# Help me understand Club Intrawest



## echino (Aug 21, 2009)

Trying to understand the system, but information is scarce. I am thinking whether I should buy a timeshare (resale), and Club Intrawest Whistler is one of the options I am considering.

My situation is the following: we are a family of five (two adults and three kids, 3,2,2) living in Vancouver. We would like to go to Whistler every year during the holiday season, preferably the New Year week. We would also like to have a second vacation every year, for a week in a sunny destination (Hawaii?), or Disney (off-site is OK, like Marriott's NCV). We will always need a 2br, and will likely be bound by school holidays in BC. We prefer nicer resorts, on the level of Marriott, Starwood, CI and the like.

Now the CI questions. Would it make sense for us to buy CI points resale to accomplish our needs, or do we have a more cost effective alternative? From what I heard, we will need 40 points per night to reserve 2br in Whistler during holiday season, so a New Year week would cost us 280 points, is that correct? How much is the maintenance fee for 280 points? Haw many additional points we will need to buy to make exchanges to nice 2br units like Marriott's Waiohai or NCV? Which system does CI use for exchange, is that RCI or II? Would it be "easy" to reserve a New Year week in Whistler if we buy there, or is it "iffy"?

I would appreciate your thoughts. Thank you.


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## tashamen (Aug 21, 2009)

I'm heading out of town for the weekend and don't have time to respond properly, but do a search here for Intrawest and that will answer some of your questions.

First of all, you buy CI points - there is no home resort, so you don't buy in Whistler.  It has been reported that it's very difficult to reserve prime weeks there  - I haven't done that (at that location) so can't comment specifically.

I think MFs were a bit over $6 per point this year.

I trade through II with an individual membership that I got when I first bought CI in 2001, but I believe that newer CI members buying in now do not have that option - you can trade through RCI, but with a CI corporate membership.  I no longer use that option (I did in the past).  With both you can get good trades, but the difference is that with II I can choose the week I want to deposit and exchange myself, rather than CI exchanging in RCI with a set number of points.  Also most Starwood and Marriott properties are only with II.  (This is explained much better in some earlier threads so do search for them).


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## echino (Aug 21, 2009)

Thanks for the info! Let's do some math here. If the assumption of 40 points per holiday night in Whistler is correct, and assuming $60 per point resale price, then the nightly cost would be:

1.   5-year horizon: $720 per night ($240 MF + $480 purchase)
2. 10-year horizon: $480 per night ($240 MF + $240 purchase)

Does not sound like a good deal. Am I missing something?


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## smbrannan (Aug 21, 2009)

Here's the 2010 point calendar for Whistler.  40 points per night is correct for a standard 2 bedroom, but you need 44 to book the "Lodge" units on the top floor, which are a bit roomier.

I've bought into CI in 2002 and, for the most part, I've been pleased.   Main disappointment is the fact that in that time they haven't added any new ski locations.

$500 - $700 per night for a better quality 2 bedroom in Blackcomb over Christmas is a not a bad price.

But....in my experience, booking the Whister location over Christmas/New Year is close to impossible.


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## tashamen (Aug 24, 2009)

smbrannan said:


> But....in my experience, booking the Whister location over Christmas/New Year is close to impossible.



I think Stuart is right on here.  It has been reported that people have to reserve far more than a week's worth of nights in order to get some prime holiday weeks booked.  Since owners can reserve 6 nights (or more) 11 months in advance (to the day), someone who has enough points for 8 or 10 or more nights may call in and reserve that many nights to ensure that they get in, and all the inventory may be gone by the time you try to get your week, if you only have enough points for a week.  You also have to call them to book holiday weeks (as opposed to booking them online for other times).


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## Bill4728 (Aug 25, 2009)

As another CI owner, I'll chime in too.

We love our CI ownership and just returned from the three day get-a-way to the Whistler resort. AND like tashamen, I sometimes trade my CI resort with II. This past year I used 74 pts to reserve (2) studio weeks in the fall. I then traded those 2 weeks for Marriott's Newport coast ( in 2 bedrooms) for this fall and next spring. 

I've heard the same story about how hard it is to reserve during the winter holidays. So we don't. We go in the spring and if it isn't a holiday, have little trouble getting the rooms we want. 

