facelift and you know what goes along with that, our money out the window, i cant take it any more, i could have bought a mansion for the money those trumps and trillionaires have raped me for. anybody got ANY IDEAS how to get out with no money involved?
Rosie W.
Dec 16, 2021

Has anyone sold their Polo towers? We've been approached by a mexican company saying they represent Tickets travel company. They are offering us 4.25 a point. Is this real?
Vera T.
Feb 11, 2022

owning time share properties is very stressful. When you learn the answers they change the questions and we are always in limbo. I dread the day that I have to make a reservation. It is always stressful. Now are asking me to buy into Hilton and I thought I have already bought into a time share that says I can travel the world and now I have limits. Too bad they are so greedy.
Deborah L.
Feb 26, 2022

As Diamond owner, we were told today if we do not spend about $20,000 to move to Hilton we could loose most resorts be were promised when buying! And they are still trying to sell new membership when the sales staff clearly have no clue what is happening! OR the sales staff is just using a high pressure scare tactic! We walked out of "update" today and so did others. I would hope Hilton is large enough they are not trying to do this to previous owners.
Robert H.
Apr 05, 2022 (edited)

So HGVC and Diamond will still technically be separate until enough owners upgrade to HGVC MAX... And/or HGVC sells enough new "points packages in the HGVC MAX trust.... Very disappointed that HGVC was selling the Diamond acquisition as growth i properties that owners will have access to yet, even those that upgraded last year are being required to upgrade again if you want to participate in the MAX program opening up the soon to be rebranded Diamond properties.... I imagine that Diamond owners will have some expenses to bring many of the resorts up to Hilton standards.... I told them to suck wind during my presentation. They sold the Diamond acquisition as something we would have access to last year. But. NOOOO.... Only of you give us more money.... Even at HGVC Elite status.... Even after upgrading less than a year ago.... HGVC and Diamond owners alike should push back hard on this.... Tell them what you think!!!!!
Javier M.
May 06, 2022

I am a Diamond silver owner and I just went through a ‘Hilton Update’ presentation. Of course it was nothing but a sales pitch. The main point was that i had to buy into Hilton Max. Otherwise i will not have access to Hilton properties and some Diamond properties that do not meet Hilton standards will be closed. Well I refused. I have paid enough to this timeshare crap. Plus I asked if there will be reduced number of resorts for Diamond members then what was sold to us is no longer valid. Should not our contacts be canceled and money returned?
Chris F.
May 24, 2022

Javier - that is my question as well. It seems unless we spend more money we will have less to choose from. If they rebrand a Diamond property it becomes a Hilton therefore no longer being available to us.
Imari A.
Jun 11, 2022 (edited)

What they are not telling you amidst all those marketing marveling and chanting of how great Hilton is, and how much they “did a study” looking at all the problems and complaints that diamond owners had worn their vacation packages, is that they are effectively FORCING diamond owners to buy Hilton points and convert over to the new HVG system. On the surface they say, “oh we let you guys have a grandfather clause and if you want to remain in diamond, you can… BUT, the caveat is, they are going to strip all the diamond resorts locations except for about 16 that are in the trust OUT of your diamond resorts system… with the proclamation that even those resorts are subject to change at any time… thusfor diamond owners who already spent thousands and thousands to own and are comfortable with the system and properties they have access to, must either spend a minimum of between 20 and 40 thousand dollars to purchase the minimum point allocation of 4500 points to convert their diamond ownership to hiltons HVG brand, or have their diamond ownership devalued down to 16 resorts, most of them the crappiest in the diamond portfolio save 4 or 5. So in other words, Hilton acquired diamond to take all its resorts to feed to their members, while locking diamond owners out of them, and forcing all the diamond owners to buy their more expensive project. It’s typical big business take over bs… and it’s the equivalent of Elon musk coming to your home and showing you a video of how great Teslas are and encouraging you to test drive one… then as soon as you do, confiscating the car you already own and paid for, and making you buy the Tesla… or just sit in the driveway because they took out your engine. Well I’m not playing along. The customer is still right, and we still have choices. Hilton will never see a dime of my money with this strong arm tactic.
Nancy C.
Jun 15, 2022 (edited)

