Holiday Inn Vacation Club?

Did Holiday Inn Vacation Club buy Orange Lake in Orlando--thanks.

Karem:whoopie:

karenvit said:

Did Holiday Inn Vacation Club buy Orange Lake in Orlando--thanks.

Karem:whoopie:

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No. The points-based program Global Access became Holiday Inn Vacation Club. Orange Lake Resorts are still owned by the Wilson family.

Kemmons Wilson, the founder of Holiday Inn, was also the founder of Orange Lake Country Club. This is simply a rebranding of the "club" aspect of Global Access Points, the points program at the resort.

By doing this, they are making the points program a bit more like some of the other hotel-based timeshare systems. HIVC points can be used to reserve Holiday Inn hotel stays, and HI Priority Club mambers will be able to use their points for stays are Orange Lake and the other 3 related resorts (Wisconsin, Vermont, and Panama City Beach).

So...is this a good use of your TS if you decide not to do you week at Orange Lake some year? Apparently, it's not at some of the other hotel-based systems.

good use?

Redrosesix said:

So...is this a good use of your TS if you decide not to do you week at Orange Lake some year? Apparently, it's not at some of the other hotel-based systems.

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Hi - just used my Global access = (holiday inn) priority club points to book hotel stays in london and paris- able to book what looks like decent places within 3 weeks of departure- agent at priority was very helpful - took lots of time with me - negative is: staying in a room versus a condo- used about 31,500 points for ea night - so for my 150,000ish Orange Lake points - I could book 5-hotel stays- and needed to borrow some points from next year- minimal fee for booking - $60.00 and then I had to pay an additional fee for the points I borrowed (this comes off of my maintenance fee for 2010)
however- London and Paris - versus Orlando ? as have limited vacation time per year and even less available cash- thought we'd go this route
joane

Redrosesix said:

So...is this a good use of your TS if you decide not to do you week at Orange Lake some year? Apparently, it's not at some of the other hotel-based systems.

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The short answer is no, but there are other factors that may make it worthwhile. As Mel mentioned, you become a HI Priority club. A major benefit of this is that if you don't use your points at the end of the second year (at which time you would normally lose them), you can have them put into the Priority Club which then don't expire

It adds flexibility and may not cost as much as RCI Points for short reservation. In addition to the cost of the points (paid in maintenance fees), you would pay a small fee, I was told $45 but the other poster indicated $60. You shouldn't have to pay house keeping like you do at RCI Points for short stays (I paid the exchange fee plus $55 housekeeping when using RCI Points to stay at SummerBay). So if your points are to expire, it provides a longer term use of the points and if you like short vacations, it may be beneficial. But in general, you'll never get the same value out of the points that you would if you were to stay at the resort.

Mel said:

Kemmons Wilson, the founder of Holiday Inn, was also the founder of Orange Lake Country Club. This is simply a rebranding of the "club" aspect of Global Access Points, the points program at the resort.

By doing this, they are making the points program a bit more like some of the other hotel-based timeshare systems. HIVC points can be used to reserve Holiday Inn hotel stays, and HI Priority Club mambers will be able to use their points for stays are Orange Lake and the other 3 related resorts (Wisconsin, Vermont, and Panama City Beach).

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Don't forget Myrtle Beach and Gatlinburg .

priority club

gjw007 said:

The short answer is no, but there are other factors that may make it worthwhile. As Mel mentioned, you become a HI Priority club. A major benefit of this is that if you don't use your points at the end of the second year (at which time you would normally lose them), you can have them put into the Priority Club which then don't expire

It adds flexibility and may not cost as much as RCI Points for short reservation. In addition to the cost of the points (paid in maintenance fees), you would pay a small fee, I was told $45 but the other poster indicated $60. You shouldn't have to pay house keeping like you do at RCI Points for short stays (I paid the exchange fee plus $55 housekeeping when using RCI Points to stay at SummerBay). So if your points are to expire, it provides a longer term use of the points and if you like short vacations, it may be beneficial. But in general, you'll never get the same value out of the points that you would if you were to stay at the resort.

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It was $45.00 - don't know why I thought $60. what is the difference between high priority club and just priority club membership?
joane

JoanE said:

It was $45.00 - don't know why I thought $60. what is the difference between high priority club and just priority club membership?
joane

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Gold and Platinum memberships have additional perks, mostly related to cash reservations ie. earn more points per night, but without a TS ownership a person would have to stay ALOT of nights (50 or more for Platinum)

We're at the resort this week, and are impressed with the improvements made over the last few months. Free wifi in all units (using it now), is a definite plus. Our current unit (deeded as unit 11, on the map as 2011) has been updated, including jacuzzi in the master bath.

We did the update yesterday morning, and saw the new penthouse units - nice! Still, I prefer the west village golf villas.

When converting your points to priority club, you end up losing about 20% of their value, but that may be worthwhile if you use them for something you couldn't get through a traditional timeshare (like a week in London or Paris) or if your points are going to expire anyway.

If it didn't cost so much, we would have considered the conversion - the minimum "upgrade" is $10,000 or if you buy a week to grandfather your other units, the cheapest available was an EOY east village 2BR unit for $14,500. We'll wait until either the resort admin decides it's easier to have everyone in points (and simply converts everyone), or points become available resale.

Most of the benefits of owning at Holiday Inn Club are available to owners of regular resort weeks - the ability to exchange in more than once every 3 years, owner discounts...

