Hilton Grand Vacation Seminar: My experience.
I just attended the seminar in Hilton Head, SC.
My overall experience was mildly stressful from start to finish. Before the event, in addition to the negative reviews I'd read online, I felt pressured to attend — the sales office called me periodically to remind me of the "penalty" for not showing up, subtly implying they still had my credit card on file.
When I arrived, I encountered a disgruntled timeshare owner at the front counter venting to a staff member about being "lied to" regarding services that were promised but never delivered. Staff brushed him off, saying that as sales personnel they had no power to help him, and politely redirected him elsewhere. I couldn't help remarking that everyone in the company seemed to give customers the same runaround. When I mentioned this exchange to my own sales agent, he had a pre-packaged response ready: "There's always going to be an unhappy customer for every product."
The hour-long presentation was entertaining in parts but weighed down by needless repetition that left me drained. Afterward, I reiterated what I'd said at the very start — that I was not prepared to invest $100,000 without doing my own due diligence. My agent lightly pressured me to sign anyway, cycling through sales figures and cost breakdowns while brushing past the firm position I'd already made clear.
When I didn't purchase a package, he sent over a colleague under the guise of "taking a survey," though it was clearly a last attempt to close the sale. She was cold and dismissive throughout. I told her the seminar had been too long and tiring. Her response: "We're a billion-dollar company, so what we're doing is right" — the implication being that I had no standing to question their business model.
I explained I wanted to review the numbers at home, and showed her some of the paperwork I'd been given. She abruptly took the materials back, telling me, "You weren't supposed to get copies of those," as though I'd been handed classified documents. I also reminded her that I informed the sales agent at the very start there was no chance I'd be purchasing that day — he chose to push forward anyway. Her only reply: "This is how he makes a living," delivered without a smile or any pleasantness, as if the word had already gone around that I was wasting everyone's time. Actually they were wasting mine.
Overall, this felt like a shameful representation of the Hilton brand — one I won't easily forget.