# Meeting with Richard McIntosh



## Blues (Aug 14, 2012)

My wife and I are at Craigendarroch now, and had coffee this morning with Richard McIntosh, president of HIGVC.  We've maintained a pleasant email correspondence with him over the last 10 years, ever since we purchased a resale week from him, and found him to be an especially pleasant and personable gentleman.

He told us the back story of our purchase.  I bought the unit on eBay, though my bid was less than the reserve.  When the auction closed, I was stunned to be dealing with the head of HIGVC.  The back story is that he had the idea at that point to use eBay for resales, and took personal charge of the program to demonstrate to his sales staff the benefit of using eBay.  Apparently it was not as good an avenue as he expected, as we were only one of 5 or 6 purchasers using that avenue.  Perhaps we drove too hard a bargain?   In any case, we've maintained the email connection, and he has always been very helpful to us.  We had jointly decided that we wanted to put faces to names during this visit.

Re the conversion of the Hilton Craigendarroch Hotel to timeshares -- although there's a press release, they haven't yet even notified the current Craigendarroch owners of the conversion, though they will do so shortly.   He proposed this conversion 10 years ago, and it was approved in principle then, though never funded.  Hilton corporate has finally funded it, and they will close the hotel in January to begin the conversion.  I asked him the reasoning, and apparently the hotel, at just 45 rooms, doesn't have the economies of scale to be very profitable.  Also, since it's so small, they have trouble making a case for capital funds for improvements.  But the conversion is fully funded, and they'll upgrade the country club and other facilities at the same time.  He described it as a win-win for the company and the owners.

He also shared with me, in confidence, some other plans for HGVC expansion.  But I promised not to reveal them; so I'll wait until they're public, and comment at that time.

Some of you old-timers on TUG may recall that, in the past, I've noted that the Scottish affiliates are not treated the same as full HGVC owned properties in the US, vis-a-vis when the points are available, etc.  Richard told me that, since HIGVC merged with HGVC, the properties are now *supposed* to be on equal footing in all respects.  But, he said, computer systems problems have prevented them from fully merging the accounts.  Hence, I (and many others) still have two different accounts with HGVC.  Points should be credited in similar time frames, though he acknowledged that we would have to call in to make that happen.  I shared with him the fact that most first-line HGVC reps don't know how to deal with the Scottish properties (no longer "affiliates"), and that we usually have to escalate it to a supervisor.  I admit that I've never tried to get my points credited a year in advance; now I'll have to call and see if it works.

All-in-all, a very pleasant conversation with a very pleasant gentleman.  I've  always been impressed that Richard has always made the time to respond to my emails and help in whatever way he can, despite his many responsibilities.

Also, we're enjoying Craigendarroch very much.

-Bob


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## GregT (Aug 14, 2012)

Blues,

That is a great story and very interesting to hear.  Thank you for it and I will look forward to hearing the details of expansion unfold.  I was happy to see the changes in Scotland and Tuscany, and will hope for more.

Best,

Greg


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## markf (Aug 16, 2012)

We purchased a gold week at Craigendarroch last year through ebay for a bargain price. We are very happy with the purchase. Interestingly as soon as we purchased our week we called Craigendarroch to join HGVC. Their representative, John Pringle, was extremely unhelpful and it was clear that he (or Hilton) were not actively encouraging purchasers to join HGVC, which I was very surprised at. Anyhow we did join HGVC and are using our points at Christmas and New Year in Orlando staying at Sea World and I-drive. We had no problem making the booking or importing points from next year.

As a matter of interest earlier this year we bought in Fiesta Americana at Cabo and again had no issue with using our points to swap into HGVC Orlando in January.


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## Blues (Mar 15, 2013)

*Resurrecting Old Thread*

Another post I made in this forum reminded me of this thread that I had started last August.  So I thought I'd revisit it, to further comment on HGVC expansion.

When I posted this (shortly after my conversation with Richard), neither the Elara or Trump Towers expansion had been announced.  Thus I was sworn to secrecy.  The veiled reference I made in my original post was to these two acquisitions.

Richard was excited about the Las Vegas expansion.  I was sorely disappointed that they were again putting their resources into one of the "Big Three" HGVC locations.  And I said so to Richard.  I tried to emphasize that the main drawback to HGVC, both from personal opinion and the consensus on TUG, was the lack of diversity of locations.  He accepted that, but had no real comment to make about it.

So, I tried to get that message out to "management".  I really tried.  I encouraged him to tell the US head office to expand to other locations, including other Hawaiian islands (Maui, anyone?), the Carribbean, other European locations, etc.  I don't know if my comments had much, if any, effect.  We'll see.

Other than that exchange, though, I have to emphasize again what a pleasant conversation I had with a very pleasant gentleman.

-Bob


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