Holiday Inn Vacation Club

Well... this was an interesting day!

I travel a LOT for work and frequently stay at Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn Express just because they are clean, a known quantity, and have wifi I don't have to pay extra for. One of my trips awhile back, they did the "thank you for being a priority club member, please hold for a special offer" after I had made a reservation on the phone for the city I was going to be staying in.... my phone was cutting in an out and so I didn't get all of the sales pitch other than a 3 night 4 day stay at one of the 6 resorts they have for $250 and it was non refundable... seemed like a good deal and I had a anniversary coming up anyway.. plus they were going to give me the $250 back at the end of the stay.... should have smelled a rat right there but didn't. After getting my credit card number, they told me I had to sit through a 2 hour long presentation....crud... now the smoke screen is lifting....

So I just finished the 2 hour long presentation with my wife... they pulled out all the papers with the squiggly lines, circles, arrows, dollars, years... and managed to get out of my wife that we would spend about $20,000 on vacations in the next 20 years... ok fine... at the end of the presentation they somehow thought that I would think that financing a membership for $883 a month for 5 years plus MF's was going to be wonderful.... They were quite upset I hadn't drunk the koolaid and pulled up a listing at the Desert Club resort for FREE right here on TUG and asked them why for all that is holy I would spend that kind of money when I can rent or if I want to incur the MF pick up a title/points on resale.... they came back with "well, I don't know what that is, but it isn't the same thing as being a member of our owners group".... sheesh.... I didn't take the bait, they were ticked and borderline rude.... I didn't feel too bad since they kind of did a bait and switch on how they got me there in the first place...

Thanks TUG for educating me and keeping me from making an expensive mistake... I have my one Wyndham TS I picked up on resale and love... it's the only way to go!

Happy vacationing everyone!

You did exactly what I told my friend to do: bring out the ebay and TUG resale lists. Of course, they would never sell you anything for a $1. or $10, or even $1000.

HICV HIVC does have some nice properties. We were lucky to get in when they converted the Desert Club, so we got our units converted to points in their system. I think that there are other resorts that do this, maybe Southbeach in Myrtle beach, and Gatlinburg in TN. Check out the threads on TUG for details.

Some folks have been lucky to get a resale already converted to HICV points or a cheap conversion rate. You might be able to do so.

So happy to read this!

Congrats on becoming a perfectly happy timeshare owner, buying resale!!


(and the owner you bought from is also likely very happy!)