# no more renting-transferring of Wyndham pts. between owners



## wyndhamrental

December 4, 2008

Dear Valued Owner,

On behalf of your FairShare Vacation Owners Association’s Board of Directors and Wyndham Vacation Resorts, we wish you and your family a wonderful holiday season and a 2009 filled with many joyful memories.

During the past year, we’ve certainly seen many exciting enhancements to your program. New Wyndham Vacation Resorts properties in highly desirable locations such as Steamboat Springs, CO; Lake Marion and Edisto Island, SC; and New Orleans, LA have opened their doors for you. We’ve also added many new associate and affiliate resorts for your enjoyment. And your Web site has undergone significant changes as well. In addition to the recently launched new Member home page, more than 185,000 reservations have been made with the improved online reservation system through the end of November - that’s a 321% increase over the same period in 2007! We also recently debuted your newly redesigned reservation confirmation letters that will now be e-mailed to you directly for faster delivery and reduced costs as long as we have your e-mail address on record. If you haven’t yet created your online account, please do so today so that you may take advantage of these great new features.

We are always looking for ways to enhance your ownership experience and provide you with even more travel options. As these new opportunities become available, we look forward to sharing more information with you.

We would also like to take this opportunity to share with you a program change that your Board of Directors recently approved that will go into effect in conjunction with online availability of your 2009-2010 Member’s Directory. *In response to feedback from many owners and so we are able to ensure your accounts are being securely and accurately maintained, the transferring of points feature will no longer be offered as of March 1, 2009.* 

I’d like to provide you with details regarding your Annual FairShare Plus Assessment.

As is customary, your FairShare Vacation Owners Association’s Board of Directors meets annually to review your FairShare Plus Program Fee. This Fee is essential to providing you and your travel companions with enjoyable products and services. In this letter, we have provided you with a review of the pertinent information, and a complete explanation of your assessment for those of you who may want further details. The FairShare Plus Annual Assessment is comprised of two parts: The FairShare Plus Program Fee and your Property Owners Association (POA) maintenance fee.

For 2009, the first portion of your annual assessment is the FairShare Plus Program Fee. This year, there will only be a nominal fee increase of just 1.5%. This fee is set by your FairShare Vacation Owners Association Board of Directors so that we can provide for you the right balance between cost management and feature enhancements to your program.

The second portion of your FSP Annual Assessment is your POA maintenance fee. The Board of Directors at your timeshare plan where you own your interest set this fee on your behalf, and provide that amount to us, which allows us to simplify your payment  into one statement for your convenience. The POA maintenance fee directly funds the daily operations and continual improvements to your resort(s).

To see a detailed accounting of your FairShare Plus program and POA maintenance fees, including a description of how your fees are calculated, please log on to WyndhamVacationResorts.com, and click “Financial Services” link on the “Membership Quick Links” navigation bar an the right side of your home page, then select Assessment Information” tab. If we can be of any assistance, please feel free to contact a member of our Financial Services team at 1-866-495-1985.

I sincerely appreciate the privilege of serving you and your ownership interests alongside our dedicated associates who continue to work diligently with me to provide you with the most worthwhile vacation ownership experiences possible.

Wishing you and yours happy holidays,
Deanne Gabel
FairShare Plus Plan Manager


----------



## Jya-Ning

Saw this.  Guess they are planning to close their company?

Jya-Ning


----------



## vincenton

Can this be real? Unbelievable what will they take away from us next?

Vincent.


----------



## marsha77

Are they trying to tick people off?  I think it's time for me to write a complaint email.  

Marsha


----------



## bnoble

As I wrote OT, it's either another shot at the mega-renters, or just an admission of outright incompetence in accounting.

Notably, DVC did something similar to its mega-renters a few years back, but at least they still allow one transfer in or out in a calendar year...


----------



## BocaBum99

I heard strong rumors in September that the Wyndham Board had decided to kill the rental market for Wyndham Vacation Resorts.  I thought that the $99/129 guest fees were meant to address that since now the megarenters would be working for Wyndham.

But, now with this act, they are definitely intent on killing it off.  The only issue with it is that what it does is potentially increases the probability that owners who aren't using their points will bail on their ownerships.

My guess is what Wyndham will do is buy back these points and rent them out themselves to other owners.

When I first heard the rumor that Wyndham would cancel points transfers a couple weeks ago, I at first blew it off in disbelief.  But, what Wyndham does always surprises me.  They are so hard to predict because they don't seem to make rational business decisions.  I actually don't see how this helps them.  It seems to make much more sense taxing the activity and letting it continue.

I wonder if this will spawn other lawsuits since they will be putting a lot of renters out of business.  Time will tell.


----------



## Steve

Hi Jim, 

Do you think that WorldMark will follow suit and ban the renting of credits?

Steve


----------



## jkkee

Wow!  I didn't get this yet, was it an e-mail or real mail? I'll be writing a letter.  I haven't needed to rent my points or rent from others yet, but it's nice that the option was there, and who is to say in the future I wouldn't want to?  And it's just one more benefit that they are taking away from us.  Whats next?  No more using your points to go to resorts other than your home resort?


----------



## Timeshare Von

Looks like I'll be searching for someone to take the 77k points contract off my hands for Myrtle Beach if this is true.


----------



## bookworm

I am very disappointed about this. It was one of the features I liked best about Wyndham. I could use what I wanted to and rent the rest. It has worked so well in the last few years. No need to hassle over making a reservation and hoping it rents. It may be time to say good bye to some of my points.


----------



## timeos2

*Not a good move*

Just the slightest possibility that they are referring only to ONLINE trnasfers between accounts? You could read it that way as it is in a paragraph about the on line system and talks about security of the account. Not that any "guide" will know a thing but at some point we need to get a clarification of what was meant. If it is cutting off all owner to owner transfers (rental or not) that is a big negative and worth a fight. Just who are these owners that gave such requests/feedback anyway? I don't know of any.


----------



## bnoble

I don't believe you can do an online tranfer right now---I think it requires a call.

It will be interesting to see how much pushback they get.  I wonder how many owners not in our little communities here and on atozed/yahoo ever even realized transfers were possible.

I've been meaning to write a letter about the rapacious guest fees.  Looks like now the letter will be longer.  I understand that they want to kill the rental business, but (a) I don't have a problem with the mega-renters (I don't much care about distress inventory) and (b) they seem to be throwing the baby out with the bathwater.  In particular, these two changes make it pretty much impossible for the average owner to have a big family reunion some year.


----------



## Don

timeos2 said:


> Just the slightest possibility that they are referring only to ONLINE trnasfers between accounts? You could read it that way as it is in a paragraph about the on line system and talks about security of the account. Not that any "guide" will know a thing but at some point we need to get a clarification of what was meant. If it is cutting off all owner to owner transfers (rental or not) that is a big negative and worth a fight. Just who are these owners that gave such requests/feedback anyway? I don't know of any.


That,too, is my belief since they are mentioned in the same paragraph.
"that will go into effect in conjunction with *online availability* of your 2009-2010 Member’s Directory. In response to feedback from many owners and so we are able to ensure your accounts are being securely and accurately maintained, *the transferring of points feature *will no longer be offered as of March 1, 2009. "


----------



## jeany1020

i can understand trying to break the megaowners (no disrepect to the mega owners) but i don't see how hurting the person with the small point package helps wyndham. also i believe even if i wanted to i can't rent from wyndham more then 90 days in advance so planning a trip to say myrtle beach for next summer would be next to impossible for someone who cannot afford alot of points. i think as someone suggested allowing one or two transfers is a better way to go.


----------



## bnoble

> even if i wanted to i can't rent from wyndham more then 90 days in advance


You can rent a portion of your last night's reservation in the Standard window.


----------



## mtribe

I do not understand how they can possibly do this.  You have a deeded ownership and you have the RIGHT to use, exchange, rent, sell, inherit your property.  They have ALWAYS sold that as a key component of timeshares in general.  Now, I realize that Wyndham could not care less about governing documents, or ethics, or fiducary responsibility to owners, but I see this as a HUGE liability and potential lawsuit.  I suggest a big letter writing campaign and everyone let them know how you feel about this.  This is a big time issue.


----------



## carolhab

This is just one more way to tick off owners. I think they want to end up with deliquent accounts. This will drive the value of our points even further down. They will be getting email feedback from me shortly. I don't think I can stand any more of their "new features and enhancements" to the Fairshare Plus program.  :annoyed:


----------



## Caius

The following contact information for the VOA board of directors has been posted at the "atozed" site a couple of times, but I don't recall seeing it here.  I have already sent emails to the board members, and I encourage everyone else to do the same.  

The letter we all received states that the change is "In response to feedback from many owners," which is obviously ludicrous as the only possible effect on owners of the ability to transfer points is positive.  We all need to let them know what the real owner stance on this issue is.  Here are the email addresses posted at the other site:

brian.keller@wyndhamvo.com Director, FairShare VOA (President also)
gary.byrd@wyndhamvo.com Director, FairShare VOA (VP also)
peter.hernandez@wyndhamworldwide.com Director, FairShare VOA (Secretary & Treasurer also)
deanne.gabel@wyndhamvo.com FSP Trust/Plan Manager, FairShare VOA


----------



## carolhab

Thanks for the email addresses.


----------



## rickandcindy23

carolhab said:


> This is just one more way to tick off owners. I think they want to end up with deliquent accounts. This will drive the value of our points even further down. They will be getting email feedback from me shortly. I don't think I can stand any more of their "new features and enhancements" to the Fairshare Plus program.  :annoyed:



I agree that delinquency will be a huge problem, especially in this economy, as it is today.  People aren't going to be able to use what they own, so they will stop paying, and the brunt of the problems will rest on our shoulders, causing us all considerable damages.  Sounds like the perfect grounds for a lawsuit. They keep de-valuing what we own, so now we cannot use it as we did before.  

Does anyone have a phone number, address or email for the Florida Attorney General's office?   Perhaps about 100 letters to that office would be in order.  If we could get everyone that is angry to write just one letter to the right people.........I don't think Wyndham's big wigs care one bit about what they are doing to us.  They just want to rent points at $8 per 1,000.   I won't be buying a single point from those greedy corporate yahoos.


----------



## Miss Marty

*Deanne Gabel knows a lot about the hospitality industry*

Deanne Gabel had 25 years of experience working for Disney 
as General Manager of the Yacht & Beach Club Resorts in FL

http://www.crummer.rollins.edu/enews/landing_pages/mba-moveins.html


----------



## bnoble

> You have a deeded ownership and you have the RIGHT to use, exchange, rent, sell, inherit your property.


For the most part, though, the deed is for the real property---either a fixed week interval, or a 1/big-number share of Unit blah-blah-blah for UDI deeds.  FSP Points are not, themselves, deeded.  They are layered on top, and the agreements we all signed make it clear that the VOA runs the roost---and the VOA board is All Wyndham, all the time.

So, from a legal perspective, it's kosher.

The only chance of getting it reversed is by large outcry from owners.  It will be interesting to see if that happens.  Unlike VIP discounts for guests, which affected very VIP owner, this change may only effect those of us in the online timeshare community, and those few families that have multiple owners and transfer amongst themselves.  And, while there are a lot of people who are e.g. members of atozed, it's a small fraction of total ownership.

It will be interesting to see what happens, and I plan to write a real dead-tree letter about both this and the rapacious guest fee.  But, I'm betting both will stick.


----------



## Miss Marty

*Timesharing Today Magazine*

Hopefully the editors and staff of Timesharing Today
will do some research on this and publish a magazine
article for owners who do not have internet access.


----------



## bogey21

I used to own 4 Marriott weeks.  When they started messing with some of the things that caused me to buy like rental program, sales program, points program, etc., I bailed.  Truth is that you just can't trust the corporations.  They will do what is in their best interest and ignore their promises which incented you to buy.  Hasn't hapened to you yet?  It will.  Believe me.

George


----------



## Timeshare Von

bogey21 said:


> . . . They will do what is in their best interest and ignore their promises which incented you to buy.  Hasn't hapened to you yet?  It will.  Believe me.



I'm pretty sure that most people doing business in the Wyndham system are fully aware of this premise.  Wyndham continues to do what is in their best interest and continues to adversely impact their owners.  Many have bailed . . . many others are too "vested" to bail.  At some point I believe most will reach "their point to bail" . . . which is different for each owner.  I am still pretty happy with my fixed weeks with them because there isn't a lot of messing around with the ownership that they (Wyndham) can do, especially once you consider that FAX isn't REALLY a program!!  Points on the other hand, are almost a limitless place for them to tinker and hose owners.  Sad but true indeed!  It won't take much for me to want to dump my small points contract with them.


----------



## massvacationer

*Points are now much less attractive*

It seems to me that all of the recent changes (the increase in fees and especially the prohibition on transferring or renting points) will discourage current owners from:

1.	Buying more points  (why get more when you have lost the      flexibility to transfer them to friends/family or rent out the extra)

2.	“Upgrading their memberships” (as Wyndham calls it)

3.	 Recommending Wyndham Fairshare points to friends and family


Will this not hurt future sales of the product?  Wyndham points were attractive to me simply because they were so flexible and scalable and they have so many resorts.  The “flexible and scalable” feature is fast disappearing.


----------



## ace2000

Remember all those timeshare eBay ads for $1?  You'll see a lot more Wyndham/Fairfield point contracts going for that amount - guaranteed.  Renting points was one of the greatest distinctions between Wyndham and the others.  It was so easy and convenient, to buy or sell.

This will hurt the value for sure.

And what's hilarious, is the fact that Wyndham is presenting this as some sort of benefit to current owners (because we have requested this).


----------



## bnoble

Well, we already knew that the Wyndham folks went to the George Orwell School of Public Relations.


----------



## BocaBum99

Based on this action, I am not sure if it makes sense to purchase any more Wyndham timeshares.  Just recently, I recommended buying a small package and renting points because I never expected Wyndham to discontinue the practice of transferring points between accounts.  I was wrong about that one.

Given this new action, there are literally hundreds of thousands of worthless ownerships.   Anyone paying $1 would be over paying.  This could lead to a massive default of worthless Wyndham timeshares.  I think Wyndham may be making a huge business mistake with this move.

I think this actually may bring value to the PCC business model.  It may be worth paying money to get rid of a Wyndham timeshare nobody will buy and the resort won't take back.

I think the situation with Wyndham is going to get uglier before it gets better.


----------



## bnoble

I'm not so sure.  It's not clear to me how many people cared about or used this feature.  I care about it, and I use it, but I'm also a member of several online timeshare communities.  Those of us in that boat are but a small fraction of the total ownership.

If _most_ owners don't know other owners, and have no idea that an open points rental market exists, then this won't matter to them one whit.  Boca, I know that these changes in policy have really played havoc with your model for Wyndham.  But, owners who buy strictly for personal use may not see this as more than a minor annoyance given the presence of borrowing and the credit pool.  Hopefully, my guess is wrong, and the ownership as a whole will rise up. As I've said, it will be interesting to see if this sticks.  I certainly hope it doesn't, but I'm betting it will.


----------



## cphamaz

*What should we do at this point?*

As owners, what can we do at this point to reverse this new rule? Anyone has any suggestion? Any legal action we could take?


----------



## ace2000

bnoble said:


> I'm not so sure.  It's not clear to me how many people cared about or used this feature.  I care about it, and I use it, but I'm also a member of several online timeshare communities.  Those of us in that boat are but a small fraction of the total ownership.



Maybe this is true if you count percentages of actual owners on a one-by-one basis... But, if you do this by percentage of total points, I'm betting that this feature was known by a lot more people.  And it'll be those that own a significant number of points that will be the first to bail...  

The ones that will NOT be inclined to bail will be the people that have what they need for their personal use.  The former category will be VERY significant.  Just start watching eBay, and watch the prices plummet!


----------



## ace2000

cphamaz said:


> As owners, what can we do at this point to reverse this new rule? Anyone has any suggestion? Any legal action we could take?




We need an organized group, in my opinion.  I don't think the individual emails are going to be the solution.  There is too much potential revenue at stake here for Wyndham.  It's very easy to see why they've made this decision.

It's going to take some sort of organized user group or class action.  I've never been very keen on the class action route, because I feel they mostly benefit the attorney's involved.


----------



## bnoble

> Maybe this is true if you count percentages of actual owners on a one-by-one basis... But, if you do this by percentage of total points,


Even that I don't believe---back-of-the-envelope doesn't support it.

WVO claims 800,000 families.  That might include WM, I don't know.  Let's assume it does.  Let's assume that that means 400,000 families.  WM is smaller, but I don't know by how much---so, lets be conservative.

Let's assume that the average "family" owns about 150K.  Could be more, (and it probably is) but that seems like a fair number.

So, that's about 60B points in total, and probably more.

Glenn keeps track of board stats over at atozed.  He's got a little over 4,000 registered members---let's assume all of them are owners (they aren't).  That's about 1% of the 400,000 families.  A quick look at Glenn's points owned stats looks like maybe 1-2B points.  So, you're still talking about no more than 3%.  And that's with a _lot_ of conservative assumptions.  The real number is probably lower.

Edited to add: Don't get me wrong.  I think this policy stinks like last week's fish.  And, I really hope it gets reversed.  But, we have to acknowledge that our view of "the collective ownership" is probably not representative.


----------



## ace2000

bnoble said:


> Even that I don't believe---back-of-the-envelope doesn't support it.



Watch what happens to the resale price market on points over the next couple of months...  We can revisit it then.

Edit: I know that I've got a lot of points (over a million now)... and I've not updated Glenn's database.  I'm sure there are a lot of others.  If it hasn't been significant, why do you think they made they change?


----------



## bnoble

I know what's going to happen to the resale market.  A few mega-renters will flood the market, and make points impossible to sell for a while.

But most owners don't know about that either.  If they did, Wyndham wouldn't be able to sell _anything._  The set of buyers in that market is relatively small, due to market inefficiency.  If most owners had even half a clue, then you'd have a Wyndham that you wouldn't even recognize.

As an aside, I believe that many mega-renters will just adjust their business models and move on.  I believe some already have.  I expect that to continue.


----------



## bnoble

Here's what I mean by changing the business model.  Prior to the Guest Fee changes, most of the megas made their money by washing rented points through PtVIP accounts, getting upgrades and discounts, often for Sun-Thu stays, providing extremely cheap rental inventory to bargain hunters.  As long as the supply of rental points at or below $5/K was plentiful, they were in business, because they'd be paying about $2-$2.5 per K for the discounted reservations, and invested no capital acquiring those points.  Frankly, it was a pretty sweet deal for the mega-renter.

The GC fee took away part of the model---cheap, short rentals aren't as easy to turn a profit on anymore, because the fixed costs are higher.  The elimination of transfers takes away the other half---the source of cheap points with no capital invested.

So, that means they can no longer effectively serve their markets.  What's a mega-renter to do?

In the Brave New World, the mega-renter has fewer points to play with, and larger fixed costs per rental.  The smart mega-renter is going to look for very high value weeks with low point costs to poach at the 10 month mark, and market the hell out of them, selling upscale rather than bargain.  For example, Bonnet Creek inexplicably has Easter Week in Value Season this year.  112K gets you a 2BR that is in prime prime time for that market.

A few will throw their hands up in disgust, and walk away, fire-saling the points they have and calling it a day.  I'm betting that most wont---they're not going to recover the capital they invested getting to PtVIP.  So, they're going to make a go of it under the high-value model, and try to develop a new market there.

The end result for the rest of us?  Wyndham has effectively convinced the commercial owners to stop going for last-minute distressed inventory, and start poaching the really prime weeks.  So, we lose.


----------



## BocaBum99

bnoble said:


> Here's what I mean by changing the business model.  Prior to the Guest Fee changes, most of the megas made their money by washing rented points through PtVIP accounts, getting upgrades and discounts, often for Sun-Thu stays, providing extremely cheap rental inventory to bargain hunters.  As long as the supply of rental points at or below $5/K was plentiful, they were in business, because they'd be paying about $2-$2.5 per K for the discounted reservations, and invested no capital acquiring those points.  Frankly, it was a pretty sweet deal for the mega-renter.
> 
> The GC fee took away part of the model---cheap, short rentals aren't as easy to turn a profit on anymore, because the fixed costs are higher.  The elimination of transfers takes away the other half---the source of cheap points with no capital invested.
> 
> So, that means they can no longer effectively serve their markets.  What's a mega-renter to do?
> 
> In the Brave New World, the mega-renter has fewer points to play with, and larger fixed costs per rental.  The smart mega-renter is going to look for very high value weeks with low point costs to poach at the 10 month mark, and market the hell out of them, selling upscale rather than bargain.  For example, Bonnet Creek inexplicably has Easter Week in Value Season this year.  112K gets you a 2BR that is in prime prime time for that market.
> 
> A few will throw their hands up in disgust, and walk away, fire-saling the points they have and calling it a day.  I'm betting that most wont---they're not going to recover the capital they invested getting to PtVIP.  So, they're going to make a go of it under the high-value model, and try to develop a new market there.
> 
> The end result for the rest of us?  Wyndham has effectively convinced the commercial owners to stop going for last-minute distressed inventory, and start poaching the really prime weeks.  So, we lose.



Very insightful analysis.  I agree with your conclusions.


----------



## ace2000

bnoble said:


> Here's what I mean by changing the business model.  Prior to the Guest Fee changes, most of the megas made their money by washing rented points through PtVIP accounts, getting upgrades and discounts, often for Sun-Thu stays, providing extremely cheap rental inventory to bargain hunters.  As long as the supply of rental points at or below $5/K was plentiful, they were in business, because they'd be paying about $2-$2.5 per K for the discounted reservations, and invested no capital acquiring those points.  Frankly, it was a pretty sweet deal for the mega-renter.
> 
> The GC fee took away part of the model---cheap, short rentals aren't as easy to turn a profit on anymore, because the fixed costs are higher.  The elimination of transfers takes away the other half---the source of cheap points with no capital invested.
> 
> So, that means they can no longer effectively serve their markets.  What's a mega-renter to do?
> 
> In the Brave New World, the mega-renter has fewer points to play with, and larger fixed costs per rental.  The smart mega-renter is going to look for very high value weeks with low point costs to poach at the 10 month mark, and market the hell out of them, selling upscale rather than bargain.  For example, Bonnet Creek inexplicably has Easter Week in Value Season this year.  112K gets you a 2BR that is in prime prime time for that market.
> 
> A few will throw their hands up in disgust, and walk away, fire-saling the points they have and calling it a day.  I'm betting that most wont---they're not going to recover the capital they invested getting to PtVIP.  So, they're going to make a go of it under the high-value model, and try to develop a new market there.
> 
> The end result for the rest of us?  Wyndham has effectively convinced the commercial owners to stop going for last-minute distressed inventory, and start poaching the really prime weeks.  So, we lose.



Very interesting...  and in the next year or two, we'll know if the new model will be worth their time and expenses or not.


----------



## BocaBum99

If you just look at the shear numbers, even with the elimination of transferred points, it is possible to make decent money with Wyndham rentals.

Let's say a Platinum VIP owner has MF and FSP of about $4/1000.  And, they have a blended average profit margin of $4/1000.  That would mean that 60-day rentals would cost $6/1000.  Prime reservations would cost $8/1000 plus the $99 guest fee.  It would take about 25M Wyndham Points to make $100,000/year gross profit per year.  That is a substantial income for only one small initiative.

Let's assume that they acquire points at $.005/point including closing costs by purchasing low maintenance fee per point contracts.  Their capital cost would be $125,000.

So, the gross return on invested capital is 80%.  This is still a fanastic return even when accounting for the other potential risks.

It could be that megarenters now decided to purchase cheap resale packages to own 25M points or more they use for rental purposes.


----------



## bnoble

> why do you think they made they change?


I missed this question---it got added after I responded to the original post.

I think there are a couple of reasons.  #1: I think Extra Holidays wants to try to eliminate competition.  #2: I think sales is looking at all the VIP discounts they are paying for, recognizing that a lot of them are washed points from transfers, and wanting to put a stop to it.

If I had to bet, I'd bet reason #2 is actually the real reason, because Sales is the bread and butter of WVO, not Extra Holidays.  Sales pays the bills.

As a bit more food for thought: in addition to the mega-renters out there, I personally know of several people who don't have much of a visible rental business, but will quietly offer to wash a non-VIP-owner's points through their own PtVIP accounts, passing along the discounts, but minus a "small fee."  That's just money directly out of Sales' pockets, with no benefit to the company.

