Steamboat Bill

I am not a prognosticator, but I will attempt to make some educated guesses as to the direction of HCC over the next few months.

Please note that these are my personal opinions and are NOT reflective of the official HCC staff, investors or owner opinions.

Feel free to agree or disagree with me, but remember these are "my" guesses.

1. HCC will NOT put a reservation premium on the trophy properties like charging 2x per night or extra nightly cash surcharges.
Why? HCC seems to look at the entire collection of homes and their average costs and don't seem to mind a few trophy homes that have significantly higher costs than the average HCC home. In fact, the trophy homes are good advertising tools.

2. HCC will NOT limit trophy homes like Maui to a 7 night minimum.
Why? Typical HCC members are too smart to fly to Maui and not stay the entire week.

3. HCC will add a NYC property next.
Why? Because this location has huge 365 day per year demand and can be bought for under $1m.

4. HCC will LIMIT the new "Companion" members to a 6 month reservation window.
Why? Because the current 12 month is too generous.

5. HCC will grandfather current "Companion" members with 12 month reservations.
Why? A contract is a contract and it is the path of least resistance.

6. HCC will continue solid membership growth.
Why? It is the least expensive option to become a DC member.

saluki

Predictations, huh? Sounds like a Don King word.

Anyway, my thoughts below.


1. HCC will NOT put a reservation premium on the trophy properties like charging 2x per night or extra nightly cash surcharges.

Agree

2. HCC will NOT limit trophy homes like Maui to a 7 night minimum.
Why? Typical HCC members are too smart to fly to Maui and not stay the entire week.

The only problem here is that people could tack on smaller periods in conjunction with other Hawaii stays. I wouldn't mind seeing 7-day only bookings here.

3. HCC will add a NYC property next.

Sounds good

4. HCC will LIMIT the new "Companion" members to a 6 month reservation window.

Probably a good idea

5. HCC will grandfather current "Companion" members with 12 month reservations.

Agree

6. HCC will continue solid membership growth.
Why? It is the least expensive option to become a DC member.

Agree. Least expensive & a very solid value.

Desties

This is the only one that I don't see happening. HCC's Companion offering is in the sweet spot of being the most economical plan of all destination clubs. It is supposed to be a gateway drug to higher HCC plans.

If everyone else BUT companion members are making their reservations on the morning 12 months out, what will that leave a companion member? They'll never have Outer Banks during the summer or Beaver Creek during the winter. Non-companion members may see that as a mixed blessing, but it will ultimately lead to a lack of companion memberships being sold and/or sticking around. Given the recent membership hikes and the soft economy, I don't think HCC would try to tweak a key driver.

pwrshift

Bill ... did you speak with anyone at HCC regarding your 'predictions'?

Steamboat Bill

I actually agree with you, but this thread is about my predictions for HCC, not on want I think is BEST for the members or for the club. For the record, I too would like to see Hawaii maintain a 7 night minimum, but I predict that it will not happen (of course I can be wrong).

Nope...as I said, they are happy to take my calls and I really don't want to burn that bridge and I know they read these forums.

I agree that the current HCC Companion membership is an AWESOME deal, in fact, I would buy 2x Companion memberships before I would buy an Associate membership and 3x before I would buy an Affiliate membership and that is the "Potential Problem" as the only membership plan that offers 100% Long term reservations is the Companion membership. Yes, it is a tiny bit more expensive than the other plans, but it is actually cheaper if the other plans do not use 100% of their allotment and if they don't get 100% Long term bookings for all their nights, then there is a possibility that a 25 night member (Affiliate) may only use 14 or 21 nights. Currently there is NO INCENTIVE to upgrade from a Companion membership to a standard Associate or Affiliate as it is better to double down or triple down on Companion memberships for your spouse, kids, brother, etc.

Bourne

If I may, here are some additional predictations...

1. HCC will decouple the LT Reservation, LT Holiday reservation from regular memberships similar to ER.
2. The above will be sold separately and would carry an extra premium around 10K for LT and 15 for LTH...
3. This will effectively allow them to increase membership fee for all levels and still have a 30K base buy in level.
4. HCC will hit the 400 member mark on or before Jan '09.

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3DH

I took the liberty to change your "predictations" to something more recognizable...

Carry on...

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vineyarder

I see you changed it to predictions... But did he really mean 'predictions' or 'predications'?


entry: pred·i·ca·tion
Pronunciation: \ˌpre-də-ˈkā-shən\
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English predicacion, from Anglo-French predicaciun, from Latin praedication-, praedicatio, from praedicare
Date: 14th century
1archaic a: an act of proclaiming or preaching b: sermon
2: an act or instance of predicating: as a: the expression of action, state, or quality by a grammatical predicate b: the logical affirmation of something about another; especially : assignment of something to a class

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