# paying maintenance fees with points?



## sgosline

We are on our way shortly to a Wyndham presentation which normally I would never do but at check in the "salesman" said something about using points to pay for maintenance fees with Wyndham. We have RCIpoints- Banyan Harbor, HI plus 2 weeks at Iron Blosam that we can convert to points. I had to sell some points recently that were going to expire. We don't ski anymore and own a second home in Las Vegas so we just are not able to use all our points anymore but using them to pay maintenance fees sounds wery appealing. We could still use points for non Las Vegas vacations. I have tried to sell the 2 Iron Blosam weeks without success. Does anyone have more info about points for MF's?


----------



## simpsontruckdriver

Yes and no. You can apply Wyndham points to your MFs, but there is no way to pay ALL of them. Their other option is a Wyndham credit card, but you would need to charge $15k or more to pay off your MFs.

TS


----------



## vacationhopeful

That is a hard sales promo which is taking the idea of using YOUR WYNDHAM points to pay Wyndham MFs at a VERY BAD conversion factor to you.

Has NOTHING to do with RCI points or RCI MFs.

If you don't own Wyndham points, their developer sales rep will give you the fast talk about buying some points with NO DOWN PAYMENT (by openiing up a new credit card and charging that Wyndham points big dollor purchase on that) while taking your deeds as a PIC conversion into Wyndham Points and then will give you some BONUS POINTS free.

You will still own YOUR other Timeshares with those resort billing you for the MFs. You will own MORE timeshare points with Wyndham along with a loan and a credit card balance.

And you will NOT be the first person who got doubled talked and think that you got rid of your the older timeshares.  And somewheres, they always will manage to MAKE you a VIP for 18-24 months (their most successful sales hook).

Stay home and watch a movie in the condo. It will save you thousands of dollars.


----------



## markb53

sgosline said:


> We are on our way shortly to a Wyndham presentation which normally I would never do but at check in the "salesman" said something about using points to pay for maintenance fees with Wyndham. We have RCIpoints- Banyan Harbor, HI plus 2 weeks at Iron Blosam that we can convert to points. I had to sell some points recently that were going to expire. We don't ski anymore and own a second home in Las Vegas so we just are not able to use all our points anymore but using them to pay maintenance fees sounds wery appealing. We could still use points for non Las Vegas vacations. I have tried to sell the 2 Iron Blosam weeks without success. Does anyone have more info about points for MF's?



Not a very good deal. The conversion rate  is $.0021 per point. For example:
I have 182000 points of club Wyndham access which cost about 5.40 per 1000 points or $982.80 per year in maintainence fees. If I converted all the points to maintence fees, I would get $382.20. So I would still owe 600.60, and not get any use of my points for that year.


----------



## sgosline

Just got back. Did not buy. It was a bunch of double talk and they wanted us to buy for $18000 to get us to VIP level, blah blah blah. Did get us a Makana card which has already saved us $160 on food and activities. The exchange rate to use points for MF's was atrocious.


----------



## lcml11

sgosline said:


> Just got back. Did not buy. It was a bunch of double talk and they wanted us to buy for $18000 to get us to VIP level, blah blah blah. Did get us a Makana card which has already saved us $160 on food and activities. The exchange rate to use points for MF's was atrocious.



Thanks for the update.  Did they offer to take your other timeshares and replace them with Wyndham points?  In other words, how many points would you have gotten.


----------



## vacationhopeful

lcml11 said:


> Thanks for the update.  Did they offer to take your other timeshares and replace them with Wyndham points?  In other words, how many points would you have gotten.



Wyndham is NOT in the USED T/S business --- if the resort is a Wyndham-managed property, they will convert a FIXED or FLOAT week; if not and the resort is a RCI property, the will do a PIC contract. Either way, your old T/S is still deeded in your name. It was the Mexican timeshares that took in trades and the one set of resorts seem to supply them to Holiday resales group.


----------



## gjw007

You can also use Wyndham rewards at $60 per 10,000 points per their brochure (second to last page)
https://www.wyndhamvacationresorts.com/ffrweb/pdfs/WyndhamRewards_Brochure.pdf


----------



## ronparise

gjw007 said:


> You can also use Wyndham rewards at $60 per 10,000 points per their brochure (second to last page)
> https://www.wyndhamvacationresorts.com/ffrweb/pdfs/WyndhamRewards_Brochure.pdf



Dont confuse Wyndham rewards points with Club Wyndham timeshare points

$60 / 10,000 rewards points is correct

but also consider it takes 1000 timeshare points to get 400 rewards points


----------



## timeos2

Although many points based programs seem to offer the ability to convert points to fee payments I've never seen any case where it made financial sense to do so. In fact, if carried to extreme, you could pay massive amounts of upfront money to buy your timeshare then use the annual points (plus some cash likely needed) to pay the annual fees but therefore have no points left & thus no use. You'd be wasting your money in an endless circle of no value to you! 