We got suckered into these timeshares as well. The presentation is just a sales pitch so they can get paid. I bought into Diamond Resort and then the Hilton because the salesperson said we could sell it and or rent it out. I don't know if he spoke the truth. Any ideas from anyone on how to let this timeshare go? We don't travel as much and our financial situation has changed. We are new to this and I have no clue what to do. Once we pay off the loan can we sell it back. Is it even worth paying for it or letting it go, the maintenance fees is no joke.
Gerard C.
Jun 18, 2022

I am Diamond member since 2007 and last year even upgraded to a platinum membership status. Now that HGV purchased Diamond we are being told by their sales staff that we now have to upgrade to Hilton HGV Max by paying an additional $20k in order to access to Hilton properties are else we will be only limited to Diamond's diminishing properties under their US collection. This is a very unfair deal and we were all kept in the dark by Diamond resorts and now Hilton's grand scam is being unveiled. I am sure a lot of you are affected by this and wondering if there is a legal action against Diamond/Hilton is in the offing. If so please reach out to me as I too would like to seek legal justice in this matter.
Lisa E.
Jul 25, 2022

We are in the same boat. My only question is can we legally do something about this? They are pressuring us to buy as well and I’m refusing. There has to be something we can do legally. We’re platinum members and pay outrageous yearly maintenance fees. Worse move we ever made.
Brad L.
Jul 25, 2022

Recently was told that Diamond properties would be refurbished by Hilton. How can you excess maintenance fees on properties that are no longer associated with the agreement? Being denied the right of use in any contract is a breach of the original contract . Maintenance should also be lowered because the community of properties are a smaller selection. I would advise everyone to seek counsel and start a lawsuit. In biblical terms, hire a David to slay these Goliaths who don't care about consumers.
James W.
Jul 27, 2022

Had my owner's update in Feb 22. I'm a gold member in diamond. At the update I was told that I only had 3 choices with the merger. #1, continue as is, but diamond would increase my maintenance fees by $800 per year going forward starting in 2024. #2, request a transition out of ownership, but my cost would be 2 years of maintenance fee ($13K), plus $1K for every contract where we bought extra points (5). So my total to walk away would be $18K. Option 3, was buy an extra 4500 points for $20K to be grandfathered into the unknown HGV plan. The so called plus for option 3 was, if we called into a special diamond department during a specified window of time and booked 20K of our 30K points at a non-diamond resort, then diamond would apply a credit of $6500 towards our maintenance fees. Our current maintenance fees for the gold level our $6500. So option 3 was the only viable option at the time for me. I feel like I was sucker punched during my owner's update. Now my question is, how long will it take HGV to throw the BS diamond told me out the back door, then try to force me to spend more $$$??? I spoke to my buddy tonight and he owns a Wyndham timeshare. He's at their Silver level and his maintenance fees are $2300. Why are diamond fees more than double that? In the near future, I'm guessing that HGV will only drag us diamond owners thru the mud a few more times before it's all said and done!!!
William W.
Aug 21, 2022

Need to find attorney to represent Diamond clients, Diamond got a billion dollars in the buy out, we are owners, where is our buy out.
James V.
Sep 02, 2022

HGVC Owner here. To get access to use Diamond properties, they want another $20K membership. I'm thoroughly pissed off at HGVC.
The HGV Max program will fail. No one will buy something they should get for free.
Now I'm selling my HGVC property. Terrible decision makers at HGVC.
James V.
Sep 02, 2022

What's funny is the crooks running this timeshare want $20K from HGVC owners to use Diamond Properties, but then they also want $20K for Diamond owners to use HGVC properties. This merger should have just expanded the placed you could go, but instead turned into a money grab from the timeshare crooks.
James V.
Sep 02, 2022