So, if you're Wyndham, and you want to get a handle on all these resale points getting comped discounts, what do you do?  You have two options.  One: you can tell all VIP owners that only developer-purchased points (or, maybe, non-transferred points) count for VIP discounts/upgrades.  Two: you can eliminate transfers.

Approach #1 is more direct, but also more complicated.  If you go the no-resale-point route, it affects more "regular" owners, making them unhappy---bad news, because current _satisfied_ owners are easier to sell to than fresh tour meat, and much much easier to sell than current _dissatisfied_ owners.  Either way you go, approach #1 also requires a complete re-write, _again_, of the reservation software, and they've already demonstrated that they aren't competent enough to pull that off without spending a ton of money and burning up a bunch of goodwill.

Approach #2 is indirect, but easier.  It doesn't fundamentally change the reservation system.  And, if my hypothesis is correct, it doesn't impact too many owners.  True, it also doesn't solve the entire problem, but if the majority of washed points are also transferred points, it solves _most_ of the problem at low cost.


----------



## BocaBum99

bnoble said:


> I missed this question---it got added after I responded to the original post.
> 
> I think there are a couple of reasons.  #1: I think Extra Holidays wants to try to eliminate competition.  #2: I think sales is looking at all the VIP discounts they are paying for, recognizing that a lot of them are washed points from transfers, and wanting to put a stop to it.
> 
> If I had to bet, I'd bet reason #2 is actually the real reason, because Sales is the bread and butter of WVO, not Extra Holidays.  Sales pays the bills.
> 
> As a bit more food for thought: in addition to the mega-renters out there, I personally know of several people who don't have much of a visible rental business, but will quietly offer to wash a non-VIP-owner's points through their own PtVIP accounts, passing along the discounts, but minus a "small fee."  That's just money directly out of Sales' pockets, with no benefit to the company.
> 
> So, if you're Wyndham, and you want to get a handle on all these resale points getting comped discounts, what do you do?  You have two options.  One: you can tell all VIP owners that only developer-purchased points (or, maybe, non-transferred points) count for VIP discounts/upgrades.  Two: you can eliminate transfers.
> 
> Approach #1 is more direct, but also more complicated.  If you go the no-resale-point route, it affects more "regular" owners, making them unhappy---bad news, because current _satisfied_ owners are easier to sell to than fresh tour meat, and much much easier to sell than current _dissatisfied_ owners.  Either way you go, approach #1 also requires a complete re-write, _again_, of the reservation software, and they've already demonstrated that they aren't competent enough to pull that off without spending a ton of money and burning up a bunch of goodwill.
> 
> Approach #2 is indirect, but easier.  It doesn't fundamentally change the reservation system.  And, if my hypothesis is correct, it doesn't impact too many owners.  True, it also doesn't solve the entire problem, but if the majority of washed points are also transferred points, it solves _most_ of the problem at low cost.



Another excellent insight.  You are on a roll Brian.


----------



## bnoble

> It could be that megarenters now decided to purchase cheap resale packages to own 25M points or more they use for rental purposes.


I would expect this to happen slowly for most of them.  They have to build a premium rental market, abandoning their current bargain-hunters.  That takes time.  Also, owning the points carries a lot of extra risk, because you have to pay that $4/K MF whether rentals are running well or not.  In the current economic environment, the "old-style" mega just acquires fewer rental points, and puts up with a year of down income.  However, the "new-style" mega, who owns the points, is potentially facing a negative cash-flow year.

Also, you _have to_ be wondering in the back of your head how long it will be before Wyndham finally says "VIP discounts using developer-purchased points only."  The 25M mega is now stuck with 24M resale points whose cost basis just doubled overnight.



> You are on a roll Brian.


Thanks.  I turned in grades last night, and shipped my last funding proposal for '08 to the Natl. Science Foundation a few hours ago, so I've got a little decompression coming.  Thinking about this has been fun.


----------



## BocaBum99

bnoble said:


> I would expect this to happen slowly for most of them.  They have to build a premium rental market, abandoning their current bargain-hunters.  That takes time.  Also, owning the points carries a lot of extra risk, because you have to pay that $4/K MF whether rentals are running well or not.  In the current economic environment, the "old-style" mega just acquires fewer rental points, and puts up with a year of down income.  However, the "new-style" mega, who owns the points, is potentially facing a negative cash-flow year.
> 
> Also, you _have to_ be wondering in the back of your head how long it will be before Wyndham finally says "VIP discounts using developer-purchased points only."  The 25M mega is now stuck with 24M resale points whose cost basis just doubled overnight.
> 
> 
> Thanks.  I turned in grades last night, and shipped my last funding proposal for '08 to the Natl. Science Foundation a few hours ago, so I've got a little decompression coming.  Thinking about this has been fun.



I agree with your characterization of risks.  That's why the expected return and payback period is important.  At an 80% gross return on invested capital, it would take less than 2 years for a 100% payback of initial capital.  That is a very good risk adjusted return on investment.

This logic is the same that I've used as a recommendation for how resort developers can firm up the resale market.  If they cut costs to a level where maintenance fees were so low that it was relatively easy to turn a rental profit, then investors would load up on timehares and rent them out.  That would effectively put a floor on the prices of timeshares.  I doubt they will listen to my recommendation.  But, it would help.


----------



## bnoble

Agreed---provided you already have PtVIP for other reasons.  If you don't, getting the first 1M points is the killer.  Even if you negotiate well, that doubles your capital invested to $250K, cuts your return in half, and doubles your payoff period to a little under three years.  At that point, you're racing Wyndham to the day that the 24M "extra" points don't count.

I don't think it will take them three years to restrict VIP benefits to developer points.  I suppose you could cut the time needed by PIC and fixed week conversions, but those rules could well change in the middle of the game too.


----------



## BocaBum99

bnoble said:


> Agreed---provided you already have PtVIP for other reasons.  If you don't, getting the first 1M points is the killer.  Even if you negotiate well, that doubles your capital invested to $250K, cuts your return in half, and doubles your payoff period to a little under three years.  At that point, you're racing Wyndham to the day that the 24M "extra" points don't count.
> 
> I don't think it will take them three years to restrict VIP benefits to developer points.  I suppose you could cut the time needed by PIC and fixed week conversions, but those rules could well change in the middle of the game too.



It's for this reason I never did it.  Too much upfront capital risk.


----------



## ace2000

BocaBum99 said:


> That would effectively put a floor on the prices of timeshares.  I doubt they will listen to my recommendation.  But, it would help.



Boca and Brian, thank you both for the thought put into this.  

Why would the resort developers even care where the bottom of the resale market ends up?  I mean, there is so much difference between the prices of new and resale now, the best way for them to make a sale is the ingnorance of the buyer.  No matter how low the resale prices go, that model will not change.  

So, what's the incentive for resorts to keep resale prices up?  I'm sure if given the two choices, they'd prefer them to stay up, but what is the incentive to actually make an effort to do so???


----------



## BocaBum99

ace2000 said:


> Boca and Brian, thank you both for the thought put into this.
> 
> Why would the resort developers even care where the bottom of the resale market ends up?  I mean, there is so much difference between the prices of new and resale now, the best way for them to make a sale is the ingnorance of the buyer.  No matter how low the resale prices go, that model will not change.
> 
> So, what's the incentive for resorts to keep resale prices up?  I'm sure if given the two choices, they'd prefer them to stay up, but what is the incentive to actually make an effort to do so???



That's a good question.  My belief is that there is still legs in selling to the unknowlegable masses who make a large purchase on impulse.  I would have guessed 5-10 more years prior to this credit meltdown.  I think its longevity will shrink due to the credit crunch since government regulation will actually rule out sales to certain demographics who should have never qualfied for a timeshare loan in the first place.  With the ever increasing expansion of the internet especially with the younger generation, it will continue to get more difficult to find people who don't have the opportunity to check the internet prior to completing a purchase.  They can do it right there on their iPhone.   Or, they can send a text message to their social network to check out an idea before jumping in all real time while sitting at the sales presentation table waiting for closing documents.

So, assuming ever increasing numbers of people who have rapid access to pricing alternatives and advice, pricing for resales and from resort developers should converge over time.  If that convergence happens, resort developers need to do something about it.  Wyndham has chosen to try to create a differentiated product.  But, those features are very very pricey and not worth it using any economic analysis.   Another way is to exercise ROFR and prop up resale purchase prices.  A far superior, long term sustainable model would be to create a product that has an intrinsic and quantifiable value.  Buy vs. rent analysis is what I believe will do it.  I've believe that from the first day I got into timesharing.  I still believe it today.


----------



## mtribe

massvacationer said:


> It seems to me that all of the recent changes (the increase in fees and especially the prohibition on transferring or renting points) will discourage current owners from:
> 
> 1.	Buying more points  (why get more when you have lost the      flexibility to transfer them to friends/family or rent out the extra)
> 
> 2.	“Upgrading their memberships” (as Wyndham calls it)
> 
> 3.	 Recommending Wyndham Fairshare points to friends and family
> 
> 
> Will this not hurt future sales of the product?  Wyndham points were attractive to me simply because they were so flexible and scalable and they have so many resorts.  The “flexible and scalable” feature is fast disappearing.



Unfortunately they also control communication with owners and fight at all costs owners ability to share information. Wyndham feeds on uninformed owners.   Far too many owners go on their vacation and then never think about their timeshare again till next year.  They do not even learn about the many ways they are being hosed.  Slowly more and more owners are finding places like Tug and www.wmowners.com (for worldmark by wyndham) and are begining to learn but it is a very slow process.  Spread the word about their poor business practices when you are on vacation.  the more people we educate the sooner they will stop pulling this crap.


----------



## GeNioS

I subscribed to Boca's view that buying a small package and renting the difference was the way to go.  Who could foresee this was going to happen.....

I've already bought the timeshare, just waiting for the transfer....so now what?  I guess I'm looking at these options:

1)  Live with the contract I have...84,000 points...if I want more, rent the difference I need from Wyndham?  How much are those?

2) Buy another 77k contract to get me more points but lock myself into more maintenance fees

3) Attempt to sell the timeshare.....I paid $10.50.  Maybe someone will take it...hehe

4) Walk away if possible?  I signed and faxed a quasi contract but expected formal closing documents to come.  But I've already received an e-mail that they're getting the deed switched over...sounds like I don't need to do anything else.....

I don't know....I guess it feels like I was just a little late to the party and the cops already showed up.


----------



## Jya-Ning

GeNioS said:


> I don't know....I guess it feels like I was just a little late to the party and the cops already showed up.



You need first play with your contract, see if you like it or not.  You can alway pool point together to make it like 1 in 3 year vacation deal.
I have 84k and play it for 5 years before I add more points, and I mainly use it through internal reservation and for 2 years, I mainly get 2 BD+.  At that time, you will know if you want to add another contract or get rid of it.

Wyndham is constant try to make changes, so just add that into your consideration

Jya-Ning


----------



## Jya-Ning

Wow, great analysis.  But, How can anyone try to make a decent rental product build on a entity that is constant change is really beyond me.  Maybe I am old fashion, I would think any quality business is built on stability, realiable, and quality.  Until Wyndham can provide them, there is no way their rental market can real high performance quality.

You sure can make money to just in and out, in that case, who will care about the quality and the brand name.  Even their Extra Holiday is push on lower end customer.

At this moment, it will make sure the resale market will be only for people that don't take the contract in.  Which means PCC company will rule.  And it will make sure most of the resale buyer will not be able to get too much value on its current year MF payment.  Again, it favor PCC.  If I don't know, I may think they want to help PCC on their resale.

It also kill all family refer in their retail business.  Why have mutiple accounts?  You can not pool point together

It also make sure push renter to concentrate on get the good/valuable week.  Which means home resort will rule.   In stead of trying to liquid the product, it make it more illiquid.

It also make sure that you will stay in low point area.  Hugh point will mean very possible hugh loss unless you know your life will not changed.  But wait a min, Wyndham is changed every year, so hugh points will guarantee you will face a hugh loss.

They behavior like they have monopoly, and is high end product.  Alas, in traveling, TS is only one of the options in all the possible choices, and Wyndham is one of the products.

I really can not figure out anyone will take this kind of action in a bad economic situation like that.  Maybe the purpose is to make sure there is some point rental value.  Just like you close stock market in afraid of it get crashed at 911.

Jya-Ning


----------



## lprstn

Well I am going against the group on this one.  I really don't care about them taking this away.  Why, because I generally USE all my points.  I don't rent them out that much, but when I do I have more than enough guest certs to do so.  Therefore, the average person who wants to just use the Wyndham system won't have the desire to run out and sell it.

Let's remember, Wyndham and all other TS are businesses, and their first and only desire is to stay IN BUSINESS....

I mean they can't make everyone happy.  First the complaint is that we complain that the resale value is low, then we complain that there isn't enough availability because people where holding reservations til the last minute, then we complain that VIP is a waste of money and is forever changing.

As owners we have a voice, but we have to be realistic and understand that Wyndham and all TS are in the business to make money, and if they see it go out the door with Mega Renters, people renting their points, people holding up reservations because they want to rent out a hot spot at a hot time, then if it were my business, I would try to lock out that abuse of the system if I could.

Even with this, Wyndham is still a good product, in which I have many great vacations with every year, and for less than a penny a point, it is still a great bargain on the resale market, if your goal in buying it is to use it, and not make a big business out of it.


----------



## jdb0822

Its just greed, plain and simple.

By eliminating the rental of points among owners that leaves only one option for renting points... renting thru Wyndham, who just as a coincindence raised the point rental fees. (to $10/k I believe).  

The ability to rent points to owners by-passed the 99/129 guest fee since you were not making an actual reservation and instead were just tossing someone your points.

I've only been with Wyndham for a year (resale of course) and I am amazed at just how much they have taken away.

I am also amazed at the continued moves they make to make points on the resale market worth less and less.


----------



## ace2000

jdb0822 said:


> Its just greed, plain and simple.



How can you say such a thing... this was all done because several owners requested these changes.  Don't ya know???   


:hysterical:


----------



## bnoble

> I mean they can't make everyone happy.


Fair enough.

But, point me to even one person who thinks this is _better._  If you can find me even a single person who is happier that transfers can't happen, I might---might---buy it.

Notice that "happier that they can't happen" is not the same as "don't care if they do or don't."


----------



## cruisin

ace2000 said:


> How can you say such a thing... this was all done because several owners requested these changes.  Don't ya know???
> 
> 
> :hysterical:




They took a poll, and this is what owners want. We have heard this over and over....


----------



## joestein

I know a lot of people are thinking that this only affects renters of points, but that is not the case.

I have an account (trades through RCI), my wife has a seperate account (Trades through II) and my SIL has an account.

We transfer points back and forth between accounts as necessary for whatever we want to book.

All units we book are for our and our family/friends use only, we never rent.

This puts a big crimp in our plans.

All of us planned on going to Glacier Canyon this summer, and I would have to transfer points to them for them to be able to have enough for the reservation.  Sadly, with my wife working for Merrill Lynch, they told us that we can't book any additional vacation time until after the merger is finished and new policies are put in place.  This is delaying us booking the trip.  Hopefully we can accomplish this before they stop the point transfers.

Joe


----------



## bnoble

Joe, I completely understand your situation, and have been thinking about that all along.  It would be interesting to know how many other families do something similar.

With a bit of luck, the answer will be "a lot"---because that means there will be a lot of complaints, getting this overturned.


----------



## bookworm

joestein said:


> I know a lot of people are thinking that this only affects renters of points, but that is not the case.
> 
> I have an account (trades through RCI), my wife has a seperate account (Trades through II) and my SIL has an account.
> 
> We transfer points back and forth between accounts as necessary for whatever we want to book.
> 
> All units we book are for our and our family/friends use only, we never rent.
> 
> This puts a big crimp in our plans.
> 
> All of us planned on going to Glacier Canyon this summer, and I would have to transfer points to them for them to be able to have enough for the reservation.  Sadly, with my wife working for Merrill Lynch, they told us that we can't book any additional vacation time until after the merger is finished and new policies are put in place.  This is delaying us booking the trip.  Hopefully we can accomplish this before they stop the point transfers.
> 
> Joe



I agree that Joe will be one of many with this problem. This will affect more than our little rental community. The complaints from a large group of owners may be our only hope for change. 
In the end, they will actually lose transaction fees out of the deal (we had to pay an extra fee this past year to transfer some points when we were out of transactions - in the future they won't get this.) 

If nothing changes, I expect that there will be rental notices on the Forums board offering to make reservations for other people for x cost per point. The guest fee will be extra, of course, unless the rental is one of the few "complimentary" ones the owner has. Those without enough points will need someone else to reserve the rest of the days of their vacation. What a hassle and extra expense.


----------



## ace2000

I'm willing to bet that even the ones that don't _think _they need the feature of transferring and selling points, will need this feature at some point in the future.  

Not wanting to be argumentative, just stating an opinion.  

There was a time when I thought that I wouldn't need it.  Then, I purchased more points (because of the ability to rent extra points out, if necessary).   A person could be busy for a year, health issues could arise, or just the financial option of recovering your maint fees for a year. 

This, and the mega-renters dumping, is why I believe the demand for resale Wyndham points is going to be drastically reduced and resale prices will drop drastically accordingly...  you would think that would somehow affect everybody.


----------



## Snorkey

*no more renting points?   Worldmark?*

Is this for Worldmark credits/points as well or for Wyndham only?

I thought Wyndham owns Worldmark also?

Has there been any big change to Worldmark with new BOD?


----------



## BocaBum99

joestein said:


> I know a lot of people are thinking that this only affects renters of points, but that is not the case.
> 
> I have an account (trades through RCI), my wife has a seperate account (Trades through II) and my SIL has an account.
> 
> We transfer points back and forth between accounts as necessary for whatever we want to book.
> 
> All units we book are for our and our family/friends use only, we never rent.
> 
> This puts a big crimp in our plans.
> 
> All of us planned on going to Glacier Canyon this summer, and I would have to transfer points to them for them to be able to have enough for the reservation.  Sadly, with my wife working for Merrill Lynch, they told us that we can't book any additional vacation time until after the merger is finished and new policies are put in place.  This is delaying us booking the trip.  Hopefully we can accomplish this before they stop the point transfers.
> 
> Joe



What I would consider doing is consolidating all of your ownerships into one account.  Not sure how Wyndham does it, but there has to be a way.  In this way, all of your Wyndham points are together and you can book Wyndham resorts in any combinations you need without having to transfer points around any more.

Then, I would pick up another ownership like a WorldMark for doing exchanging through RCI and II.  

It doesn't cover all scenarios, but it may work better than your current situation when points transfers stop.


----------



## timeos2

*It's just not logical or fair*



ace2000 said:


> I'm willing to bet that even the ones that don't _think _they need the feature of transferring and selling points, will need this feature at some point in the future.
> 
> Not wanting to be argumentative, just stating an opinion.
> 
> There was a time when I thought that I wouldn't need it.  Then, I purchased more points (because of the ability to rent extra points out, if necessary).   A person could be busy for a year, health issues could arise, or just the financial option of recovering your maint fees for a year.
> 
> This, and the mega-renters dumping, is why I believe the demand for resale Wyndham points is going to be drastically reduced and resale prices will drop drastically accordingly...  you would think that would somehow affect everybody.



I have only rented outside of Wyndham once. But I do think this change is a negative and have expressed that opinion to the President at the email listed above. I have no problem with a limit on transfers but to cut them to ZERO is wrong.  The system was never meant to be a rental bonanza and if limits are applied to that use so be it. But to say two owners can't swap or rent point on an occasional basis is wrong and I think violates the documents we purchased under. Of all the reasons often given for a class action vs Wyndham this one would, IMO, have the best chance of victory.


----------



## BocaBum99

timeos2 said:


> I have only rented outside of Wyndham once. But I do think this change is a negative and have expressed that opinion to the President at the email listed above. I have no problem with a limit on transfers but to cut them to ZERO is wrong.  The system was never meant to be a rental bonanza and if limits are applied to that use so be it. But to say two owners can't swap or rent point on an occasional basis is wrong and I think violates the documents we purchased under. Of all the reasons often given for a class action vs Wyndham this one would, IMO, have the best chance of victory.



I am wondering how your deeded week that is NOT held in trust is protecting owners at your resort from this edict by Wyndham.  Please help me understand how you are better off with a deeded week in trust vs. Wyndham?  WorldMark has no deeds.  Everything is held in trust.  And yet, they still will have the ability to transfer points between accounts.  If Wyndham can just take actions without your approval, please help me understand how it makes any difference if the deed is in the name of the owner vs. the trust?

By the way, I disagree with your conclusion about potentially winning a class action law suit on this topic.  Transferring points between accounts is a feature.  It isn't a fundamental part of the ownership.  There are plenty of point systems that do NOT allow transfers of points between accounts.  It's a feature decision like white wall tires vs. all black.  I don't see how a class action suit can be won on this topic alone.


----------



## timeos2

*The deed and Association documents may be the keys.*



BocaBum99 said:


> I am wondering how your deeded week that is NOT held in trust is protecting owners at your resort from this edict by Wyndham.  Please help me understand how you are better off with a deeded week in trust vs. Wyndham?  WorldMark has no deeds.  Everything is held in trust.  And yet, they still will have the ability to transfer points between accounts.  If Wyndham can just take actions without your approval, please help me understand how it makes any difference if the deed is in the name of the owner vs. the trust?



I'm not 100% sure that holding a deeded week in this case helps (as I'm sure it does in the Diamond Club system where I can opt out by simply not paying my annual fee one year). What the deeded UDI week does is give us specific rights under our purchase documents to vote for our local Board as well as the FSP Board members. It also spells out our right to "use, transfer, *rent* or inherit" the rights granted in the deed. Since those rights are automatically tied to the FSP system it would seem to me, and I'm not saying I'm right just in my opinion, that by limiting those rental rights via this system change they are attempting to make changes to my documented, purchased and legally filed deeded rights. I cannot unilaterally separate my week from the FSP system unless the system ceases to exist and I revert to my local, deeded, one resort ownership.  In any case it would seem to be a strong legal argument to make. 


BocaBum99 said:


> By the way, I disagree with your conclusion about potentially winning a class action law suit on this topic.  Transferring points between accounts is a feature.  It isn't a fundamental part of the ownership.  There are plenty of point systems that do NOT allow transfers of points between accounts.  It's a feature decision like white wall tires vs. all black.  I don't see how a class action suit can be won on this topic alone.



Yes, renting is a FSP "feature" and if other resorts in the system don't have deeded UDI rights then they may be able to change the rules.  But in this case (which is the same for the majority of Wyndham resorts in the FSP system - there may be some of the newest ones that don't grant deeds but only have RTU) the ultimate basis for the rights I and thousands of others purchased under, as filed with the state that the resort is located in, specifically grant the right to rent as I stated above. Since they choose to tie the use to the FSP system I don't think they have a right to then change that secondary system to attempt to remove my primary deeded rights as an owner.  That is the question a class action would have to address if it came to that.


----------



## BocaBum99

John,

You haven't lost your fundamental right to rent any reservation you book on your account.  What you've lost is the ability to move one time points from one owner to another.  That same owner can rent their timeshare to you by booking a reservation on their account and putting your name as the guest.
So, neither owner has lost the fundamental right to rent out their timeshare use time.


----------



## bnoble

> I'm not 100% sure that holding a deeded week in this case helps ...Since those rights are automatically tied to the FSP system


I don't think so.  If the Wyndham lawyers are smart (and they are), they have set things up so that FSP is layered on top of the property ownership.  I know for a converted fixed week the points agreement is a separate contract (and not subject to deed restrictions).  It would be interesting to see how the UDIs are set up, but I'll bet you my next "tour gift" that it's done the same way.


----------



## timeos2

BocaBum99 said:


> John,
> 
> You haven't lost your fundamental right to rent any reservation you book on your account.  What you've lost is the ability to move one time points from one owner to another.  That same owner can rent their timeshare to you by booking a reservation on their account and putting your name as the guest.
> So, neither owner has lost the fundamental right to rent out their timeshare use time.



