# Club Intrawest Advice Needed



## Newbie Wendy (Jun 25, 2009)

Hi there, 
I just purchased a Club Intrawest membership and I'm still in the 10 day cooling off period and I'm having some buyer's remorse.  I'm trying to do the math to see if its worth it, but I'm hoping people here can provide me with some of their personal pros and cons from having been part of Club Intrawest.  For example:
1) Are most resorts (assuming I am part of the Extraordinary Escapes) located in the city (I saw the posts about there being no time shares in downtown Toronto, Ottawa or Montreal!) 
2) How much have maintenance fees increased over the past 3-5 years.
3) Is it really that difficult to get reservations during peak seasons?  I'm not that picky right now for peak season travelling (ie: christmas and march break) but eventually I may be.

Thanks in advance - any advice would be helpful.  

Wendy


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## applegirl (Jun 26, 2009)

Hi Wendy!  I don't own Club Intrawest (we own Marriott), but as most TUGgers here will recommend, you should rescind immediately and spend several months here on TUG learning exaclty what is right for your family and needs!   Right now the timeshare resale market has a glutteny of units so you can typically buy a property you want for 50-80% less than what the developers are selling for.  Many times the added benefits of buying from the developer aren't worth the hefty original purchase price.

Follow all the directions in your documents about rescinding and make sure you do exactly what they say!  I can tell from your above questions that you would greatly benefit from rescinding then doing due diligence and have all your questions aswered _prior_ to buying.

Best of luck!
Janna


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## middleoforchid (Jun 26, 2009)

Hi Wendy,I'll try to answer some of your questions.We've bought from the developer back in '98 when we didn't know anything about resale.Since then we have added more points via a resale broker.This way I got to retain my rights to join EEscapes whereas as a resale buyer now there is a minimum price point when you buy in before you are able to join EEscapes.
Many locations in the exchange program are in urban centres both in North America and in Europe.For some of the "luxury" villas,there are also cash supplements needed.
Maintenance fees--- '06 $5.91pp
                             '07 $6.10pp
                             '08 $6.34pp
                             '09 $6.58pp
About 15% of dues goes to the reserve fund, no special assessments yet since '98.
Never booked X'mas nor spring break,sorry no help there. Booked Whistler Jan. one bedroom no problem,the lodge suites harder since there are fewer of them. Booked Zihuatenejo since it opened.....Jan no problem, Feb had to try two or three different times since we want only the lookout suites and there's only 4 or 5 of them.Other type of units are easier! 
There are other CI members on Tug who probably knows more than I do,maybe some of them may chime in..............hope this helps a little. Angela


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## BevL (Jun 26, 2009)

If you are feeling some uncertainty, rescind and then take the time to ask these questions.  Even though they give the old "once in a lifetime, you'll never get this good a deal again," speech, you can buy from the developer later after you've done due diligence.

You might also want to check out the resale market.  With the depressed economy, timeshares are selling for pennies on the dollar.

Bev


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## Bill4728 (Jun 26, 2009)

For many years it didn't matter if you bought CI direct or resell. They treated all members the same. 

But about a year ago, they changed and said "anyone buying resale will not be allowed to use/join Extraordinary Escapes (EE) " If you buy CI for travel within the CI network of resorts ( which we almost always do) it shouldn't matter if you can't access EE but if you want to use EE, then you should buy direct. 

We have used EE twice in the almost ten years of CI membership. We currently use II ( which isn't available to new members) to do our trading.  So if buying again, it wouldn't concern me at all not to be able to use EE. 

One option could be to buy some CI resale, maybe a 120 pts or so, then buy 30 points direct from CI with the clause they must allow you to join EE if you buy more points from the developer. 

PS  Right now the resale price of CI is between $60- $80 (USD)/pt vs the almost $175 which CI wants.


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