Both Hilton and Diamond are trying to screw the owners out of another $20K.
John B.
Sep 10, 2022

We are Diamond Gold, Hilton told us last week at the Las Vegas Polo Towers that only 10% of Diamond owners have not upgraded to Max, (I bet not) they offered us $14,900 to upgrade, $1,600 down and $300 a month for 10 years.) and if we did not our $400+ month maintenance fees would increase to $1,000 in January. We told them we'd think about it, and they said the offer was only good for today.
We are going to wait to the beginning of the year and see what they do. I agree with everyone that they are going to try to squeeze us out, but one thing we all have are % deeds in those proprieties, I don't see how they can sell them, if we own them? So if enough of us stand strong they'll have to deal will us to get rid of some of those proprieties in the portfolio.
I think a class action will probably come, but still a little early right now, maybe next year.
I am interested, if those Diamond owners who did upgrade to Max, I wonder if Hilton got them to sign over their deeds in the Diamond properties? Does anyone know?
M A.
Sep 29, 2022

Thanks for the comments - I just went to the "update meeting about the merger" tonight (9/29/22) - ....it was just a sales pitch like all of you said below. Yep, they first offered me 4500 points and a cost of $16,000, then 2000 points for a cost of $8,300. I turned both of them down. 1. Because that is a lot of additional money - I already own a deeded week and paid that much for 9000 points. 2. My maintenance fees would go up an additional $870 3. I thought this was going to be an awesome thing, for Diamond and Hilton to merger, in no way did my naive brain think they were going to CHARGE ME MORE!!! I told them no as well and asked if I was going to be the trouble child by not paying an additional $16K and joining the HGV program and how would I access trades without the HGV program (you don't do the upgrade, you don't get HGV). The answer was yes, you no longer can bank with interval (even if you have a membership on your own with interval international, Hilton only uses RCI) and you have to use Diamond's crappy Destination Flex program (which I never use because it is not user friendly). My thought is I am going to just sit tight and see what else they offer - this honestly can't be it. If nobody signs up, then they will be forced to go back to the drawing board. This merger doesn't sound like it was in any owner's favor even the Hilton owners.
Rosalind J.
Oct 05, 2022

I got a call from a Diamond person asking me to buy more points so I could opt into HGV max as a premier plus member. I am Gold with Diamond with 39,000 points and he wanted me to purchase up to 54,000. I told him no. Supposedly HGV Max is to launch today (10/5/22). I've been waiting to hear something about opting in. I was told that there would be a fee associated with opting in--more points--who knows? No one gives you any answers. All they want is money. If anyone on this forum hears of a class action, count me in. I'll check back later.
Dan H.
Oct 12, 2022

We had the displeasure of attending our owners update yesterday here at Polo Towers so we could learn all the wonderful benefits of the Hilton merger. What a joke! Once again they use scare tactics and carefully worded phrases in their attempts to have you pay again for access that we already purchased. They will promote that it’s a “no pressure” friendly meeting to answer any questions when in fact it’s just their opportunity to squeeze more money out of your wallets! I had truly hoped that Hilton would prove to be a more ethical corporation than we experienced with Diamond but unfortunately we’ve found that the greed just changed names!
Betsy Y.
Oct 15, 2022

Diamond Owners need to get together. We attended the presentation by HGV last night in Chandler AZ to learn how the acquisition would affect our interests - we expected a diminuation of our points but no way did we expect Hilton to expect us to pay $60,000 to bring us into the Hilton family - for our timeshare we have owned for nearly 30 years!!! Also strange how they said we missed the "pre-merger" option which was a cost of only $18,000 to move to the Hilton program. All of this is very strange and seems not quite legal - Hilton buys all of Diamond unsold properties and we as owners no longer have access to them unless we buy in plus pay our annual maintenance fees? How is this sane? Also, we thought the hard timeshare sales tactics of badmouthing the competition and making an offer contingent on your accepting it immediately were a thing of the past.! NOT WiTH HILTON! We took a pass and will seek ways to no get out of our ownership - Hiton can cover our maintenance fees themselves! I'm not sure the properties are even worth the annual maintenance fees let alone the additional buy in $ they want1
Dee B.
Oct 21, 2022