Except in a case where you had a few left over points you can't easily use & could waste there are seldom any good reasons to use any points toward any annual fees due.


----------



## gjw007

ronparise said:


> Dont confuse Wyndham rewards points with Club Wyndham timeshare points
> 
> $60 / 10,000 rewards points is correct
> 
> but also consider it takes 1000 timeshare points to get 400 rewards points



True but it does give a slightly better return (I used 500,000 pts as a reference, std pts for maintenance came to roughly $1050 whereas the rewards was $1200).  Neither is a good return when you would have paid $3000 to get $1000 to $1200 back.  But it points out the need to look at all options


----------



## kalua

*maint. dollars*

personally i would let my points expire or make a reservation for someone for free before i would give them my points for maint. dollars that just me.


----------



## pacodemountainside

When I first bought from Developer some 12 years ago thought I was getting the cat's meow with all the   money saving perks.

Being a retired accountant I had both time  and expertise to   analyze.

Personally I have never found  one that saved me  anything meaningful.  The  $210  credit on MF  you get  for 100K points is a no brainier.

Others require a pencil, paper and a little figuring and deciphering.

Given that plane fares, cruises,  promotions, etc. change constantly  it is possible one can luck out for a  great  deal with Wyndham Program, but IMHO  time would be better spend looking at  many  discount web sites. Wyndham  is  in business of selling and managing TSs, not  providing vacation packages.

Likewise, if  very busy but travel a lot look at Travel Agent who generally gets commissions from  suppliers  and if a good customer  gets lots of perks  and cannot use all and pass on to good  customers.

Think about these Vacation  Clubs with couple hundred thousand members. How can they have  better buying power than Wyndham World Wide with 800K+  member, II with around 2 million and RCI around 4 million.

Using smell, reasonable and common sense  tests  with TSs will save  big bucks.


----------



## sgosline

We have 2 weeks in the RCI points system- Banyan Harbor, Kauai. Not Gold Crown but anything in Hawaii is considered premium. They were going to convert those points to  Wyndham points, make us purchase $18000 timeshare at Wyndham Kona resort and that would give us enough points to be VIP which gives you some discounts and other perks. They were not interested in our Iron Blosam units because they are just studios even though they are Silver Crown. They were offering something called PCI (personal conversion intervals?) which I did not really get but they made it sound like a big deal and said it was off the table permanently as soon as we said not interested.


----------



## RDB

*Wyndham Rewards to pay maintenance fees*

They say I can not use the rewards package toward paying the maintenance without their "flipping the switch".  I can get the Wyndham Rewards VISA card, but to have the "offsetting maint. fees" capability, I have to buy 84k UDI for $15000.  The $15000 loan can be paid via that VISA account but there is still interest to be paid.

By offsetting fees using our REWARDS points, it supposedly would pay for itself in ten years.  They excuse interest on the $15000 purchase for 6 months.  The VISA card in our case would be charged $150 per month which we would pay in full each month. We would also charge lots of other stuff and pay it off each month.  The more we charge up, the more we have accumulated to offset the cost of the new purchase and fees.

It would take a diligent accountant to make sure we didn't make a late payment, costing at least 19% interest. 

It appears the program could work, but all in all it sounds like a scam to sell 84k points for $15000 under the asssumption "you can get something for nothing".


----------



## RDB

*Extra Wyndham points excluded*

Although I already have 244k points going to waste in this year, they were intent on pushing another 84k down my throat for $15000.  In the last 2 years we have rolled excess points into RCI and still have 6 deposit weeks we aren't able to use. I try to get others to use them, but seems all have enough of their own.

We aren't well enough to use what we have now and the reps were not interested in finding a way to include these in the bargain.


