# Help with buying WorldMark points for a newbie



## breezez (Jul 5, 2015)

Okay,

I am ready to make the plunge and get some WorldMark points.  Something in the neighborhood of 20K so I can take 2-3 trips a year, but I have a couple of questions.   

(1) If WorldMark is a True Points program why on Redweek do some offers show deeded and others show RTU.

(2) If I buy a 20,000+ point package that is fully loaded what should I be looking at for price per point.   $.35 .$40. $.45 or more?  And how much should I discount my offer, if the package is not fully loaded?

(3) Since I will be new to this, and don't clearly understand the bank points to RCI or II, the part I am fuzzy on is how long do they last in RCI or II before they expire?  (i.e. a person is selling a 20,000 point contract with 40,000 banked points and an October user year.   So I would assume then that 20,000 points will expire the end of October this year.)  Can you move these to RCI or II to give them more time?

Thanks in advance for you help,
Steve


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## uscav8r (Jul 5, 2015)

(1) don't always trust what you see on Redweek. There may be standard forms that the seller may have carelessly chosen a drop-down selection.  

There are some fractional ownerships (called Residence Club) at a few WM resorts; these allow owners to turn in unused weeks in return for WM credits. There were also "standard" WM ownerships that were RTU for 40 years. From what I understand, these are rare (if not extinct), and I believe could not be resold/transferred anyway, and only Premier (perpetual) ownerships can be resold.

(2) This depends on how badly you want a contract and how patient you are for the right deal to come along. A sweet spot for a fully loaded account Is right in the .33-.40 range. Discount from that top end between $.05-.06/missing credit. There are no exact answers since everything is negotiable!

(3) You will not automatically get an RCI account with a resale WM purchase. You have to pay for it and set it up separately, which can be a pain in the you-know-what. I don't have RCI with my WM resale account and likely never will since you can lock up expiring credits into reservations up to 13 months after they "expire." You have unlimited cancel/rebooks to use these credits in that 13-month window. Add in the nightly credit shuffle (which ensures the oldest credits are always used first) and you should have no need for RCI/II unless you specifically want an exchange. 

This gives you plenty of options if RCI is not set up before your next credit anniversary date.

You can deposit credits to RCI/II for up to 2 years of life, but you will be subject to booking fees. With the expiring credit booking rule I previously mentioned, You really only buy yourself 1 extra year by dumping into RCI. 



Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## presley (Jul 5, 2015)

breezez said:


> (3) Since I will be new to this, and don't clearly understand the bank points to RCI or II, the part I am fuzzy on is how long do they last in RCI or II before they expire?  (i.e. a person is selling a 20,000 point contract with 40,000 banked points and an October user year.   So I would assume then that 20,000 points will expire the end of October this year.)  Can you move these to RCI or II to give them more time?



As mentioned above, it can take a while to get your RCI and/or II accounts set up. You are looking at about 2 months for your WM account to be set up from when you sign your contract and purchase. Then, it can take several weeks for you to get an RCI or II account set up (they both cost membership fees also). With points expiring in October, you are better off using them in WM.

When your points are expiring, you can still book a vacation up to 13 months in advance in WM. You can then either use that vacation or deposit it into a smaller exchange company that doesn't charge membership fees. If you don't want to do either of those, you can transfer your expiring credits to another WM member. Most will pay around .06/credit for expiring points. You can read all about that stuff on wmowners.com


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## breezez (Jul 10, 2015)

*I did it finally*

Okay,   Thanks for your comments and advice.  

I finally took the plunge and purchased a 21K annual WorldMark account.  28K banked currently.  Just waiting on the closing process now.  Any advice you guys can throw my way on how to get the most bang for my buck out of the account, would be great.

On another not.  Hello, uscav8r  I noticed your Fly Navy signature,  Just wanted to say I spent many of years launching the Navy as the Catapult Electrical Supervisor on USS Forrestal and USS Theodore Roosevelt carriers.