As usual it gets down to interpretation and what was intended. That's why any "slam dunk" lawsuit usually isn't.  I would make a case for the points as the primary facility for use being part of the intended use/transfer/rent/inherit while Wyndham may say "week" or reservation - that would be the battle ground if it happened. Who knows who would prevail? In any case I don't like the change and will do what little I can to fight it.


----------



## Jya-Ning

Wyndham only.  Don't try to give them any excuse to say there are WM owner ask for it.

Jya-Ning


----------



## Sandy VDH

and just for clarification this is renting from other owners, so basically transfering points, it does not eliminate renting points from Wyndham.


----------



## joestein

BocaBum99 said:


> What I would consider doing is consolidating all of your ownerships into one account.  Not sure how Wyndham does it, but there has to be a way.  In this way, all of your Wyndham points are together and you can book Wyndham resorts in any combinations you need without having to transfer points around any more.
> 
> Then, I would pick up another ownership like a WorldMark for doing exchanging through RCI and II.
> 
> It doesn't cover all scenarios, but it may work better than your current situation when points transfers stop.



I am not sure if we could combine the accounts since the ownership of each account is different, plus the access to both II and RCI is a big plus.

I don't think I want to invest anything more in TS at this time, especially ones connected to Wyndham.  Plus, bonuses and raises are not going to be too good this year.


Joe


----------



## DaveHenry

*Would this get Wyndham's attention?*

Why don't we get their attention by hitting them where it hurts -- by stating that we plan to educate their uninformed sales prospects?  Why don't we all write to the CEO of Wyndham saying that, because of these changes, we will take it upon ourselves to warn at least thirty people about Wyndham's actions and not to buy from Wyndham each time we visit a Wyndham resort?  That we will accept offers to Wyndham presentation and talk about Wyndham's rip-off actions in a loud voice in the waiting room?

The threat of a lot of anti-Wyndham PR people might get their attention fast, since we have access to the people that they want to turn into suckers.


----------



## timeos2

*If Wyndham had an once of sense they'd support resales. But no..*



DaveHenry said:


> Why don't we get their attention by hitting them where it hurts -- by stating that we plan to educate their uninformed sales prospects?  Why don't we all write to the CEO of Wyndham saying that, because of these changes, we will take it upon ourselves to warn at least thirty people about Wyndham's actions and not to buy from Wyndham each time we visit a Wyndham resort?  That we will accept offers to Wyndham presentation and talk about Wyndham's rip-off actions in a loud voice in the waiting room?
> 
> The threat of a lot of anti-Wyndham PR people might get their attention fast, since we have access to the people that they want to turn into suckers.



To this moment in time Wyndham hasn't shown the slightest common sense about any move they have made. This is the latest in boneheaded changes I assume are supposed to help sales, but ends up hurting as even the slightly informed get word to avoid retail.  Just another one of many to ensure the word gets out to all potential suckers.  Don't threaten, just do it!  Eventually the word will have to get through that they have to change their ways or go bust (for new sales).


----------



## donnaval

I doubt there will be any outcry over this, except from a few of us die-hard regulars who read here and the other boards.

A couple of years ago, Wyndham took away the right to put the WEEK YOU OWN into RCI.  This move affected *every single owner* who ever purchased a deed with an underlying unit, and except for a few folks who spoke out, there was nothing more than a collective shrug over it.  

Transferring points--feh.  I have to believe a lot fewer owners transfer points than deposit into RCI, so don't consider it likely that any groundswell of outrage will occur.  I've transferred a lot, in both directions, and it infuriates me that this valuable feature is being stolen from me.  I'll be vocal and complain a lot but I don't expect my voice will be given any more attention than it has been in the past.

I purchased Wyndham, then Fairfield, a little over three years ago after taking a lot of time and effort to educate myself, and was confident I picked the right fit for me.  It fit great for a year, but through no action of my own it is turning into restrictive, expensive money sink instead of the flexible, enjoyable and affordable system I purchased.

What would happen if some of us disgruntled owners formed a corporation and "sold" all our unwanted weeks to it, and let the corporation go bankrupt?


----------



## cruisin

bnoble said:


> I don't think so.  If the Wyndham lawyers are smart (and they are), they have set things up so that FSP is layered on top of the property ownership.  I know for a converted fixed week the points agreement is a separate contract (and not subject to deed restrictions).  It would be interesting to see how the UDIs are set up, but I'll bet you my next "tour gift" that it's done the same way.



You hit it head on, as long as it is a developer program, they can do what they want.


----------



## timeos2

*Who knows. Not Wyndham I'd bet. Don't give them credit as they are clueless*



bnoble said:


> I don't think so.  If the Wyndham lawyers are smart (and they are), they have set things up so that FSP is layered on top of the property ownership.  I know for a converted fixed week the points agreement is a separate contract (and not subject to deed restrictions).  It would be interesting to see how the UDIs are set up, but I'll bet you my next "tour gift" that it's done the same way.



Converted weeks are a different animal - thats why they are usually not recommended as a first choice. With UDI you didn't have a choice - you were deeded a week, along with the POS documents, and it is automatically converted to FSP - you cannot opt out.  So it would seem that the restriction/rights would naturally flow to the one and only way you can utilize that ownership - FSP points. At least it should make a good case (if anyone actually cares enough to follow through that far - I'd join such an action but I sure can't afford to start it).


----------



## BocaBum99

donnaval said:


> What would happen if some of us disgruntled owners formed a corporation and "sold" all our unwanted weeks to it, and let the corporation go bankrupt?



Such corporations already exist.  They are called PCCs.  The only issue is they charge you to give them their week before they stop paying the maintenance fees and let the resorts foreclose on the weeks.


----------



## Jennie

Marty Giggard said:


> Deanne Gabel had 25 years of experience working for Disney
> as General Manager of the Yacht & Beach Club Resorts in FL
> 
> http://www.crummer.rollins.edu/enews/landing_pages/mba-moveins.html



If a letter writing campaign gets started, perhaps it can be cc'd to Rollins College. It might prove embarrassing to Ms. Gabel. 
P.S. I hope none of those "donations" came from refurbishing Wyndham timeshare units.

Perhaps interested owners could develop an "FYI" letter to be given to potential victims as they show up to attend Wyndham's sales presentations (aka "owner updates" or "surveys"). It could alert potential victims to Wyndham's penchant for raising fees and constantly changing the rules. Since marketing is so important to Wyndham's business model and bottom line, and is very costly, losing several perceived new sales due to disgruntled owners becoming vocal and organized might make them less arrogant and greedy. Hey, one can dream.


----------



## timeos2

*Not a serious option of course*



Jennie said:


> Hey, one can dream.



One can also be arrested for disorderly conduct or worse.:ignore:


----------



## bnoble

> thats why they are usually not recommended as a first choice. With UDI you didn't have a choice - you were deeded a week, along with the POS documents, and it is automatically converted to FSP


But, what does the *deed* say?  If the deed only says "1/<largenumber>th of Unit <mumbledy foo>" then that's all the deed applies to.  The deed may also point to the VOA/Trust documents, but those documents in turn basically say the board can do whatever it wants.

Wyndham's lawyers are not stupid.  I can't believe they left that large of a loophole just laying there, but I could be wrong.

Also, as an aside, it depends on who's doing the recommending vis a vis fixed weeks vs. UDI.  The very best MF/K ratios are large, prime season converted fixed-weeks.  Plus, if for some reason the VOA dissolves, fixed week owners know exactly what they have. UDI owners will need to create some new infrastructure to apportion their time.


----------



## jdb0822

Here's a possible motive....

I own 126,000 points.  If I travel off season, I can usually get a 2bed unit, which is what I do.

Now if I chose to take a 2nd vacation or vacation during a busier time, I would need more points, so I would rent points from Owners rather than the $10/k from Wyndham.

Now, Wyndham has eliminated that option and now I have 2 choices: 1) rent directly from Wyndham or 2) buy more points.

Wyndham is banking on that I will either rent or buy directly from them.

Guess again. 

If I feel I need the points, I can get some from the heavily deflated resale market.

Sadly, I chose Wydham because the system was easy to use.  Since I have owned it (short time), its seemingly becoming less user friendly.


----------



## bnoble

But that's only one of many other possible options.  You can book a unit conventionally, rent a reservation from another Wyn owner, or rent a reservation from another timeshare owner somewhere else.

Wyndham owners are not in a closed system---we have many other options available to us.  I just don't see this move substantively increasing Wyn point rental revenues.


----------



## massvacationer

*I think this move is all about Expense Control*

IMHO -as some have more or less said in other posts, Wyndham is looking at rapidly falling time share revenues due to the credit crisis and generally depressed economy.  So, they forecast their Income Statement out a few years and see that they are going to have to cut their expenses back drastically, so that expenses line up with revenues.

First they cut a lot of jobs, particularly in sales, marketing and other areas (customer service etc) that can't justify their expenses structures due to drastically falling sales revenues.  

Next, Wyndham looks at other big expense line items. One is probably the money that Sales pays to subsidize all of the VIP perks.  And, they realize they are paying a lot for the various benefits incurred by VIPs making reservations with their points (discounts, upgrades, etc etc).  And they realize some of these points are transferred points and not points bought directly from Wyndham.  So they take an easy and cheap approach:  ban points transfers.

I think they are really hurting one of the great features of Fairshare points:  flexibility.  That's why a lot of people buy FF points.


----------



## topcop400

jdb0822 said:


> .... now I have 2 choices: 1) rent directly from Wyndham or 2) buy more points.
> 
> Wyndham is banking on that I will either rent or buy directly from them.
> 
> Guess again.
> 
> If I feel I need the points, I can get some from the heavily deflated resale market.



Or, accumulate points in the credit pool, which is what I'll have to do if this thing sticks.


----------



## scottmindib

Just so I know for sure.. You cannot transfer points from other owner but you can still rent from a Wyndham owner if you don't have an account right.  

Say I wanted to rent from and owner - they could make the reservation fro me and put my name down as a guest using a guest certificate , right?  As long as they have a gust certificate available they could rent to me and make the reservation under their account and I could use their points?  

At this point you just cannot rent from another owner if you both have accounts and then transfer their points to you?

Thanks
Scott


----------



## Sandy VDH

You can not longer transfer points between owners, that is the only thing removed.

You can still rent a reservation from anyone that will let you.  If if you are an owner and someone else is an owner they could still book a reservation for you.  Provided they pay all the applicable fees.

So yes I think you understand it correctly.


----------



## GeNioS

Sandy Lovell said:


> You can still rent a reservation from anyone that will let you.  If if you are an owner and someone else is an owner they could still book a reservation for you.  Provided they pay all the applicable fees.


Why would both parties have to be owners?


----------



## Caius

GeNioS said:


> Why would both parties have to be owners?



They don't, I think Sandy is just stating that if you need a reservation costing more points than you have, you can have another owner book it for you with a GC.  Of course there are MANY reasons this is not an adequate substitute for points transfers.

Anyone who has not already complained to the BOD at the addresses listed on this forum (and the other forums), please do so.  Also, if anyone can provide a postal address for the BOD, I would be interested in sending complaints via regular mail as well.


----------



## bnoble

> Also, if anyone can provide a postal address for the BOD, I would be interested in sending complaints via regular mail as well.


I would as well.


----------



## vacationhopeful

Did the "owner's update" today - and my only whine/complaint was "I wanted the Points Transfer not changed".  Like 20 times.  The sales weasals kept insisting that all I needed to do was to buy MORE developer points. so I could get Presidential Reserve access - ya-dee, ya-dee, ya.

Didn't get anything other than coffee and the gift was some Garten Gift cards at the Olive Garden/Red Lobster chain.


----------



## Sandy VDH

Caius said:


> They don't, I think Sandy is just stating that if you need a reservation costing more points than you have, you can have another owner book it for you with a GC.



Thanks yes that is what I meant.


----------



## timeos2

*"How can I even consider buying when you change the rules on a whim?"*



vacationhopeful said:


> Did the "owner's update" today - and my only whine/complaint was "I wanted the Points Transfer not changed".  Like 20 times.  The sales weasals kept insisting that all I needed to do was to buy MORE developer points. so I could get Presidential Reserve access - ya-dee, ya-dee, ya.
> 
> Didn't get anything other than coffee and the gift was some Garten Gift cards at the Olive Garden/Red Lobster chain.



Every owner should start sitting through the torture, take the freebies but have the mantra "I'll never buy again until the right to rent points to other owners is reinstated".  They have no comeback, it will hurt sales, it will cost them for the freebies - who knows it could even make them rethink the move. In any case don't tip your hand that you would never buy except resale in any case - that would blunt the impact of the plan.  These are sales weasels after all, they don't have much ability to figure out the math of resale at $.01 beats retail at $.15.  Don't attempt to educate them, just enjoy your meal(s) and/or cash.  

W(easels)
Y(apping)
N(othing)
D(efinitive)
H(oping to)
A(ccumulate)
M(oney)

Don't let them get yours.


----------



## taffy19

timeos2 said:


> Every owner should start sitting through the torture, take the freebies but have the mantra "I'll never buy again until the right to rent points to other owners is reinstated".  They have no comeback, it will hurt sales, it will cost them for the freebies - who knows it could even make them rethink the move. In any case don't tip your hand that you would never buy resale in any case - that would blunt the impact of the plan.  These are sales weasels after all, they don't have much ability to figure out the math of resale at $.01 beats retail at $.15.  Don't attempt to educate them, just enjoy your meal(s) and/or cash.
> 
> W(easels)
> Y(apping)
> N(othing)
> D(efinitive)
> H(oping to)
> A(ccumulate)
> M(oney)
> 
> Don't let them get yours.


John, why can't you post this movie here or didn't you get around to it yet?   Some people are addicted to the forums like me.   

YouTube - Wyndham Timeshare Owner Tells All 

This video clip should be a sticky so people are forewarned!  I can't believe what the big timeshare developers can get away with the last few years at the expense of the timeshare owner. They all seem to do it.


----------



## theo

*Wyndham just baffles me...*



iconnections said:


> YouTube - Wyndham Timeshare Owner Tells All



I claim no particular experience or knowledge with matters Wyndham, although I am genuinely attempting to learn more as a relatively new (very low cost, resale) owner of a single fixed week converted (by the previous owner) to FSP. I do have a few decades of experience already with _other_ (i.e., non-Wyndham) fixed week ownerships. 

That said, the fellow who made this video makes a critically important point quite well when he cites the owner manual paragraph clearly stating that the agreement contents therein can be changed at any time by the board --- a board which apparently consists primarily or soley of Wyndham executives. In citing that particular paragraph, the fellow (indirectly) concedes that there is little or nothing which can be done to reverse (or even influence) unilateral, profit based Wyndham decisions. Any and all such decisions will inevitably be based solely upon what is best for Wyndham itself --- owners be damned. 

What I guess I can't understand is how or why Wyndham could somehow believe that short term, short sighted policies and decisions injurious to current owners are decisions which can or will possibly be good for business in the long term. Maybe I'm just plain missing something here with my admittedly limited knowledge base and I understand and acknowledge that these are difficult economic times, but it nonetheless certainly seems to me like an outlook of "greed today --- but maybe gone tomorrow". 

What are the long term prospects for success for a business model that deliberately chooses NOT to consider its' own customers' satisfaction? 
Maybe I'm dense, but I genuinely just don't get it.....


----------



## bnoble

But, you have to remember the fundamental principle of timeshare sales---and this is true for almost any developer:

Units are sold to people who do not have full information, and buy on impulse.

If you had a well-informed purchaser, they wouldn't have bought from the developer even before any of these ridiculous changes.  But, a potential purchaser who knew about these changes would be, by definition, well-informed.

The plain fact is: people who know anything substantive about the product going in are already excluded from the target market.

The part that gets interesting is this: what happens to the (large) segment of ill-informed current owners?  They form a surprising chunk of Wyndham's sales volume.


----------



## rhonda

iconnections said:


> YouTube - Wyndham Timeshare Owner Tells All


I haven't watched the entire video yet -- but an idea occurred to me regarding the costs for Guest Certificates:  The fee covers the Marketing/Gift/Promotion that will be offered to the guest when they check-in at the resort and are pressured to take the tour??


----------



## timeos2

*"Mr Suckerini, you fail to understand the value of VIP as it relates to my wallet"*



theo said:


> What I guess I can't understand is how or why Wyndham could somehow believe that short term, short sighted policies and decisions injurious to current owners are decisions which can or will possibly be good for business in the long term. Maybe I'm just plain missing something here with my admittedly limited knowledge base and I understand and acknowledge that these are difficult economic times, but it nonetheless certainly seems to me like an outlook of "greed today --- but maybe gone tomorrow".
> 
> What are the long term prospects for success for a business model that deliberately chooses NOT to consider its' own customers' satisfaction?
> Maybe I'm dense, but I genuinely just don't get it.....



As Brian also notes if the public in general were truly knowledgeable about timeshares and especially Wyndham FSP then there would never be another retail Wyndham sold - with the possible exception of the very small number of people who actually think that VIP is worth the unbelievable cost difference over resale.  Yet that 500%+ difference has existed for over 5 years and they are (were) still selling "new" retail weeks at $.15/point while anyone could have purchased all they wanted for $.02 or less. The target buyer didn't know that until they bought, found a group such as this and then became disenchanted with the system knowing they paid 5 to 10 times too much. Great way to keep  new owners happy, huh? But that sure doesn't stop them from pitching the need to buy more at every opportunity they get while blowing off the price difference between retail & resale as if, somehow, the buyer/owner just isn't grasping the tremendous value that retail offers. To the sales weasels pockbook of course, but they try not to gloat about that. 

So the idea that they give one iota of thought to satisfying owners or anything other than the bottom line for themselves and Wyndham has no basis in fact. Hopefully the upside of the current near total collapse of timeshare sales will be a reconsideration of that approach and policies by not only Wyndham but the whole sector. We can dream can't we?


----------



## photosmike

bnoble said:


> The part that gets interesting is this: what happens to the (large) segment of ill-informed current owners?  They form a surprising chunk of Wyndham's sales volume.



Judging by the conversations I hear around the Jacuzzi, they stay ill-informed.  A lot of some owner's knowledge comes from sales and some of them are convinced they are experts on Wyndham.  Even to the extent of giving, with great confidence, questionable advice to others.

Mike


----------



## Twinkstarr

photosmike said:


> Judging by the conversations I hear around the Jacuzzi, they stay ill-informed.  A lot of some owner's knowledge comes from sales and some of them are convinced they are experts on Wyndham.  Even to the extent of giving, with great confidence, questionable advice to others.
> 
> Mike



I think that is quite common among the other major TS company owners also. DVC'ers who are online would have :hysterical: at the local family I met and how they use their points.  They were very pleased with themselves and I really had to bite my lip.


----------



## timeos2

*There are thoae who want to believe and nothing will sway them*



Twinkstarr said:


> I think that is quite common among the other major TS company owners also. DVC'ers who are online would have :hysterical: at the local family I met and how they use their points.  They were very pleased with themselves and I really had to bite my lip.



I know one of thise DVC owners too. They can't even hear you tell them there are options and ohter places to stay - they bought hook line & sinker into the DVC sales pitch. Let them be happy. I gave up any attempts at widening their timeshare horizons. I listen & nod.


----------



## Twinkstarr

timeos2 said:


> I know one of thise DVC owners too. They can't even hear you tell them there are options and ohter places to stay - they bought hook line & sinker into the DVC sales pitch. Let them be happy. I gave up any attempts at widening their timeshare horizons. I listen & nod.



It was worse than that. They were using their points for DCL cruises!!! They had only stayed one night at a DVC at WDW.


----------



## Conan

> YouTube - Wyndham Timeshare Owner Tells All


 
Great job.

I urge Tuggers to watch the video, rate and 'favorite' it, and give it a vote on Digg at

http://digg.com/travel_places/Wyndham_Timeshare_Owner_Tells_All


----------



## AwayWeGo

*It's Not Just D. V. C.*




timeos2 said:


> I know one of thise DVC owners too. They can't even hear you tell them there are options and ohter places to stay - they bought hook line & sinker into the DVC sales pitch. Let them be happy. I gave up any attempts at widening their timeshare horizons. I listen & nod.


A musical friend whose talent & intellect & practicality I admire greatly recently mentioned he & the family will be going on their 1st timeshare experience at their new timeshare in a day or so -- a great resort, Wyndham Bonnet Creek right over by Disney World in Orlando. 

He said he paid only $37*,*000 for it.  I tried not to wince when he said that, & I tried to restrain myself from saying anything about eBay & timeshare resales, etc., that might in any way rain on his parade. 

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.​


----------



## donno

I received an email from Ms. Gabel this morning in response to the complaint email to the BOD I sent last Wednesday about the elimination of points transfers. In part, she said "We’re running quickly to see what we can do to meet in the middle."


----------



## ace2000

donno said:


> I received an email from Ms. Gabel this morning in response to the complaint email to the BOD I sent last Wednesday about the elimination of points transfers. In part, she said "We’re running quickly to see what we can do to meet in the middle."




This might be good news... Thank you for sharing the response.


----------



## urple2

I sent off an email as well this morning, listing the deterioration of benefits and that the natives are restless... 

I'll post if anything of a reply is received.


----------



## BocaBum99

donno said:


> I received an email from Ms. Gabel this morning in response to the complaint email to the BOD I sent last Wednesday about the elimination of points transfers. In part, she said "We’re running quickly to see what we can do to meet in the middle."



Wow.  This is great news.  Meeting in the middle means that they perceive a gap that needs addressing.  Once they acknowledge a gap, they are almost forced to take action on it.

Could it be that Wyndham under estimated how much backlash this would create?  I hope that's the case because then there is hope for them becoming more owner friendly over time.

I see two potential middle ground positions.  First, charging a separate, non-waivable fee for transferred points.  Second, creating a points category called "assigned points" that do NOT inherit VIP benefits upon completion of the transfer.   This was implemented recently in WorldMark.  I think either of these positions would be good middle ground.  This should also be coupled with reducing the guest certificate fee to about $50.


----------



## bnoble

I think both of those changes---a hard fee similar to the points credit pool, and a new category of points---would be a fine compromise.

Still going to really piss off the megas, though.



> Judging by the conversations I hear around the Jacuzzi, they stay ill-informed.


Yes, I expect that to be the case.  But, will these otherwise ill-informed folks have the same reaction to the new guest fees and transfer limits that we do?  That's the interesting question.


----------



## urple2

*Wyndham Response*

A quick Response from Deanna...

She skimmed over many of my points I made about deteriorating benefits.

Thank you for your email, and your sincere concern regarding your FairShare Plus Membership.  It is with great consideration, and our sincere care for all owners, that we implement any changes whatsoever to the FairShare Plus program.  Only when it becomes clear that new events within the current business environment which negatively impact the FairShare Plus Trust, do we feel that consideration regarding change is necessary.  As we have shared in the past, as stewards of the Trust, it is our responsibility to always ensure that the rules and fees are equitable for all, so that a few owners or external businesses cannot find loopholes to take advantage of club offerings, which negatively impact your membership. 



§         The decision to eliminate the transferring of points feature was based on several considerations, most especially, ensuring the security of our owners’ accounts. 

§         We have discovered several incidents of fraudulent transactions that have occurred as a result of transferring of points, either by other owners or 3rd party companies.

§         We have received countless complaints from owners regarding their being solicited for the resale and transfer of their FairShare Plus points, as many of these groups represent themselves as a Wyndham company.

§         Additionally, based on our records, during the first 11 months of 2008, less than 3% of our owners have used this feature.  There are also several owners who are abusing this feature in connection with their commercial rental businesses, the most volume being an individual who has received 740 transfers into their account this year alone.

§         Based on this data, this feature has been taken advantage of to the average FairShare Plus member’s travel detriment, as the corresponding reservations that this type of point usage represents, are only at the most popular resorts. 

§         As we never want to be in the position to negatively impact any FairShare Plus member, The FairShare Plus Board will take into consideration your comments and concerns, and determine whether a limited Points Transfer feature is appropriate. 



§         If you used the Points Transfer feature in the past, please consider one of several other options still available, including:



o        Worldwide Exchange. You may use your points to deposit a week into your worldwide exchange company.  You’ll receive a deposit to use to confirm a full week stay with your exchange company for up to two years from the date of deposit.

o        Converting Points to Maintenance Dollars.  This option allows you to convert your Regular Use Year points during the first 3 months of your Use Year to maintenance dollars that will be applied to your FairShare Plus fees. 

o        Points Credit Pool. If you know you will not be able to use some or all of your future year’s Regular Use Year Points, consider depositing your points into the Points Credit Pool. Those points will remain available to you for three years from the date you make the deposit. 

o        Guest Confirmations. Instead of transferring points to another owner’s account, you can book a reservation for someone else by adding a Guest Confirmation at the time of booking.

