Holiday Inn Club Vacations Member Guide 2022

What the Holiday Inn Club Vacations Member Guide 2022 Actually Covers

The member guide is a 40-something page PDF that gets mailed to owners after you close on a timeshare week or point package. It contains your maintenance fee schedule, the weekly reservation windows, and the exchange program terms. Most people never read it until they actually need to book something. I learned that the hard way in 2019 when my wife and I tried to reserve a unit at Club Wyndusc and ended up with a studio next to the ice machine because we missed the priority booking window by three days. It is available for download directly from the IHG Vacations portal. Log into your account at ihgvacations.com, go to the owner resources section, and look for the member guide link under documentation. The file is usually updated annually around January. If you cannot find it there, call the owner services line and they will email you a copy within 24 hours. The 2022 version reflects the points-based system that replaced the old fixed-week structure for most new owners. One thing the guide does not make clear is that your maintenance fee increases are outlined separately. You will see a table showing your current annual assessment, but the escalation clauses are buried in your original purchase contract. I spent about an hour on the phone trying to figure out why my fees jumped $400 between 2020 and 2021. The answer was in a rider signed during closing that most people do not remember signing.

Understanding Your Points Allocation

Your annual points come in two types: home resort points and general pool points. Home resort points can only be used to book at your owned resort during your home period, which is a specific week or time window tied to your purchase. General pool points can be used anywhere in the IHG vacation network or through RCI and Interval International. The guide lays this out in a chart that looks straightforward until you actually try to use it. Here is the part nobody tells you: home resort points expire on December 31st of the year they are allocated. General pool points roll over indefinitely. I have seen owners lose thousands of points because they assumed everything worked the same way. If you have home resort points sitting unused in late November, call the reservation center and book something, anything, even a stay you do not particularly want. You can sometimes exchange it later through RCI for points at another property, though the trade value will be rough. The booking window for home resort points opens 12 months in advance. General pool points open 7 months ahead. That gap matters more than it sounds. During peak seasons like Christmas week or spring break, the good units at popular resorts disappear within the first 48 hours of the booking window opening. I once watched a friend call at exactly 7 AM on his booking day and still get nothing but a two-room cottage three miles from the beach. He had over 10,000 points to spend and could not use any of them where he wanted to go.

Using the Exchange Programs

The guide describes two exchange routes: RCI and Interval International. Both require a separate annual membership on top of your IHG ownership. RCI costs around $350 per year. Interval runs closer to $400. The guide makes it sound like either one works fine, but they have very different resort networks. RCI has a much larger inventory but lower-quality properties in many cases. Interval is smaller but tends to have better units and more premium destinations. I switched from RCI to Interval after my third year and noticed an immediate difference in availability at resorts like Marriott's Kapalua Bay and Disney's Grand Florida. The trade is that you have fewer options overall. If you are flexible about where you go, RCI is fine. If you have a specific resort in mind, check whether it is in the network before you commit to either exchange company. The member guide does not list which resorts belong to which exchange, and finding that out after you have paid for both memberships is frustrating. One edge case that the guide barely mentions: exchange requests can take 90 days or more to process during high demand periods. I submitted an exchange request in October for a July trip the following year and did not get a confirmation until mid-January. By then, I had already booked a non-refundable hotel nearby as a backup. The exchange finally came through, but I lost money on the hotel. The workaround is to submit your exchange request the day your booking window opens, even if you are not sure about your dates. Lock in a tentative exchange first, then adjust later.

Common Problems and What to Do

The reservation phone line is notoriously long. Call between 6 and 7 AM on a Tuesday if you want the shortest wait. The online booking system is faster but sometimes shows different availability than the phone desk, which creates conflicts when you try to confirm a reservation after calling. I recommend booking through the website whenever possible and only calling if the system fails to complete your transaction. Maintenance fee payments can be set up automatically. The guide includes a section on payment options but does not warn that missing a single payment can trigger late fees and potentially affect your ability to book exchanges. Set up autopay for the maintenance fee at minimum. Credit card payments also carry a processing surcharge that ranges from 2 to 3 percent depending on the method. I pay by ACH transfer to avoid that fee entirely. If you ever want to sell or give away your ownership, the guide does not cover that process at all. You have to contact IHG Vacations directly to initiate a resale or transfer. Be aware that the resale market for these contracts is weak. You will likely get far less than what you paid, and in many cases the developer will not even buy it back unless you are within a very short cooling-off period. Gifting the points to family is simpler and does not require any formal approval from the company.

Bottom Line

The Holiday Inn Club Vacations Member Guide 2022 is a useful reference document but it is not comprehensive. It covers the standard procedures without addressing the situations that actually cause problems. The points system is the most confusing part for new owners. Home resort points have harder restrictions than general pool points and they expire. Book early, use the website instead of the phone when you can, and figure out which exchange network fits your travel patterns before paying for a second annual membership.