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## uscav8r (Jul 11, 2015)

breezez said:


> Okay,   Thanks for your comments and advice.
> 
> I finally took the plunge and purchased a 21K annual WorldMark account.  28K banked currently.  Just waiting on the closing process now.  Any advice you guys can throw my way on how to get the most bang for my buck out of the account, would be great.
> 
> On another not.  Hello, uscav8r  I noticed your Fly Navy signature,  Just wanted to say I spent many of years launching the Navy as the Catapult Electrical Supervisor on USS Forrestal and USS Theodore Roosevelt carriers.


Wow. That was fast!

I flew F/A-18C Hornets for while. You were on some very different classes of carrier! I did 2 deployments on Constellation and 1 on the Ike. Gotta love those cat shots!


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## LLW (Jul 11, 2015)

breezez said:


> Okay,   Thanks for your comments and advice.
> 
> I finally took the plunge and purchased a 21K annual WorldMark account.  28K banked currently.  Just waiting on the closing process now. * Any advice you guys can throw my way on how to get the most bang for my buck out of the account, would be great.*
> On another not.  Hello, uscav8r  I noticed your Fly Navy signature,  Just wanted to say I spent many of years launching the Navy as the Catapult Electrical Supervisor on USS Forrestal and USS Theodore Roosevelt carriers.



Welcome to the Worldmark community! One way to get the most bang for your buck is to read as much on the forum on wmowners.com (WMO) as possible, especially on the Timeshare Tips & Tricks subforum in the beginning. Also read the Club Guidelines in the Online Reference Library on the Club web site (must have owner sign in). Ask questions on WMO - there are many experts who are very willing to help.


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## uscav8r (Jul 11, 2015)

[Duplicate]


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## ronparise (Jul 12, 2015)

LLW said:


> Welcome to the Worldmark community! One way to get the most bang for your buck is to read as much on the forum on wmowners.com (WMO) as possible, especially on the Timeshare Tips & Tricks subforum in the beginning. Also read the Club Guidelines in the Online Reference Library on the Club web site (must have owner sign in). Ask questions on WMO - there are many experts who are very willing to help.



and lets not forget Freds site http://www.wmtsinfo.com/


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## taterhed (Jul 12, 2015)

Good  for you.  Wise choice I think.

 I just gave the nod on a 10k account this weekend too.
 Can't wait.
 Thanks for the advice earlier Ron.

 Let's make it official--I'm USAF ret., so this is now a multi-service post!


 No cat-shots for me.  I like my runways long and motionless.


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## scootr5 (Jul 12, 2015)

uscav8r said:


> Wow. That was fast!
> 
> I flew F/A-18C Hornets for while. You were on some very different classes of carrier! I did 2 deployments on Constellation and 1 on the Ike. Gotta love those cat shots!



My brother in law was in charge of maintenance for the Hornets and based out of Lemoore, with a few deployments on the Stennis, before he transferred to Whiting field.


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## breezez (Jul 15, 2015)

*Thanks for all the advice*

I picked up another 12k Annual credits today.  That gets me to 33K.  They have the same anniversary date so is it better to combine the two packages?  Also, is it possible to combine them if the other one is going through the transfer process right now?

I understand I can stretch my credits at the end by reserving 13 months out, but what exchange is best to use them at for exchanges out of worldmark, II or RCI or both?

What would my advantages be to having a couple Wyndham CWA or UDI accounts, to give me more resort choices?  Plus free RCI points / weeks account?
I understand my MF will be more than double compared to WM, but I am still considering giving it a try.

The absub thing is my parents had Wyndham VIP status with 300K plus account and always tried talking me into joining which I always refused as I would show them the several resell sites and their prices.  So finally when im at the point in life to start picking these up for myself I ask them about their Wyndham because I knew my moms not in the best of health and they haven't vacationed for a couple years, and they proceed to tell me I was right, they should have never paid what they paid.   Then she tells me they paid some postcard company to sell them and some other places they had.   I'm like WHAT if you were going to pay to get rid of them I would have taken them over.  So there went my shot at Free VIP....   Kind of a bummer, but life goes on!