Deanne Gabel 

Senior Vice President

Owner Services 

FSP Plan Manager

Wyndham Vacation Ownership 

8427 SouthPark Circle 

Orlando, FL 32819 

(407) 345-6417  phone

(407) 370-6375  fax


----------



## Sandy VDH

urple2 said:


> There are also several owners who are abusing this feature in connection with their commercial rental businesses, the most volume being an individual who has received 740 transfers into their account this year alone.



That is amazing, 740 transfers into their account.  So it would appear that limiting it might be a work around for those who want to use but not abuse the feature.


----------



## wyndhamrental

*Deanne's 'skimmed' response*



urple2 said:


> A quick Response from Deanna...
> 
> She skimmed over many of my points I made about deteriorating benefits.



The reason she 'skimmed over many of your points' is because this is a boiler plate response without any changes or additions to make it more 'personal'.  Kendra


----------



## Jya-Ning

Sandy Lovell said:


> That is amazing, 740 transfers into their account.  So it would appear that limiting it might be a work around for those who want to use but not abuse the feature.



I have post a reply in the Wyndham forum.  740 transfer means instead of all these 740 owner make a reservaion and try to rent it out (guess what kind of reservation it will be, ARP), it will be the mega renter rent out at inventory (s)he can get at 10 month or shorter (so they can get upgrade benefits).  Also, it means those 740 owners will get market rate of their points can offer, instead of the rate (2.1) offer.

Jya-Ning


----------



## lprstn

AwayWeGo said:


> A musical friend whose talent & intellect & practicality I admire greatly recently mentioned he & the family will be going on their 1st timeshare experience at their new timeshare in a day or so -- a great resort, Wyndham Bonnet Creek right over by Disney World in Orlando.
> 
> He said he paid only $37*,*000 for it.  I tried not to wince when he said that, & I tried to restrain myself from saying anything about eBay & timeshare resales, etc., that might in any way rain on his parade.
> 
> -- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.​



You are truly a good friend.  Sometimes ignorence is definately bliss, because I was a lot more happy with my TS before TUG opened my eyes.


----------



## GeNioS

urple2 said:


> A quick Response from Deanna...


Ok...since nobody has beat this up point by point, let me try...I'm new, but what the hell since this totally screwed up my plans.  I tried to let it go, but I just couldn't.  So here's a quick response from GeNioS.




> §         The decision to eliminate the transferring of points feature was based on several considerations, most especially, ensuring the security of our owners’ accounts.
> 
> 
> §         We have discovered several incidents of fraudulent transactions that have occurred as a result of transferring of points, either by other owners or 3rd party companies.


Really?  How's that?  Hacked passwords?  Stupid owners?  Please clarify.  I'm sure there have been a few incidents involving Chase customers that have had security issues and fraudulent transactions.  In fact I had to report one myself this year.  I sure hope they don't shut down ALL online banking because of those incidents.



> §         We have received countless complaints from owners regarding their being solicited for the resale and transfer of their FairShare Plus points, as many of these groups represent themselves as a Wyndham company.


Well gee....Americans being solicited...Oh the horror....seriously....were you able to keep a straight face when you wrote this?  I mean...you're a TIMESHARE COMPANY that hassles people all week long, while on VACATION, to come to your sales presentations, and all the sudden you're worried about your customers being solicited?  (I was going to put one of those laughing smiley faces here, but come on...seriously....)



> §         Additionally, based on our records, during the first 11 months of 2008, less than 3% of our owners have used this feature.  There are also several owners who are abusing this feature in connection with their commercial rental businesses, the most volume being an individual who has received 740 transfers into their account this year alone.


Wait a second...you just wrote that "most especially" this change was because of security issues....and now you're writing that only 3% of users utilized the feature?  Are you including the massive amount of fraudulent use in that 3% number?



> §         Based on this data, this feature has been taken advantage of to the average FairShare Plus member’s travel detriment, as the corresponding reservations that this type of point usage represents, are only at the most popular resorts.


I'm new here, but don't owners at the particular resorts get 3 months more than anyone else to make a reservation?.....Oh....wait....what you're saying is that if an owner doesn't have enough points to stay at the most popular resorts, in the past they'd have to rent points from another owner or Wyndam to be able to go to those resorts?  Those bastards...shame on them....greedy individuals wanting to stay at the most popular resorts....geez.  And those greedy people wanting to actually get money for the points they already paid for when they aren't going to use them .  Can't believe I'm going to join this class of despicable people.  (South Park Stan:  Holy Shit, Dude)



> §         As we never want to be in the position to negatively impact any FairShare Plus member, The FairShare Plus Board will take into consideration your comments and concerns, and determine whether a limited Points Transfer feature is appropriate.


I was going to comment, but instead....just reread her comment, chuckle a bit, then move on.



> §         If you used the Points Transfer feature in the past, please consider one of several other options still available, including:
> 
> o        Worldwide Exchange. You may use your points to deposit a week into your worldwide exchange company.  You’ll receive a deposit to use to confirm a full week stay with your exchange company for up to two years from the date of deposit.


Gee...that's cool...you mean one of the features you had that was available before is _still available?_  Oh you're so generous...thank you...thank you...thank you!  You guys rock...I'm gonna tell all my friends to buy developer tomorrow!  I'm a big fan.



> o        Converting Points to Maintenance Dollars.  This option allows you to convert your Regular Use Year points during the first 3 months of your Use Year to maintenance dollars that will be applied to your FairShare Plus fees.


Let's see...in your own member's directors, you guys basically say that this is a terrible value for your points...your words were your "best value is always to use your Fairshare Plus points to vacation at one of our beatiful resorts."  But I guess that's only as long as it's not at one of your most popular resorts. 



> o        Points Credit Pool. If you know you will not be able to use some or all of your future year’s Regular Use Year Points, consider depositing your points into the Points Credit Pool. Those points will remain available to you for three years from the date you make the deposit.


Ok...here's an idea...so I don't waste leftover points that I can no longer transfer to someone else, how about letting me put points in the credit pool at any time, up to the end of the year.  Oh wait...what's that you say?  I can still rent them from you?  Oh...how generous of you...and you only want _double_ what they were worth on the open market?  That's great....thanks for not making them five times more...And I can use them to get into the more popular resorts?  Sweet.....The more I read, the more I appreciate you guys. 



> o        Guest Confirmations. Instead of transferring points to another owner’s account, you can book a reservation for someone else by adding a Guest Confirmation at the time of booking.


Good idea....no one here had thought of that. 


> Deanne Gabel


Bravo, Wyndham, Bravo.  Got to hand it to you.  Not only have you succeeded in pissing off a ton of your most knowledgable owners and renters that have been loyal to you for years, you also managed to piss off at least one of your newest owners as well.  You guys are good.


----------



## wyndhamtimeshare

*"Propaganda Mill Continues"*

The quote below is a posting from an owner who seems to have hit the nail on the head.  This was posted in another forum.

"Yesterday someone posted the email they received from Deanne on this group as well as others.  The responses posted were the EXACT same email all of us received.  The response to the overwhelming outrage was a carefully orchestrated one.  The wording was very careful and deliberate.  World class customer care, a copied and pasted email rather than a personal response to your concerns!

It is apparent from some of the posts on here AFTER receiving Deanne's email that some actually FALL for this rhetoric.  HUGE MISTAKE!  I think it's important for everyone to understand what is going on here.  The propaganda mill is continuing to churn.  The motive behind the changes in recent years, followed with APPARENT compromises, is, to me, becoming more and more clear as they continue to happen.  Wyndham is not working against the "mega renter", as many of you make reference to them.  They are working FOR the "mega renter".  That's right!  They are implementing policy changes to preserve the LARGEST of all the mega renters, Extra Holidays, the rental arm of Wyndham.  All other "mega renters" are seen as competitors, someone taking a piece of their pie.

Just reason on this for a moment.  Deanne's email referred to one owner who was 'taking advantage' of the transfer provision because the individual had received 740 transfers this year alone.  (By the way, it's NOT ME.  But . . . )  How many transfers does Extra Holidays receive from owners in a year?  If it is 'taking advantage' of our program provisions for one of US to receive 740 transfers in a year why is it NOT 'taking advantage' of our program for Extra Holidays to receive as many or more transfers from owners to then turn around and rent to the public?  If the COMPROMISE is to limit the number of transfers any one owner can receive in any given year will there also be a similar limit on the number of transfers Extra Holidays can receive?  Yeah, right!

Additionally, why does it make any difference to our program if one person receives 740 transfers or 740 owners receive one transfer each?  Wyndham is continuing to use the same underhanded tactics that have characterized their operation for at least the past 4 years.  Wyndham is dishing out propaganda to make YOU think these changes are coming about because there are SOME who are abusing the program.  THAT'S A LIE!  There is only ONE abusing our program, Wyndham!

It is now more important than ever that we unite and stand strong AGAINST this self-serving, greedy, corporate giant.  We need to demand in a LOUD voice that owners, not affiliated with Wyndham, be invited to serve as members of the Board of our Trust.  Independent owners should have equal representation on the Board.  If Wyndham is not trying to hide their REAL motives why have they CONTINUALLY ignored this request for the past 4 years?

The worse thing we can do at this time is willingly accept ANY compromise whatsoever on this issue that involves a fundamental RIGHT of ownership as stated in our Trust.  We need to further insist that they reinstate the benefits we were sold but have since been taken away from us as owners.  Wyndham continues to protect itself at OUR EXPENSE.  It's time to STOP letting ourselves be victimized by the wolf in sheep's clothing.

Just my thoughts,
Allen"


----------



## rickandcindy23

The "meet in the middle" email is the first of its kind.  I haven't heard anything like it from anyone else.  The canned email response I received from Deanne Gabel was identical to the others I have seen.  

I would like to see the full response from Gabel that included a comment about meeting in the middle.  

Is this your take on the email we all received?  Or did you get a very different email from the rest of us?  

Hey, I just want to transfer points between our own accounts.


----------



## donno

rickandcindy23 said:


> I would like to see the full response from Gabel that included a comment about meeting in the middle.  Is this your take on the email we all received?  Or did you get a very different email from the rest of us?




My initial email
To whom it may concern,

I was distressed today to hear of FairShare Vacation Owners Association’s Board of Directors decision to discontinue the transferring of points among members.  It said this was a result of owner's comments. I do not know any owner who would be against the option of being able to transfer points to another owner. I do understand why Wyndham would like to clamp down on the megarenters, but you should not do it in a way that hurts those of us who do utilize the flexibility of the system with friends and family.

I bought into a Fairshare plus property several years ago and recently convinced my parents and sister to buy just last year. We all bought with the idea that we could utilize the transfer of points feature to make the use of our combined points as beneficial as possible.  

I implore you to find a middle ground, where you can stop the megarenters, but not hurt the small family owners. One idea would be to allow a group of owners to only transfer among themselves, sorta like the friends and family plans the cell phone companies use.

The lose of transfer ability makes me embarrassed that I convinced my family members to buy into Wyndham, but you guys have the ability to do something about it. Thanks for your help.

Ms. Gabel's 1st response
I appreciate your email.  I will be getting back to you by tomorrow, and I appreciate your patience.

My response
That would be great if you could get back with me today. Another option I think should be considered would be to allow a limited number of transfers from or to an owner per calendar year. This could also help protect the small family owners while still accomplishing the goals of the board. Thanks.

Ms. Gabel's 2nd response
Yes, thank you, we are working that right now, but unfortunately do not have system support.  We’re running quickly to see what we can do to “meet in the middle”.

Later in the day I got the same email everyone else received. If they do approve a limited number of transfers per account, I would consider that to be meeting in the middle. I would not be in favor of a special fee being applied to those transfers outside the normal transaction fee.


----------



## BocaBum99

I would be in favor of a limited number of transfers.  That would be fine with me and a good compromise.

If they allow this, then it's absolutely the megarenters they are targeting.  This leaves no doubt in my mind now.

In my view, Wyndham should go back to the old process until they have the system in place to implement a new process.

The best solution, imo, is creating a new classification of points called "assigned points" ala WorldMark, where assigned points do not inherit VIP benefits.  And, just use a signed transfer form.  Then, there would be no need to limit transfers in any way and Wyndham doesn't need to pay for VIP benefits on points that never technically qualified.


----------



## rickandcindy23

Boca,
What points technically qualify, then?  How did Worldmark handle it and separate the two?  I don't like that idea at all!  I have always felt that all benefits of developer sales should transfer to the resale buyers, or you have a devaluation that isn't fair to the person needing to sell.


----------



## wyndhamtimeshare

*The "mega renter" Issue*



donno said:


> My initial email
> 
> I implore you to find a middle ground, where you can stop the megarenters, but not hurt the small family owners. One idea would be to allow a group of owners to only transfer among themselves, sorta like the friends and family plans the cell phone companies use.



In another forum I posted the following in response to Deanne's email to everyone.  It addresses this "mega renter" issue that is CONTINUALLY raised by so many.  The "mega renter" issue is distracting many from seeing the REAL picture here.  I suggest all read this post and ponder it's contents.

*The Propaganda Mill Continues to Churn*.

Yesterday someone posted the email they received from Deanne on this group as well as others.  The responses posted were the EXACT same email all of us received.  The response to the overwhelming outrage was a carefully orchestrated one.  The wording was very careful and deliberate.  World class customer care, a copied and pasted email rather than a personal response to your concerns!

It is apparent from some of the posts on here AFTER receiving Deanne's email that some actually FALL for this rhetoric.  HUGE MISTAKE!  I think it's important for everyone to understand what is going on here.  The propaganda mill is continuing to churn.  The motive behind the changes in recent years, followed with APPARENT compromises, is, to me, becoming more and more clear as they continue to happen.  Wyndham is not working against the "mega renter", as many of you make reference to them.  They are working FOR the "mega renter".  That's right!  They are implementing policy changes to preserve the LARGEST of all the mega renters, Extra Holidays, the rental arm of Wyndham.  All other "mega renters" are seen as competitors, someone taking a piece of their pie.

Just reason on this for a moment.  Deanne's email referred to one owner who was 'taking advantage' of the transfer provision because the individual had received 740 transfers this year alone.  (By the way, it's NOT ME.  But . . . )  How many transfers does Extra Holidays receive from owners in a year?  If it is 'taking advantage' of our program provisions for one of US to receive 740 transfers in a year why is it NOT 'taking advantage' of our program for Extra Holidays to receive as many or more transfers from owners to then turn around and rent to the public?  If the COMPROMISE is to limit the number of transfers any one owner can receive in any given year will there also be a similar limit on the number of transfers Extra Holidays can receive?  Yeah, right!

Additionally, why does it make any difference to our program if one person receives 740 transfers or 740 owners receive one transfer each?  Wyndham is continuing to use the same underhanded tactics that have characterized their operation for at least the past 4 years.  Wyndham is dishing out propaganda to make YOU think these changes are coming about because there are SOME who are abusing the program.  THAT'S A LIE!  There is only ONE abusing our program, Wyndham!

It is now more important than ever that we unite and stand strong AGAINST this self-serving, greedy, corporate giant.  We need to demand in a LOUD voice that owners, not affiliated with Wyndham, be invited to serve as members of the Board of our Trust.  Independent owners should have equal representation on the Board.  If Wyndham is not trying to hide their REAL motives why have they CONTINUALLY ignored this request for the past 4 years?

The worse thing we can do at this time is willingly accept ANY compromise whatsoever on this issue that involves a fundamental RIGHT of ownership as stated in our Trust.  We need to further insist that they reinstate the benefits we were sold but have since been taken away from us as owners.  Wyndham continues to protect itself at OUR EXPENSE.  It's time to STOP letting ourselves be victimized by the wolf in sheep's clothing.

Just my thoughts,
Allen


----------



## bnoble

I don't think many of us harbor any particular ill-will to the megas.  I happen to think they add value to the system, as they supply an efficient means to soak up excess inventory in a productive way.  However, many of us do see that Wyndham has a legitimate interest in stopping the practice of washing points through VIP accounts.


----------



## timeos2

*Be reasonable. Zero is too few - 100+ too many.*



bnoble said:


> I don't think many of us harbor any particular ill-will to the megas.  I happen to think they add value to the system, as they supply an efficient means to soak up excess inventory in a productive way.  However, many of us do see that Wyndham has a legitimate interest in stopping the practice of washing points through VIP accounts.



And I'm sorry but I don't see any issue with a reasonable limitation of say 5 annual transfers (or even less, 5 seems like a nice number) to another member. No matter how you cut it 740 is too many for one account. That is clearly abusing the design of the system and I'm happy to support Wyndham in stopping that type of (IMO) abuse.


----------



## wyndhamtimeshare

timeos2 said:


> No matter how you cut it 740 is too many for one account. That is clearly abusing the design of the system



BTW I am NOT the owner who received 740 transfers BUT how many transfers do you think Extra Holidays, Wyndham's rental arm, has received for the year?  I'll bet you it's far more than 740!

Is it abuse when one member receives 740 transfers but NOT abuse for Wyndham's Extra Holidays to receive that many or more transfers to then turn around and rent to the public?  Can't everyone see that it is the largest of ALL the mega renters, WYNDHAM, who is being served by these changes?


----------



## timeos2

*Its not the small owner who does 100's.*



wyndhamtimeshare said:


> BTW I am NOT the owner who received 740 transfers BUT how many transfers do you think Extra Holidays, Wyndham's rental arm, has received for the year?  I'll bet you it's far more than 740!
> 
> Is it abuse when one member receives 740 transfers but NOT abuse for Wyndham's Extra Holidays to receive that many or more transfers to then turn around and rent to the public?  Can't everyone see that it is the largest of ALL the mega renters, WYNDHAM, who is being served by these changes?



Of course it is, but what chance in h**l do you think we owners have to actually stop the abuses by Wyndham themselves? Being a pragmatist I simply think we should support a reasonable amount of FREE transfers between owners - I picked 5 per year but it could be 10 or 3 - and be happy we don't have zero as they are currently proposing. Our ability to influence anything Wyndham does to OUR system is extremely limited and asking too much once they set down a new policy may end up getting us that big zero.  I have only used that feature 1 time in over 12 years, but I don't want it taken away.  On the other hand I am not in favor of 100's of free transfers as that clearly isn't personal use and I think it interferes with the individual owners potential enjoyment of their FSP points. Others may disagree with that.  

I also think this never would have become an issue if some weren't abusing the system so I do think a limit is in order.  And to be completely fair yes, it should apply to Wyndham as well (lots of luck with that idea).


----------



## wyndhamtimeshare

timeos2 said:


> I also think this never would have become an issue if some weren't abusing the system so I do think a limit is in order.  And to be completely fair yes, it should apply to Wyndham as well (lots of luck with that idea).



THAT'S my point.  It IS abuse.  But it is WYNDHAM, not other owners, who is abusing our program!

I invite all to watch the video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7qELwa0Ius


----------



## Charlie D.

I support the limitation of transfers.  I also like the idea of calling those “transferred” points or something along that line.  I do not like the idea of any level of VIP being able to rent 3-4 times the amount of points that is owned and turn around and get the 25-50% discount on all of them as well as upgrades on all of them.   It pushes us mere VIP owners further down the food chain.  IMO the more the points owned and the more someone is participating in the rental of those, the louder the complaint.  

Charlie D.


----------



## garmich

Charlie D. said:


> I support the limitation of transfers.  I also like the idea of calling those “transferred” points or something along that line.  I do not like the idea of any level of VIP being able to rent 3-4 times the amount of points that is owned and turn around and get the 25-50% discount on all of them as well as upgrades on all of them.   It pushes us mere VIP owners further down the food chain.  IMO the more the points owned and the more someone is participating in the rental of those, the louder the complaint.
> 
> Charlie D.



I also support the idea of having transferred points placed in a different points category.  Any points that are transferred to a VIP owner's account should not receive the same benefits (25-50% discounts, room upgrades, unlimited HK, etc.) as their purchased VIP points. The VIP perks should be applied only to their VIP points.  The transferred points should only be allowed to be used as standard (non-VIP) points during the standard reservations window.


----------



## jdb0822

What I find dumb is that Wyndham stated to use the Guest Cert as a way to get a rental. 

2 issues with that.  First that assumes that you need the ENTIRE amount of points to make the reservation, but what if you only need another 112K added to your existing 112K ?  That won't work.

Second, the transfer of points gives YOU control of the points, a guest cert can be cancelled at anytime and your stuck.  You don't control the reservation, the point owner does.  The transfer of points gives you control over them and peace of mind.

And what I find really funny is that how every sales weasal calls purchasing a timeshare an "investment", but when some owners (megas, etc) actually find a way to make money off of the system, they put a stop to that.  If people can make money renting points, more power to them, thats capitalism.


----------



## garmich

I found this class action lawsuit that was filed in April 2008 against Wyndham, on behalf of WorldMark TS owners.  The jist of the lawsuit is very similar to what is being discussed in this forum and other forums.  Here is an excerpt from the lawsuit:

*"Pursuant to the Governing Documents, “only WorldMark's members or its Board of Directors can change the reservation guidelines and rules and ... Wyndham is required to implement the reservation guidelines and rules established by WorldMark and its members.” ( Id. ¶ 32.) Plaintiffs allege that since Wyndham acquired Trendwest, it assumed control of WorldMark's Board of Directors, and has “taken a number of actions that are contrary to the interests of WorldMark members and violate the Governing Documents,” including but not limited to creating program called TravelShare, placing limitations on Bonus Time availability, and abandoning the relative-use-value principles. ( Id. ¶ 38; see generally id. ¶¶ 39-57.)"*

The lawsuit can be found here:
http://whatswrongwithwyndham.com/Up... Development - District Court Opinion.pdf.doc

http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache...wyndham"+"transfers"&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=5&gl=us


----------



## GeNioS

timeos2 said:


> I also think this never would have become an issue if some weren't abusing the system so I do think a limit is in order.


Who could disagree with "abuses" being controlled in any environment.  However, in this as with any case, the issue is who defines "abuse," who decides how said abuse will be controlled, who enacts and enforces the control of the abuse, and who benefits from the subsequent changes?  If only one party is the answer to all the questions, you usually have a problem.

Who's to say that their real use of the word "abuse" means that, as jdb0822 already wrote, owners are making the "rent money" that Wyndham feels entitled to, even though those owners were acting within the rules of the system.  Rules put in place to encourage people to buy points.

It may be within Wyndham's right to change policies, but it seems very unethical, if not illegal, to offer benefits with the purpose of those benefits being to entice purchase, then to pull those benefits once sold.  That, alone, would be considered a bait-and-switch.  Factor in that Wyndham is not choosing to hold itself to the same policies, as others have pointed out, and it doesn't help.

The question is:  Would the people that bought points still bought them if they had known at the time of purchase that the right (check that...clearly wasn't a _right_ because they took it away), I mean _ability_ to transfer points would be taken away later?

I can't answer that question as I was never planning on renting them, but I can answer this one:  Would I have bought my points knowing other owners wouldn't be able to rent them to me?  No way.


----------



## timeos2

*Transfers required - Yes. VIP perks? Sorry, they can give and take away*



GeNioS said:


> It may be within Wyndham's right to change policies, but it seems very unethical, if not illegal, to offer benefits with the purpose of those benefits being to entice purchase, then to pull those benefits once sold.  That, alone, would be considered a bait-and-switch.  Factor in that Wyndham is not choosing to hold itself to the same policies, as others have pointed out, and it doesn't help.
> 
> The question is:  Would the people that bought points still bought them if they had known at the time of purchase that the right (check that...clearly wasn't a _right_ because they took it away), I mean _ability_ to transfer points would be taken away later?
> 
> I can't answer that question as I was never planning on renting them, but I can answer this one:  Would I have bought my points knowing other owners wouldn't be able to rent them to me?  No way.



There seems to be two different questions being asked. One is does Wyndham have the right to arbitrarily end the ability of owners to rent/transfer points between themselves? I would argue no. The original sales documents state "rent" is one of the rights granted. I do agree they can limit the number of transfers per year as that is an operaional decision.  As long as at least one or more per account is allowed I feel they met the promise of the written documents we purchased under. 

