Confused, but tempted..

Listened to the Timeshare 'Update' in Kauai today and the argument to switch / convert to Wyndham once again. We currently own a 2BR Pahio, 2 Phase III Ka Eo Kai, and a Vacation Village 2BR all held outside of Wyndham. The offer was to convert into Wyndham at Platinum as follows: 325K pts for the Pahio, 350K pts for each of the Ka Eo Kai and 154K pts for the Vacation Village in the PIC+ program. All this could be had for the small purchase of $32K EOY Sheerwater yielding 500K pts EOY and a 250K pt bonus.

The temptation arises from the VIP benefits, and the potential for airfare / car / pts against maintenance fees as well as stepping away from the exchange fees etc. What experiences have folks had +/- with Wyndham in general, the VIP benefits and what would the overall advice / perspectives be on converting versus continuing to own / hold my timeshares outside of Wyndham? We really enjoy Kauai and certainly want to be able to benefit from returning here when we want to?

Thanks all - I look forward to your thoughts / advice!

You can buy a lot of airline tickets, rent a lot of cars and pay a lot of exchange fees with $32,000 in your pocket.

Others will quickly respond; but in the meantime please carefully do your homework.

I am still trying to figure out the math on Platinum VIP level --- must be 1 million points (and for a real ownership level, let's just put the Bonus Points NOTED in a side note)...

TIA

vacationhopeful said:

I am still trying to figure out the math on Platinum VIP level --- must be 1 million points (and for a real ownership level, let's just put the Bonus Points NOTED in a side note)...

TIA

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They would have enough for platinum without the bonus points. By my calc they would have over 1.3 million points. As for if this is worth it, if you are using it for just personal travel, it isn't. They only way to get your money back out of a platinum purchase is to do rentals and to do a lot of them. If you use your points for Planes/cars/ect you will be overpaying for those services if you calculate your points into dollars compared to just paying cash.

Jason

Seeking439 said:

Listened to the Timeshare 'Update' in Kauai today and the argument to switch / convert to Wyndham once again. We currently own a 2BR Pahio, 2 Phase III Ka Eo Kai, and a Vacation Village 2BR all held outside of Wyndham. The offer was to convert into Wyndham at Platinum as follows: 325K pts for the Pahio, 305K pts for each of the Ka Eo Kai and 154K pts for the Vacation Village in the PIC+ program. All this could be had for the small purchase of $32K EOY Sheerwater yielding 500K pts EOY and a 250K pt bonus.

The temptation arises from the VIP benefits, and the potential for airfare / car / pts against maintenance fees as well as stepping away from the exchange fees etc. What experiences have folks had +/- with Wyndham in general, the VIP benefits and what would the overall advice / perspectives be on converting versus continuing to own / hold my timeshares outside of Wyndham? We really enjoy Kauai and certainly want to be able to benefit from returning here when we want to?

Thanks all - I look forward to your thoughts / advice!

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Linda

the math is right. 325 + 305 + 305 + 250 for the Sheerwater is 1185 plus the 154 for the PIC...easy and fairly cheap to go from where he is to Platinum

This is almost exactly how I went to Platinum. I had two Ka Eo Kai phase III Penthouse 2 bedroom lockoff units that converted at 350000 points each and one Kaua'i Beach 2 bedroom lagoon view that converted to 308000 points with a purchase of a $12000, 126000 point eoy at Royal Gardens

I went back to do it again and was told the rules had changed and now you had to buy at least a 203000 point contract to make it happen. I was quoted $35000...pretty much the same deal as the op

So now the question is....Is it worth $35000 to go to Platinum?

first of all the benefit of using points to pay for maintenance fees and airfare and rental cars is baloney. Its cheaper to use your cash to do these things. You can do the math yourself, or just believe me (Ive done the math)

The 50% discount that Platinum owners get is certainly a benefit. and if you play it right and do all your reservations within the 60 day discount window, and get some upgrades as well. You can recover your $32000 outlay pretty fast. Fast enough to make it worthwhile is a question only you can answer

Thanks all for your thoughts - I made a small edit due to my typo in the initial post. It was 350K pts (not 305) for the Ka Eo Kai(s) yielding 1,025,000 for the imports plus 154K for the PIC+. I didn't press them on a 'minimum' purchase to convert though 'coincidentally' each of a couple of options came in at almost exactly $32K. One was another Pahio which I'm not interested in and the other was a Sheerwater EOY 2BR Top Floor ocean view. I didn't commit so rescinding is not the question, I remain interested in your thoughts and the excellent analysis so many have already done. Thanks.

Where else so you want to vaca? Sounds like you have Hawaii locked up (more so than me anyway!) without having to go to points. Do you want to have flexibility just within the islands or also with mainland resorts?

Your anticipated vacation pattern should also help determine if it is really worth $32k.


