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rikkis_playpen · 03-16-2012, 11:28 AM

As long time Wyndham owners have learned, ownership rights and benefits are subject to the whim of the developer and specific perks can be modified or discontinued at any time.

In short, what you expect today may not be what you receive tomorrow..

Until Wyndham can find some way to support resale prices, most consumers should always buy resale. If you are forced to sell at a later date- you won't have to swallow the incredible financial loss from a developer purchase..

sbkyoshi · 03-16-2012, 11:38 AM

Did you even read the post? I only went to the trouble to post this because someone asked me to. I didn't post it to debate whether resale or developer is better. I think it's safe to say we already knew your stance on the subject.

Resale owners preach resale all day long, while Developer owners preach program benefits all day long. What's the point in posting a response like that? To beat a dead horse? Also, Wyndham hasn't even been a Vacation Ownership company for a "Long Time", so I'm not sure exactly what you mean by long time owners. If anything the perks and benefits have INCREASED over the past few years. They definitely haven't changed for the worse.

Edit: Looking at your website, there's an ownership on the front page going for $21,600. Is that not an incredible financial loss?

Jya-Ning · 03-16-2012, 12:13 PM

Nice summary.

RCI nightly stay is with Plus Partner. Which will come free with developer purchase. Or You can add it on with some number around 2,400

Adventure offer to everyone does not matter how you purchase. However, it usually requires enough points. It usually call member with large enough points.

House Keep and Transaction credit, Renting Points, Extra Holidays, Points Credit Pool is open to everyone does not matter how you purchase.

For CLUB WYNDHAM ACCESS, you will have to purchase the deed that tied to CLUB WYNDHAM ACCESS, and the priority reservation is tied to the points with that deed. Same as President Reservation Club. But I believe President Club perk will have to come from developer purchase. And all the President Club Perk will have to be the points tied to President Club Perk purchase.

Perk by Wyndham is close to Enterainment book.

Wyndham Rewards in theory is suppose to be used by developer purchase only. convert to MF may not be very worth it unless the ratio get changed, I believe it was around $2.3 per 1000 point. Convert to hotel stay or other stuff will be depended case by case. Last year, DW purchased reward point using cash, and take advantage of some discount hotel night. I think you can get like $30 per night per room at days inn and Wyndham but it will depends on chances. It is if you have too much points and can not consume it, than can be a nice resort. But for any timeshare, don't over bought your travel capacity. In fact, you probably should buy only like 1/3 of your travel capacity. Which usually does not make you to VIP level unless you usually travel with big family like 10 or 20 kids.

I don't think a lot of people using Rotating Priority List. It requires 22 month and basically tied points there. But once in a life time, it will be useful, and it is tied to VIP level, not just developer purchase.

Discount and upgrade is the best feature in VIP program. It get reduced once 4 years ago than some part of it get roll back, as well as guest certification. With new on-line system, it does allow you to take more advantage of it.

Wyndham is just a name change, the company does timeshare business over 20 years, it got purchased and rename (to Wyndham), but the same people run this part of business except lower part of manager get changed every few year like 1 or 2 year.

Jya-Ning

SOS8260456 · 03-16-2012, 02:21 PM

It's a good summary and I am sure it took a lot of time and energy. There are some things that need clarification in it. You reminded me of some of the benefits that we get that I totally forgot about. It would be neat to see it in a chart format with one column for developer purchase and one for resale purchase and a checkmark could be in each row of benefits that resale and developer points get, sort of like how they show the different benefits between the levels of VIP. But THAT would take alot of time and energy.

You are to be congratulated for taking that big Wyndham directory and summarizing it pretty well.

Lisa

rikkis_playpen · 03-16-2012, 03:20 PM

I apologize. I didn't intend to upset you.. I also commend you for the effort of putting together this post!

I just did not want a new reader to be overwhelmed by the sheer size of your post and mistakenly believe that they could only receive all those benefits by making a developer purchase.

If it was left "naked", it would not be long before a sales weasel began to use it in their presentations- creating the impression that TS4M's itself is recommending consumers buy from the developer.

Finally, the specific listing you mentioned is a large Disney Vacation Club contract. I wish Wyndham contracts could still bring those prices! It's very difficult to sell Wyndham now at a penny per annual point.