Mel said:

When converting your points to priority club, you end up losing about 20% of their value, but that may be worthwhile if you use them for something you couldn't get through a traditional timeshare (like a week in London or Paris) or if your points are going to expire anyway.

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I don't know that you lose 20% of the value. The conversion from HI Points to Priority is 5:4. Similarly the conversion from HI Points to RCI Points is 2:1. The question is whether even though the points are different, do you get the same value. For example, if a week 'costs' you 150,000 HI Points but you can get the same unit for 75,000 RCI Points, have you really lost value? At first glance, it would appear you lost 50% value but in reality, you get the same thing but are using a different currency. HI Points to Priority points I don't think is as clear to value.

I will be staying in the Golf Villas on May 12. It'll be the first time in about 2 years since I've stayed in one of these units.

We would be ok with losing some points in the transfer to Priority Club points if we had an HIVC TS and weren't going to use it that year -- we stay at Holiday Inn and Crowne Plaza hotels, so we'd use the points there for sure.

But there were other things that made us pass over Orange Lake as a possible place to buy: the posts about people having to take shuttles to get from one area of the resort to another, and the fact that I found a whole website of complaints about the resort.

Here it is:
http://www.orangelakeresortcomplaints.com/

Some of the posts there make switching to points sound like a bad idea, although I'm tending to trust the posters on TUG much more.

will be in the North Village as of this Saturday. I love going back home.

At the update, the salesman stated you lost 80% of the value when converting. It's not a question of converting the points as a currency, but in the value of the points once converted. It sounded like you would get about 80% of similar value once converted, but you get the advantage of the points never expiring, so it's a trade-off.

While I take everything the sales staff says with a grain of salt, if they're admitting you lose value, I don't doubt it.

Of course, several of the things he mentioned contradict each other, though he might not have really even be aware. "Availability of excahnges is decreasing because so many resorts are becoming points resorts" (and are thus not going to be available as weeks exchanges)... Last minute exchanges are available for 9000 points (didn't mention only at weeks resorts)... I would love to own the points, but not at their prices. When points become available resale, we will probably sell our weeks ownership and "convert" by buying a resale points package.

As for having to take the shuttle everywhere, that's only because of the size of the resort. Most units are within reasonable walking distance of one of the recreation areas. Complaining about having to take the shuttle is like complaining that the DVC resorts aren't all within walking distance of all 4 Disney parks (plus the water parks, Downtown Disney...)

That makes sense -- so a family would probably stay mostly in their own area anyway.

I wouldn't doubt that you lose some value if you convert to Priorty Club points -- that's the way with most hotel points. But you're right -- the non-expiry deal is very good and worth it if you have no other alternative or could really use those points (like if you were staying in a hotel somewhere that year and had to skip your Orlando vacation)

But if the ratio is 5:4, and the average HIVC TS is worth 150,000 points (just guessing), converting them to Priority Club points wouldn't even get you your own week (which costs 27,500 PC points per night) -- closer to half of a week

The conversion would be 80% of the value, not the actual number of points. A week stay at OLCC would be 192,500 points through Priority Club, so a 20% discount means a typical OLCC week could convert to around 155,000 Priority Club points - but again, you could keep those points forever (or until Priority Club ceases to exist, or the program changes...)

Mel said:

The conversion would be 80% of the value, not the actual number of points. A week stay at OLCC would be 192,500 points through Priority Club, so a 20% discount means a typical OLCC week could convert to around 155,000 Priority Club points - but again, you could keep those points forever (or until Priority Club ceases to exist, or the program changes...)

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Well, that sounds a lot better. For me, it would be worth paying the premium ie. giving up the 20 % so that the points never expire, but that's because we like the Crowne Plaza hotels (which are 25,000 pts per night)

One change that I recently was informed was that if you want your points put into the priority club, it must be that year's points not points carried over from the previous year as I had been told by OLCC representatives before. The kicker to this is that if you don't use the points carried over, they do become lost points. Also, if you use the points for other than resort stays, they are also current year points, not points carried over.

I don't normally use points for anything other than resort stays but it could have an impact on whether points are useful or not.

HOliday Inn Vacation Club and Myrtle Beach SC

Holiday Inn Vacation Club acquired the South Beach Resort Property. We were owners from when Burroughs and Chapin owned the resort. I am trying to locate someone who was converted over to Holiday Inn Vacation Club to see if they were told they needed to upgrade (add more time) in order to get the Global Choice and Holiday Inn system benefits.
Also how have you seen the service from Holiday Inn Vacation Clubs? we have had horrible service and the Global CHoice system has limited our flexibility with using our RCI points. For example converting other weeks resorts to points has been severely restricted with the 10 month requirement.

Used to be Burroughs & Chapin

We own at the Gatlinburg resort (the old Crown Park Resort)...the sister resort to South Beach. We are VERY upset at having our timeshare sold to Holiday Inn. We have only seen our perks taken away, have not seen any value added. We feel like we were lied to by our home resort and they convinced us to upgrade from a one bedroom to a two bedroom 2 days before the sale was complete from B&C to Holiday Inn. We feel lied to. We would NEVER had spent so much money to belong to Holiday Inn. I am wondering if we have any legal recourse or if somewhere in the fine print of what we signed, there was a clause that said they could do this. We want out of it. We have not been able to book anthing since they took over.