Second is the VIP / Free status of those transfers. No rights here. It was clearly stated that ALL VIP benefits or "perks" are subject to change. Paying more or depending on those features is a big mistake. Doesn't matter what they may have said - all that counts is what they wrote. Subject to change. This is change and that is what they clearly stated could happen.  So no VIP case to made.  If they get 1 or 100 transfers is up to Wyndham.  They also signed on to that.


----------



## Jya-Ning

*Limited transfer?*

Why, how can it help to security the owner's account?

Besides, in the computer age, people talking about the possiblity of make restriction on this and that, like it can be done by a programmer in 2 or 3 lines of code.  If that is that easier, shouldn't it better to allow people make 13 month ARP reservation and VIP discount and unit upgrade already? 

Since the biggest issue is to secure the owner's account, and since at this moment, the only way to do a point transfer is go through a VC, I suggest to add few security questions that owner can selected but nothing to do with SSN, or street address or phone number.  And nothing like mother's maid name, when someone want to transfer points out from an account, they have to answer the security questions.

I know it is a big change, and I am pretty sure it will increase my inconvience, but I am willing to yield to their corp's concern. 

Jya-Ning


----------



## wyndhamtimeshare

Jya-Ning said:


> Why, how can it help to security the owner's account?



It's important to understand that this ACTUALLY has NOTHING to do with "security".  This is only one in a chain of decisions that have been made primarily to target owners who have chosen to use their ownership to build a vacation rental business.  Yes, I know that is hard for some of you to stomach.  But there are some owners who have chosen to do EXACTLY what Wyndham is doing through Extra Holidays, book inventory and rent it out to the public.

Wyndham is using it's influence, illegally in my opinion, to manipulate our Board to the end that decisions are made to squash the competition of individual owners in the vacation rental business.  Is this not the kind of behavior that antitrust laws are intended to protect us from?  This is the type of behavior you expect from the Mafia, not a legitimate corporation.

Some owners are apparently naive enough to actually BELIEVE the propaganda coming from Wyndham that the changes are being made to preserve the original intent of vacation ownership, "family vacations".  If you really believe Wyndham's prime concern is preserving the integrity of your family's vacations then you HAVE just 'fallen off the turnip truck'.  This is NOTHING BUT self-serving corporate greed!

And if you think this is only going to hurt owners in the vacation rental business, again, you must have just 'fallen off the turnip truck'.  This company has clearly demonstrated that it will stop at nothing to improve it's bottom line, no matter how unethical it may be.  Once they have milked all they can from actions against owners doing rentals they will then go after any other means to improve revenue.  We will likely see all sorts of new fees for services as well as further price gouging on the fees we already pay.  WE OWNERS are THEIR 'bailout plan'.

It was stated earlier that the Directory has always stated VIP benefits are "subject to change".  However, if owners not affiliated with Wyndham were allowed to have equal representation on the Board of Directors I believe any changes would be quite different to what we have witnessed over the past few years.

Does the CONTINUED resistance to equal representation of individual owners who are NOT affiliated with Wyndham on our Board not strike anyone else as highly suspicious?

Just my thoughts, not intended to represent fact,
Allen


----------



## Caius

GeNioS said:


> The question is:  Would the people that bought points still bought them if they had known at the time of purchase that the right (check that...clearly wasn't a _right_ because they took it away), I mean _ability_ to transfer points would be taken away later?
> 
> I can't answer that question as I was never planning on renting them, but I can answer this one:  Would I have bought my points knowing other owners wouldn't be able to rent them to me?  No way.



And this is just ONE right in the trust.  If they're willing to take away one, there's no stopping them from taking away more.  Your question is even better asked with that point in mind.

There are a few users on these forums trying to make people see the issue is larger than just the points transfer right - and they're correct.  My initial feeling when all of this started was "I'll be happy if they allow us limited transfer rights."  The fact of the matter is, that's just not going to cut it long term.  Owners need a presence on the trust BOD, or our ownership will continue to be pillaged by Wyndham


----------



## wyndhamtimeshare

Caius is correct.  We need representation!

This is NOT a VIP issue.  It's an OWNER RIGHTS issue.

Allen


----------



## timeos2

*Clean House.*



wyndhamtimeshare said:


> Caius is correct.  We need representation!
> 
> This is NOT a VIP issue.  It's an OWNER RIGHTS issue.
> 
> Allen



On that point we are in 100% agreement. It is long past the time when the incestuous relationship of Wyndham and the Board ended.  No one is currently speaking for or acting in the owners best interests.


----------



## Caius

I am cutting and pasting below a post from the Wyndham Owners' Forums, where it was cut and pasted from a post on the old Yahoo group.  The more ways we have to voice our opinions regarding the program changes, the better....

"I called VIP services just now & talked to a supervisor about our 
account & during the conversation she made a comment about the new 
changes to the program. Apperently they have been getting lots of calls 
& she told me some of the people have told members to fax Wyndham about 
how unhappy they are. She stated this is the only way Wyndham can see 
the complaints of it's owners. I thought was interesting as Wyndham is 
now recording all incoming calls & hear she was telling me to contact 
them. Don't know if it will help change anything, but it can't hurt. 
The fax number she gave me was 407-370-6328 & said to include our 
member number when replying."


----------



## AK10R

My family and I stayed at the Wyndham Waikiki last February.   We rented through a gentleman who got us the dates and size we wanted on two different units we requested.  

I contacted him this year for two units at the Wyndham in mid-February; he told us that he was not able to help us because of the new policy that you all are discussing here.  

Some of you will say that if I want to stay at the Wyndham Waikiki I should buy into a time share there, and you have a valid point.  However I will never buy into a long term commitment such as I understand a time share to be, so for me it is not an option.  

What I will do is spend a few thousand dollars again this year on accommodations (I will need two units again) during my vacation.  Someone will be getting my money.  It would have trickled through to the Wyndham owners as it did last year or go to a corporation and the individual owner will use or lose their week, and will not be allowed get any of my money if they had chosen to do so, at least as I understand it.  

As an outsider and newbie I do not understand Wyndham’s reasoning to get back to the original intention of a timeshare.  As you all know the economy could be better so a higher percent of owners will be unable to use their week(s).  I think that by allowing the individual owner flexibility to recoup some of the money that they have spent, and are paying in maintenance fees it will benefit the owner.  Wyndham loses nothing because the individual owner pays regardless if the unit is occupied.  

One thing that may resolve this issues is to let Wyndham owners book the accommodations (have first crack at the weeks) then open it up 30-45 days out to the folks who buy and package the points and sell the time to consumers like myself.  

Please do not think I am trying to claim that I know what is best, I am giving my opinion and we all know what that is worth.

I do know that my money will be spent on a place to stay in Waikiki, we enjoyed the Wyndham Waikiki last year, but as things are looking now, I will spend my money on other accommodations.  

Thanks for letting me post my two cents and I wish you all a Happy New Year.  

Rich
Fairbanks, AK

ErmiR@alyeska-pipeline.com


----------



## timeos2

AK10R said:


> Some of you will say that if I want to stay at the Wyndham Waikiki I should buy into a time share there, and you have a valid point.  However I will never buy into a long term commitment such as I understand a time share to be, so for me it is not an option.
> 
> What I will do is spend a few thousand dollars again this year on accommodations (I will need two units again) during my vacation.  Someone will be getting my money.  It would have trickled through to the Wyndham owners as it did last year or go to a corporation and the individual owner will use or lose their week, and will not be allowed get any of my money if they had chosen to do so, at least as I understand it.



Actually as you are not a Wyndham owner there is NO reason you couldn't get the same deal again. You are actually getting the use of the owners points plus a guest certificate (that owner MAY have been able to get that for free in the past but now may have to pay $99-$129 to obtain it).  The new restriction on points wouldn't matter in that case (unless that owner was obtaining his points to rent that way & now can't).  

In any case there is no direct change that would have affected your rental.


----------



## AK10R

timeos2 said:


> Actually as you are not a Wyndham owner there is NO reason you couldn't get the same deal again. You are actually getting the use of the owners points plus a guest certificate (that owner MAY have been able to get that for free in the past but now may have to pay $99-$129 to obtain it).  The new restriction on points wouldn't matter in that case (unless that owner was obtaining his points to rent that way & now can't).
> 
> In any case there is no direct change that would have affected your rental.



Hmmmm…. I wish that was the case, I’d pay the $129.00 for the cert.  I must misunderstand what the gentleman’s method of acquiring rooms; I thought he is a Wyndham VIP.    

 I have inquired with three or four different people who have placed ads for the Wyndham and none of them could get me the dates I needed.  I have looked…….

I’m starting to jack this thread, so I’ll bow out.  I’ll place and add in the Rental Wanted section when it gets to the 45 day prior window.


----------



## klconley

*Guess I got an answer to my recent question*

I had asked a question about buying more used points and renting them out.  Guess the rental market is pretty much nill due to this issue of not allowing owner to owner rentals?  Is the rental market based mostly on owner to owner rentals?  Hmmm.  We were definitely lied to buy sales people this past week.  Go figure.  Good thing we didn't fall for it.


----------



## Caius

klconley said:


> I had asked a question about buying more used points and renting them out.  Guess the rental market is pretty much nill due to this issue of not allowing owner to owner rentals?




Should the current elimination of transfers stick, you would not be able to rent your extra points.  To rent to another owner, you would have to book a week then purchase a guest certificate.  Obviously, getting a desirable week then finding someone who wants to rent it adds work.  Plus the GC of $99/$129 will cut further into whatever profit you can get.  This is probably not a good time to purchase with intent to use it as income.


----------



## Jya-Ning

Caius said:


> This is probably not a good time to purchase with intent to use it as income.




I don't think anytime is a good time to do that, since you have no control of the quality you can provide, you have no control the rule, and you have no control of the cost.  Unless you can get your money returned in very short of time (like 1 year), or you know very clear that you can get it rent year in year out, it usually make no sense to do that no matter how cheap the purchase cost looks like.  One year you can not rent it out, you will add your MF into your total purchase cost.

Since you already has some, try to play with them, and if you know how to get reservation no issue, you can play to rent it out your existing points.  I don't see the purchase price get back easily.  Even if it get back to 2003 level, it is $25 per 1K.  So you still have a lot of time to play around.

Jya-Ning


----------



## Carol C

The first and only time I've ever sold Wyn pts to another Wyn owner was a really bad experience. He required me to transfer my pts to him before paying me the $5/1K I asked. Then apparently being a "mega-renter" (oh, is that the term?) he booked several vacations for renters using up my pts...so my pts no longer showed in his account. Then he had the nerve to tell me that I hadn't yet transferred my pts to him. Days of phone calls, finally I called Wyndham and they checked his account and confirmed that my points had gone into his account, and within an hour he  had used them up. So maybe this is why Wyndham is no longer allowing transfers...con-artists like that dude probably successfully stole points from unsuspecting Wyn members who gave up the good fight too soon.


----------



## Jya-Ning

Carol C said:


> The first and only time I've ever sold Wyn pts to another Wyn owner was a really bad experience. He required me to transfer my pts to him before paying me the $5/1K I asked. Then apparently being a "mega-renter" (oh, is that the term?) he booked several vacations for renters using up my pts...so my pts no longer showed in his account. Then he had the nerve to tell me that I hadn't yet transferred my pts to him. Days of phone calls, finally I called Wyndham and they checked his account and confirmed that my points had gone into his account, and within an hour he  had used them up. So maybe this is why Wyndham is no longer allowing transfers...con-artists like that dude probably successfully stole points from unsuspecting Wyn members who gave up the good fight too soon.



This is a horrible story.  Yet similar things happen everywhere around the world every min.

I would suggest Wyndham send out 2 eMail after the transfer.  One to the owners that transfer out the points saying something like we have transfer x amount of your points that end at xx/xxxx from your account end at www to another owner (name zzz) account end at www (or something like that)

and one to the owner that receive the points saying something like you have received x amount points that ends at xx/xxxx from owner (name zzz) account end www to your account end at www

Than Wyndham will no longer involved in this.

I also believe the other side need to be known in public so that other people will get a warning.  Although we don't have a system like eBay, at least we have a generic rental market that can post some issues.

Jya-Ning


----------



## rickandcindy23

Wyndham should be using emails more.  It should be the only means of sending confirmations to those who wish to get them via email.  I get sick of the confirmations coming in the mail, which takes a long time and is just a waste of paper.  I don't mind printing my confirmations myself.  

Wyndham is really not a system anyone should buy at this point, especially from the scheming, lying salespeople at the resorts.  I will make sure my opinion is known, to every person I can.  

That posting of the notice in the elevator sure sounded good to me.  

I could keep putting it in, every time they take it out.  And at the pool and hot tub, I will be talking about Wyndham's greedy corporate execs, whenever I have that chance.


----------



## garmich

*Account Security*

"Account security" is the excuse that Wyndham has used for its decision to terminate the transfer of points between owners' accounts beginning after March 31, 2009. Of course we all know that this is not the real reason for this action.

Adding more security measures would have been a much more owner-friendly solution to this "problem".............if it ever really was a problem.

Here is a simple security enhancement that is already employed by my banks and credit card issuers.  Whenever I make a change to my online profile such as: add an account, change my password or personal information, make a large transaction over a certain amount, etc., the bank or credit card issuer will immediately send me an e-mail stating that my account has been changed.  It asks me to verify that I made the change.  If it was not made by me, I can notify them immediately.  I have also received similar notices by postal mail.

Here is what Wyndham could do to add security to owner transfers.  First of all, both owners shall contact Wyndham by phone to request the transfer.  The owner must provide their phone password and answer a few verification questions.   Each owner is given a confirmation number.  At this point the transferred points are put into an escrow account.  Also, an email is sent to each owner.  Each owner must send an email reply with the confirmation number that they were given over the phone.  After both confirmation numbers have been received from each owner, the transaction is completed and the points are transferred into the owner's account.

How simple could that be?  If only one owner initiates a transfer, then no points can be tranferred.  A points transfer can only happen if both owners call Wyndham.  And the transfer can only be completed when both owners confirm the transfer by email.

What about this security feature?  All new accounts would automatically be locked to prevent transfers from being made.  The account owner could choose to keep his account locked.  And he could unlock his account if he wants to make a transfer into or out of his account.  This could be done either online or by phone.


----------



## GeNioS

Jya-Ning said:


> This is a horrible story.  Yet similar things happen everywhere around the world every min.


Agreed.  the security issue does not fly, especially when it was admitted that only 3% of owners used the feature.

It is a horrible story and I'm sorry for your loss, but someone dropped their keys today and had their car stolen easily.  Should the government start holding all our keys for us and decide when we should get to drive?

I like the ideas being pushed around here...a system could be employed like a paypal money request where both parties have to take action.  In fact, Wyndham could even perform the escrow-type service and charge a small fee for it.  If Wyndham charged a $5 or $10 fee and guaranteed the points transfer and money transfer to both parties, would anyone have a problem iwth it?  As a person who would be renting points and paying the money, if you had told me this is how it worked going in I wouldn't have minded at all.

Stubhub is a good example.  Stubhub carries extra fees and is usually a bit more money than buying tickets on eBay or Craigslist.  But they have the FanProtect Guarantee.  They guarantee the tickets that I'll get will be in the location specified, and if I get to the game and my tickets are bogus or invalid for some reason, I can call them and they will get me into the game in similar seats one way or another.  It's still a person-to-person transaction, but Stubhub puts a system in place to protect both parties.

I don't agree with the phone bit....if I can transfer thousands out of my bank account with a click, certainly I can transfer some points.   If a few paranoids or computer-illiterate people still need the phone, Wyndham can keep someone around for it.  But I wouldn't suggest anything to anyone that costs more money in this environment.

A more secure system just needs to be employed, and perhaps Wyndham can even cash in a bit.


----------



## wyndhamtimeshare

Personally, I would have no problem at all with paying a small fee for this service.

Allen


----------



## BocaBum99

wyndhamtimeshare said:


> Personally, I would have no problem at all with paying a small fee for this service.
> 
> Allen



This is probably the win-win for everyone.  Wyndhan can make money or offset fees and owners can have their transferred points.  The amount it is done can easily be regulated by the price of the transfer to keep everything else in balance.  I believe Wyndham would make more money with this approach rather than restricting the market as it is apparantly doing.


----------



## Carol C

Even though I am jaded from a bad experience transferring pts, I would use the kind of system you propose here. I would even pay a small fee for the service if it included safeguards such as you propose. You should send your ideas to Wyndham! 



garmich said:


> "Account security" is the excuse that Wyndham has used for its decision to terminate the transfer of points between owners' accounts beginning after March 31, 2009. Of course we all know that this is not the real reason for this action.
> 
> Adding more security measures would have been a much more owner-friendly solution to this "problem".............if it ever really was a problem.
> 
> Here is a simple security enhancement that is already employed by my banks and credit card issuers.  Whenever I make a change to my online profile such as: add an account, change my password or personal information, make a large transaction over a certain amount, etc., the bank or credit card issuer will immediately send me an e-mail stating that my account has been changed.  It asks me to verify that I made the change.  If it was not made by me, I can notify them immediately.  I have also received similar notices by postal mail.
> 
> Here is what Wyndham could do to add security to owner transfers.  First of all, both owners shall contact Wyndham by phone to request the transfer.  The owner must provide their phone password and answer a few verification questions.   Each owner is given a confirmation number.  At this point the transferred points are put into an escrow account.  Also, an email is sent to each owner.  Each owner must send an email reply with the confirmation number that they were given over the phone.  After both confirmation numbers have been received from each owner, the transaction is completed and the points are transferred into the owner's account.
> 
> How simple could that be?  If only one owner initiates a transfer, then no points can be tranferred.  A points transfer can only happen if both owners call Wyndham.  And the transfer can only be completed when both owners confirm the transfer by email.
> 
> What about this security feature?  All new accounts would automatically be locked to prevent transfers from being made.  The account owner could choose to keep his account locked.  And he could unlock his account if he wants to make a transfer into or out of his account.  This could be done either online or by phone.


----------



## Jya-Ning

I have rent it twice. Each time, I use paypal to pay the seller.  I add the credit card cost to it.  If Wyndham provides that kind of service, and the price is less than Paypal, I would not mind go through them.

However
1. I do know a few people has mutiple accounts and some has accounts between family member, I don't think they have money involved or security concerned.  If your middle ground is that, I doubt they will think it is any improvement.
2. Wndham's escrow process is slow, to rent a points and have to wait 6 month to get it clear, although may be very safe, may not be a good idea.  And if they have no such business process, you are asking them to create a new line of business with no support, I could not image what the cost will be.

I do think they can provide a lot of add values in a lot of their process, and make everyone willing to pay if it involves money.  But if you think their main goal is target at renting activities, I don't know if that will be the final results.

As I say before, I am very willing to yield, and my bottom line is them add some security question and everytime when I try to do something on my own points, hit me on these kind of questions.

Jya-Ning


----------



## Caius

GeNioS said:


> If Wyndham charged a $5 or $10 fee and guaranteed the points transfer and money transfer to both parties, would anyone have a problem iwth it?



The only problem is, $5 or $10 fee is not in Wyndham's vocabulary -- it'd be more like $99 or $129 :hysterical:


----------



## dcdowden

I have made four ARP reservations over the last month for January 2010.  Because they were ARP, I had to call in. Each time I called in, the VC verified my email address. One time the VC said I would be receiving the confirmation via email. I told her that on each of the prior two week's reservations, I had received paper confirmations, albeit in a new format.  She said they were told they would be sending out email, but I wound up receiving a paper confirmation for that reservation as well.  The new confirmations are nice looking and have some resort specific information included.  Unfortunately, on all of my confirmations for Royal Vista, there was a map of the Pompano Beach resorts on the back, but there were directions printed to Star Island in Orlando.  When I told the VC about that we both had a chuckle.

I strongly agree that account security is a very feeble excuse for eliminating the ability to transfer points between owners.  I have never used this capability, but it was very nice to know that capability was there for some year when I couldn't use the points or I needed more points. If Wyndham does reinstate some limited form of this, I would not be surprised to find a fee associated with it that would more than cover their costs. I would not have a big problem with that if it was comparable to something like the cost to put points in the credit pool. I do have a big problem with Wyndham's recent actions that have devalued my ownership significantly.

Doug


----------



## LauraG

*There Is Hope!  (who To Send Complaints About Wyndham Changes To)*

I would like to encourage EVERYONE to send a complaint to the Florida Division of Condominiums, Timeshares and Mobile Homes.  This is where the FLORIDA ATTORNEY GENERAL'S office is asking people to send their complaints.  There is hope!  Another owner filed a complaint and just received a response back.  They are going to assign an investigator to the case and keep him informed of their findings!  I think it's important that they receive a number of complaints, so it will help them to realize the severity/importance of the situation, and perhaps make them move quicker.  We all make a lot of great points that perhaps they haven't been made aware of.  Let's give them as much information as we can to help with the investigation!  Here was the response:

Dear Complainant:

Thank you for contacting the Division of Florida Condominiums, Timeshare, and Mobile Homes regarding your concerns.  This letter serves to inform you that we are in receipt of your complaint and that the issues are important to us.  Please be assured that we will address each issue in your complaint, and we will be keep you appropriately informed as we move through the process.  

At this time, we are reviewing your complaint and opening an investigative file.  The Division’s jurisdiction and authority is somewhat limited, and as part of our review process, we will be evaluating your complaint for areas that we may or may not be able to help you with.  It is important to identify these areas so that we can make an appropriate investigative plan.

Please remain confident that your complaint is receiving the attention it deserves.  Once it has been reviewed, an investigator will be assigned who will then be in touch with you by both letter and telephone.  Our goal is to assist you to the best of our authority and in a manner that is both timely and efficient.  

Thank you again for the opportunity to be of service to you.

Sincerely,
Shelia Fields, Administrative Assistant II
Division of Florida Condominiums, Timeshares, & Mobile Homes
BUREAU OF COMPLIANCE
400 W Robinson St, N908, Orlando, FL 32801 407-317-7226, 407.317.7230 (Fax) 
Shelia.fields@dbpr.state.fl.us

*Here is information on filing a complaint:
You may file a complaint with the Florida Division of Condominiums, Timeshares and Mobile Homes. You may download a "Timeshare" Complaint Form at www.MyFlorida.Com/dbpr  At the home page select "Direct to Our Divisions," scroll the page to find "Business Regulation" and select "Florida Division of  Condominiums, Timeshares,  and Mobile Homes. Select "Division Complaint Forms and select the "Timeshare" Complaint Form. Send the completed complaint form to: Department of Business and Professional Regulation, Florida Division of Condominiums, Timeshares and Mobile Homes 1940 N. Monroe Street, Tallahassee, Florida 32399, or via facsimile at: (850) 488-7149.  

You may call the Customer Contact Center at 850-488-1122 if you have additional questions or concerns.  The hours of operation are 8:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m., Monday through Friday*.

*Don't stop there....make sure you file a complaint with the Arkansas Attorney General as well.  The VOA is based in Arkansas.*  I am going to post this in a couple of other threads, to make sure it gets out there to people.  I hope that's okay...I know we're not really supposed to "double post," but I think this needs to get out there.


----------



## Timeshare Von

I am aware of the new policy and initially read a lot of the early posts in this thread, but not so much lately.

As a 77k pts owners, I rented out my points the first year I had the account and rented points this year to supplement mine to use them for New Orleans this coming summer . . . so I have used the "transfer between accounts" process in the past.

Today I had the occassion to call Wyndham Reservations on something else and I asked about this new policy and the concern over account security.  Here's the gist of what the VC told me:

The issue has been that people have called saying there were owner "so n so" only to later learn that wasn't the case and that the real owner had no knowledge nor did they give their permission for the transferring of points from one account to another.  The VC also stated that written correspondence has also been fraudenlently provided in support of a transfer that an owner later refuted.

Now I don't know if this is five people, 500 or 5,000 . . . but the problem does seem to have merit and give rise for concern.  How is Wyndham to know that the people representing themselves on a phone call or by written correspondence are legit?

I agree there must be some better way of managing this, perhaps creating some way through technology for one owner through their online account to authorize moving points to another person's account.  Seems pretty simple to fix but then again, who knows?

