# Wyndham "new" stuff ???



## Clintshare (Jan 15, 2012)

Someone is telling me that I should not need to be paying exchange fees to get into a Wyndham resort. Nor should I be paying maintenance fees. And I should have had prepaid RCI membership fees refunded. And I can stay at any Wyndham hotel for nothing..... IF what? If I belong to the Wyndham Family. Having not just fallen off the "turnip truck" I wonder what is next. 

What's this all about?


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## bnoble (Jan 15, 2012)

If you are talking to someone in Wyndham's sales office (and it sounds like you are) DO NOT BUY ANYTHING.  Most of these are, at best half-truths.

Wyndham, acquired resale, can be a very good system, and can deliver solid value.  If you like their resorts, owning is worth looking into (though renting is probably just as viable, if not more so).  But, NEVER EVER from the developer.  EVER.


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## learnalot (Jan 15, 2012)

Clintshare said:


> Someone is telling me that I should not need to be paying exchange fees to get into a Wyndham resort. Nor should I be paying maintenance fees. And I should have had prepaid RCI membership fees refunded. And I can stay at any Wyndham hotel for nothing..... IF what? If I belong to the Wyndham Family. Having not just fallen off the "turnip truck" I wonder what is next.
> 
> What's this all about?



Sales pitch.  As with almost all of them, a few kernels of truth inside a mountain of b.s.  Can't tell from your profile whether you already have Wyndham points so here you go:  It is true that if you own Wyndham points, at 10 months out you can "spend" them for a reservation at any Wyndham resort.  There are no internal exchange fees.  It is also the case that a mandatory RCI account (II in a few cases but very uncommon - RCI is the norm) is included with a Wyndham account.  The fees for it are part of your program and maintenance fees.  It is not free although they are fond of suggesting it is.  "Never pay maintenance fees" is part of a pitch to either 1) get you to buy additional points which they will tell you you can rent out for several times your cost (generally not true except for the shrewdest and savviest) and/or 2) sign up for the Wyndham rewards credit card.  It is a loyalty card and the rewards can be redeemed as maintenance fees among other things.  However, I don't find the ratios on the card to be all that favorable.  You can get better bang for your buck with other cards with better rewards programs.  Wyndham is a good system with a lot of flexibility - just don't buy from the developer.


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## ronparise (Jan 15, 2012)

Clintshare said:


> Someone is telling me that I should not need to be paying exchange fees to get into a Wyndham resort. Nor should I be paying maintenance fees. And I should have had prepaid RCI membership fees refunded. And I can stay at any Wyndham hotel for nothing..... IF what? If I belong to the Wyndham Family. Having not just fallen off the "turnip truck" I wonder what is next.
> 
> What's this all about?



If you own in the wyndham points system, you dont pay exchange fees to stay in a Wyndham resort. You most certainly pay maintenance fees. You wont pay an RCI annual membership fee but if you use your included RCI membership, you will pay exchange fees

One of the sales pitches used at Wyndham is to convince you that you can "earn" enough wyndham rewards points  to offset your maintenance fees by 1) using a special Barclays Visa card for all your regular purchases and 2) referring friends to buy Wyndham timeshares and 3) exchanging some of your your deeded points for rewards points

Understand the rewards points program, Do the math as I have and you will see it cant work.

This is similar to the sales pitch where that say...buy more points than you can uses yourself and rent the rest to offset your maintenance fees....You can possible do that, but you will never offset the purchase price/

If you like Wyndham resorts and the points system (I do. a lot) buy resale not retail


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## chapjim (Jan 15, 2012)

Clintshare said:


> Someone is telling me that I should not need to be paying exchange fees to get into a Wyndham resort. Nor should I be paying maintenance fees. And I should have had prepaid RCI membership fees refunded. And I can stay at any Wyndham hotel for nothing..... IF what? If I belong to the Wyndham Family. Having not just fallen off the "turnip truck" I wonder what is next.
> 
> What's this all about?



Give us a hint.  Who is "someone?"  And, why would you think there might be free lunches in the timeshare world?

If you are not a Wyndham owner, you will pay exchange fees to exchange through RCI or II.  If you own a timeshare, you will pay maintenance fees.  If you stay at a Wyndham hotel, there will be some underlying costs.  I have never had any RCI membership fees refunded (and I own a lot of contracts).