----------



## markb53

RDB said:


> They say I can not use the rewards package toward paying the maintenance without their "flipping the switch".  I can get the Wyndham Rewards VISA card, but to have the "offsetting maint. fees" capability, I have to buy 84k UDI for $15000.  The $15000 loan can be paid via that VISA account but there is still interest to be paid.
> 
> By offsetting fees using our REWARDS points, it supposedly would pay for itself in ten years.  They excuse interest on the $15000 purchase for 6 months.  The VISA card in our case would be charged $150 per month which we would pay in full each month. We would also charge lots of other stuff and pay it off each month.  The more we charge up, the more we have accumulated to offset the cost of the new purchase and fees.
> 
> It would take a diligent accountant to make sure we didn't make a late payment, costing at least 19% interest.
> 
> It appears the program could work, but all in all it sounds like a scam to sell 84k points for $15000 under the asssumption "you can get something for nothing".



Seems to me you would have to spend about $3000.00 per month on the Visa card to generate enough Wyndham Reward points to pay the maintenance fees on the 84k contract. You are still going to have to pay off the $15,000. The reward points aren't going to pay for that. Maybe I am not understanding something.


----------



## markb53

RDB said:


> Although I already have 244k points going to waste in this year, they were intent on pushing another 84k down my throat for $15000.  In the last 2 years we have rolled excess points into RCI and still have 6 deposit weeks we aren't able to use. I try to get others to use them, but seems all have enough of their own.
> 
> We aren't well enough to use what we have now and the reps were not interested in finding a way to include these in the bargain.



I don't understand why you are buying more points, when you can't use the points you have!!!


----------



## kalua

*rewards for maimt fee's*

RDB  : if you are talking about wyngham reward points to pay maint's fee's i have posted on this several times in the last couple years so has others, you can get a card if you have a wyndham acct. retail or resale,it doesn't matter if you have 25,000 points or 25,000,000 points  you don't have to buy more points to use them,they  just want people to put money in their pocket,it's their job,i pay $600-$1000 a year of my maint fee's with reward points,you only get $60 per 10,000 points not good I now use another card and get $100 for 10,000 not a wyndham card. and to redeem them you just go to wyndham rewards .com


----------



## pacodemountainside

RDB said:


> They say I can not use the rewards package toward paying the maintenance without their "flipping the switch".  I can get the Wyndham Rewards VISA card, but to have the "offsetting maint. fees" capability, I have to buy 84k UDI for $15000.  The $15000 loan can be paid via that VISA account but there is still interest to be paid.
> 
> By offsetting fees using our REWARDS points, it supposedly would pay for itself in ten years.  They excuse interest on the $15000 purchase for 6 months.  The VISA card in our case would be charged $150 per month which we would pay in full each month. We would also charge lots of other stuff and pay it off each month.  The more we charge up, the more we have accumulated to offset the cost of the new purchase and fees.
> 
> It would take a diligent accountant to make sure we didn't make a late payment, costing at least 19% interest.
> 
> It appears the program could work, but all in all it sounds like a scam to sell 84k points for $15000 under the asssumption "you can get something for nothing".



Convoluted  deals like this  are a trademark of Wyndham sales weasels.

They have been ripped to shreds if you want to do some searches.

Red flags: You have to give them $15K and none of this is in  your contract.

Stay away from sales, it is hazardous to your financial health!


----------



## Broubal

*Wyndham rewards credit card question*

I have been to numerous presentations where I was told to apply and use this credit card to gain the points earned for my payments to Wyndham for the property and for my maintenance fees. I applied a few times and was turned down to poor debt to earnings ratio.  

Today at another presentation... I was told that I cannot use any points earned on the card (that I now qualify for) to pay off my maintenance fees. I was told that the only way to pay off the maint fees using this credit card was to purchase more points and then I would be able to use the card with points earned to pay off maint fees at $60 per 10,000 points.

Was I told the truth? Or are they just selling more property?


----------



## pacodemountainside

Broubal said:


> .
> 
> Was I told the truth? Or are they just selling more property?



You got it. This scam has been around for long time.

Just do the  math.


----------



## vacationhopeful

Why do you believe anything those snake oil sales persons say? 

Do you REALLY believe the* BS *of _*"owners' update"*_ is going to happen after all these years?

YES! The Wyndham Sales Staff is trying to sell you POINTS, weeks, vacations packages ===> because that is how they earn a commission as they are *LICENSE REAL ESTATE people*.

There is no free lunch with the Wyndham Hangtag desk --- they get paid by how many people they send up to meet with the commissioned sales staff. They are NOT YOUR FRIENDS.


----------



## kalua

*wyndham reward points to pay maint. fee's*

if your yearly maints. fee's were $700. you would have to charge about $100,000 a year or about , $8300. a month to pay for those $700. worth it ???