I am disappointed as I must now try to figure out how to use my 77k points contract since rentals (in both directions) was a large plus when I agreed to take it off my sister's hands 18 months ago.


----------



## garmich

LauraG said:


> *Here is information on filing a complaint:
> You may file a complaint with the Florida Division of Condominiums, Timeshares and Mobile Homes. You may download a "Timeshare" Complaint Form at www.MyFlorida.Com/dbpr  At the home page select "Direct to Our Divisions," scroll the page to find "Business Regulation" and select "Florida Division of  Condominiums, Timeshares,  and Mobile Homes. Select "Division Complaint Forms and select the "Timeshare" Complaint Form. Send the completed complaint form to: Department of Business and Professional Regulation, Florida Division of Condominiums, Timeshares and Mobile Homes 1940 N. Monroe Street, Tallahassee, Florida 32399, or via facsimile at: (850) 488-7149.
> 
> You may call the Customer Contact Center at 850-488-1122 if you have additional questions or concerns.  The hours of operation are 8:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m., Monday through Friday*.



To make it easier, here is the direct link to the Uniform Timeshare Complaint Form:
http://www.myflorida.com/dbpr/lsc/documents/complaint_english.pdf

I'm goinig to fill one out today and send it in.

Gary


----------



## LauraG

Timeshare Von said:


> Now I don't know if this is five people, 500 or 5,000 . . . but the problem does seem to have merit and give rise for concern.  How is Wyndham to know that the people representing themselves on a phone call or by written correspondence are legit?
> 
> I agree there must be some better way of managing this, perhaps creating some way through technology for one owner through their online account to authorize moving points to another person's account.  Seems pretty simple to fix but then again, who knows?



I agree this problem is legitimate, as I've spoken to someone at owner relations about it whom I trust.  However, I think Wyndham was just "waiting" for an excuse to do away with the transfers as yet another way to hurt renters and help Extra Holidays.  There is a VERY simple solution to the problem of fraudulent transactions: add a password to everyone's account that they have to give in order to make/cancel reservations, add guest names, transfer points, etc.  Many companies do this - Verizon is just one of them.  If I don't tell them my password, they won't discuss my account with me.  This is something Wyndham should have done BEFORE they had a problem with fraudulent transactions.  Verifying someone's name, e-mail address and zip code is NOT enough considering the sensitivity of these transactions.


----------



## garmich

LauraG said:


> I would like to encourage EVERYONE to send a complaint to the Florida Division of Condominiums, Timeshares and Mobile Homes.  This is where the FLORIDA ATTORNEY GENERAL'S office is asking people to send their complaints.



Laura,

On the Complaint Form, what name and address should I use for the RESPONENT (the person or company you are complaining about)?

This is the address that I have:
Wyndham Vacation Resorts, Inc.
8427 South Park Circle, Suite 500
Orlando, FL  32819

And what should I put down for Wyndham's telephone number, fax and email address and contact person?

Gary


----------



## garmich

LauraG said:


> I agree this problem is legitimate, as I've spoken to someone at owner relations about it whom I trust.  However, I think Wyndham was just "waiting" for an excuse to do away with the transfers as yet another way to hurt renters and help Extra Holidays.  There is a VERY simple solution to the problem of fraudulent transactions: add a password to everyone's account that they have to give in order to make/cancel reservations, add guest names, transfer points, etc.  Many companies do this - Verizon is just one of them.  If I don't tell them my password, they won't discuss my account with me.  This is something Wyndham should have done BEFORE they had a problem with fraudulent transactions.  Verifying someone's name, e-mail address and zip code is NOT enough considering the sensitivity of these transactions.



I agree, a password should be required for ALL transactions involving points, such as reservations, point transfers, etc.  And for point transfers, BOTH owners should be required to call Wyndham to make a points transfer request.  After BOTH owners have confirmed the transfer request, then the points could be transferred between the accounts.  This procedure should not be very hard to implement.

Gary


----------



## timeos2

*Incompetence is not a reasonable excuse*



LauraG said:


> I agree this problem is legitimate, as I've spoken to someone at owner relations about it whom I trust.  However, I think Wyndham was just "waiting" for an excuse to do away with the transfers as yet another way to hurt renters and help Extra Holidays.  There is a VERY simple solution to the problem of fraudulent transactions: add a password to everyone's account that they have to give in order to make/cancel reservations, add guest names, transfer points, etc.  Many companies do this - Verizon is just one of them.  If I don't tell them my password, they won't discuss my account with me.  This is something Wyndham should have done BEFORE they had a problem with fraudulent transactions.  Verifying someone's name, e-mail address and zip code is NOT enough considering the sensitivity of these transactions.



Legitimate? That's ridiculous. It should be a 30 second process to verify if the request is from a legitimate owner or not. Banks, credit cards, other timeshare companies do it everyday (and not at the rates Wyndham charges for so-called "management").  If it is true than it is a indictment of POOR MANAGEMENT, not a reason to end a guaranteed (not a VIP type option) part of Wyndham ownership.  Incompetence of Wyndham is not a reason to attempt to make illegal changes to what buyers purchased. There is no excuse for such a change (although I DO support a reduction in unlimited transfers as I can see where it could be abused).  

A rare legitimate reason to go after a company with every club owners may have.


----------



## bnoble

This can't be the (only) reason that transfer was eliminated, because they use the same authentication mechanisms for transfer as they use for everything else that we do with points, including booking reservations and assigning Guest Certs to it.

It's a good story, but it doesn't pass the sniff test.

There's an old saw in computer science: "The only way to make a system perfectly secure is to make it completely unusuable."  However, when we say it, we're kidding.  Wyndham apparently isn't.


----------



## Jya-Ning

Timeshare Von said:


> The issue has been that people have called saying there were owner "so n so" only to later learn that wasn't the case and that the real owner had no knowledge nor did they give their permission for the transferring of points from one account to another.  The VC also stated that written correspondence has also been fraudenlently provided in support of a transfer that an owner later refuted.




Same issue can be said to all their reservations (it either call a VC or on-line).  The only issue is at this moment, the point has been transferred out.  Although in any of their reservations, someone could have use the vaction already, but it will be less chance.  Does it means to protect owner, we should suspend the use of reservations?  So from now on, you just can not use the point?

This much I know, the party that receives the point is an owner and the account can be traced.  Not like if you pay someone by cash, the other party maybe totally faked.  Or if you wire a check to a bank, the account can be set up by a fake user.  Even in this case, I don't believe any bank will claim they will suspend the transfer money between accounts as benefits to general customers.  And I believe the people that use the bank wire transfer probably is not a great % also.

I will just add more questions when doing any activities with Wyndham if that is their concern.

They already ask my eMail, my mailing address, my name when I call to make a reservation anyway.  The problem is, all these are informations that can be get anyway.  They can easily ask me to set up a seciurity question only used to verify me as me.

Jya-Ning


----------



## LauraG

timeos2 said:


> Legitimate? That's ridiculous. It should be a 30 second process to verify if the request is from a legitimate owner or not. Banks, credit cards, other timeshare companies do it everyday (and not at the rates Wyndham charges for so-called "management").  If it is true than it is a indictment of POOR MANAGEMENT, not a reason to end a guaranteed (not a VIP type option) part of Wyndham ownership.  Incompetence of Wyndham is not a reason to attempt to make illegal changes to what buyers purchased. There is no excuse for such a change (although I DO support a reduction in unlimited transfers as I can see where it could be abused).
> 
> A rare legitimate reason to go after a company with every club owners may have.



John - I think you misread my statement.  I absolutely DO NOT think it was legitimate for Wyndham to do away with points transfers!  However, I think the PROBLEM is real and that there have been true fraudulent transactions.  This is obviously mostly Wyndham's fault, as they should be doing a better job of verifying who is on the line requesting the transfers.


----------



## LauraG

garmich said:


> Laura,
> 
> On the Complaint Form, what name and address should I use for the RESPONENT (the person or company you are complaining about)?
> 
> This is the address that I have:
> Wyndham Vacation Resorts, Inc.
> 8427 South Park Circle, Suite 500
> Orlando, FL  32819
> 
> And what should I put down for Wyndham's telephone number, fax and email address and contact person?
> 
> Gary




I would use all of Deanne Gabel's information:
(407) 345-6417  phone
(407) 370-6375  fax
Deanne.Gabel@wyndhamvo.com


----------



## LauraG

*My correspondence with Deanne (LONG)*

*I had posted this at wyndhamowners.org, but thought I should post it here, too.  I would also like to state that I am not a "mega renter," but do rent things in order to afford to stay at home with my daughter.

Here is my complaint and the correspondence between myself, my husband and Deanne Gabel since then (Deanne's responses in red):*

To Whom It May Concern:

I write this letter to not only complain about changes Wyndham Corporate has made to our Fairshare Plus plan, but to urge Wyndham to rethink these changes.  With all of the media attention on the “big three” auto makers and on corporations like Lehman Brothers and their corporate greed, I thought that other large corporations, like Wyndham, wouldn’t want to attain the same reputation.  I was unfortunately wrong.  When Wyndham did away with unlimited free guest certificates, thousands (if not tens of thousands) of us were surprised and outraged.  That wasn’t the worst part, however.  Not only did you, Wyndham, take away the unlimited free guest certificates, but you increased the fee by 500%!  The new $129 fee is drastically higher than other timeshare companies charge, and Wyndham took away one of the benefits we were “sold” on when we bought into the program.  When I think about how many millions of dollars Wyndham will make each year just because of this fee increase, it makes me sick to my stomach.  The other change made was instilling a new policy about adding guest names to reservations that are within 15 days of check-in.  Now, if I have a reservation that I cannot use, I have to fear that Wyndham will cancel the reservation and I’ll lose my points if I add a guest name.  What gives Wyndham the right to do this on something that I OWN?  We’ve been told by multiple people at Wyndham that the reservation won’t be cancelled unless we have another reservation with overlapping dates at the same resort.  Is this in writing?  Of course not, so how can I even trust anyone at Wyndham?  We can only assume that this new policy is to help Wyndham’s business – Extra Holidays.  What’s really exasperating: we’ve had countless guests have problems checking in, because the guest names were never sent from the mainframe to the resort.  We CERTAINLY shouldn’t have to pay for a service that’s not being provided.

With the holidays approaching after these changes, our family decided not to let it bother us too much.  However, Wyndham then came up with an even more outrageous change – no longer allowing the transfer of points between different accounts.  In the announcement letter, the reason given for this change was “for security reasons.”  If this was truly the reason (which we of course know is not), then we should still be able to transfer points between our own accounts.  Wyndham won’t even let us do this, in spite of the fact that we are forced to have multiple accounts due to a billing glitch in Wyndham’s system (not being able to correctly bill more than 14 contracts [or so] on one account).  We believe this change is a result of you (Wyndham) realizing the mistake you made when you increased the rental point fees.  Because the owners were not willing to pay $8-$10 per thousand to rent points from Wyndham, we (the owners) were able to rent them from other owners for considerably less.  Once you realized this, you got greedy again and decided to put an end to that as well.  Thousands of owners have been up in arms about this new policy change and we’ve been coming together in discussion online and even on the phone.  Many people were sold more points than they could possibly use each year, with the promise from their “advisor” that they could transfer their points to another owner and be compensated for them, to cover the cost of their maintenance fees.  Now what are all of these owners supposed to do with their abundance of points?  There are also some people who don’t vacation every year.  What are they supposed to do with their points that year?  With all of the mileage reward cards, it certainly wouldn’t be worth it for people to use their points for airfare.  I’ve looked at the airline partner program, and airfare through this would be much more expensive than purchasing airfare on a discount travel site.  Another thing that Wyndham hasn’t thought about: if owners have thousands (or even millions) of points that they can’t transfer to another owner, they will be forced to rent out reservations using their points.  Because so many owners don’t know how much to charge for reservations, and because they’ll want to get rid of the points they can’t use, they will rent those reservations very cheaply.  This will most certainly take away a lot of business from Extra Holidays.  Considering Wyndham is clearly making all of these benefit/policy changes to help their own rental business, this would be pretty devastating to you.

While all of us [owners] have been upset about the new policy that will eliminate the transfer of points, you (Wyndham) have been thinking up a new change to devalue our timeshares: charging for guest certificates for multiple, consecutive reservations.  This was a big concern when the new guest certificate fees were announced, but we were assured by numerous people at Wyndham that we would only have to pay for one guest certificate when the same guest has another consecutive reservation.  We just had to add the guest name online, then call to have the guest name added to the second reservation.  This was ONLY FAIR, since many reservations HAVE to be split to get the desired dates.  Clearly Wyndham doesn’t believe in what’s fair, and has no respect for its owners.  No other timeshare company does this – if you have consecutive reservations at the same resort, you are only charged one guest fee.  Why would we be charged more than one fee?  What is Wyndham’s cost for this?  Also, because most of Wyndham’s weeks only run Friday-Friday, Saturday-Saturday, or Sunday-Sunday, many reservations have to be split, particularly weekend reservations.  I was told that if we add the guest name at the time of booking, we would only be charged one guest certificate.  Here is the problem with that: your online reservation system is not set up to recognize this, so we will still be charged for two guest confirmations.  That means we HAVE to call Wyndham, and because you have so greedily decided to charge $30 extra for adding guest certificates through the call center, this means we don’t even have the option to add the guest names ourselves [for split reservations]. 

It is clear that Wyndham is trying to “shut down” the mega-renters, which would be a huge mistake.  Not only does Wyndham make millions of dollars each year off of the fees that renters pay, but renters supply Wyndham with a large amount of prospective owners at no cost to Wyndham.  Wyndham is constantly giving away free weekends at resorts in exchange for attending a timeshare presentation.  This obviously costs Wyndham money.  The renters use their own points to give you potential owners.  In fact, we’ve had one guest (that we know of) make a large purchase from Wyndham when she stayed at the Grand Desert last year.  (Also, what would happen to the extra inventory if you were to “shut down” the mega-renters?  Give the inventory to Extra Holidays so Wyndham can make even more money off of what WE own?)  It really doesn’t make sense that Wyndham would care so much about what the owners do with their own points, so long as their accounts are current.  If I buy the house next door, whose business is it if I decide to rent that house?  So long as I pay the mortgage, taxes and HOA dues on that house, that’s my business.  We owners do have a problem with the biggest mega-renter: Extra Holidays.  Why is it that a company created by Wyndham can dip into our inventory and not pay any fees for them?  I also understand that none of the money goes into the VOA trust.  

I’ve had several people call and/or e-mail me over the last year to ask my opinion of Wyndham.  Up until two months ago I recommended the program, but now I couldn’t possibly speak positively of Wyndham Corporation and of the Fairshare Plus Program.  I still believe the Wyndham resorts are beautiful, but I am completely disgusted with Wyndham Corporate.  I used to train quality assurance for a large corporation, and I know that it is between five and fifteen times cheaper to retain a current customer than to obtain a new one.  Not only that, but if one person has a bad experience with a company, they will likely tell 10 other people.  We owners have had multiple bad experiences with Wyndham, so how many people do you think we’ve all told each time?  Word of mouth is amazing, and reputations can either be ruined or made great because of it. 

Again, I urge you to rethink your decisions about the guest certificate fees and transferring of points.  There has been a lot of discussion about a class action lawsuit against Wyndham, and I don’t believe this is something to scoff at.  In spite of the fact that, according to the trust agreement, Wyndham has the right to change the policies at any time, it is absolutely against the law to use hook, bait and switch sales techniques.  We were sold Fairshare Plus points and an upgraded membership based on special benefits.  Once we bought in, Wyndham was quick to put an end to those special benefits because of your (Wyndham’s) own self-serving greed.  When I read Wyndham’s “Code of Business Conduct and Ethics for Directors,” I truly believe the Board of Directors is violating this code and there is plenty of conflict of interest.  How is it okay for Stephen Holmes to be on the board, when he is also the CEO and making plenty of money off of all of these policy changes?  The Extra Holidays program also has “conflict of interest” written all over it.  All of this is corporate fraud and we owners will not stand for it!  It is laughable to hear the recording on Wyndham’s phone lines or to read in Wyndham’s e-mailed responses: “we truly value you and want to ensure that you, your family and friends may fully enjoy all that your vacation ownership with Wyndham Vacation Resorts has to offer.”  I am 100% convinced that ALL of the changes made in the last few months are to strictly benefit Wyndham Corporate and the Extra Holidays program.

I will be sending a similar letter to the Florida Attorney General, to numerous consumer advocates, and to multiple news stations in the area.  I am completely disappointed with Wyndham Corporate and hope that you make amends with the owners soon.

Sincerely,
Laura _____ 


Dear Mr. and Mrs. _______,

I appreciate your email communication, and would like to have the opportunity tos peak with you.  Is there a number where I can reach you possibly, on Monday?

In the meantime, please allow me to share with you a communication that I have shared that explains our position a little more in detail.  Of importance to note, none of the fees that are collected in the program are collected by Wyndham Corporate.  They are all remitted to the FSP Trust to support the cost of operating the program.  This shift has allowed us to keep the FSP Program Assessment to a 1 1/12% increase in a very tough financial year for the club.

I look forward to hearing from you, so that hopefully we can have the opportunity to talk through your genuine concerns.                                                       

Thank you for your email, and your sincere concern regarding your FairShare Plus Membership.  It is with great consideration, and our sincere care for all owners, that we implement any changes whatsoever to the FairShare Plus program.  Only when it becomes clear that new events within the current business environment which negatively impact the FairShare Plus Trust, do we feel that consideration regarding change is necessary.  As we have shared in the past, as stewards of the Trust, it is our responsibility to always ensure that the rules and fees are equitable for all, so that a few owners or external businesses cannot find loopholes to take advantage of club offerings, which negatively impact your membership. 
§         The decision to eliminate the transferring of points feature was based on several considerations, most especially, ensuring the security of our owners’ accounts. 
§         We have discovered several incidents of fraudulent transactions that have occurred as a result of transferring of points, either by other owners or 3rd party companies.
§         We have received countless complaints from owners regarding their being solicited for the resale and transfer of their FairShare Plus points, as many of these groups represent themselves as a Wyndham company.
§         Additionally, based on our records, during the first 11 months of 2008, less than 3% of our owners have used this feature.  There are also several owners who are abusing this feature in connection with their commercial rental businesses, the most volume being an individual who has received 740 transfers into their account this year alone.
§         Based on this data, this feature has been taken advantage of to the average FairShare Plus member’s travel detriment, as the corresponding reservations that this type of point usage represents, are only at the most popular resorts. 
§         As we never want to be in the position to negatively impact any FairShare Plus member, The FairShare Plus Board will take into consideration your comments and concerns, and determine whether a limited Points Transfer feature is appropriate. 
§         If you used the Points Transfer feature in the past, please consider one of several other options still available, including: 
o        Worldwide Exchange. You may use your points to deposit a week into your worldwide exchange company.  You’ll receive a deposit to use to confirm a full week stay with your exchange company for up to two years from the date of deposit.
o        Converting Points to Maintenance Dollars.  This option allows you to convert your Regular Use Year points during the first 3 months of your Use Year to maintenance dollars that will be applied to your FairShare Plus fees. 
o        Points Credit Pool. If you know you will not be able to use some or all of your future year’s Regular Use Year Points, consider depositing your points into the Points Credit Pool. Those points will remain available to you for three years from the date you make the deposit. 
o        Guest Confirmations. Instead of transferring points to another owner’s account, you can book a reservation for someone else by adding a Guest Confirmation at the time of booking

Deanne Gabel 
Senior Vice President
Owner Services 
FSP Plan Manager
Wyndham Vacation Ownership 
8427 SouthPark Circle 
Orlando, FL 32819 
(407) 345-6417  phone
(407) 370-6375  fax


----------



## LauraG

*My correspondence with Deanne continued (LONG)*

(Continued from previous post)

An addition to this complaint:

Before Christmas I received a call from a couple who were thinking about making a purchase from Wyndham, wanting to know my opinion.  I was honest and let them know about all of the changes made up to that point, and urged them to do some research on the internet before purchasing.  I was very surprised to find out that their Wyndham “advisor” was trying to sell them a platinum membership and more points than they could use in a year, promising that they could rent out weeks at Bonnet Creek for $2000!  Not only do weeks not rent for that much, but this “advisor” was trying to PUSH them to rent, which Wyndham clearly “frowns upon.”  When these two new changes were made regarding the transfers of points and split reservations, I called that couple back to fill them in on Wyndham’s corporate greed.  They hadn’t gone through with the purchase after talking to me the first time, but were especially grateful and happy they didn’t make a purchase after I called them back with the latest news.

It’s time to repair Wyndham’s reputation and make us owners love you again.

Thanks for your feedback on this one.  We do not tolerate this type of misrepresentation when discovered.

Deanne Gabel 


Deanne,

I am very hesitant to speak with you on the phone, because then I have no “proof” of our conversation.  If we had a phone conversation, I would want to record the entire thing.  I’ve read on many forums that you’ve said one thing on the phone, then “take back” what you said later.  For example, apparently you personally told some owners that they would only be charged for one guest certificate for split/consecutive reservations, then a note went to the VC’s from you saying the owners will now be charged a guest confirmation for each reservation.

It’s getting late, the babysitter’s here and we’re late for an office party.  Let me sleep on it and decide if a phone conversation would be wise at this point.

Thanks,
Laura

*******************************************************
Hi Deanne, 

I would like to speak with you on the phone, but please note that I will be recording our conversation.  (Not only to have “proof” of what’s said, but since memory doesn’t always serve us humans as well as we’d like.)  I do have a two-year-old daughter, so the best time for me is about 3pm Mountain time while she naps.  (Otherwise she will just get upset if she can’t talk on the phone, too.)  Let me know if this works for you.  If there’s not time Monday, I’m flexible with the day as long as it’s during my daughter’s naptime.

Thank you,
Laura 

Ms. _____,

Thank you for your offer, but I must decline.  It does concern me however that you feel the need to record the call.

While we read the blogs as well, please know that we have 360,000 FSP owners, most of which are not running rental businesses.  Many of those that you are hearing from are operating independent rental operations, which is in direct conflict to the “Statement of Understanding” when our product is purchased.  Many of the changes of late are to address some of the concerns that have arisen from these business operations.  These individuals while terrific owners in a great many respects, have business practices that work against the general operating needs of the balance of our ownership base.  It is important to note that the fees that are defined in the program are all paid to the FSP Trust or club operation, and not the Wyndham Corporation.   

It is very much true that you only need one guest confirmation when booking your guest…..when you place the name on the booking at the time of booking, and we recommend that you add the guest at this time.  Most individuals traveling for personal or family purposes, do know this information at the time of booking.

Again, my apologies for not being able to speak with you, however I did not have any intention of recording our conversation, and cannot agree to being recorded. 

As a side note, I do just want to share with you, that it is our fundamental purpose to be sure that the majority, if not all of our owners are pleased with their ownership.  As such we make decisions to be sure that each and every one of our owners is protected and able to use their product as defined.  It would be entirely contradictory to do otherwise.  It is of course our intention to want to sell more product, in order to continue to develop great new locations for our owners to travel to and experience.  We truly understand the need to be sure that our owners are extremely happy with the products that they buy from us.

Thank you for your time, your ownership, and your sincere interest in your membership. 

Deanne Gabel 


Deanne,

I am COMPLETELY disappointed in the fact that you now won’t have a phone conversation with me.  “It does concern me however that you feel the need to record the call.”  The fact that you will NOT have a phone conversation with an owner if you know the phone call is being recorded shows exactly why I wanted to have the phone call recorded in the first place.  Countless owners have complained about you going back on your word, both after phone conversations and after VOA meetings.  I don’t know how I can have any respect for you if you won’t discuss things on the phone with me, after I spent HOURS putting together an articulate letter.  I also spent HOURS putting together a list of items to be discussed (see attached).  If you are truly grateful for “my time, my ownership and my sincere interest in my membership,” you should do me the courtesy of answering my questions, and shame on you if you refuse to. 

The bottom line is that none of the changes are justifiable, and I’ve made several points in the attached document.  “Many of the changes of late are to address some of the concerns that have arisen from these business operations.”  Why are you not stating this to the mass majority, instead of sending out “careful” communications with lies about the reasons for changes?  With that statement, you have proven my point that you are trying to shut down renters so that Extra Holidays no longer has competition.  If that’s not true, why not shut down the Extra Holidays program?  The Extra Holidays program is certainly in “direct conflict” with what’s in the best interest of the owners.  