Thanks again


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## presley (Jul 15, 2015)

breezez said:


> I picked up another 12k Annual credits today.  That gets me to 33K.  They have the same anniversary date so is it better to combine the two packages?  Also, is it possible to combine them if the other one is going through the transfer process right now?



It depends on your personal situation. I would only combine if doing so would give me another housekeeping token and yours won't do that. Housekeeping tokens are issued one per 10K credits.

With having 2 accounts, you can transfer all the credits each year into one if that is what you want to do. The benefit of having 2 accounts is you can book more reservations through bonus time and fax time since you have doubled your limit. Have you read all the stickies on wmowners.com? You could probably find a lot of information regarding pros and cons of combining accounts. 

If you do combine, I believe it can't be done until your transfer is complete. Then, your accounts might be froze up for a few months and you can't make reservations during that time. The specifics are on wmowners. It's worth the wait to some people, but when I read someone had an account frozen for 6 months, I didn't think I'd ever do a combination myself. I'm extremely impatient, though.


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## uscav8r (Jul 15, 2015)

The issue is not the combine process, which only takes about 3-6 weeks, it is a split-and-combine (or split-and-buy) in which the seller is not selling a whole account, but only a chunk of the account.

Breezez, you are pushing full steam ahead on this aren't you? I caution against being too zealous and spreading yourself too thin. These things are usually harder to get out of than they are to get into.

I own in both systems, which is workable since I tend to move around a lot. I am on Tapatalk, so I can't see where you reside (if you have put that on your profile). But Wyndham mostly has an East Coast presence and a few more Hawaii resorts, so it MIGHT make sense if you live, or wish to visit often, these areas. 

Wyndham is a good system, but it is nowhere near as flexible and user-friendly as WM. Some people can never grasp the "complexity" of WM, let alone Wyndham. But you should become a WM expert via wmtsinfo.com and WMOwners.com, then consider expanding the portfolio further, IMHO.

As to the combination question, presley is right in that you do get double the access to Bonus Time and weekend-only bookings, but this does come at a cost. The MF structure favors larger accounts, so carrying these two smaller accounts will cost ~$170 extra in MF each year. 


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## breezez (Jul 15, 2015)

*Full Steam ahead!*

USCAV8R,  I live in the Tampa, FL Metro area.  I normally always vacation out west, but I also like to make little short trips in my part of the country as time permits.  

I guess you could say full steam ahead.  WorldMark I really don't worry to much about unwinding if I decide I don't like it.  I feel I can pretty much get out of it for around what I got into it +/- $600.  But Wyndham I will take your advice on and wait till maybe next year after I get a good chance to play with my World Mark accounts.

I did have a couple of blunders already though.  And will post so others hopefully don't make the same mistake.   I originally bought a 21K package.   So that dang extra 1K points over the 20K mark cost an additional $135.00 in MFs   (I won't make that mistake again):annoyed:

I wanted to have a second account so I could get extra bonus time.  So I had bid on several on eBay...   eBay showed I was outbid on all of them, except a 12K package which I won.   But then a few hours later my account shows I am highest bidder on another 6K account.  I guess a bidder withdrew their bid leaving me as the highest bidder and sure enough I won today.   But out of honor i'll take it.  So now I have 3 accounts and can't combine any of them to save on MF because I still don't have a WM account number yet.   So for all you would be Worldmark Owners.  Don't buy multiple accounts until you have at least one membership number or you can't combine them and will have to do it later for another $299 fee each and can only do it once a year.

But that said I have been having a blast reading all the posts on here like a sponge...   and at WMOWNERS.com  I can't wait to get my bounty and get started time sharing.