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We converted when we only had to buy an EOY Bali Hai that if I remember right was only about 84,000 points. That converted all our Pahio weeks and we ended up Platinum. Is it worth it? As I'm learning to work the system, I think so. I haven't used it for maintenance fees of airline tickets. But we have done a couple amazing exchanges with TradingPlaces and have gotten almost all our reservations in the past 3 or 4 years (including Hawaii) for 1/2 the amount of points. That's left us a lot of points to use lots of other places. With no housekeeping fee and no transaction fee, it's nice to be able to book 2 and 3 nights at a time. We've also sent the "kids" on several trips with the free guest certificates. Would we have done it for $34,000, I don't think so.

slabeaume said:

We converted when we only had to buy an EOY Bali Hai that if I remember right was only about 84,000 points. That converted all our Pahio weeks and we ended up Platinum. Is it worth it? As I'm learning to work the system, I think so. I haven't used it for maintenance fees of airline tickets. But we have done a couple amazing exchanges with TradingPlaces and have gotten almost all our reservations in the past 3 or 4 years (including Hawaii) for 1/2 the amount of points. That's left us a lot of points to use lots of other places. With no housekeeping fee and no transaction fee, it's nice to be able to book 2 and 3 nights at a time. We've also sent the "kids" on several trips with the free guest certificates. Would we have done it for $34,000, I don't think so.

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Jason has it right...at $34000 this works if you want to do a lot of rentals (Im probably going to do it) but for personal use, probably not, unless your intent is to make Wyndham timeshares your second home and live in one 6 months a year or so

ronparise said:

Jason has it right...at $34000 this works if you want to do a lot of rentals (Im probably going to do it) but for personal use, probably not, unless your intent is to make Wyndham timeshares your second home and live in one 6 months a year or so

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Don't want to side track the thread but very interesting idea as a way to retire, I thought a little bit about it a while back but figure it wasn't something people do. I think its worth doing some math on. I'll post a new thread as maybe other timeshare owners are curious about this. Plus you guys will tell me what I forgot to account for. But I am 30+ years away from this so any math done is a pure guess for me but worth looking at I think.

ronparise said:

Jason has it right...at $34000 this works if you want to do a lot of rentals (Im probably going to do it) but for personal use, probably not, unless your intent is to make Wyndham timeshares your second home and live in one 6 months a year or so

Click to expand...

Don't want to side track the thread but very interesting idea as a way to retire, I thought a little bit about it a while back but figure it wasn't something people do. I think its worth doing some math on. I'll post a new thread as maybe other timeshare owners are curious about this. Plus you guys will tell me what I forgot to account for.

Uppie_ said:

Don't want to side track the thread but very interesting idea as a way to retire, I thought a little bit about it a while back but figure it wasn't something people do. I think its worth doing some math on. I'll post a new thread as maybe other timeshare owners are curious about this. Plus you guys will tell me what I forgot to account for.

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There are several tuggers living in timeshares year round

Ive done the math and I think it would work for me too.

a studio unit at Fairfield Glade would cost 2,632,000. 3 million point account would cover it . Mf would be about $15000 a year. do all your reservations in the discount/upgrade window and you would have something like 1,500.000 cancelled points to rent . Based on what I did last month I think I could use these cancelled points to make reservations to rent. and completely offset the mf...

Uppie_ said:

Don't want to side track the thread but very interesting idea as a way to retire, I thought a little bit about it a while back but figure it wasn't something people do. I think its worth doing some math on. I'll post a new thread as maybe other timeshare owners are curious about this. Plus you guys will tell me what I forgot to account for. But I am 30+ years away from this so any math done is a pure guess for me but worth looking at I think.

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I ran the math one time for the points I own. My wife was thinking about the 6 month trick when we are both retired. It turned out that I could actually build a schedule that lasted all year. The resorts I used were Williamsburg, Va. Myrtle Beach, Smokey Mountain, and I think I threw in some from Shawnee Village. Do not remember if I through in Skyline Tower or not.

ronparise said:

There are several tuggers living in timeshares year round

Ive done the math and I think it would work for me too.

a studio unit at Fairfield Glade would cost 2,632,000. 3 million point account would cover it . Mf would be about $15000 a year. do all your reservations in the discount/upgrade window and you would have something like 1,500.000 cancelled points to rent . Based on what I did last month I think I could use these cancelled points to make reservations to rent. and completely offset the mf...

Click to expand...

I've been thinking it would be fun, when I retire, to spend a year or more traveling and staying in timeshares. I was curious if it could be done with RCI last calls. So Last March I started a "virtual" year long timeshare trip to see if it could be done, using only RCI last calls and RCI specials. My goal was to move every week if I could. And each timeshare needed to be one day's drive from the previous one. So I just finished my virtual year and I proved it could be be done. The total cost would have been just over $11,000 for the year which is less than $225.00 per week. Who knows if I'll do it for real, but it was a fun virtual trip.


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