# Is Worldmark ownership analogous to Wyndham Access ownership?



## Jimag (Dec 24, 2018)

It's not clear to me whether Worldmark ownership amounts to ownership of credits against a trust that is comprises of all Worldmark properties similarly to owning Wyndham Access points or whether Worldmark ownership is in a specific property.  Can someone clarify this for me?


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## bizaro86 (Dec 25, 2018)

Jimag said:


> It's not clear to me whether Worldmark ownership amounts to ownership of credits against a trust that is comprises of all Worldmark properties similarly to owning Wyndham Access points or whether Worldmark ownership is in a specific property.  Can someone clarify this for me?



Pretty much. I think worldmark is actually a California non-profit corporation, but that is generally a distinction without a difference when it comes to using it. 

Each worldmark credit has an equal claim to use all the resorts. There are no home resorts or other preference periods.


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## Sandy VDH (Dec 25, 2018)

Worldmark is a pure points (or in WM speak Credit) play.  No resort is owned. Everyone has credits and everyone has rights at exactly the same time interval.


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## bbodb1 (Dec 25, 2018)

A point worth remembering when comparing the two is consider the locations offered by each.  I know that isn't quite on point for this topic but it is worthy of consideration when comparing the two systems.


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## ronparise (Dec 25, 2018)

To answer the question:  Yes

Worldmark the club is a club that owns resorts and owns resort condos and owns individual timeshare weeks. And In some cases owns leases on condos and resorts

The club members own rights to use those resort properties

There are three pieces that make Worldmark work as a timeshare system.


1) the club
2) the developer
3) the manager

As I said above the club owns the property

The new company, Wyndham Destinations through aanther company they own called “Worldmark by wyndham” (formerly called “Trendwest”  is the exclusive developer. They “give” the property to the club in exchange for the right to create and sell credits to the members (and new members) As I understand it the Club doesn’t have a say in what properties they get or who wyndham sells the property to. They also don’t have a say in how many credits are allocated to the property or for how much they sell the credits for

Wyndham destinations is the club manager, managing the club for the benefit of the members. The clubs board of directors can vote to replace wyndham as manager (but I don’t think they have ever considered the question)

Club Wyndham is organized differently. There is a long history from the first resort called Fairfield Bay to the collection of resorts organized under the name “Fairfield” to The creation of a points system under the name Club Wyndham Plus

Unlike Worldmark where the club owns the property in club Wyndham the properties have been sliced and diced into fractional ownerships as evidenced by deeds. Like any real property deeds (like someone might hold for their home of condo or office building or warehouse. The timeshare deeds are held by individual owners and filed at the local (local to the property, not local to the owners) county

To make this collection of multiple owners  and multiple properties work as a system the individual ownerships are pledged to a trust (called the Fairshare Trust)  and in exchange the individual owners are assigned points that are used to make reservations at any of the properties in the club


Club Wyndham Access was created sometime before 2010 (when I bought my first wyndham timeshare, but not long before) There was a lot of discussion on the old Wyndham owners forum about this new thing called club Wyndham access

What follows  here is my assessment of what went into the creation of CWA

I think CWA was created by wyndham to mimic Worldmark. At the time we were coming out of a recession, wyndham was having a difficult time selling timeshares and more than that, lots of folks were walking away from their timeshare ownerships. The individual HOAs at the individual  resorts had to deal with an increasing number of  defaults and foreclosures.  Club Wyndham Access was created as a place to put these foreclosures and resort owned inventory and to help the HOAs.  The HOAs don’t have sales departments (wyndham does) and even if they did it was really hard to sell the off season stuff that they were getting. It was easier to sell a collection of timeshares than a lot of the individual weeks

So CWA looks like Worldmark in that it’s a trust that holds timeshare property but it’s different in that Worldmark the club owns whole resorts and whole condos and a few individual timeshare weeks. CWA owns lots of individual deeds all in a trust and that trust is I believe a trust within a trust (the Fairshare trust) in any case Worldmark stands alone and CWA is  a club within a club

Since wyndham owns the deeds Wyndham can appoint the board of directors of the club and since they are gaining ownership at all the resorts they are or are becoming the majority owner or at least the biggest owner at many of the resorts and since most owners don’t vote, wyndham can control the individual HOAs

In any case (getting back to your question.)  “Is worldmark ownership analogous  to CWA ownership” I’d say yes but I’d turn it around and say CWA is analogous to Worldmark

Ther is a group of unhappy Worldmark owners (on the Worldmark owners forum) that would argue that Wyndham is trying to make Worldmark look and act like club Wyndham. I would argue exactly the opposite. I think Wyndham is trying to make club Wyndham look and act like Worldmark

(To establish my credibility here: I owned both  Club wyndham And Worldmark. From between 2010 and 2018. At the end I owned as much as 30million Wyndham points and 500000 Worldmark credits.  I attended multiple annual and quarterly meetings of the clubs and one of the HOAs and I was on a first name basis with several board members of both clubs and one of the resorts.)


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## ecwinch (Dec 26, 2018)

Yes, the ownership/legal structure is the same, with the main differences being in the rules of the Club.


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## Jimag (Dec 28, 2018)

Thanks everyone.


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## clifffaith (Dec 28, 2018)

ecwinch said:


> Yes, the ownership/legal structure is the same, with the main differences being in the rules of the Club.



With the main difference being my mind boggles if I happen to read a Wyndham post. Talk about a convoluted system! Worldmark is easy peasy compared to Wyndham from what I see posted.


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## ecwinch (Dec 28, 2018)

clifffaith said:


> With the main difference being my mind boggles if I happen to read a Wyndham post. Talk about a convoluted system! Worldmark is easy peasy compared to Wyndham from what I see posted.



In many dimensions - i.e. cancellation rules, waitlists, weekend stays - WM can be complicated.


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## ronparise (Dec 28, 2018)

clifffaith said:


> With the main difference being my mind boggles if I happen to read a Wyndham post. Talk about a convoluted system! Worldmark is easy peasy compared to Wyndham from what I see posted.



I always thought the Wyndham system was pretty straightforward

Your ownership is expressed in points and you use points as currency to make reservations. In addition to maintenance fees there are three sets of “junk fees”. 1) transaction fees, 2) housekeeping fees and 3) guest fees

I don’t think it’s has to be any more complicated than that


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