We are also DRI silver status members for over 10 yrs. We also recently attended an “update” after being told the same thing - we had to invest another $20K+ to be a part of HGV. The sales presentation was very misleading, and of course a hard sale, that we almost went with. Until check out time, and the woman assigned to this part was very clear and forthcoming when she went over the entire sale, which was NOT how it was presented to us. At which point, we backed out of the deal. But I do recall her saying we would still have access too all of our DRI resorts, as we have in the past. I recently went to the DRI website to make reservations for next year, and NOTHING is available now, no matter which dates I put in within the year timeframe. I will be researching the best way to unload this timeshare! Thank you all for your comments.
Dafani C.
Nov 11, 2022

I am paying roughly $1,894.12 per year for maintenance. This is equal to $270.59 cents per night based on a seven night stay. Or it is simply equal to $157.85 per monthly to keep my membership. Adding this with my initial investment this is crazy. I am not this one. I think I am paying for Disney Vacation $450 per year. I need to check on this, and wow the resorts are out of this world amazing and I am glad to spend my initial investment plus $450 annually. The maintenance once I am not happy with has means of renting out rooms to collect money and those can be used toward maintenance and utilities etc. Then fractional ownership of condo for example would have to divide say $300 a month for the HOA and here guessing $300 a month on utilities this is $600 a month and $7200 a year. This is $138.46 per week and points start balancing out to a week. If you own more points you own more weeks in theory. Points have to logically work their way back to a fractional ownership. They cannot sell more points than they can occupy. Then if this is the case $138.46 all the way to $1894.12 shows a huge issue. How can the owners unite and take the power back over from them and get the maintenance fee to where it needs to be?
Carolee P.
Nov 16, 2022

My husband and I owned HGV for more than 10 years. Over the years we upgraded to more points for $$’s. All and all I eventually added it all up and the amount we had invested was astounding! I believe more than $100,000. I wish I had added it up before. My husband started having health problems and we were not able use the HGV! Basically the timeshare although we were always told it’s not a timeshare because you own a part of it! I tried to go through a timeshare selling company which I paid Money for. Nothing. Then I read somewhere that Hilton won’t accept sales made through the timeshare companies and that sales had to go through Hilton resale department. So I decided rather than just giving our HGV property back for $0.00, I would try going through HGV resale. They were nice, and told me they would try to sell it. They do use other sales offices, you just can’t do it. It all has to go through them and then be accepted by HGV. So when January was coming close I decided to lower the $$ amount we would do. Well just before year end an offer came in and it was very low. But at that point I did not want to pay any more maintenance dues. We accepted the offer. We were at silver level. So we took a huge loss basically got $5,000 just to get out of the deed. But it was better than paying to get rid of the money pit! We are so glad that we did. This was this past year. Best wishes to all going through this buyout! 🙏🙏 to all of you! It’s a nightmare!
Rhonda L.
Dec 05, 2022 (edited)

If you do a Class Action or anything to get our money back please let me know. I was told when we did a small point package for HGVMax there would not be fees to transfer our points to Hilton Honors or to roll our points over from Diamond...now I am told there are cost for everything now. I even have the rep that signed us up on a text (6 months ago) that said she was told there would be no fees for rolling points or transferring to Hilton Honors and yet I am told there are and, she came back yesterday and said well I did not know at the time but there are, sign up anyway. I am not going to sign up.
Let's band together... you cannot operate as a company like this and defraud people. I have been trying to call people and fill out forms to have people call me for more information. A day later or so out of the blue they call and I am on hold first time for an hour and when the person answered they hung up immediately without speaking. A few days later they called again and you automatically go on hold was waiting over 45 minutes and when the person answered they hung up immediately. Try calling any of the other numbers and getting a number for that department...it is non-existent and no one will give it to you or if they do it's an invalid number.
They tell me I must decide by December 6th but cannot reach a dang soul. I am simply not falling for any more lies. They do not have anything listed that tells you all of the fees you will pay for every type of transaction you will make but they want you to agree to it and opt In.
Mike W.
Jan 05, 2023 (edited)