How can you write, “it is our fundamental purpose to be sure that the majority, if not all of our owners are pleased with their ownership” and not reverse the changes recently made?  “As such we make decisions to be sure that each and every one of our owners is protected and able to use their product as defined.  It would be entirely contradictory to do otherwise.”  I agree, which is why none of the changes make sense.  ALL of the owners are affected by these changes, and hundreds (if not thousands) of people have complained.  As I stated in the attached, the people who haven’t yet complained fall into one of four categories:
1.       They haven’t had time because all of these changes happened during a very stressful time of the year (with the economy falling and the holidays).
2.       They don’t know enough about timeshare to realize the significance these changes have on devaluing their ownership.
3.       They don’t feel like Wyndham listens, so they don’t see the point in complaining.
4.       They don’t know about the changes yet.

“It is very much true that you only need one guest confirmation when booking your guest…..when you place the name on the booking at the time of booking, and we recommend that you add the guest at this time.  Most individuals traveling for personal or family purposes, do know this information at the time of booking.”  I knew this information yesterday when I tried to make a reservation, and I was STILL charged for two guest confirmations!!

Please note that I do rent units, but am not a “mega” renter.  We have an abundance of points, so I rent out units to cover our maintenance fees (something you recently SUGGESTED owners do) and to make enough money to justify staying home with my daughter.  I know exactly who I’ve been “hearing from,” and no, most of them do not have rental operations. This shows me how out of touch you are with your owners and what’s best for them.  It seems as though you have a personal problem with people who rent.  It’s clouding your judgment and causing you (and the board) to make ridiculous changes to our program.  What makes the renters bad people?  You make them sound like criminals, for heaven’s sake!  It’s not the renters who “have business practices that work against the general operating needs of the balance of our ownership base,” it’s Wyndham itself!

I would appreciate a response to the attached document, in writing.  I will only have a non-recorded phone conversation with you if the attachment is responded to first.  With God’s help I have been able to put my anger aside to really look at the changes.  I pray that God will give you the strength to look at the changes with a more open mind and with anger towards the “mega renters” set aside.

I will wait until tomorrow to submit the rest of my complaints to the Attorney General in Florida, Arkansas, and the rest of the agencies I plan to submit complaints to.

Laura 
 
*********************************************************
Deanne, 

I would also like to add that as I have been writing these letters, e-mails, and points, I do not pretend to know everything there is to know about timeshares.  However, I do know the difference between right and wrong.  I am not a litigious person, or the type to complain about a lot or about little things, but I am very passionate about what Wyndham is doing to the owners and I will stand up for what’s right.  For every complaint you’ve received, I guarantee they are speaking for at least 10 people who are stewing in silence.

We owners shouldn’t have to spend this much time and effort to get you (and the board of directors) to see the mistakes you’re making.  I should be spending my evenings with my family .  . should be happily planning my daughter’s birthday party . . . should be looking forward to our trip to San Antonio next week.  I should NOT feel upset over changes to something WE OWN, particularly when the something we own is supposed to bring us years upon years of happiness.

Laura

My husband's e-mail to Deanne:
Deanne,

You have been communicating with my wife, and I have a few things to add.  First, let me state that I echo every single one of her points.  We are completely disgusted with Wyndham at this point.

Another member just sent me a document from October 2008 that was sent by Wyndham to some select owners.  It reads: “Therefore, we ask that you kindly remove, at your earliest convenience, all of Wyndham’s Marks and copyrighted materials from any advertising materials you may be using . . . Please understand that we are not asking you to cease renting (to the extent that rental activities are permitted by your Purchase and Sale Agreement to the FairShare Plus program) or selling your vacation ownership interests or those interests that belong to others, but merely to cease using the Wyndham Marks and copyrighted materials for these commercial activities.”  This statement is VERY contradictory to what you are stating in your communications to my wife.

Also, an amendment to my wife’s previous statement: there is a FIFTH type of person who hasn’t complained to Wyndham: the type who is fed up and is just “getting out” and selling their contracts.  Disgruntled owners are paying postcard companies $3K+ to get rid of them, then they are selling on eBay.  The postcard companies are devaluing our ownerships, and that is a big problem.  Walking away IS some owners’ way of complaining.

For Wyndham to increase fees and revoke benefits because they feel renters are taking advantage of the benefits and are hurting the program is completely ridiculous.  Why are you now saying that renting something we own is a “direct conflict” with our “Statement of Understanding,” when less than 3 months ago you were agreeing in writing that the rental activities are permitted since we own the timeshares and bought into the program?

Isn’t it your job to look out for the best interests of the owners?  How are these changes going to help the “average owner?”  How are these changes going to help ANYONE but Wyndham and Extra Holidays?  I would really like to know how you feel the elimination of transfers helps ANY of the owners.  Who do you think transfers points into other people’s accounts?  The “average owner” who was sold too many points than they could use each year, with the promise that they could “rent” the points to another owner.  (Or the “average owner” who just doesn’t vacation every year and can’t do anything with their unused points.) 

Something else my wife didn’t mention: we had been discussing (with Wyndham) another large purchase until these changes were made.  We’re no longer interested since Wyndham can’t keep promises and constantly changes the benefits.  That’s $20,000-$100,000 that Wyndham just lost, and I’m just ONE owner.  Who knows how many other current owners were considering another large purchase before these changes were made.

We do sympathize with the fact that you are having a lot of complaints to respond to, especially since the board isn’t responding to ANY.  It seems as though the board has left you to fend for the company AND the VOA. We would appreciate written responses to all of the points made above and in the e-mails my wife sent.  We are both filing complaints with the Attorney Generals in Florida and Arkansas.

Since Wyndham’s best interest is what seems to be on the minds of yourself and the board of directors, it would do you all some good to look at how all of these changes are going to ruin Wyndham’s reputation.  

Sincerely,
Bryon


I will post all of my "points" that I had written out to Deanne in just a bit...


----------



## LauraG

*Points to Wyndham/Deanne about Changes*

Any Wyndham/Deanne remarks I used are in red, quotes from other owners (some of you!) are in green, and additions since sending this to Deanne are in blue.

*Guest Certificate Fees:*
• Unlimited free guest certificates was something that sold us on a Platinum membership.
• The 500% increase was shocking and completely unjustifiable.  NO OTHER timeshare company charges this kind of fee.  Here are what the other companies charge:
     o RCI: $59
     o Interval: $39
     o Disney Vacation Club: FREE
     o SFX (San Francisco Exchange): FREE for Platinum members, $39 for Gold
     o DAE (Dial-an-Exchange): FREE
     o Platinum Interchange: $35
     o Trading Places Maui: FREE
     o Trading Places International: $25-$39
     o Hawaii Timeshare Exchange: FREE
• Please realize that the guest certificate fees above are for EXCHANGES, NOT for owned weeks.  We own many other timeshares at non-Wyndham resorts, and we NEVER have to pay a guest certificate fee when we’re not using the week.  Because we OWN these points, just as if we were to own WEEKS/SPECIFIC UNITS, why should we have to pay a guest certificate fee?
• Most of the timeshare exchange companies who charge guest certificate fees exchange FULL WEEK stays.  $39 for a full week certainly isn’t as bad as $129 for 2 nights at a Wyndham resort.  If we are going to be charged guest certificate fees (which we shouldn’t be at all), it should be based on how many nights are used.
• Most owners are NOT mega-renters, so now when we want to let a family member or friends use our timeshare points, they now have to pay that extra fee.  Not a good way to “sell” our friends/family on Wyndham.
• Many times when we’ve had guests, they’ve still had trouble checking in because the guest name was never transferred from the mainframe to the resort.  (As a side note, the resorts at first didn’t accept responsibility for this problem and made it sound like WE didn’t add the guest name.)  Why should we have to pay for a service that’s not being provided?

*Adding Guest Names to Reservations Less than 15 Days Out:*
• Why are we no longer allowed to add guest names to reservations that are less than 15 days out?  If I fall ill or have something happen that doesn’t allow me to vacation, I should be allowed to add a guest name to that reservation.  Again, we OWN the points, so it shouldn’t matter to Wyndham if I want to add a guest.  Wyndham threatening to cancel a reservation that’s less than 15 days out is ridiculous.  
• For the people who do rent reservations: if they want to “risk” holding onto a unit in hopes that it will rent, isn’t that their choice?  They are risking losing all of the points for that reservation, so again, what does Wyndham care?
• Is it true that the reservation will ONLY be cancelled if there are units reserved with overlapping dates at the same resort?
• My guess is Wyndham cares because they’d rather have that inventory for Extra Holidays.  I’m sure this is also the reason the cancellation policy changed so that owners lose their points for anything cancelled less than 15 days out.

*Guest Certificates for Multiple Reservations:*
• When we no longer had unlimited free guest certificates, a big question on EVERYONE’S minds (including the VC’s) was “what about split/consecutive reservations?”  We were ASSURED by numerous people that we just needed to add the guest name to the first reservation online, then call to have an agent add the guest name to the other reservation(s) without using more guest confirmations.  The fees increased shortly after this blow, and then this policy changed as well.  However, I was told by Owner Relations that if we make multiple/consecutive reservations at the same time and add the guest name at the time of booking, we’ll only be charged for one guest confirmation.  I called today to book 9 nights at Bonnet Creek for a friend and was told I had to use two guest confirmations, in spite of the reservations being consecutive, being made at the same time, and adding the guest name at the time of booking.  I was then told that that “exception” to the new policy ONLY applies to “split” reservations.  The gal I spoke to at Owner Relations (Yorleni) said if you have consecutive reservations that total more than 7 nights, you will still be charged for two guest confirmations, since they consider that two separate reservations. I asked her how that's considered separate reservations when it's the same guest occupying the same room for the entire stay? I then told her that Bonnet Creek (and the other resorts) considers that one reservation and keeps the guest in the same room. She said that they have different rules than the resorts, and if the resorts decide to keep the guest in the same room as a courtesy, that's up to them. (By the way – this isn’t just a “courtesy” to the guest, it’s less work for the resort to not have the same guest checking in/out of multiple rooms and more units cleaned than necessary.)  Isn't that the exact same thing as a split reservation?? It really is up to the resort if they'd like to keep the guest in the same room for a full week when the reservation is split into 3 and 4 nights. I don't see how this is different at all! 
• 15 guest certificates per million points are not enough, PARTICULARLY if we have to use more than one confirmation for the same guest.  Also, because of a billing glitch in Wyndham’s system, we are forced to have a second non-Platinum account, so we don’t get any of the Platinum benefits for those points.  (Once we spend tens of thousands of dollars to buy into Platinum, Wyndham shouldn’t care so much about us adding resale contracts.)   And what about those people who don’t have that many points to get more than one free confirmation and can’t use their points each year?  They can no longer transfer points to another owner, so now they’ll have to pay $99-$129 per reservation just to use up their points.
• RCI points (I’m using RCI as an example since theirs is a point system also) does not show when weeks are split up, though they obviously are all the time.  We are charged ONE guest certificate fee, regardless of the length of stay or check-in/check-out day.  We can also search for more than 7 nights.
• The online system is not set up to recognize only using one guest confirmation for split reservations.  This means we HAVE to call to make the reservation, and since Wyndham has greedily decided to charge $129 instead of $99 to add the guest name over the phone, that means we don’t even have the option to add the guest name ourselves online to save $30!  Also, it is a HUGE pain to contact the call center.  It often takes 10 minutes to get someone on the line, most of the time the agents don’t seem to know what they’re doing, the guest names are frequently spelled wrong by the agents in spite of spelling out the names slowly, and we’re constantly put on hold for 15 minutes while they get a supervisor to add a guest confirmation back to our account.  So, not only are we getting charged $30 extra to contact the call center to add a guest name, but we are being extremely inconvenienced.  How is this fair to the owners?  Not only that, but just since this new policy went into place I’ve problems with the guest confirmations not getting added back to my account.  Solution: DON’T CHARGE FOR GUEST CERTIFICATES.  It’s less hassle for EVERYONE involved if we just go back to the way it was before the unlimited free guest certificates were taken away.
• Quote from another owner: “In fact, in May of this year, Deanne stood in front of the Owner's Group meeting in Orlando and laughed when someone suggested that WyndSham might charge two guest fees for this. She said, "no, of course not, we are reasonable, obviously if it is for a split reservation we will only charge you one guest fee." Guess what? She lied.  Today, they told me that Deanne Gabel sent out an internal memo on Christmas Eve "clarifying" the policy for split reservations. In order to only use one guest token or guest fee for a split reservation, all parts of it must be booked at the same time and the guest name added during that same phone call! Merry Christmas sucker owners! No more adding a day to an existing reservation without paying for another guest fee.  So, I have a four night reservation that cost me 36,000 points (or about $180 worth of my maintenance fees). This nice gesture of "giving" a unit to my sister ended up costing an ADDITIONAL $297 to have her name added to it!!!”
• We get our 50% discount at 60 days prior.  Often times the dates we need are split, so I can only get PART of the week at a discount.  I have to wait for the other part to be discounted as well.  I have to book the first part as soon as it’s discounted, before another owner or Extra Holidays takes the unit out of inventory.  This means I cannot make the reservations at the same time, so I will be charged a guest certificate for each reservation.


----------



## LauraG

*Points to Wyndham/Deanne about Changes continued*

(Continued from previous post)
*Transfer of Points No Longer Allowed:*
• Thousands of people were sold more points than they could possibly use in a year, with the promise that they could transfer them to another owner and be compensated by that owner.  If these people can’t transfer points, they will have an abundance of points to use.  I don’t see any practical options, even in Wyndham’s response to owner’s complaints.  One option was to rent out units . . .
      First of all, Wyndham clearly frowns on people renting the units, so I don’t know why this was even given as an option.  (Evidence in mass response to complaints: “so that a few owners or external businesses cannot find loopholes to take advantage of club offerings . . .” and “There are also several owners who are abusing this feature in connection with their commercial rental businesses.”)
      Second of all, people will rent things cheaply because they won’t know what to charge and will just want to cover their maintenance fees.  This will do two things:
         1.	Drive the value of our timeshares down and cause Wyndham to lose sales.  Who will want to buy Wyndham points when they can rent for dirt cheap?  (Many people will also be selling their Wyndham timeshares now.  Why should people spend tens/hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy from Wyndham when they can buy for $100 on eBay from a disgruntled owner?)
         2.	Take major business away from Extra Holidays.
      Third of all, many reservations are split to get the dates people need, but to get desirable dates to rent out, the reservations must be made in advance.  This means owners will be charged two guest confirmations since they won’t be adding the guest name at the time of booking.  
• The reason given for this change was to “ensure [our] accounts are being securely and accurately maintained.”  If there was a security problem, then it sounds like the agents in Owner Relations weren’t doing their jobs to make sure transfers were done properly.  Why should the owners be penalized for a problem within Wyndham staff?  Quote from another owner (paraphrasing): “How many errors in how many transactions?  How significant was it and how do we fix the problem?  The existence of errors is part of being human and errors occur all the time, all over.  Discovering errors is part of quality assurance and allows improvements to be made.  Wyndham should be looking for ways to improve the handling of transfers rather than completely eliminating feature.  Is Wyndham going to stop billing us for maintenance fees because they have made more than several errors?  Of course not, that would be silly.”
• I believe Wyndham realized they made a mistake when they increased the fees for rental points to $8-$10 from $5 per thousand.  Wyndham made a LOT of money on the rental points, so this was definitely a mistake.  People stopped renting from Wyndham and starting renting from other owners for much less.  Once Wyndham realized this, they eliminated the transfer feature.
• Response from Wyndham: We have discovered several incidents of fraudulent transactions that have occurred as a result of transferring of points, either by other owners or 3rd party companies. 
If this was really a major problem, then why hasn’t there been ANY mention of it on any of the forums or any notice in a newsletter?  There are PLENTY of other things Wyndham can do to protect owners’ accounts rather than take away a benefit:
   1.	Create a password for the accounts for verification purposes, rather than just verifying the name, e-mail address and zip code.  The current verification procedures are not secure enough, and passwords are very typical for any type of account transaction with other companies.  (This is something should be implemented right away since member numbers are on the guest confirmations.)
         2.	Charge a small fee for transfers.
         3.	Limit the transfers to maybe 25-50 per year.
As far as fraudulent transactions in the past: one of the two owners involved in a transfer had to be the cause of the fraudulent transaction, and obviously Wyndham has record of those members – why doesn’t Wyndham go after those specific owners?  
• Response from Wyndham: We have received countless complaints from owners regarding their being solicited for the resale and transfer of their FairShare Plus points, as many of these groups represent themselves as a Wyndham company.
Again, I haven’t read/heard this anywhere.  Even if this was in fact happening, why would you penalize ALL of the owners for something a VERY small fraction of owners did?  That would be like a principal punishing an entire school of 1000 kids just because he/she saw one kid being a bully.  Quote from another owner (paraphrasing): “First, define ‘countless.’ Does it mean undocumented? How many companies out there are doing what you describe? How many of these companies were reported and still exist? Second, how many of the people that complained actually wanted the transfer feature eliminated? Third, there is nothing forcing anyone to transfer their points. Fourth, the right answer is not elimination of the program but fixing the problem.  We receive scam e-mails every day, and many people are swindled out of thousands of dollars.  Would your solution be to eliminate e-mail?”
• Response from Wyndham: Additionally, based on our records, during the first 11 months of 2008, less than 3% of our owners have used this feature.  There are also several owners who are abusing this feature in connection with their commercial rental businesses, the most volume being an individual who has received 740 transfers into their account this year alone. 
First of all, if less than 3% of owners used the transfer feature, why does Wyndham care so much to take away that privilege?  If only 3% used the feature, how many fraudulent incidents could there really have been?  I’m sorry, but I don’t believe that one person received 740 transfers into their account in one year – that’s two transfers a day!  EVEN IF SOMEONE DID have that many transfers, how is it “abusing” a feature that was allowed?  And, honestly, what does Wyndham really care??  Also, if Wyndham is using the low percentage of owners using the transfer feature to make a point about the feature, why is Deanne pointing out a rare case of ONE owner out of 360,000 members?  On the other side of this, what are those people supposed to do with all of those points they once transferred to that one individual?  I think you know that the options given in your mass response are not viable.  Quote from another owner (paraphrasing): “This is probably your most flawed argument. Measuring the number of members using the program is clearly the wrong measure. The correct measure would be the percentage of total points owned by people using this feature. This is similar to when a company takes a shareholder vote - the number of shares is counted, not the number of shareholders.  As you know, that is what ownership is all about. Many Wyndham timeshare owners don't even use their timeshares. Does this mean that the timeshare program should be eliminated?”
• Response from Wyndham: Based on this data, this feature has been taken advantage of to the average FairShare Plus member’s travel detriment, as the corresponding reservations that this type of point usage represents, are only at the most popular resorts. 
Again, how is it “taking advantage” when this is something that was allowed?  I fully believe that Wyndham has decided to eliminate the competition of Extra Holidays.  Does the “average” FairShare Plus member know about Extra Holidays and the fact that Wyndham takes THEIR inventory at the “most popular resorts?”  Probably not.  Wyndham has convinced “average” members that the mega-renters are hurting them, meanwhile doing the same thing on a MUCH larger scale with things THEY own.

*All Changes:*
 Response directly to me from Deanne Gabel at Wyndham: Of importance to note, none of the fees that are collected in the program are collected by Wyndham Corporate.  They are all remitted to the FSP Trust to support the cost of operating the program.  This shift has allowed us to keep the FSP Program Assessment to a 1 1/2% increase in a very tough financial year for the club.  This is not just a “shift.”  These changes are going to make Wyndham millions (maybe billions?) of dollars a year extra, not just from the increase of fees, but possibly in the extra rental profit from Extra Holidays.  It doesn’t matter who is “collecting” the fees – they all end up at Wyndham.  Also – it’s been a tough financial year for MOST people.  By charging these extra fees and by eliminating the transfer feature, Wyndham is being selfish.  Why are Deanne and the board of directors more concerned about Wyndham than they are about the owners?  Aren’t they being paid [by us] to look out for our best interests??  Wyndham is hurting all of the owners financially during an economic downfall by taking money out of OUR pockets.  We as owners have put our trust in Deanne and the board to protect what we own.  Not only has what we own been devalued by decisions Deanne and the board made, but we can no longer trust anyone at Wyndham.  (Perhaps it’s time for a change in the staff at Wyndham and members of the board?)  These fees have been random and ramped.  The fees are not customer-oriented fees; they are company-profit-oriented fees.  If the cost of administering the program has gone up, you should increase the program fee by $.05-$.10 for everyone, instead of randomly choosing fees to increase that don’t make sense.  We know why – to get rid of the “mega renters” and help Extra Holidays.  
 Perhaps these changes are not so random – if people can’t transfer points to another owner, they’ll be forced to rent out units which requires guest certificates.  Most people don’t get many free guest certificates, so they’ll be paying a LOT of fees to Wyndham.  Where EXACTLY are all of these fees going?
 Shutting down the “mega-renters” would be a huge mistake:
         o	Wyndham makes millions (maybe billions) of dollars off of the fees and assessments that mega-renters pay each year.  
         o	Renters give Wyndham prospective owners at NO COST TO WYNDHAM. We’ve had one guest buy from Wyndham (that we know of, possibly more).  Why not take advantage of this so Wyndham doesn’t have to give away so many free weekends and other free gifts?
         o	Why does Wyndham care if an owner rents out reservations?  If I buy a house and rent it out, what does it matter so long as I am current on my mortgage, taxes, and HOA fees?

*Wyndham Timeshares Being Devalued:*
• Disney Vacation Club and Wyndham Vacation Ownership were both started 16 years ago by the same individuals.  Up until about 4 years ago, the rules were pretty much the same for both.  The difference now?  DVC timeshares often have a higher resale value now than when they were originally purchased.  Wyndham timeshares sell for pennies in comparison.  DVC also allows point transfers, charges no transaction fees, no housekeeping fees, no guest certificate fees, and you can cancel up until the day of the reservation without penalty.  DVC also doesn’t accuse people of being mega renters or try to stop resale.
• Several lawsuits are already out there against Wyndham, including a new LARGE lawsuit against Wyndham Ocean Walk.  This is certainly not good press for Wyndham.
• It is 5-15 times cheaper to keep a current customer than to obtain a new one.  Considering sales are probably down already due to the economy, why isn’t Wyndham doing more to please the current owners??
• When someone has a bad experience with a company, they are likely to tell 10 people about that experience.  I personally experience problems with Wyndham on a weekly basis, so I’ve probably told hundreds of people about the problems.
• I’ve had many people contact me to ask me for my opinion on Wyndham.  Up until a few months ago, I recommended the program.  I can NO LONGER recommend Wyndham to ANYONE.  A couple contacted me before Christmas asking me for my opinion.  I told them about the increase in rental point fees, the change to unlimited free guest certificates, and the increase in the guest certificate fee.  I advised them to research Wyndham before making a purchase.  After the last two changes – the elimination of points transfers and being charged for multiple guest certificates for consecutive reservations – I called them back.  They hadn’t made the purchase after talking to me the first time and doing their own research, but were EXTREMELY relieved and felt great about their decision not to purchase after finding out about the new changes.  (As a side note – why are advisors pushing people to buy more points than they can use, promising they can rent out weeks for $2000?  First, hardly any weeks don’t rent for that much.  Second, Wyndham CLEARLY frowns upon renting, especially as a business. The resort staff/advisors/sales staff probably can’t even keep up with all of these changes, so people are still being given the wrong information.)