I'm not attacking you.. Yoshi is always my favorite character on MarioCart!

MargeS · 03-16-2012, 03:24 PM

"You can also combine points among owners to make a reservation."

this was eliminated a few years ago. no transfers between owners allowed anymore.

sbkyoshi · 03-16-2012, 07:29 PM

Jya-Ning, to my knowledge, VIP status doesn't apply to resale contracts. Am I wrong? (We see very few resale owners coming in and the ones we do see are typically small point packages, so I really don't know a whole lot about what resale actually gets).

Also, I was under the impression that resale owners don't have complimentary res trans, housekeeping credits, etc.

@Rikki - it's no problem! I just get fired up when it comes to the whole resale vs dev points, so I apologize for snapping at ya.

@Marge - I'll have to call and doublecheck. I know they don't allow points transfers from owner to owner, but I was told (I can't remember if by a corporate rep or a sales manager) that two owners can combine their points to make a reservation.

Jya-Ning · 03-16-2012, 07:58 PM

Originally posted by sbkyoshi

Jya-Ning, to my knowledge, VIP status doesn't apply to resale contracts. Am I wrong? (We see very few resale owners coming in and the ones we do see are typically small point packages, so I really don't know a whole lot about what resale actually gets).

Also, I was under the impression that resale owners don't have complimentary res trans, housekeeping credits, etc.

@Rikki - it's no problem! I just get fired up when it comes to the whole resale vs dev points, so I apologize for snapping at ya.

@Marge - I'll have to call and doublecheck. I know they don't allow points transfers from owner to owner, but I was told (I can't remember if by a corporate rep or a sales manager) that two owners can combine their points to make a reservation.

VIP does not apply to resale. That part is right.

Transaction credit and house keep credit is paid through club due and mf, so everyone get it.

VIP depends on the level can get free hk credit and transaction credit. Which may or may not be useful, but is a nice perk. Which in theory Wyndham should pay them, although .none can really account that...

If you get the transfer part right, it will be nice. Keep us post, few people do have multiple accounts within themselves and family members. But it also create similar holes for people using it as renting purpose, which is actually the main reason IMHO Wyndham takes it out.

Jya-Ning

SOS8260456 · 03-17-2012, 06:56 AM

Originally posted by sbkyoshi

Free RCI membership as well as the ability to search for availability before making any sort of points deposit. Everyone gets free RCI membership or II membership (if your initial resort purchase is affiliated with II - there are very few II resorts). I was told that the ability to search for availability before making any sort of points deposit is a VIP perk.

Plus Partners Not available resale, but is ACCOUNT based, not contract based, meaning that if once your account is entitled to this benefit, then all points in that account can be used for it. However, this is only a good alternative for points if you are desparate. If you were to assign a cost to your points based on your maintenance fee costs, it usually will cost you more to purchase something using this program than it would on the regular market, but again, sometimes something (even a small something) is better than nothing

Adventures Since only for VIP, not available to resale.

RCI Nightly Stays not available to resale, but is account based, not contract based. You see everything that an RCI regular points member sees, if interested in this program, cheaper to just pick up an RCI points contract resale.

Reservation Transactions available to resale - will usually be enough if you are the type of person who uses their points the traditional way - less stays, more nights at once. Can use up real fast if you like to do shorter stays and more of them. Can purchase additional transactions through Wyndham. All transactions made on the same day EQUALS one transaction, so the key to not running out of these is planning.

Depending on your points, you are allowed a certain amount of free reservation transactions. (Making a reservation or cancelling = 1 transaction)

1 trans for every 77,000 pts (VIP Gold and Plat have unlimited ResTrans)

Housekeeping Credits Similiar to transactions, see above. The theory behind housekeeping (HK) fees is that if you stay in a unit for the traditional 7 nights, the unit is cleaned once. However, if you like to take those 7 nights and break them out into say several long weekend stays instead, that is more than one room cleaning, so that is where HK transactions come into play. My feelings are that if you use points because of their flexibility for making those shorter stays and more of them, you CAN run out of these during a year. But, don't worry, for a fee, you can purchase more from Wyndham.

You get 1 housekeeping credit for every 1000 pts you own. They charge you credits for your stays depending on length of stay and size of room. In most cases, you'll never run out of these during a year.

