# TW TravelShare?



## mtngal (Nov 8, 2006)

Well, TW rolled out their TravelShare program to little fanfare, and less publicity.  Jim's post that got deleted was very interesting, it was the closest thing I've personally seen that could be called "official, detailed information."  Has anyone actually received a booklet?  While they've announced it, when does it go into effect?  If you join today, can you start using their FunTime tomorrow?

I've been trying to figure out if it will make a big difference with the cost of resale points.  My first thought that initially it would make a large difference, as those who were thinking about adding more points (or buying in initially) would be more likely to buy from TW instead of a reseller, which would force the price steeply downward.  Then I thought that this would offer a pretty good opportunity - pick up lots of credits at those fire-sale prices.  Then point out just how little you actually get with the program, and point out that it would probably make more sense to either buy cheap points (which this enterprising individual would offer to sell at a higher rate than they bought them), or rent points from someone else, thereby saving the extra cost of the program.  And that would set up a reasonable market for resale credits and support the price.  It probably wouldn't go as high as it was/is now, but it wouldn't let it go into complete free-fall (my first thought).

Does anyone have any thoughts on this?


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## RichM (Nov 8, 2006)

Jim's post that got deleted is still alive and well on the uncensored WM Owners forum, along with already-extensive discussions, both for and against.


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## Bill4728 (Nov 8, 2006)

The Timeshare Beat has a long article on the newest Trendwest/wyndham offering. 

http://www.thetimesharebeat.com/2006/nov/1108-04t.htm

Is this the beginning of the end for the consumer friendly WM ?


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## cotraveller (Nov 8, 2006)

Thanks for the Timeshare Beat reference.  I check there periodically but hadn't seen the press release yet.  Maybe we will start to see more official news and descriptions of the program come out.  I don't know enough about the program yet to know what it's effect will be, good or bad.

I'll edit this to add - TravelShare is a program for WorldMark owners.  Wyndham/Trendwest (TW) is the WorldMark developer.  The Timeshare Beat article is clear about that but some not familiar with WorldMark might not pick that up from this thread.


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## spatenfloot (Nov 8, 2006)

I think the program will not have much of an effect on things.  People will mostly ignore it or rarely use it.


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## cruisin (Nov 8, 2006)

Hardly anything in there worth buying another 5000 credits . Unbelievable slap in the face to the thousands that purchased developer credits. There must be a reason that Trendwest will not allow it to be discussed on their forum.


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## cotraveller (Nov 13, 2006)

spatenfloot said:
			
		

> I think the program will not have much of an effect on things.  People will mostly ignore it or rarely use it.



Based on how it has been ignored here, I'd say you are right.


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## ROCKJenkins (Nov 18, 2006)

*Is there an annual $400.00 fee?*

Someone wrote that their was an $400.00 annual fee for Travel Share.....

Is that true?

RockJenkins


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## melschey (Nov 18, 2006)

mtngal said:
			
		

> Does anyone have any thoughts on this?



I think it is mainly a sales tool for use by the TW salesmen to be used to convince the uninformed that they should buy from TW and not resale.

I don't see anything that I would pay what they are asking. I am doing fine with my WM membership and don't plan on giving TW anymore money.


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## LLW (Nov 18, 2006)

ROCKJenkins said:
			
		

> Someone wrote that their was an $400.00 annual fee for Travel Share.....
> 
> Is that true?
> 
> RockJenkins



The fee varies depending on the number of credits owned. Here's a sample list in a Jim Pappas post in the TravelShare Forum on www.wmowners.com.


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## cotraveller (Nov 18, 2006)

ROCKJenkins said:
			
		

> Someone wrote that their was an $400.00 annual fee for Travel Share.....
> 
> Is that true?
> 
> RockJenkins



The annual fee includes an RCI membership which helps offset the cost if you want RCI anyway.  Here's some typical numbers for a few different ownership levels that have been reported from sales presentations.

Credits - Annual Fee
6000 - $74
10,000 - $90
15,000 - $110
20,000 - $130
25,000 - $150
etc.


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## melschey (Nov 19, 2006)

cotraveller said:
			
		

> The annual fee includes an RCI membership which helps offset the cost if you want RCI anyway. .



Does anyone know if that Is a full RCI membership that can be used to exchane with other Resorts or can in only be use for WM exchanges?


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## PA- (Dec 6, 2006)

Bill4728 said:
			
		

> The Timeshare Beat has a long article on the newest Trendwest/wyndham offering.
> 
> http://www.thetimesharebeat.com/2006/nov/1108-04t.htm
> 
> Is this the beginning of the end for the consumer friendly WM ?



No.  The beginning of the end was when Cendant purchased Trendwest.  Travelshare is merely one of the signposts that verifies it.  THere will be many others.  Travelshare will continue to be augmented until, like Fairfield, the resale value of Worldmark approaches zero.  Then you can bet that those that bought Travelshare will begin to see the requirements for developer purchases raised in order to get the same benefits.  This is standard operating procedure for Cendant.  Just check out RCI Points and Fairshare points.