----------



## cassvilleokie

Actually using the Wyndham Rewards card as Ron put it $5,000 in charges would pay a minimum of $720.00 a year with the points to M.F. offset on the rewards website.

A lot better exchange for things like airline tickets, in the last online posting I saw 30,000 rewards points was good for a 12,000 mile ticket on major airlines. that is a a whole lot more than $180.


----------



## Broubal

*Leisure plan vs wyndham rewards*

Thanks for the info, I am aware of the points that can be earned from various cards. What I am looking for is info on what benefits I may have. I purchaed in 2008 504,000 pts through Wyndham, at that time one of the benefits was the leisure plan. Through the years the plan i think was changed to Wyndham Rewards. One of their benefits was the Wyndham Rewards Credit Card. I am now qualified for that card, but i was told at a sales presentation I can use the card for purchases and earn points, but I cannot use it to redeem points (if I want to) to pay off maintenance fees (unless i purchased additional points)

Was this just a sales ploy to get me to purchase more points? Anyone know who i can call to ask? is this a Wyndham Rewards questions?


----------



## Ron2

Broubal said:


> Was this just a sales ploy to get me to purchase more points? Anyone know who i can call to ask? is this a Wyndham Rewards questions?



If you were told you are not allowed to redeem Wyndham Rewards points toward MF without additional points purchase, then they simply lied to you. As previously stated, the conversion of Rewards points to MF is terrible. In fact, unless you spend a lot of time staying at Wyndham affiliated hotels, the Wyndham Rewards Card is not a good choice. You don’t even need to own a Wyndham timeshare to have a Wyndham Rewards Card and conversely you don’t have to have a Wyndham Rewards Card if you’re in the Wyndham Rewards Program. Awhile back Wyndham gave us bonus points for a purchase we made. We were allowed to use the points for timeshare reservations or convert them to Wyndham Rewards Points. We chose Wyndham Rewards only because we didn’t need any more reservation points. We used part of it to buy gift cards and the rest was applied to MF. Although the conversion of points to dollars was terrible, since they gave it to us, we considered it free money (I know TUGgers will say it wasn’t free because we made a purchase, but that’s another story). By the way, we did not have a Wyndham Rewards Card when we did this.

The Wyndham Rewards Program Rules are found on the Club Wyndham Owners website. If for some reason, you don't have access to the website, send a PM and I'll send the info to you.


----------



## TravLer21

*Wyndham Rewards*

Here's my situation. I have 651,000 points and have a Wyndham Rewards VISA. My monthly maintenance fee is $219.71. In order to pay my entire maintenance fee using Wyndham Rewards points, I would have to purchase $439,420.00 worth of goods annually (assuming $1=1 point). How's that for a deal. It sucks! Furthermore, we were told (at Alexandria Old Town Wyndham Resorts) that in order for us to use our Wyndham Rewards card to pay maintenance fees, we'd have to buy more points. Lies, lies, lies. To that end, I'm not buying a single additional point from Wyndham Resorts. Money is better spent elsewhere or donated to needy causes!

I have generally been pleased with staying at Wyndham Resorts properties. The best one can do is to use the points or give them to friends.


----------



## markb53

TravLer21 said:


> Here's my situation. I have 651,000 points and have a Wyndham Rewards VISA. My monthly maintenance fee is $219.71. In order to pay my entire maintenance fee using Wyndham Rewards points, I would have to purchase $439,420.00 worth of goods annually (assuming $1=1 point). How's that for a deal. It sucks! Furthermore, we were told (at Alexandria Old Town Wyndham Resorts) that in order for us to use our Wyndham Rewards card to pay maintenance fees, we'd have to buy more points. Lies, lies, lies. To that end, I'm not buying a single additional point from Wyndham Resorts. Money is better spent elsewhere or donated to needy causes!
> 
> I have generally been pleased with staying at Wyndham Resorts properties. The best one can do is to use the points or give them to friends.



It is actually 2 points for each dollar spent. Which works out to about a 1.2% return if you use it on maintenance fees. Most cash back cards do about 1% or so. So it is about average among credit cards that pay some kind of reward. Still you would have to put upwards of $210,000.00 on the card each year in order to pay all your maintenance fees. That is certainly not in my income bracket. I put everything I can on my airline miles card, but it is not anywhere near that. 



Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


----------



## TravLer21

*Maintenance fees*

Thanks, Mark, for the correction. I'm not in that income bracket either. I'll likely go back to using my US Airways MasterCard for miles.

Best wishes.

Bill


----------