Renting Points available to resale

You have the ability to rent points to complete your stay. Say your reservation costs 154,000pts but you only have 133,000 left. WHAT DO!? Just rent em for 8/1000 online and make the reservation. 10/1000 over the phone.

Borrowing Points available resale

You can borrow from the next use year to complete your reservation.
You can also combine points among owners to make a reservation. as far as I know this was taken away, but if you know more specifics, than please share.

Guest Confirmations these are available to resale. WHen they originally started this, it was suppose to be based on developer pts only, but they later changed it.

Plus Members - 1 Free Guest/year
VIP - 5 Free Guests
Gold - 10
Plat - 15 per million eligible points owned (developer pts)

Rotating Priority List I totally forgot about this benefit, so can't say much about it, unless I pull out my book and I am too lazy to do that right now, so anything I say could be way off base, so I just wont say anything.

It's a feature that provides you assistance in making reservations at resorts other than your home resort during holidays, high demand weeks or peak travel times.

No guarantees, but it increases your chances of getting into that "impossible" reservation.

You can submit a request 22mo in advance. It must be for a full week. if you get approved for your reservation, you may be confirmed up to 6wk before the standard 10mo reservation window, so you'll have plenty of time to plan.

Points Credit Pool available to resale

This is basically a banking system within Wyndham. it costs 39 dollars to bank your points this way, but nothing to take them out. Much cheaper than RCI and you don't have the issue with availability. It also banks your housekeeping credits with the points, so you don't have to worry abotu having enough when you decide to use them. They last in the PCP for 3 years.

VIP/GOLD/PLATINUM benefits not avaiilable to resale, but is account based, not contract based.

Points values are currently 300k/500k/1M, but will be going up to 400k/700k/1M in October when the VIP program becomes "Good Life". Current VIP owners will be grandfathered into whatever level they are currently.

There are a lot of things these programs do for you, but I'll give you a basic rundown.

25%/35%/50% discounts on reservations within 60 days of checkin.
Free unit upgrades within 30/45/60 days depending on VIP level (I have used this feature on 80% of my reservations.)

You can actually get the discount every time if you just book 5mo out then cancel and rebook on the same phone call within 60 days. Never had a problem doing this and Gold+ owners can do it all day long without running out of reservation transactions.

Gold and Plat owners can also get unit upgrades on RCI exchanges.

all VIP owners get Unlimited Housekeeping Credits

Gold/Plat are given free membership to the Avis&Budget Preferred Program which gives you some discounts and all that fun stuff.

Really helps if you fly/rent cars often.

PIC Program requires a developer purchase, so not available resale

This is not a VIP benefit.
Basically this program allows you to take an RCI affiliated week and deposit it with Wyndham in exchange for Wyndham Points. These points are treated like deeded Wyndham points and do affect VIP levels, etc.

Really good program if you want to get all the benefits of "true" wyn ownership without spending 50 grand. 77k points gets you the ability to pic 1 RCI week. 126k points gets you 2. You can only PIC up to 2 weeks.

Points allocation chart

Red 70k/105k/154k/254k
Whi 42k/77k/126k/189k
Blue 28k/63k/77k/154k

That's for Studio, 1br,2br,3/4br

CLUB WYNDHAM ACCESS I personally do not know anything about.

this is a fairly new type of ownership. Think of this as a Pool of resorts. You get ARP at all the resorts in the pool. Resorts put into the pool can never be taken out, so your ARP choices continue to grow without you spending more money for the same program.

CWA also has a blended maintenance fee. This means no special assessments and more stability in your maintenance. You basically pay your fee based on the average fee in the pool.

First Right of Refusal - There is a great deal of controversy over what this actually means. Some people say it's a BuyBack program, some people say it's a bunch of BS.

The FRR is a way for Wyndham to protect itself. CWA is, in my opinion, better than Presidential Reserve and doesn't require 1M points to get into it. You can have 84000 cwa points. Basically what FRR is, is a way for wyndham to DENY a resale of CWA points and then acquire those points from the owner.

The reason Wyndham added this to CWA is to prevent developers from performing a Hostile Takeover of CWA by purchasing mass amounts of resale. The owner must have a written offer and must present it to Wyndham for approval before he/she can complete a resale of that property.