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## FLYNZ4 (Dec 9, 2006)

melschey said:
			
		

> Does anyone know if that Is a full RCI membership that can be used to exchane with other Resorts or can in only be use for WM exchanges?


melschey,

The RCI membership is a full membership.   In addition to weekly stays, it also allows for nightly exchanges.   Previously, this was not something that our regular RCI memberships allowed.   I do not know if all RCI memberships will be getting this capability.

/Jim


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## melschey (Dec 12, 2006)

FLYNZ4 said:
			
		

> melschey,
> 
> The RCI membership is a full membership.   In addition to weekly stays, it also allows for nightly exchanges.   Previously, this was not something that our regular RCI memberships allowed.   I do not know if all RCI memberships will be getting this capability.
> 
> /Jim


Are you saying that the RCI membership recieved though travelshare will allow me to deposit other non-WM  resorts with RCI for exchange?


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## FLYNZ4 (Dec 12, 2006)

melschey said:
			
		

> Are you saying that the RCI membership recieved though travelshare will allow me to deposit other non-WM  resorts with RCI for exchange?


Sorry,  I may have mis-spoken.

I am not sure if it is a "full membership"... I didn't realize that you were asking about being able to deposit other weeks.   I never asked about that... because I never considered depositing my other weeks.

All that I know is that with the RCI membership offered with TS... you can book either full weeks, or partial weeks.    Interestingly... the exchange fee is lower for single days than it is for a full week.    The rate for daily exchange rates ranges from $49 (1-2 days) - $99 (7 days).

/Jim


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## cotraveller (Dec 12, 2006)

I talked to an RCI rep and he told me the RCI account associated with TravelShare is an RCI Points account.  I'm not very familiar with the RCI points program but from what he told me you can deposit and exchange weeks just like we currently can with our WorldMark based weeks account.  I specifically asked about depositing and exchanging non-WorldMark weeks and he said yes, that was included in the Points account.  He said you do not have to have a separate weeks account for that purpose.  In addition he said you have access to additional RCI resorts that are in their points system for bookings of less than a week.

Maybe someone more familiar with RCI points could supply some better information concerning how those accounts work


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## FLYNZ4 (Dec 13, 2006)

Fred,

Thanks for the follow-up.

/Jim


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## slabeaume (Dec 27, 2006)

cotraveller said:


> I talked to an RCI rep and he told me the RCI account associated with TravelShare is an RCI Points account.  I'm not very familiar with the RCI points program but from what he told me you can deposit and exchange weeks just like we currently can with our WorldMark based weeks account.  I specifically asked about depositing and exchanging non-WorldMark weeks and he said yes, that was included in the Points account.  He said you do not have to have a separate weeks account for that purpose.  In addition he said you have access to additional RCI resorts that are in their points system for bookings of less than a week.
> 
> Maybe someone more familiar with RCI points could supply some better information concerning how those accounts work



2 of my 4 Pahio weeks have been converted to points (the last 2 I bought resale and they remain in the weeks program).   They charged a hefty fee to convert the first 2 into a points account so I haven't bothered to do that to my resale weeks.  As I understand it,  the points that I got for my 2 Pahio weeks work much like WM points.   If you exchange it into RCI, you have so many points that you can use to pick up days in other points resorts.   I believe some resorts have totally converted to points (or the exchanges are done mostly by points owners), so those exchanges wouldn't be available to weeks owners.   But weeks exchanges are available to points owners (since as a points owner you are also a weeks owner).   Also good to know---some points account (like Pahio), have a minimum number of days that you have to reserve anyway.  In fact, Pahio may require you to take a whole week now---they found the few days thing too hard for them to manage.  BUt the points values on the Hawaii weeks are a lot higher than the ones on the mainland, so if I gave RCI one of my weeks for points, theoretically I'd be able to trade into about 14 days worth here on the mainland.  I've actually never used my points account yet, but have used my weeks resorts in Orlando and WM to trade into Hawaii a couple of times.

I've even inquired about using my RCI points account for WM and was told there is a conversion fee to turn our WM account into points, too.  I forget exactly what all the differences were, but you receive a conversion of something like 5 times the amount of points for each WM point you exchange (10,000 WM points would equal something like 50,000 RCI points (roughly the equivalent of a 1 bedroom unit in Hawaii)).   Plus points reservations can only be booked 10 months out instead of 2 years out like the RCI weeks account can.

We have a non-WM weeks resort that we also have exchanged into RCI.  It goes into our RCI weeks account and we can only book weeks resorts with it.  I understand, though, that for a fee, I can convert that week into WM points (but it looses some of it's value then --- I believe I would only get 8,000 points for a 2 bedroom instead of the 10,000 points that WM charges for a 2 bedroom). 

 Hope I haven't confused you too much and have answered some of your questions.


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## kapish (Dec 27, 2006)

slabeaume said:
			
		

> We have a non-WM weeks resort that we also have exchanged into RCI. It goes into our RCI weeks account and we can only book weeks resorts with it. I understand, though, that for a fee, I can convert that week into WM points (but it looses some of it's value then --- I believe I would only get 8,000 points for a 2 bedroom instead of the 10,000 points that WM charges for a 2 bedroom).



_More information is available at www.wmowners.com about the program Sue had mentioned:_ http://www.wmowners.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7425FAQ: Worldmark Exchange Plus Program


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