Developer Purchase vs. Resale & Premier Owner Benefits

[kjhawk Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close kjhawk]

I am evaluating whether to buy Worldmark points and from what source. I understand the great discount resale provides as I own a Bluegreen resale package, but I want to receive all of the benefits of Premier ownership (bonus time, ability to book affiliate resorts, and TravelShare). I purchased a taster/experience package during a sales presentation last week and need to decide by the morning of 3/14 whether to cancel. The following are the issues for which I need some expert input:
1. Is there any way to obtain all of the Premier ownership perks without buying points from the developer?
2. If yes, then what procedures do I need to follow, reseller do I need to use, or specific package do I need to buy in order to receive the Premier benefits?
3. If no, then is it possible to get the Premier ownership benefits on all points I buy now or later through resale by just buying a minimum number of points directly from the developer? (For example, I would want to be able to use all points for booking affiliate resorts not just a few of my points.)
4. What is the minimum amount of points I can buy from the developer? What is the best price for points available from the developer? I attended a sales presentation in California where I was told the minimum purchase is 6000 points and that $1.80 per point is the sales price for everyone.
5. Is it true that I cannot buy from the developer later and receive the same Premier ownership perks and sales price if I do not accept the original offer. I usually do not believe what I am told in a sales presentation, but my salesperson was pretty convincing that CA regulations and the Trendwest marketing filing prevents them from offering the same packages and prices to anyone at anytime other than the original sales offer.
6. Is it worth buying a mimimal points package and not getting the special benefits of Elite membership at 20k points? I do not want to buy a smaller package and later find out that I cannot get the best resorts at the times I want without an Elite membership.
7. Should I be concerned about upcoming changes due to the ownership change to Wyndham? Some of the predicted changes in other threads concern me that the current advantages of Worldmark might go away in the next few years.
8. Since my primary goal is to get direct access to western resorts (ski resorts, CA beaches, etc.), is Worldmark the best option or should I be considering other resort chains such as Fairfield or Sunterra? I do not necessarily need more vacation ownership, but I do not want the costs and timing uncertainties of trading for any vacation I want in the west.
9. Is there any realistic chance of being able to buy the free housekeeping points packages through resale? The extra benefit sounds great but with so few originally sold is there any legitimate chance of finding them without extensive effort and a long wait?

If you have read this far, I appreciate your time and any insights you can provide.

[BocaBum99 Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close BocaBum99]

The only thing you can't get is Travelshare benefits.

Fun time is a farce. You can get more benefits by renting credits from other owners.

The only reason I think it's worth having Travelshare is if they have a lot of internal exchange options with FF and Pahio and other resorts. But, that will be in the future. And, we can circumvent that by creating a great direct exchange network.

No housekeeping is good, too. But, you need 63000 credits to get it.

Buy resale, you'll save a ton of money.

[Jya-Ning Silver Contributor Find all posts View Profile Close Jya-Ning]

Not WM owner, has no idea their program is, but as a sister company owner, this is my take
1. No. You can not get from resell, but should you care?
3. yes, buy say 7 times resell of the points required for premier at the slowest time and neg with seller directly, and 1 times retail of the premier reqired. If the eBay rate is .75 per credit, and you get .6 per credit from resell, and retail is 1.8, you end up like buying .75 per credit. The question is do you need that many points.
4. That is what I heard if you only want buy min point package. If you buy all the points for premier, that will be different price range
5. Yes, you probably will not get same package, you will be much smarter to get better package later, because the way they sell, the later you wait, the better the offer, since they are try to increase the point value and try to keep price per point the same, so, price per point will be worth less in the future, the less you care about the preimer package, the better deal you will get. They may even throw you resell deal to help you get preime level (at a higher cost)
6. You are paying retail to buy a min package and still does not get whatever they call the special class, and knowing your point loss the same value? that does not make too much sense to me. If you happy to curent resort they have, retail and resell is the same. If they create a preimer resort that you can not use today's point to get in, retail and resell purchase today will not let you get in these resort until you purchase point in the future.
9. I saw at least 3 last year, and I don't even in the market to purchase WM, it depends on how much you are willing to pay.

Jya-Ning

[Jya-Ning Silver Contributor Find all posts View Profile Close Jya-Ning]

I do have two questions for OP

Based on your travel perference, can you tell me how much Premier will save you per year? And can you tell me where these future Premier resort that normal points will not allow to access that will be your primary travel target?

Once you have the answer of these, maybe we can try to see how much the Premier should valued to you.

Jya-ning

[Sydney Contributor - Bronze Find all posts View Profile Close Sydney]

In Australia, Travelshare is called Privileges.

You can get premier ownership buying resale but not Privileges/Travelshare which is definately worthless. It's just another "benefit" they cook up to suck unsuspecting ignorant buyers in.

The only thing you can't get is Travelshare benefits.

Fun time is a farce. You can get more benefits by renting credits from other owners.

The only reason I think it's worth having Travelshare is if they have a lot of internal exchange options with FF and Pahio and other resorts. But, that will be in the future. And, we can circumvent that by creating a great direct exchange network.

No housekeeping is good, too. But, you need 63000 credits to get it.

Buy resale, you'll save a ton of money.

[sfsailors Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close sfsailors]

In Australia, Travelshare is called Privileges.

You can get premier ownership buying resale but not Privileges/Travelshare which is definately worthless. It's just another "benefit" they cook up to suck unsuspecting ignorant buyers in.

I agree with you it's worthless program. I think that even you bought a resale account they will let you upgrade to a Privileges/Travelshare with 5000 credits from developer in a near future. They need to sell more credits.