kddpac

As perspective members of HCC, we are a little concerned with the availability of the properties. We have been keeping an eye on the availability calender over the last month or so and we are wondering if the reservation calender over the next four months is pretty typical? Is there a lot of variation by season? School schedule? We are just trying to get an idea of what it would be like to try and book something in the next 90-120 days and are wondering if the current May-August reservation pattern is typical for other times of the year? Thanks!

Tedpilot

It is summertime and most everyone wants to go on vacation. Additionally, once you're in the 120 day advance window properties book up faster as you don't have to use a long term reservation. Prime season/locations book up quickly and yes, school schedules have a large impact too. Generally, I'd say that summer is most heavily booked w/ HCC followed by ski season (Dec-Feb). Lots of availability in spring/fall. I'm sure that HCC could give you the ocupancy rates by month over the last few years if you wanted to know.

TravelGuy

TedPilot is right on with his analysis of the High Country Club reservation availability.

I prioritize my reservations this way:

1) Any of the "Pinnacle" type homes ($2-$3Mil) - Long Term Resv
2) Christmas & New Year - Long Term Resv (we don't do this, but if we did)
3) Summer Holiday - Long Term Resv (again, we don't do this)
4) Summer Beach - Long Term Resv
5) Ski Season - Advanced Resv (due to quantity of HCC ski properties)
6) Winter Beach - Advanced Resv (be flexible w/ location)
7) Spring "shoulder season" - Advanced Resv
8) Fall "shoulder season" - wide open, doesn't matter (last minute)
9) Everything else - wide open (last minute)

An example of our HCC bookings for the next 12 months:

OBX - "Pinnacle" type home, prime time summer
Hilton Head - Early Sept.
Maui - Fall
Caribbean or Mexico - December (7 properties still avail, will book 120 days)
Breckenridge - "Pinnacle" type home, prime time ski (Feb)
Beaver Creek - "Pinnacle" type home, prime time ski (Feb)
New York City - 3 days that I'll book last minute, probably Oct.

Note that I've booked THREE of the Flagship properties in the same 12 month period!

My experience has been that if you plan ahead and have even a little flexibility with location and/or dates, you should be able to book what you want.

caribbeansun

How are you able to see availability prior to becoming a member?

Is it on their web site somewhere?

LTTravel

Contact HCC. They will give you a temporary username and password so that you can check availability for yourself.

dragon king

We have been members since April 08 and have booked Costa Rica for my daughter's spring beak in April 09.Two weeks ago we booked two mountain properties and Turks for July, August. There have been great opportunities within 120 days even in the summer.

caribbeansun

Can you guess at the % availability for <120 days and >120 days? I've emailed HCC and asked for guest access to assess but would be interested to hear what actual users have been experiencing.

LTTravel

To check availability in the next 120 days may not be fair. First, June, July and August are probably the most utilized days of the year after Christmas, New Years, President's Week and Spring Break. The good and the bad of being able to book a short term reservation up to 120 days in advance is that many people will book those dates as soon as the dates become available. HCC does not have a differential booking the way other DC's do. All members can book short term up to 120 days in advance. ER, UE, and others allow the higher level members book space available further in advance than lower level members. So it is best to check not only what is available in the next 120 days and also what is available 120-150 days in advance, because those are the days that members have chosen to not use up their advanced reservation token and are waiting for those to come into the short term reservation period. That being said, if you are flexible, there are still several good reservations available even in peek periods. For example, I just checked and the Maui home that Bill just raved about in another thread is still available for Easter Week! There is some availability for July and August at Costa Rica, Nuevo Vallarta, several of the Colorado locations, Lake Tahoe, Deer Valley, La Quinta, Lake Tahoe, Mammoth, Deer Valley and the 1 BR in Tuscany.

Desties

I agree that now would be the worst time to judge a club's availability based on a 120-day window, though availability should open up if you look past the peak travel season that ends in late August.

As for availability checking, I hope other clubs follow Exclusive's lead. I mean, any website visitor can check on availability.

It certainly helps a prospective member know what they are getting themselves into, before even contacting a membership director.

Quintess Michael

I need to correct you, LT.

All Quintess members have the same access to Space available nights.

__________________
Michael Aumock
Director, Membership Development
Quintess, The Leading Residences of the World

pwrshift

That's very transparent for ER ... to let any website visitor see availabilites without joining or even signing in ... I checked the 'next 30 days' period and there were some impressive availabilities for this busy time of year!

LTTravel

There are 20 destinations with 3 day availability in the next 30 days. There are 16 destinations that are not. In the next 90 days, there is significantly more availability.

TarheelTraveler

ER always gets a bad rap on availability, but I really don't find their availability to be bad. I was curious, so for what it's worth, I checked A&K (mind you this is even prior to the addition of new properties as part of the launch). 13 of 16 properties have availability for a three day period over the next 30 days. If you go out 5 weeks, all but one property has availability, and there is another property available in the same destination (Hawaii) that is available. I would bet Lusso is also along those lines. Not sure about UR. I'd be curious to see what that looked like.

pwrshift

It would be interesting to see a comparable 30-day study done on HCC...maybe a member can do it? I'll bet there aren't too many availabilities for their 350 members.

Steamboat Bill

I would agree that HCC probably has the highest density usage as they are the value play in the DC industry. Also, the 1 and 2 week members are going to use all their space ASAP, while traditional Full members at HCC and ER, LUSSO tend not to use 100% of their nights.

This is a tradeoff for HCC low entry price. But the availability is still decent. You can grab Hawaii next week if you want it.

Tedpilot

HCC avail 17 Jun - 16 Jul:
17/34 properties w/ 3 days or more available
10/34 properties w/ 7+ days or more available

Beach 7+ are Cabo, Hawaii, Maui, Neuvo Vallarta
Mountain 7+ are Beaver Creek, Copper, Mammoth, Snowmass, Telluride, & Winter Park

pwrshift

Actually the HCC availabilities were better than I thought they'd be, although ER had 301 available at 20 locations including Miami Beach, Ft. Lauderdale, Bonita Beach ... and they look spectacular! Price has it perques I guess. i'll bet ER sells a fair number of memberships based on how easy it is to actually see what you could get IF you joined.