----------



## LauraG

*Points to Wyndham/Deanne about Changes FINAL*

(Continued from previous post)
*Extra Holidays:*
 Why is a program created by Wyndham allowed to dip into our inventory to rent to the public? 
 Why doesn’t Extra Holidays have to charge guest certificate fees?
 I wouldn’t have AS big of a problem with Extra Holidays if I could still book things that show available in their inventory.  When the public searches for availability through Extra Holidays, they shouldn’t get MORE options than the owners get.  There are constantly things I can’t get that Extra Holidays has.  It is SO disrespectful to the owners.
 Since these are units that WE OWNERS pay for, where is the money going?  If the cost to run the ownership program has increased, why isn’t the money from Extra Holidays going back into the program?  Are our fees being used to pay for the website and marketing for Extra Holidays?  I would like to see financial records.
 Someone called me today (Sunday) who had gotten a quote from Extra Holidays and wanted to see what I would charge.  They asked about the program and wondered why Extra Holidays had things available that we didn’t.  I used this as an opportunity to tell them about Wyndham’s self-serving greed.  She ended up canceling her reservation with Extra Holidays and rented from me.
 We owners can only book at resorts up to 10 months in advance.  However, Extra Holidays is releasing OUR inventory to the general public for reservation ANYTIME.  For example, I cannot get anything for Christmas or New Year’s of 2009 right now, but if I search on Extra Holidays, I can book it.
 The bottom line is that the Extra Holidays program is in direct conflict with the best interest of the owners.  We (the owners) are paying for a program run by Wyndham and are not getting any money back – it ALL goes to Wyndham.  The program also takes away from our inventory.

*Closing Thoughts:*
• We do not feel like valued owners in ANY way.  Unless Wyndham reverses all of the changes made in the last several months, we will continue to spread the word about what an awful corporation Wyndham is.  I’ve only been an owner for a little over a year and am already fed up with Wyndham.  That’s really terrible considering we made these purchases with the mindset that we’d own them forever.  
• The board of directors for our Vacation Ownership Association is paid by Wyndham, so they have a major conflict of interest when it comes to making decisions that affect the owners.  Why won’t they allow any owners on the board?  It seems that most vacation association boards are made up of owners who VOLUNTEER.  
• Deanne Gabel refused to have a recorded phone conversation with me regarding Wyndham’s policies and my membership.  If I contact the call center, owner relations, or am contacted by someone at Wyndham, I am recorded.  If I ask not to be recorded, they end the phone call.
• From what I understand, no one from the board of directors has responded to complaints people have sent in, which I believe is just cowardly.  As far as I can tell, executives at (and people paid well by) Wyndham are just as bad as the AIG execs who spent $400,000 on a weekend retreat after just receiving a government bailout.  Perhaps the board doesn’t feel like they’ve received enough complaints to justify a response.  The people who haven’t yet complained fall into one of four categories:
    1. They haven’t had time because all of these changes happened during a very stressful time of the year (with the economy falling and the holidays).
    2. They don’t know enough about timeshare to realize the significance these changes have on devaluing their ownership.
    3. They don’t feel like Wyndham listens, so they don’t see the point in complaining.
    4. They don’t know about the changes yet.


----------



## donnaval

> • Response from Wyndham: We have received countless complaints from owners regarding their being solicited for the resale and transfer of their FairShare Plus points, as many of these groups represent themselves as a Wyndham company.



Just to comment on this one point that Deanne is attempting to use to justify this outrageous action:  Everyone who owns *any* timeshare is constantly harassed by phone solicitors about selling or renting their timeshares!  I get numerous calls a month from resale companies and those representing themselves as "official rental agents" asking about timeshares I own that are not in the Wyndham system.  

Deanne--BALONEY!

I have also downloaded the complaint form for the Florida Attorney General and will mail it off tomorrow.

I also lodged a complaint with the VC I spoke with today while making a reservation, not that I expect that will do any good.


----------



## Timeshare Von

And the most absurd thing in all of this for me is that on 12/30/08 we did the "owners update" at Palm Aire and the sales agent Jill tried to "help us" to understand the opportunity for a business model use of more points if we converted or acquired more points to go with our paltry 77k FSP and that we could rent the points to others to offset the MF's.  When I mentioned this bruhaha over the "no more transfers of points between owners" she flat out denied that would happen.

If Deanne is reading this forum, I hope that somehow she and the other morons running Wyndham figure out a way to educate their sales staff who continue to misrepresent their product and the "value" of buying retail from them.  What a fraud they commit every time they open their mouths!

I may soon be looking to dump my 77k points!  Even "free" may have been too much for me to handle.  (My fixed weeks are looking better and better.)


----------



## Sandy VDH

* Adding Guest Names to Reservations Less than 15 Days Out:*
• "Why are we no longer allowed to add guest names to reservations that are less than 15 days out? If I fall ill or have something happen that doesn’t allow me to vacation, I should be allowed to add a guest name to that reservation.   " 


I missed this point somehow.  I saw it in Laura summary post, but where is the initial discussion.  I have not located it yet.  Can anyone point me to the source or post number.

Thanks


----------



## ecwinch

LauraG said:


> The people who haven’t yet complained fall into one of four categories:
> 1. They haven’t had time because all of these changes happened during a very stressful time of the year (with the economy falling and the holidays).
> 2. They don’t know enough about timeshare to realize the significance these changes have on devaluing their ownership.
> 3. They don’t feel like Wyndham listens, so they don’t see the point in complaining.
> 4. They don’t know about the changes yet.



Or the changes do not effect them. 90% of the members probably do not use  the features that are being changed.


----------



## e.bram

Wyndham is right. Megarenters and renters in general use up prime weeks at the expense of users like myself. definatelly a step in the right direction.


----------



## rickandcindy23

e.bram said:


> Wyndham is right. Megarenters and renters in general use up prime weeks at the expense of users like myself. definatelly a step in the right direction.


Do you even own Wyndham?  I don't think so... and you (of all people) a very vocal person who dislikes the developers and the salespeople and their lies?  Your post makes no sense to me, as I have known you to be very much against these losses of benefits and value....


----------



## e.bram

rickandcindy23:
I own 2 weeks at Wyndham's Newport Overlook.
Look at my profile before making assumptions.


----------



## rickandcindy23

e.bram said:


> rickandcindy23:
> I own 2 weeks at Wyndham's Newport Overlook.
> Look at my profile before making assumptions.



Two fixed weeks, or are they in points?  I am not making any assumptions, as I know you to be against the changes and loss of benefits that developers throw at people, once they have purchased.  Blame the company, not the other owners, if you have points and want to find someone to blame that your availability is not there.  The company is renting lots of inventory themselves, so they are the most blatant mega-renter of all.


----------



## BocaBum99

e.bram said:


> Wyndham is right. Megarenters and renters in general use up prime weeks at the expense of users like myself. definatelly a step in the right direction.



Actually, your point is wrong.  You clearly do not understand how the wyndham points system works for renters.  Most megarenters book last minute reservations 60-days or less from checkin since they get 50% discounts from their Platinum VIP account.  So, they profit more by renting out excess inventory instead of prime weeks.

This helps all owners because points that would normally expire and go unused are actually getting booked less than 60-days from checkin.  It helps because those owners got something back for the points.  If they got nothing, they are more likely to default on their ownerships which really hurts the Club.


----------



## ecwinch

rickandcindy23 said:


> Do you even own Wyndham?  I don't think so... and you (of all people) a very vocal person who dislikes the developers and the salespeople and their lies?



Why does his ownership or lack of ownership, matter?



BocaBum99 said:


> This helps all owners because points that would normally expire and go unused are actually getting booked less than 60-days from checkin.  It helps because those owners got something back for the points.  If they got nothing, they are more likely to default on their ownerships which really hurts the Club.



I understand your logic - but would have to suggest that this is a very marginal gain (if any) over us having the unit vacant and not subject to wear and tear, cleaning costs, etc.  Less usage/demand tips the supply equation in our favor - potentially meaning earilier check-ins, better views, less crowded facilities, ability to add an extra day at the last minute, etc.

 And Mega-Renters do go after the super-premium weeks - ie. around major events that they can rent out at a much higher premium. And since it is a business to them, they tend to be more systematic in acquiring those weeks.

 Plus, the generalization is that true renters are going to be a little rougher on the property then owners. Go up to e-bay and look how many Wydham Panama City spring break weeks are being rented out. If that trend continues, that resort is going to be trashed in short order. 

Yes, I know -  not every college kid is going to know a 25 year old that they can take along.


----------



## bnoble

> Mega-Renters do go after the super-premium weeks - ie. around major events that they can rent out at a much higher premium.


I don't think most would---not if they're smart.  The return on investment is lower in most cases, _and_ it ties up capital for too long a period.  The discounted/upgraded weeks turn better profit, especially because you can buy distressed points for next to nothing, but still turn them around.



> the generalization is that true renters are going to be a little rougher on the property then owners.


I'd like to see evidence of this.

The net effect of the changes, as I've written elsewhere, is that the commercial renters will no longer be able to wash points through their VIP accounts, plus the cost basis (thanks to the GC fee) will go up.  This makes renting "cheap" weeks untenable, and will push all of them to go after "prime" weeks much more seriously than they do even now.

In other words, regular owners _lose_ on these new policies.  They don't win.  On the other hand, there will be less competition for "better" distressed inventory at 60 days, and "regular" VIP owners will benefit from that.


----------



## Jya-Ning

ecwinch said:


> And Mega-Renters do go after the super-premium weeks - ie. around major events that they can rent out at a much higher premium.




Transferred point can not be used before regular reservation time (10 month or within).  I would certain hope at that time, no super-premium week is available (which the home resort owner should be able to get it from 13 month to 11 month).  If that is not the case, the owner is really lack knowledge.

For that reason, I totally agree on Brian's analysis.

Jya-Ning


----------



## e.bram

I have a floating week in Newport Overlook. I did not convert to or belong to Wyndham points. The less demand for the floating weeks allows me to have a better choice of weeks. The less renters the less competation for the better weeks. in a way I am an indirect befeficiary of this new rule restricting points transfers. Anyway tyhe bylaws of my TS strictly forbids anyone from setting up a business renting out weeks at the resort(which had been ignored by Wyndham when they made it a points resort under the old rules). As another Poster pointed out the less occupancy lessens the cost of operation and translates into lower MFs.


----------



## BocaBum99

ecwinch said:


> I understand your logic - but would have to suggest that this is a very marginal gain (if any) over us having the unit vacant and not subject to wear and tear, cleaning costs, etc.  Less usage/demand tips the supply equation in our favor - potentially meaning earilier check-ins, better views, less crowded facilities, ability to add an extra day at the last minute, etc.
> 
> And Mega-Renters do go after the super-premium weeks - ie. around major events that they can rent out at a much higher premium. And since it is a business to them, they tend to be more systematic in acquiring those weeks.
> 
> Plus, the generalization is that true renters are going to be a little rougher on the property then owners. Go up to e-bay and look how many Wydham Panama City spring break weeks are being rented out. If that trend continues, that resort is going to be trashed in short order.
> 
> Yes, I know -  not every college kid is going to know a 25 year old that they can take along.



So, you like the Club is better if it has higher vacancy rates and more owners defaulting because of it.  That's a false hope because if points aren't used, then Extra Holidays rents them out.  They get the profit, the resorts get the wear and tear anyway, and you have a higher delinquency rate.

I know over a dozen mega renters.  How many do you know?  Just look at the reservations that actually rent.  You will see that it is by far the stuff that is 60-days or less from check in that is rented.  It could be holidays, but it does NOT hurt owners who want prime weeks since they can get them more than 60-days from check in.

Age and family size makes more of a difference to wear and tear than renter vs. owner.  A 65 year old couple who rents does on average less damage to a unit than a family of 4 with a 5 and 7 year old who are owners.


----------



## BocaBum99

e.bram said:


> As another Poster pointed out the less occupancy lessens the cost of operation and translates into lower MFs.



So, you believe that owners who get nothing for their weeks will keep paying their maintenance fees forever.  And, you don't think Extra Holidays is filling it up.  Interesting.


----------



## ecwinch

BocaBum99 said:


> I know over a dozen mega renters.  How many do you know?  Just look at the reservations that actually rent.  You will see that it is by far the stuff that is 60-days or less from check in that is rented.



I know 2 mega renters.

Yes, the majority of the market is within 60 days. But just look at e-bay on the number of summer beach weeks that are available at Myrtle Beach, Daytona Beach, etc. 

I understand your position that the Mega-Renters benefit the owners by providing an outlet for those owners who want to rent out their points, keeping them in the timeshare family and paying their MF. I just think that benefit is minor.

I think that is point the Mega-Renters are missing. You are a numeric minority. For some of the recent policies to be reversed, you have to convince the majority of the owners on why these changes are bad for the majority. We know why it is bad for the Mega-Renters, but I do not think my goals are aligned with yours. Yours is a profit motive.


----------



## bnoble

In the interests of full disclosure, I am a resale peon with a measly 189K points, but have also rented very infrequently.



> We know why it is bad for the Mega-Renters, but I do not think my goals are aligned with yours. Yours is a profit motive.


If a penny saved is a penny earned, we are _all_ here, at some point, for profit motive.  In the words of another TUGger, I am able to secure luxury 2BR condos for Motel 6 and Super 8 rates.  We all want the best possible value from our ownerships, and that's profit, after a fashion.

The GC fees and point transfer elimination do impact me, as a regular owner, very much.  For example, the mini-family reunion I was thinking about putting together in summer '09 would have been an extra $75 per family (four families in addition to my own, but only one free GC) with the GC fees, and impossible without point transfers---I don't own enough points, and Wyndham limits what they will rent to me.  Having both changes in place makes some things impossible with my ownership, and other things more expensive.  Neither is consistent with my personal goals.

What's more, the real impact of these changes on renters is very little.  The smart ones (and most of them are smart) will just adjust their business model to the new reality.  That adjustment means more competition for the weeks that *I* want---weeks that I book at 10 months in desirable locations and at high-demand times.  Wyndham will make some extra money along the way.  The value I can extract from the system goes down even more.

Honestly, the only people who do win with these rules are Sales (which no longer has to pay to wash points) and some VIP owners who will find less competition for 60-day inventory.  And, as a resale peon, I don't particularly much care if they win.


----------



## ecwinch

bnoble said:


> We all want the best possible value from our ownerships, and that's profit, after a fashion.
> 
> The GC fees and point transfer elimination do impact me, as a regular owner, very much.  For example, the mini-family reunion I was thinking about putting together in summer '09 would have been an extra $75 per family....
> 
> ... And, as a resale peon, I don't particularly much care if they win.



But you should care. The problem is that Mega-Renters are essentially selling a benefit we enjoy by being a member, and this directly undermine the value of being a member. You are starting to see this with the SVO rental market. This directly contributes to lower resale prices. 

I am not saying that these changes have no impact on the ordinary owner. They do, but are manageable. You probably do not host this reunion every year.

Sure, we all want to derive maximum value from our membership. And to a lesser degree, Wyndham wants us to derive additional value from our membership or they would not establish those programs. We always accuse them of being anti-owner, but it would actually be in their best interest to not offer discounts for last minute usage, as it would increase the supply of units they could rent out.

But clearly the Mega-Renters were selling those benefits at a profit. In an effort to correct this imbalance, over-corrections are natural. In the long run, a better balance will occur.


----------



## rickandcindy23

ecwinch said:


> But you should care. The problem is that Mega-Renters are essentially selling a benefit we enjoy by being a member, and this directly undermine the value of being a member. You are starting to see this with the SVO rental market. This directly contributes to lower resale prices.
> 
> I am not saying that these changes have no impact on the ordinary owner. They do, but are manageable. You probably do not host this reunion every year.
> 
> Sure, we all want to derive maximum value from our membership. And to a lesser degree, Wyndham wants us to derive additional value from our membership or they would not establish those programs. We always accuse them of being anti-owner, but it would actually be in their best interest to not offer discounts for last minute usage, as it would increase the supply of units they could rent out.
> 
> But clearly the Mega-Renters *were selling those benefits at a profit*. In an effort to correct this imbalance, over-corrections are natural. In the long run, a better balance will occur.



Wyndham itself is using your resorts for a rental income for its greedy corporation.  Don't even think they are doing anyone a favor by stopping the owners from being able to use the points they pay fees for.


----------



## e.bram

rickand cindy:
The income from Wyndham's rentals go to the trust that administers the points system, not the corporation. (or so they say).


----------



## ecwinch

rickandcindy23 said:


> Wyndham itself is using your resorts for a rental income for its greedy corporation.  Don't even think they are doing anyone a favor by stopping the owners from being able to use the points they pay fees for.



Yes, but Wyndham has an inherent reason for maintaining a floor in rental prices. As you constantly hear from a variety of sources - no one is going to buy a timeshare, when they can rent that same week for less than mf. 

Mega-Renters have no such floor. They undercut Wyndham in price, and where price is equal they offer a condo over a hotel room. And they do so by exploiting programs designed to increase owner value.

And beyond BocaBum's point that Mega-Renters help out distressed owners, I do not see where it benefits me to facilitate Mega-Renters making a profit. As an owner, why do I want to support individuals you run businesses that promote rentals and increase usage. Sorry.

Just look at Hyatt. There is now a very active e-bay market for rental Hyatt Key West units exploiting similar owner friendly policies. A trade that used to be very difficult. Now that you can rent a Key West unit on e-bay,  why buy? As someone who is seriously looking at buying there, I definitely am giving it second thoughts after looking at the rentals on e-bay.


----------



## Jya-Ning

I don't believe I know any megarenter by person.  I maybe able to guess a few people I know is depended on TS rental income, and how they do it.

The disccusion show case the flexibility of point system.  You could rely on 60 days or you could rely on premium season, or you could rely on best point/rent ratio.  If I want a system that have very less selctions when I face different situations, I have fixed week system.  If I just want to rent out, I can pick week systems.  

I am pretty sure the people that renting points, will use most of them on 60 days.  If they do get premium week, it will be their own points.  So, with or without these renting points, I am pretty sure if I want a premiun season, I will need to fight with the same %.  The problem is the people that used to rent out points, now they will have to fight in the premiun season.  So I will actually expect tougher fight in premiun season.

Not VIP, so 60 days has nothing to do with me.  Very likely, it may open more in 60 days if EH does not take it out.  If I want to take 60 days, I am pretty sure most will fall on the much closer days, I will either goes to RCI... exchange company, or more flexible myself.

By the way, although Trust allows EH take out inventory at 60 days, it never states that EH has to return the profits to the trust.  Wyndham also own 20% of points, not trust.

There are some operation income that is stated to belong to the trust, which I am pretty sure Wyndham will have very clear accounting statement sure it all goes to trust.  GC is part of them.  Of course, it will be after the cost since Wyndham is the operation company.  

But Each will decide for themselves.

Jya-Ning


----------



## Jya-Ning

ecwinch said:


> why buy?



Sounds like you will pay less if you rent.  Isn't this benefit you more?  Why you have to be the owner?  If I only care to visit Disney once for example, I don't have to be a Disney owner.  You don't have to pay developer price, you do enjoy some benefits.

The only reason you want to make the system more unflexible, is you want to buy resale, and find some cheap way to get to Plantimun, so you can beat renting price.  Or you already bought retail, and wishful that none can compete with your renting business.

Jya-Ning


----------



## ecwinch

Jya-Ning said:


> The only reason you want to make the system more unflexible, is you want to buy resale, and find some cheap way to get to Plantimun, so you can beat renting price.  Or you already bought retail, and wishful that none can compete with your renting business.
> Jya-Ning



Sorry, none of the above - bought points resale. It is just that Mega-Renters do not benefit me as an owner. Our goals are not aligned - they are in it strictly for profit - there is no altruistic motive here. In a profit-motivated environment, I should do nothing if it does not benefit me. Our goals are not aligned.


----------



## BocaBum99

e.bram said:


> rickand cindy:
> The income from Wyndham's rentals go to the trust that administers the points system, not the corporation. (or so they say).



So you believe their spin?  Extra Holidays earns a FAT 40% commission for each rental.  So, the Vacation Club trust only gets 60%.


----------



## jdb0822

my issue is with the points, I have 126K, which is doable if I use them like I have travelling off-season, but if I want to travel during a busy season, or even just want a larger accomodation, I could rent points AT A REASONABLE price, not $8-10/k.  

Further, what if I book a unit at a resort that only requires 105K ?, well, then I lose the the other 21K.  I can't bank it, I can't rent it.

I, as an owner, lose.

So, with ever loser, there must be a winner, so who is the winner in this case?

If Wyndumb wants to go thru with this, then they should allow us to bank unused points ANYTIME, therefore eliminating any of us having unused points.


----------



## e.bram

jdb0822:
For you the new rule is a detriment, but, for large points owners it is a great benefit since there is leee competition for the premium units. Since the large points owners have more votes they control the trust. As in any demcracy the  rules benefit the majority. You can always buy more points and be benefited that way by having more access to premoum(high points) units.


----------



## rickandcindy23

e.bram said:


> jdb0822:
> For you the new rule is a detriment, but, for large points owners it is a great benefit since there is leee competition for the premium units. Since the large points owners have more votes they control the trust. As in any demcracy the  rules benefit the majority. You can always buy more points and be benefited that way by having more access to premoum(high points) units.



Who are these people getting to vote?  No one has allowed me to vote on anything.  I don't think you understand that Wyndham is controlling everything, and that NO owner is getting a vote.  What in the world are you talking about? If you have fixed weeks, you can choose whatever week you want at your own resort, before any points owners can touch what you own.  Just pay your maintenance fees in advance, and you will see that you can have what you want at your resort.  A floating week owner gets zero benefit from the points side.  I don't understand where you are benefiting in any way from the changes Wyndham recently put into place.


----------



## Tia

Jya-Ning said:


> I....By the way, although Trust allows EH take out inventory at 60 days, it never states that EH has to return the profits to the trust.  .......
> Jya-Ning




Unless I missed something ...IF it is not written as Jya-Ning says... guess what!?  Just like sales they are doing only what is actually in writing and legally don't have to do anything else.


----------



## Jya-Ning

ecwinch said:


> Sorry, none of the above - bought points resale.





ecwinch said:


> why buy?




Good, you have the answer to your question already.

WIth hotel occupancy rate lower than 911, these 2 years should be golden opportunities if you can travel.



ecwinch said:


> I should do nothing if it does not benefit me. Our goals are not aligned.



Agree, if that is the case, a floating week is more benefits than a point system. 

Jya-Ning


----------



## Jya-Ning

e.bram said:


> Since the large points owners have more votes they control the trust.


I don't realize summer is already here, so you just want to generates some conversation.

1) currently, there is no vote in the trust.
2) if there is a vote which at this moment is not happening and does not see the happening, most of the Home Association type of trust is one person one votes.  

The individual resorts do have votes, the one I have is counted by person, I have not yet get to one that counts by the week you owns.

Jya-Ning


----------



## Lisa P

Like lprstn, I don't care about this change though I'd prefer if they just limit the transfers rather than take them away altogether.  It appears that this may be coming.  I want Wyndham to remain a solvent company in this tough economy and to continue to open new resort destinations.  We enjoy using our FSP points for our family's vacationing.

I have rented out or given away an occasional vacation stay and the increased GC fee is outrageous - much more concerning to me than the clamp-down on points transfers.

We've made use of the Points Credit Pool to allow us to combine points from multiple years.  This is the option to consider when planning a family reunion, which usually needs to be planned well in advance anyhow.  Remember that you can bring forward your points from several years in the future, into the Credit Pool now.  It's more flexible than at first glance.

We've also rented enough points to bring our leftovers to 28K and used it for an RCI deposit (during the last 90 days of our use year).  These have been useful for making a low-cost Orlando, Williamsburg, Branson or offseason trade.  So we've rarely had leftover points that expired.

Just a few thoughts for the average Joe to consider when looking at how this change may or may not affect you directly.


----------



## jdb0822

e.bram said:


> jdb0822:
> For you the new rule is a detriment, but, for large points owners it is a great benefit since there is leee competition for the premium units. Since the large points owners have more votes they control the trust. As in any demcracy the  rules benefit the majority. You can always buy more points and be benefited that way by having more access to premoum(high points) units.




I think you missed my point.  Owning more points would mean that I would still take the risk of having not enough points or too many points each year, with no outlet to do anything with them.  Whether I have 126K or 1 million points, the same fact is true.  

What vote are you talking about?  Seems no other owner has been asked to vote.  What are the details of this vote you submitted? If you own weeks, how would you be able to vote on a pure points issue?  Some explanation is needed here.

I am not talking premium (4 bed presidential, etc).

I am talking off-season to high or peak season.  I use 126K for a standard 2bed in off season, if I got during a high season, that would be say 154 or 170K.  So I would rent from someone 26K or 52K, etc.  I am getting the same 2bed unit, just a different time of year.

Since you obviously own weeks rather than points, you are in a different situation entirely.


----------