Presidential Reserve Also, personally don't know anything about, but I love the sound of some of those benefits, but if I had the money to buy one million developer points, I would probably have the money to purchase those services myself.

14mo ARP, Guaranteed Availability in select resorts, etc etc etc. They'll hold back 25% of a resort for example for PR members until 6months from the reservation time. It says up to 75% of the Presidential Suites are reserved until 30 days of check in. This requires 1M dev points to get into, but I figure I'll share it anyways.

PR grants you membership to the Registry Collection. It's basically a super fancy RCI. Gorgeous resorts and all that for an exchange fee and a bunch of points. Worth it if you like really nice things and have the points to blow.

PR can request certain items in their fridge when they arrive, private chefs in their room, etc etc. They get these SWEET robes in their bathrooms too.. (They really are nice robes lol ^__^)

also one of the home resorts is Panama City, so the maint fee is something like 3.50/1000pts which is crazy low.

Perks by Wyndham I completely forgot about this one.

It's a big fat discount program that takes aaaaaaaaaaallllllllllllllllllllllllllllll the discount sites and puts them under one roof for you. I save money on random stuff like oil changes and pizza and this and that. Some people love coupons.. this program has over 120,000 partners. It's nice if you have time to look into it. It's 49.00 a year, or Free for Gold owners.

Wyndham Rewards SInce we were once told that Wyndham could not provide rewards to PA residents due to the real estate laws, I don't know anything about this benefit either,

You can accumulate rewards using the Wyn Rewards Visa for example. You can use this program to offset maintenance, or redeem the points for a bunch of other things like Lowes Gift cards, etc. In our fall update there was an owner that redeemed over 4,000 dollars in maintenance just using wyndham rewards. Will I ever be able to do that? hell no. Do people save money using it? Absolutely. (Ask for more details)

Extra Holidays Don't have any personal experience with this, but have heard that there is no guarantee that your unit will rent or that even all the nights of your unit will rent.

It's an in-house rental company. You make a reservation, they rent it for you and scrape 40% off the top, but hey at least you got to be lazy right?

I can get info on what was a heavy renting spot last year and all that fun stuff direct from Wyndham

(not an owner benefit). It's a rep benefit ^__^

Ummmmm I think that's about it.

I can answer any questions you guys may have.

But baaaaaaaaaaaasically you don't pay fees when you make a reservation, you get points discounts if you're vip (most people are at least temporary vip from bonus points for the first 2 years) and you get a buttload of programs to help you offset cost on all kinds of things.

Really works if you use it properly. I love fiddling with stuff and figuring out how to use this program better, so hit me up if you wanna discuss anything!

Hope this helped!

I hope my additions in red help. If I come across as sounding anti-Wyndham, please don't take it that way. I LOVE our Wyndham points and I LOVE being VIP platinum (but we got to that level before they started limiting PIC weeks to only 2 per account). I enjoy being platinum because I love taking LOTS of vacations, both traditional ones and the get-a-way ones, and I can easily see Wyndham nickel and diming us to death if we weren't VIP. That said, I would caution any new owners to seriously do the calculations on those nickels and dimes before considering spending the money to become VIP currently. As we have seen through the years, VIP is not a program guaranteed in stone, or even in writing. VIP benefits CAN and HAVE been changed, and we have even been told, can disappear entirely. Do I think that they will disappear entirely? No, but....I am not the powers that be.

Warning to the OP. It appears that you work for Wyndham. Please be really really discrete. I know that I personally have seen a few Wyndham employees come through online forums and be vocal with sharing information in order to help and then those employees were subsequently fired from Wyndham. I would not like to see that happen to you because it is nice having an employee's perspective around.

sbkyoshi · 03-17-2012, 10:19 AM

Originally posted by SOS8260456

I hope my additions in red help. If I come across as sounding anti-Wyndham, please don't take it that way. I LOVE our Wyndham points and I LOVE being VIP platinum (but we got to that level before they started limiting PIC weeks to only 2 per account). I enjoy being platinum because I love taking LOTS of vacations, both traditional ones and the get-a-way ones, and I can easily see Wyndham nickel and diming us to death if we weren't VIP. That said, I would caution any new owners to seriously do the calculations on those nickels and dimes before considering spending the money to become VIP currently. As we have seen through the years, VIP is not a program guaranteed in stone, or even in writing. VIP benefits CAN and HAVE been changed, and we have even been told, can disappear entirely. Do I think that they will disappear entirely? No, but....I am not the powers that be.