We just spent a week at Beachwoods Resort in Kitty Hawk, NC. We were encouraged to attend a presentation and I was interested in hearing about the acquisition, being Diamond owners. We did our presentation this morning. I’m sad to say that we feel betrayed by Diamond Resorts and Hilton. We were told that, if we didn’t upgrade to HGVC, we’d be left with shrinking inventory and rising maintenance fees. This is no way to transition the loyal Diamond members who have acted in good faith and had no say in the process. It would have been easy to figure out what our Diamond points are worth in HGVC and moved them over. Shameful! I, too, am waiting to join a class action suit.
Selhis L.
Jan 18, 2023 (edited)

We also will love to get out of the Diamond Resort, since the merge with Hilton is been a nightmare. We also went to the presentation because nothing in the account said Hilton. Since I arrive i told the sales lady ,we aren't spendding no more money. She keep talking and manipulating the situation. She did good and we feel for it. But today we send the letter of cancelation of that contract. All the paperwork is under Diamond but she keep saying that we where Hilton. Something don't add up. We will love to be part of the class action suit.
Sharon J.
Jan 24, 2023

So I just found out that the former Diamond Resorts are not available to Hilton Grand Vacation Club owners. They only take Hilton Honors Points and refuse our HGVC owner club points. They tell me we have to upgrade, ( purchase another property) or we will never be eligible, even though we already own 2 properties. I believe Hilton has screwed all of its current club members!!! Sharon
Mike S.
Feb 01, 2023

Good Evening,
My name is Mike Schultz, if you would like more information on how to relinquish your rights with the company or at least obtaining a free assesment, or to have more information on how much is your contract worth in todays market give me a call 872-266-2666 ext. 5302. This assesment could help educate you into making the right decision.
Make sure you say that you saw this message via ''Red Week''
Terry S.
Feb 11, 2023

I am interested in knowing if anyone is, actually, working on a class action suit that you have mentioned? We are Gold members of Diamond and made the horrible mistake of paying the fees to to include Hilton HGVC. It was more like $35K. What have we gotten from that? Not much. During the trip following, my husband decided to attend another of their "meetings" and they explained that we needed to put in another $10K to ultimately save on maintenance fees. The logic given was incomprehensible, as usual. Is there no one to stop these people? We would like to sell all of this within the next two years but where and how? It is hard to trust anyone now..
Kay R.
Feb 19, 2023 (edited)

Like all of you, I was cohersted into signing the contract. I do not fit the creteria. It is based on double occupancy. I am single. It is based on a 100,000 dollar a year income. i do not fit into that creteria either. I was forced to go to Las Vegas (or else I would have to pay for the room which is 1000 dollars. So I went, and found out that I was actually signing another contract to join Hilton Grand Vacations, I did not know this at the time. My application got rejected because of unpaid maintenance fees. they were pissed!! I have no intention of joining HGV. I have acquired a lung disease that prevents me from traveling, they do not care about debilitating health issues. I need to get out of this contract. I hope i have a chance bases on the fact that I do not fit the creteria. I called it a breach of contract. your thoughts? I would join the class action lawsuit.
Kamila L.
Mar 25, 2023

