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I am a Club Intrawest (CI) Member who is considering selling my Club points & ending my membership. Since Diamond Resorts Int'l (DRI) assumed management of the Club (now Embarc by DRI) in November 2015, however, it is unlikely that this will be possible. DRI has the right of first refusal to any Member seeking to sell their membership on the resale market. In fact, DRI prefers that members return their points through forfeit, default of payment or Members even pay DRI to return them. Considering the Club's Repurchase Program? There are over 1, 200 CI Members on the waiting list. As Members, we need to be free to set our point price at a fair market value on the secondary market, which we are now prevented to do.
I am writing to invite you to join fellow Club Members, over 1, 000 strong, who are united to work together, to inform, educate & campaign against DRI's management of our Club. A Members-only group was launched on Facebook to connect with the 22, 000 Members since DRI refused to provide the Membership contact list to facilitate our inter-communication. Also, a website has been created to share key Club documents, explain how the Club is bring managed to benefit DRI, not the Members, provide updates on progress & info on selling points, etc.
Did you know that although we Members own 94% of the Club points & Intrawest/DRI has 6%, the Club instruments were written to give them a weighted voting power of 15 times that of Members (or 48% voting power) in all elections? Did you also know that Intrawest placed their employees in 4 of 5 positions on the Board of Directors, thereby ensuring DRI controls the Board & our Club? Join the Members group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/clubintrawestowners/ and website: http://citheownersgroup.wix.com/home
The Facebook group is now almost 2, 000 strong and the website is now located at: www.cithownersgroup.org
We are organizing to ensure fairness for the members of Club Intrawest/Embarc and if you are a former Club Intrawest (now Embarc) owner, please join us.
where do i join ? do we have an action plan ?
We also would like to get rid of our points. Are there any updates on this? I will join the groups and look for current information also.
This information is correct. I have been a member since 2004. At that time, I purchased points with Club Intrawest. They prices have gone up, the amenities have been reduced. The availability has declined, thus, watering down the value. When I purchased, I was told that Intrawest would guarantee that they would repurchase the points at the original sales price after 7 years. I have been a faithful member for 14 years. nevertheless, this turned out to be another lie. Currently, Embarc is "kind" enough to let me voluntarily surrender the points for which I paid approximately $50, 000. That's right. They will take them back for free so they can sell them to some other gullible schmuck and they will pay me no remuneration.
i am another dis-satisfied customer of Embarc Diamond Resorts... trust me... stay away !
Terrible Embarc Time Share Presentation at Mont Tremblant
We were very happy with our official time share presenter, Diane. She was friendly, helpful, and thanks to our experience with previous other timeshare presentations, promised to focus on the information or “meat” of the product, and endeavour to keep us under the two hour presentation timeframe. However, Gary, presumably her supervisor, kept entering the room and interrupting her. At first, this was fine, but every time Diane started to show us something, Gary would come in and do it instead. We found him quite annoying after a while. He kept bragging about what the Embarc program could do. He could find any place, any time for us. Just name it. Well, he couldn’t do it, and made himself and Embarc look foolish. He explained that the system must be down, although how do we know that? There was no notice that the site was undergoing maintenance – it was just his say so. There was nothing that he could show us that impressed us at all – certainly a far cry from “selling” the product. Then Gary suggested that we should accept this system/program shortcoming and buy anyway. He said this failure showed that he was human and even Embarc was not infallible. Right, that sounds like the kind of product we want to buy.
After reviewing the numbers, we were not convinced that a purchase with Embarc was right for us. We asked about a buy back policy if we were not happy with it or if our circumstances changed. He informed us that there was no buy back policy! They would only buy (and insisted on right of first refusal!) if we first lined up a private buyer ourselves.
When initially questioned about what we would want if we could design our own timeshare product, we explained that we would only consider a system that was more efficient, flexible, and at least as economical as what we were currently doing. We have recently been searching for vacation destinations on the AirBnB and HomeAway websites and have been very successful. Disregarding the exorbitant purchase price, Embarc’s cost per vacation could not compare to the prices of places on these sites. We told him that we could find similar places cheaper using our own search methods. At this point, Gary said that if we were cheap, then perhaps this wasn’t the product for us. Embarc offered deals on more exclusive and highly priced units. Gary resorted to mudslinging – and called us cheap!
Not only did Gary fail to sell the Embarc product by making it and himself look inadequate and unprofessional, he resorted to insulting his prospective clients, who were still involved in the sales presentation, which, thanks to him, lasted nearly three hours, after Diane had promised she could complete it in less than 2 hours!
As we have attended time-share presentations in the past we knew what to expect. However, we have never experienced anyone as unprofessional as Gary! It was a very annoying way to waste three hours of our time and reinforces the fact that the timeshare industry has not changed from the high pressure sales tactics that has given it such a poor reputation. We were hoping the Embarc would be different, but we could not have been more wrong. :(
Not on Facebook, but a Club INTRAWEST member since 2003. Can I join the protest of DRI tactics?
I am a Diamond Resorts Club member having purchased from Diamond Resorts. Is this owners group for Diamond members also or only for Diamond Resort members who were originally owners with Intrawest? Thank you!
I was stupid enough to buy into Club Intrawest by their sleazy salesman. I live in Australia and cannot afford to visit every year with my wife. The air tickets alone are over $4000. The lying dog that conned us into joining assured us we could get 2 weeks every year at Whistler in peak season. Gullible, I know.
If I am lucky, I can get 5-6 nights at Whistler and maybe 1-2 in Vancouver at the end of the snow season in May. This is not economical at all. I have instead paid to stay 10 nights at the Crystal Lodge in Whistler with 9 days lift pass for a great price.
I wish to god I never bought into Club Rip Off.