You may want to look at Hilton (HGVC).  It has a relationship with CI which allows some sharing of rooms between owners at HGVC and owners at CI.  I've found that the number of pts HGVC need to stay at CI is much less than the number of pts CI use to stay at HGVC. 

Also, HGVC & CI are both associated with RCI and RCI is associated with Whiski-jack ( now Raintree) and Whiski-jack have the most rooms available for trades into whistler. So you can trade into other resorts in Whistler with HGVC.


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## echino (Sep 29, 2009)

OK, trying to sum it up:

- It is not a good idea to buy CI to trade in RCI because of the cost;
- So, better buy to use in Whistler. But reserving prime time in Whistler is difficult;
- It is a "club" system where you purchase points rather than a title to real estate like traditional timeshares, so if CI goes bankrupt you are out of luck;

What's the use for CI points then? It appears that the only use would be to reserve non-holiday ski weeks. Is this correct? Why is CI so expensive then?


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## Bill4728 (Sep 29, 2009)

echino said:


> OK, trying to sum it up:
> 
> - It is not a good idea to buy CI to trade in RCI because of the cost;
> - So, better buy to use in Whistler. But reserving prime time in Whistler is difficult;
> ...


The whistler club location is great and many people just use their points to reserve time there.  While it is tough to reserve prime time, if you plan ahead you should be able to do it. 



> - It is a "club" system where you purchase points rather than a title to real estate like traditional timeshares, so if CI goes bankrupt you are out of luck;



The Club is pure points and in theory could go bankrupt but since the club is completely debt free, I'm not concerned about this possibility. The developer, Intrawest is taking all the risk when developing new location and because of that, they could go bankrupt but that will not affect current members of the club.


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## echino (Sep 30, 2009)

Bill4728 said:


> The whistler club location is great and many people just use their points to reserve time there.  While it is tough to reserve prime time, if you plan ahead you should be able to do it.



Is it possible to reserve 3 days over the New Year, or is there a higher minimum number of nights during holidays? How far ahead can you reserve?

When exchanging in RCI through the CI's corporate account, do you get a set number of RCI points for your CI points? If yes, what is the conversion rate? If no, how does it happen?

Is point devaluation happening or has it happened in the past, like more points will be required in the future to reserve the same thing?

I appreciate your posts, they really help me. Thank you!


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## tashamen (Sep 30, 2009)

echino said:


> Is it possible to reserve 3 days over the New Year, or is there a higher minimum number of nights during holidays? How far ahead can you reserve?
> 
> When exchanging in RCI through the CI's corporate account, do you get a set number of RCI points for your CI points? If yes, what is the conversion rate? If no, how does it happen?
> 
> Is point devaluation happening or has it happened in the past, like more points will be required in the future to reserve the same thing?



I keep forgetting to check here since most CI posts are under the Point systems forum.  

Anyway, as to your first question, there are minimum night requirements at certain times of the year, though I don't see any listed for New Year's on the online CI reservation site.  All reservations for the Christmas through New Year's holidays (as well as President's Day week in February) must be made by phone and not online.  We can book stays of 6 or more nights 11 months in advance to the day.  Any reservations of less than 6 nights can only be made 4 months in advance, so it's probably unlikely that if you only wanted 3 nights in Whistler over New Year's that there would be availability.

The question about RCI - I'm not positive as I don't participate in that any longer, but it used to be that the number of points needed varied by size of unit requested and the season.   For example, during RCI's Red season, 40 CI points could get you a studio, 110 points a 1BR, 150 points a 2BR, and 170 points a 3BR.  Lower points required in White and Blue seasons, and 40 CI points for any size unit if exchanging within 45 days.  You can request up to 12 months in advance, but bear in mind that all requests go through CI, and you can't see anything online in RCI yourself.  (One of the reasons I switched to II).

Third - the point devaluation.  That term is a bit misleading.  CI can and does annually re-evaluate the number of points needed to book each size unit in each CI location, and sometimes those do change.  However, once those evaluations are made for the year they can't be changed that year, and the total number of points allocated across the properties remains the same.  Not sure I'm explaining that very well.  In practice this means that the points required for some unit sizes at a given time may go up (during that annual allocation process), but conversely then the points required at another time go down.  For me this has only resulted in a noticeable change once when my March spring break week in Palm Desert went from a "peak" to a "holiday" designation.  Otherwise the locations we typically travel to (Tremblant, Vancouver and Sandestin) have not changed noticeably during the times we travel.


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