Bob Kaminski's Blog

I'll admit I should have known better but I feel for the the "Ol vacation shell game."  Last June I took my family on one of those discounted vacation stays offered by Hilton Grand Vacations at  their Orlando Parc Soleil resort. All you have to do is attend one of their presentations on how great membership would be. 

All the way there my wife and I practiced how we would refuse their offer.  To be fair we thouroly enjoyed the resort and the two room suite was out of this world.  My Grandson took advantage of almost all their activities and must have used the 2 1/2 story water slide over 100 times.

When we attended the mandatory presentaion we found out that they claim its not a time share because its based on points. we also were told that there was a plan that involved getting points every odd numbered year that was not that expensive.  We fell for that an plunked over more than $1200 to cover the downpayment and closing costs.  We also had to apply for financing to cover the balance of almost $10K  ( I later paid off that mortgage after getting back home with a check to get additional points)  We attended a closing that included a HUD-1 closing statement and all the legal documents that we usually see at a closing. 

After the Closing we received a congratulatory gift and the information we would need to get to access the Hilton Grand Vacation aka HGV web site. This is where you go to see you account balance and schedule vacations. I was told that it would take a few weeks for it to be set up for me to log on so I didnt think too much of it when I couldnt access it at first.  After almost three months I bagan to get concerned.  Here I was out over $10,000 with nothing to show for it. 

About that time I received a phone call from one of their representatives who told me that there was a problem. He said that they were not suppose to have sold me that property but, Lucky Me, if I forked over an additional $650 that I could have another one.  I'm thinkin classic Bait and Switch here!  For my troulble I would get 7000 more points which I really did not need since I had already gotten points for paying off their mortgage.  Its important to note at this point that points are really worthless if you dont use them and secondly they are like beads to Hilton siunce they can only be used for rooms that would otherwise go vacant  so it's not like Hilton was really giving me anything of value.

So here we are out over $10 K with nothing to show for it and Hilton has use of our money for almost three months before they even tell us about this!  

There is a lot more to this story and I promise to tell it in another Blog but this is getting a little too long and truthfully I need to calm down because it is bringing up some bad vibrations.   More to follow!