Hi we just had a sales pitch from HIlton ( we are diamond resort owners since 2005) and they wanted $68k to switch to Hilton max . After I got upset and said it criminal my “sales associate” disappeared, and he manager offered us the same membership for 30k . My husband then got very upset and said, why didn’t they offer this to begin with.? We left without signing anything and I’m very confused on what to do next..
Terry S.
Apr 17, 2023

The difficulty lies in finding any attorney or attorneys who will take this on. It is such a convoluted mess. Anyone have a firm who shows interest?
Vaz T.
May 30, 2023 (edited)

Hello my name is Vazgen. We owned DRI membership for more than10 years now. We started with a "sampler" and throughout the years were coerced and lied to buy more points, to buy "US collection points", to buy "Hawaii Collection " points, and then to convert everything into "Hawaii collection" because it had better value because there were limited amount of properties in Hawaii. Every time it costs us more and more money and in the end we had purchased 51,000 points to become Platinum membership owners and one of the sells reps even went out of his way to give us a "secret" advice, that he could loose his job for telling us about it, that a few years down the road we could sell 25K point to someone as a Gold Membership with the price of the Platinum membership we paid for and still be a Gold Membership owner with $0 cost. Fast forward during the pandemic I reached out the DRI trying to sell 25K of my points because of financial hardship. They told me that it is one account and I can't sell part of it. I tried to work out a deal with them to give 25K points back to them , because the maintenance fees were over 10K a year. They still did not agree because a still have balance on the loan. I could negotiate a deal with them after I pay the $35K balance. And even then I had to forfeit all of the membership. That was the end of the conversation. Today I had a zoom meeting with the HGV rep to go over our benefits and how to maximize our membership. And , of course it turned into a sales presentation and if we want to maximize our benefits we had to buy more points. The amazing part was that we supposedly did not pay our maintenance fees and our membership was downgraded from 51K platinum points to 18,500 Silver membership. And to get to HGV club we had to buy minimum of 2000 points for $12,833 or better to get 3500 point for $20,141 for gold membership, and I had to do it today. I did not agree to anything and I told them "I have to sleep on this". She will call me back tomorrow at noon. I'm just puzzled that how DRI could cancel part of my points but not all for not paying maintenance fees ! When I voiced my concerns , she said that this has foreclosed right before Hilton took over and when I asked her if she could provide me with number that I could speak to someone at DRI, she told me that Dimond does not exist anymore and I can not change anything about a foreclosure that happened two years ago. Now that I read all this comments, I understand that this is as fishy as it gets. They are asking HGV club owners to upgrade their membership to be able to use DRI properties and DRI members to spend more money to upgrade their membership to use Hilton properties. Only a "Class Action Lawsuit" can solve this problem, this is above any individual's abilities to take on a large company on their own.
Lucille T.
Jun 20, 2023

I bought a deeded lockout timeshare unit in Kitty Hawk from Barrier Island. It has changed hands several times, & is now owned by Hilton. I paid to upgrade from weeks to points, & have dealt successfully with RCI for years. I pay huge maintenance fees yearly, & have also been charged an assessment for upgrades to the property, but since I don't want to pay another huge amount to join Hilton, I am charged the resort fees because they consider me an exchange. Are there any other unhappy owners who are experiencing this, and what can be done?
Malcolm C.
Jun 25, 2023

We just did our “annual review” at Hilton Tuscany Villas, Orlando; we have a deed (paid off years ago) at Cypress Pointe and have found Diamond Resorts has worked very well for us over the last few years. Hilton put on the full hard sell, treated us like idiots, threatened us with all sorts of scare tactics, lies, and misrepresentation. The bottom line is they want $20K or similar for us to give up our deed, essentially keep doing what we are currently doing, and maybe pay a couple of hundred less in fees but with no guarantees they won’t go up. The rep actually got rather angry with us for not wanting to change, and I think we broke him when he realized we were happy to sit for 30 minutes and talk about whatever we wanted. They released us early, then tried to short us $50 on what we had been promised for our “valuable time.” I’m not giving these Hilton bozos a penny. If they want my deed they can pay me for it or put me on their scheme for free; I have my deed, which has SOME value, I don’t want points, which have none; they lied about so many things and were furious we questioned their numbers; they treated us like morons when our position is perfectly defensible: I like what I have, if I keep it I’ve lost nothing - if I change and don’t like it it’ll cost me money, potentially a lot. TBH I’d rather pay my Cypress Pointe fees and not use it than give anything to Hilton as by my rough calculations I can do that for over 40 years and still not have paid as much as joining their points scheme will cost me over the same period but I’m pretty stubborn.
Artra Y.
Oct 08, 2023