Warning to the OP. It appears that you work for Wyndham. Please be really really discrete. I know that I personally have seen a few Wyndham employees come through online forums and be vocal with sharing information in order to help and then those employees were subsequently fired from Wyndham. I would not like to see that happen to you because it is nice having an employee's perspective around.

Thanks for your input! I didn't really take it as anti-Wyndham. It seemed pretty neutral. I'm trying to get more of a grasp on what exactly resale gets and doesn't get as part of their ownership. Grats on getting platinum before they changed the PIC program! haha

dougp26364 · 03-17-2012, 01:05 PM

For most programs you can figure resale gets to use the unit and exchange through whatever exchange company the developer is affiliated with or, whatever independant exchange company will accept the unit. All other benefits come from buying direct from the developer.

For the most part, as posted above, it doesn't matter what developer group you own with, the benefits provided to direct buyers typically doesn't outweigh the price difference between resale and developer purchase.

For clarity, keep in mind the above paragraph was written by someone who has had the habit of buying the majority of our owned weeks direct through the developer. There are various reasons for our doing so (new resorts, specific week/unit location et....) but none that the majority on sites such as this would find acceptable. I will agree with the masses that buying resale for pennies on the dollar is often the best way to go.

At issue with many developers is the fact that a benefit enjoyed today may be a benefit taken away tomorrow. I've seen this happen with our ownerships and I'm aware that Wyndham has made changes not poplular to some of their owners. It's best to know that fine print typically states benefits can change in the future.

Jya-Ning · 03-17-2012, 01:30 PM

Originally posted by sbkyoshi

@Marge - I'll have to call and doublecheck. I know they don't allow points transfers from owner to owner, but I was told (I can't remember if by a corporate rep or a sales manager) that two owners can combine their points to make a reservation.

Originally posted by Jya-Ning View Post

If you get the transfer part right, it will be nice. Keep us post, few people do have multiple accounts within themselves and family members.

It could be just 2 separate transactions on two separate accounts except they can split the 7 days 4 days rule to get like 1 day and 6 day combination.

On the other hand, it could be one VIP account and 1 regular account and transaction together and both get VIP benefits.

Also, it could involve guest certification or may not.

Please let us know more detail on it.

Thanks.

I agree with Lisa (SOS), Wyndham sometimes does not very kind to salesperson on open forum. Although, it could be the nature of salesperson that has high turn over rate. But Wyndham also is very protective to restrict its employee on open forum, they don't want anything in written shown in public.

The forum has a restrict Wyndhomk owner HOA area, since you are Wyndham owner, you may want to consider apply to joint in.

Jya-Ning

yourdave · 03-18-2012, 03:14 PM

great post

I'm very happy to see this thread. I've been thinking of buying a Wyndham Timeshare. I've seen the re-sale prices and they are very affordable. However, seeing what I can get if I buy from the developer makes it appear that developer points may be a good deal. The problem is that I can't find anything that says what a retail VIP membership would cost? I would be willing pay from $15 to $20k for VIP. That way I could save enough for it to pay for itself in 15 to 20yrs. From that point it would be all savings. I guess the question is what does a VIP membership cost? I'm not looking for an exact answer just an average. Maybe the person who started the thread could tell me what VIP would cost at their resort. Thanks!

Yourdave

Ridewithme38 · 03-18-2012, 03:26 PM

Originally posted by yourdave View Post

I'm very happy to see this thread. I've been thinking of buying a Wyndham Timeshare. I've seen the re-sale prices and they are very affordable. However, seeing what I can get if I buy from the developer makes it appear that developer points may be a good deal. The problem is that I can't find anything that says what a retail VIP membership would cost? I would be willing pay from $15 to $20k for VIP. That way I could save enough for it to pay for itself in 15 to 20yrs. From that point it would be all savings. I guess the question is what does a VIP membership cost? I'm not looking for an exact answer just an average. Maybe the person who started the thread could tell me what VIP would cost at their resort. Thanks!

Yourdave

undiscounted its $220 per 1,000 points, so for a million points to be a Platinum VIP its about $220,000

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