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## Conan (Jan 15, 2012)

Clintshare said:


> I should not need to be paying exchange fees to get into a Wyndham resort.... And I should have had prepaid RCI membership fees refunded.



That much (quoted above) is true.  A Wyndham points owner's annual maintenance fee includes (in my case) about $100/year for club dues.   Those dues give you free exchanges of points into Wyndham reservations (free except there's a small fee once you use up the number of 'transactions' they allow per year).  Also you get a free RCI Weeks membership, and if you're already an RCI Weeks member they will refund any prepaid membership fees.  Usual RCI exchange fees apply if you actually use your RCI Weeks membership for exchanges.


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## Cheryl20772 (Jan 15, 2012)

Conan said:


> That much (quoted above) is true.  A Wyndham points owner's annual maintenance fee includes (in my case) about $100/year for club dues.   Those dues give you free exchanges of points into Wyndham reservations (free except there's a small fee once you use up the number of 'transactions' they allow per year).


Just to clarify, please.  What we pay to Wyndham each year consists of our Maintenance/taxes fee which Wyndham forwards to the Home Owners Association for the resort we own, and the Wyndham Program fee which includes an annual RCI membership.


> Also you get a free RCI Weeks membership, and if you're already an RCI Weeks member they will refund any prepaid membership fees.  Usual RCI exchange fees apply if you actually use your RCI Weeks membership for exchanges.


The RCI membership is not free.  That it is "free"is a falsehood promoted by Wyndham sales.  We pay for it in our Wyndham program fee.  It is true that no one needs to pay membership for 2 RCI weeks accounts.


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## Cheryl20772 (Jan 15, 2012)

Clintshare said:


> And I can stay at any Wyndham hotel for nothing..... IF what? If I belong to the Wyndham Family. Having not just fallen off the "turnip truck" I wonder what is next.
> 
> What's this all about?


Nope... not true.  It is possible to use Wyndham points to stay at Wyndham hotels, but there is a steep fee associated with it.  I looked into using our points through Plus Partners for staying at the Hotel Galvez (a Wyndham hotel) in Galveston, TX and, after fees + value of my points, it cost me less to just book a room and pay the going discounted rate.  

Points have value.  If purchased retail, there is a significant value to be amortized over some years.  If purchased resale, this may be a negligible amount.  The value in every case is the annual fees (usually stated as $/thousand points).

Wyndham sales will try to imply that you can stay for free by using your points to easily generate rental income which offsets point value.  In every case, such potential income comes with additional cost; not just money, but effort and risk.  In every case, the Wyndham sales rep who presents him/herself as a personal rep to help with these rental transactions, reportedly never answers his/her phone after the sale.

All Wyndham owners are given a 20% discount when booking a Wyndham hotel or motel.  There's a discount code on the Wyndhamvacationresorts web site to be used to get the discount.  It's similar to using the AARP or AAA discount.  

Just ask that sales rep who told you that, if you buy from him/her, you can stay at a Wyndham hotel for nothing to put that in writing and sign it for you....will never happen 

We do have a Wyndham Rewards credit card and use it for all our monthly purchases.  The Rewards points generated by these purchases are sufficient for us to stay in a Wyndham affiliated motel, such as Wyngate or Days Inn, on our way driving to a resort for free.  We might get two free nights per year.  That's as close to staying free as we have seen.  *You don't have to buy any Wyndham points to use the card and get those free stays.*


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## bnoble (Jan 15, 2012)

> That it is "free"is a falsehood promoted by Wyndham sales. We pay for it in our Wyndham program fee.


True.  But, it's also probably the case that we pay a lower negotiated rate, so the direct costs for RCI accounts to the VOA (and, hence, to us) are lower than if we each signed up separately.


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## Clintshare (Jan 15, 2012)

Thanks everyone. I'm now armed with some good info!!


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## redkayak (Jan 15, 2012)

I had a salesman come to my room in MB and tried using reverse psychology on me.  He saw I had 3 contracts, all resale, and kept saying I know you really aren't interested in hearing how to never pay maint. fees again by getting in our rewards program.  In just played it off by saying there is no way you can come into these resorts without paying maint fees.  He wanted to sell me $7,000 worth of points in order to get into the program.  After the usual I only buy resell answer he finally left.  Went home and there was a Wyndham Rewards application in my mail.  And it was free to apply.  Who would have imagined that!!