Josephine Y. Time shares selling, what a SCAM and ripoff for consumers. If anyone has successfully gotten out of this nightmare, please enlighten the rest of us !!!!!! We were pressured in buying....Taking advantage of the elderly!!! It's WRONG!!!
Barbara H.
Oct 28, 2023

I have been a deeded week owner since 1994 at the Powhatan Resort in Williamsburg. Bought into the Sunterra in early 2000's, then becasme Diamond, with the biggest benefit being the conversion rights to use points, and the automatic points reduction for bookings at 50% point value within 60 days of the vacation week, or 50% or bookings within 30 days of scheduled time. Attended HGV presentation, and resisted buying 4000 points for $40,000 (not kidding - that was what they wanted to charge me.) Happy with my 11,000 points. But now they have eliminated the points reduction design, and said it is up to inidividual resorts to decide whether or not they want to discount points. That privilege was what induced me to buy into the Club years ago. I feel like there is a real contract violation here - that is what I paid for when I bought into the Club. 90% of my vacations are booked at my home resort. At no time during any HGV "owner's update" presentations did they ever mention the reduction of points trading, even within my home resort. Outrageous.
Mark J.
Jan 04, 2024

1-4-2024 Here's our next step's beginnings: https://www.classaction.org/learn/how-to-start
Mark J.
Jan 04, 2024

010424: How can these comments be sorted in reverse chronological order?
Dave M.
Feb 01, 2024

Hi Malcom, Your post stood out from all the ones we have read. We also are Diamond HGV owners - home resort Palm Canyon Resort Palm Springs.
Would you mind connecting to share any current updates and compare notes? We are moving in the direction of letting our deed go as well. Note: several years ago I called Wyndham directly and was able to get rid of my dad’s timeshare with one sheet of paper to release the deed. Nothing made on the deal but it cost nothing and only took 2 months.
Hope you see this…connect at sgtdave47@gmail.com
Thanks!
Dave & Nancy McDowell
malcolmc41 wrote:
We just did our “annual review” at Hilton Tuscany Villas, Orlando; we have a deed (paid off years ago) at Cypress Pointe and have found Diamond Resorts has worked very well for us over the last few years. Hilton put on the full hard sell, treated us like idiots, threatened us with all sorts of scare tactics, lies, and misrepresentation. The bottom line is they want $20K or similar for us to give up our deed, essentially keep doing what we are currently doing, and maybe pay a couple of hundred less in fees but with no guarantees they won’t go up. The rep actually got rather angry with us for not wanting to change, and I think we broke him when he realized we were happy to sit for 30 minutes and talk about whatever we wanted. They released us early, then tried to short us $50 on what we had been promised for our “valuable time.” I’m not giving these Hilton bozos a penny. If they want my deed they can pay me for it or put me on their scheme for free; I have my deed, which has SOME value, I don’t want points, which have none; they lied about so many things and were furious we questioned their numbers; they treated us like morons when our position is perfectly defensible: I like what I have, if I keep it I’ve lost nothing - if I change and don’t like it it’ll cost me money, potentially a lot. TBH I’d rather pay my Cypress Pointe fees and not use it than give anything to Hilton as by my rough calculations I can do that for over 40 years and still not have paid as much as joining their points scheme will cost me over the same period but I’m pretty stubborn.

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