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## uscav8r (Jul 17, 2015)

breezez said:


> USCAV8R,  I live in the Tampa, FL Metro area.  I normally always vacation out west, but I also like to make little short trips in my part of the country as time permits.
> 
> I guess you could say full steam ahead.  WorldMark I really don't worry to much about unwinding if I decide I don't like it.  I feel I can pretty much get out of it for around what I got into it +/- $600.  But Wyndham I will take your advice on and wait till maybe next year after I get a good chance to play with my World Mark accounts.
> 
> ...


As Ron pointed out, another great site is wmtsinfo.com. It is where I learned the insider ins-and-outs due to its comprehensive guides and tips. WMOwners is good for dynamic feedback on questions posed to other owners, but not quite as good at learning the tips and tricks. This also has the MF breakdown by account size.

If any of your purchases were straight sales (i.e., not a split-and-transfer), you should be able to get the account number on the contract(s). Account numbers are handed down... you don't get a new account number just because you are a new owner. Any combinations are made into a particular account number that you keep (or may already have). I would call Owner Services to see if you could merge one of the accounts into the first purchase, which should be further along in the process. It may or may not be possible, but you won't know until you ask.

Since you are on the East Coast, I don't know that you would benefit from having two accounts just for Bonus Time. The 6k account is the most expensive account size, in terms of MF per credit; you may just want to resell this one as soon as it transfers.

As for the 21k and the 12k, that would get you the ability to have 3 weekend-only BT bookings per quarter, but so would a combined account of 33k. This is also not an efficient account size, but the effect is not as bad at that 6k account, or by keeping separate accounts. 

Remember that Bonus Time is available only at 14 days or less until check-in. In practical terms, where are you going to be using these BT bookings? Are you going to hop on an expensive last-minute flight to the West Coast just for a BT deal? 

Since you are in Tampa, you might be able to get BT bookings at the 1 resort in Daytona Beach, 2 in Orlando, and 3 in Ft. Lauderdale. Are any of those locations on your list of short-term vacations of interest? If so, then how often?

With your current deals-in-progress, here is a possible scenario (assuming you can afford all the MF):


Combine the 21k and 12k into a single 33k and save $170/year
Keep the 6k account.
Now you get 4 weekend-only BT per quarter instead of just 3 if you combined all three accounts. Plus you get the flexibility of of having two concurrent BT bookings.

From the WM website:
*Bonus Time Reservations*: One (1) Weekend Only Bonus Time reservation is permitted per block of  10,000 Vacation Credits owned, per calendar quarter.


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## breezez (Jul 17, 2015)

Thanks Chris for all the insight....  The resellers have sent off transfer requests at this point so once I see the documents I have to have notarized I'll try to contact Wyndham and see what I can do.

As far as hopping a last minute expensive flight out west.   I just did the 2 southwest cards in the last couple months for 50K points each (1 - personal, 1 business). While they don't count these points for A-List they do count for companion status.   You need 110k points to get there, plus you have a minimum of 2K spend to get the bonus points per card.   So 6k more spend or fight miles and you get the companion pass for someone you elect for the rest of this year and next so they always fly free with you.   Plus you still keep the miles which is about $1571 in free air fare.   And your companion still flies free even if you use miles.    So this should get me at least 4 trips out west for free


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## PassionForTravel (Jul 18, 2015)

Congrats on all the purchases. With WM you are only allowed to do one merge a year. This was instituted last year because of abuse. I would merge the 6k into the 21k since the 6k is your most expensive account per credit. That would give you one account at 27K which is very close to the 27.5K MF boundary. The other 12K account is close to the 12.5K MF boundary. Then next year you could decide if it was worth it to merge the 12K and 21K.

Also on the Southwest companion pass you will need to hit the 110K before the end of the year. There is a back door way to do it by signing up for choice hotels and buying 18000 points for $198 and transferring them to Southwest which gives you the 5400 Southwest points which is pretty close to what you need. That's what I did last year and we have been enjoying the pass for last year and this.

Ian


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