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## rrlongwell (Jan 16, 2012)

redkayak said:


> I had a salesman come to my room in MB and tried using reverse psychology on me.  He saw I had 3 contracts, all resale, and kept saying I know you really aren't interested in hearing how to never pay maint. fees again by getting in our rewards program.  In just played it off by saying there is no way you can come into these resorts without paying maint fees.  He wanted to sell me $7,000 worth of points in order to get into the program.  After the usual I only buy resell answer he finally left.  Went home and there was a Wyndham Rewards application in my mail.  And it was free to apply.  Who would have imagined that!!



Did he/she offer to convert the re-sale contract into VIP Eligable points and were the three contracts at Myrtle Beach properties?  Just out of idol interest, did he/she offer any free-bees?


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## Clintshare (Jan 16, 2012)

Ok. I'm out of the presentation. The "no pay maintenance fee anymore" looks like it is a play on the Wyndham credit card. Charge everything on your Wyndham card (2 points per dollar) and you can use the rewards accumulated to pay alll or part of your maintenance fees.  I'd rather get dollar per point in cash or gift card (at 1 for 1) rAther than a "discounted" dollar credited against my maintenance fee. 


The availabilty of Club Wyndham units vs same units at same time of year accessed via RCI system seems to favor Club Wyndham. More availbility via Club Wyndham.  Interesting.... Even non Wyndham property availabilty fares better when accessed via Club Wyndham system.

Anyway. Too much money up front to buy into the new plan. What we have works great for us as is.

BTW, as far as reward points from Wyndham card used for hotel/motel stays... yes you may get a "so called free" stay.... but it costs you points against your rewards... at an inflated price if compared against a good Priceline bid.


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## Cheryl20772 (Jan 16, 2012)

Clintshare said:


> BTW, as far as reward points from Wyndham card used for hotel/motel stays... yes you may get a "so called free" stay.... but it costs you points against your rewards... at an inflated price if compared against a good Priceline bid.


We only save the Rewards points to use for these hotel stays.  If we wanted other "rewards" we would use a different card to get better things.


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## ronparise (Jan 16, 2012)

I looked at these rewards points once As I recall I needed to charge about $20000 to the Visa card a month to earn enough to offset my maintenance fees...not gonna happen


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## rrlongwell (Jan 16, 2012)

ronparise said:


> I looked at these rewards points once As I recall I needed to charge about $20000 to the Visa card a month to earn enough to offset my maintenance fees...not gonna happen



Maybe if you bought a bunch of timeshares from Wyndham then paid the 20,000 dollars maintance fee per month you might get a few free nights.  However, you may be right, in the long run it might just be cheaper to rent.

I also own a number of Wyndham Vacation Resort contracts.  They do not permit multiple RCI accounts, only one per Wyndham account.  They do not refund the savings by not permitting other RCI accounts for the unused (they will not permit them and will close them if they become aware of them) and otherwise authorized RCI Weeks accounts.  They will also not permit a seperate account where you pay for it for the RCI Platium program or the RCI points program (or at least not for me, I have seen other posts that suggest they may for some and not for others.  That me be a function of wether or not they are aware of them).


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## New2time (Jan 17, 2012)

Cheryl20772 said:


> All Wyndham owners are given a 20% discount when booking a Wyndham hotel or motel.  There's a discount code on the Wyndhamvacationresorts web site to be used to get the discount.  It's similar to using the AARP or AAA discount.
> 
> [/B]




Where on the wyndham website does one find this 20% discount code?


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## learnalot (Jan 17, 2012)

New2time said:


> Where on the wyndham website does one find this 20% discount code?



When you are logged in, it is under one of the pulldowns - member deals or something like that.  Go to hotel stays and the code will show up.


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## Cheryl20772 (Jan 18, 2012)

It seems to me that the 20% deal is not really much different from using the AAA or AARP discount.  It can't be added on to those.


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## sinclair (Jan 26, 2012)

You can find the rules in the annual Wyndham directory. They are complex, so you have to study them. But it's well worthwhile. You can find some surprising benefits.


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