Once we became members of Club Intrawest, we quickly found out that booking properties using points was almost impossible. The "Wonderful" vacations and time with your family thoughts are quickly diminished by the fact that there are simply not enough rooms to fulfill all the point value they sell. There are laws about this but these are easily circumvented by joining their Club Intrawest network of resorts with others like RCI, hence enhancing the inventory. In our opinion, this is very illegal as the agent represented a use case where it is easy to book vacations.
One time we tried for 3 months to get our points used to stay at Whistler and every time we called were told they were sold out for the next year, other than the odd 1 weekday in October or May. This differs substantially from the expected two weeks per year.
They use RCI to "upgrade" you and help you out but in fact, the rates you get charged are ridiculous. Since we could not book at Club Intrawest most of the time, we finally asked if we could get something via RCI. We were told yes, but the conditions were more expensive than if we had simply booked online ourselves. The rep said "She was pleased" to offer us a 2 Bedroom unit at a well known Whistler resort (3-4 stars). The charge was going to be that for 7 nights would be a total of 273 Resort Points + a cash supplement of $2723 USD (39 + $369 USD per night). We were also advised that all ExtraOrdinary Escapes reservations are subject to a $20 or $25 USD nightly exchange fee based on domestic or international travel. Once confirmed the reservations are non-cancellable and non-changeable.
Currently in our 2008 use year, we had access to 160 Resort Points. Where did the two weeks of vacation every year go to??
The first thing I did was phone the resort above and ask to book direct. I was shocked to get a price (without saying anything about being a Club Intrawest member) of a package for approximately $3,000 that also included lift tickets! Keep in mind 5 lift tickets for 2 adults are worth alone around $800.00 alone making the hotel cost $2,200. That is $523 plus $25 per night "service charge" cheaper that being a Club Intrawest member.
Here is the take away. Do the math. If you have $30,000 to invest, invest it into something that has a dividend like CIBC stock which gives you an average return of around 8%. That means you earn $2400 every year. Take that money and use that to buy your vacation direct. When you factor in the annual maintenance fees of over $1,000 for our type of membership, Club Intrawest turns out to be probably the biggest scandal we have ever been involved with. Our last year's annual fees were around $1200 so figure $1,200 plus $1,800 (the after tax portion of my return on my investment) means we have $3,000 and the flexibility to stay where we want, when we want.
So where are the rooms that members get to use? They are being rented out to prospective new members like this link:
Note that before you submit the information you are required to agree to "Details & Conditions" but the Details and Conditions are not readily available of linked to?
Our opinion is that Club Intrawest is misleading and a terrible thing to put money into. If you do buy, don't buy from them. There are literally hundreds of these on the market for around $9,000.
The next blog article will deal with the lies were told about their re-purchase program. Coming soon.
