# Why are ownders dumping Wyndham?



## JimS (Mar 29, 2009)

I was thinking of buying in and yet there seems to be more and more owners dumping their ownership to PCCs which are then dumping them on Ebay. Is it just the economy? I realize that timeshares are a luxury. Is this the only reason? I read where Wyndham has changed certain proctices and the change upset owners. I always regarded Wyndham as a very flexible system which I hoped to get into. Is now the time?


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## timeos2 (Mar 29, 2009)

*It's all how you buy*



JimS said:


> I was thinking of buying in and yet there seems to be more and more owners dumping their ownership to PCCs which are then dumping them on Ebay. Is it just the economy? I realize that timeshares are a luxury. Is this the only reason? I read where Wyndham has changed certain proctices and the change upset owners. I always regarded Wyndham as a very flexible system which I hoped to get into. Is now the time?



Purchased at resale Wyndham is a great value. Some of the recent changes have not been owner friendly but, with the glaring exception of the no rental points to other owners, can largely be ignored or worked around.  At resale prices (which are around $.01-.02 per point) the Wyndham system is hard to beat for value. 

But far too many Wyndham owners got in at retail price (of course EVERY purchase was at retail at some time but recently the spread between retail and resale is so great that any retail purchase is bordering on being a complete ripoff of the buyer. How many people can think a loss of 90% or more of the purchase price on the day the ability to rescind is a good deal?).
Those owners are the ones desperate to dump the ownership and understandably are completely disillusioned with Wyndham (and maybe timeshares in general after such a complete hosing on value for the dollar).  The really sad part is they  cannot sell unless they pay off the original purchase price, then can only get a few pennies on resale AND may even PAY more for a PCC or others to resell the ownership. They get shafted over and over again on what should have been a great purchase in a flexible system with plenty of internal resorts and more. But the loss of value on retail purchases sours it all and many simply cannot get by that.  

Buy Wyndham only on resale and you'll have one of the great bargains in timeshare systems. Buy retail and you have made a huge financial mistake that is hard to findany value in.  The fees and other costs paid by retail buyers are exactly the same as those for resale but one group pays tens of thousands more upfront. Tough (well, actually impossible) to make that a good value no matter how much the sales weasels try to spin it and when it's your bank account being drained by unnecessary costs of purchase at retail.


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## vacationhopeful (Mar 29, 2009)

Some of the changes are very unpopular with megaowners who are also running a fulltime rental business.  Adding a $99 Guest Certificate onto the points MF cost, Paypal costs, eBay costs, transaction fee costs becomes too much for including a profit when your rental pool is losing their jobs or can go onto Expedia which offers the same places cheaper.  Those cheaper Expedia units can come from the 90% of the excess inventory at the 60 day mark or from units (fixed weeks, floating weeks or points) who have NOT paid their MFs, but the debt is reduced by only the pennies leftover from the "normal costs to rent".  Wyndham rents the units, keeps almost all the money, and lets the HOA be bill collectors or incur the costs of foreclosuring - which is spread around to the other "paying" TS MF owners.  Plus, Wyndham gets new sales prospects to pitch their products to (who think all their vacations will be that cheap).

As for regular vacation interval owners in Wyndham, families are struggling to pay the mtg, light and gasoline bills.  TS's are luxuries and an ongoing expense.  The retired owners who have 401Ks are truely concerned about the fall of the stock market and housing values.  How many 70+ yo retirees are capable of working 20+ hours a week to pay their TS MFs, esp if the job is as a greeter at Walmart or cashier at lunch at McDonald's?  Plus, the retirees' adult children most likely have to pay for colleges for either themselves or their children, if they still have jobs.  

Yes, it is partly the economy.  It is partly the Wyndham changes.  It is partly owners who are unhappy with this TS product and just want to dump it.

JMHO,


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## Cathyb (Mar 29, 2009)

timeOs2:  With Wyndham ebay costs at .01 and .20 cost -- what minimum amount would get you one bedrooms in top places like the Carribbean or major cities?


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## timeos2 (Mar 29, 2009)

*Not too many points but don't be short either*



Cathyb said:


> timeOs2:  With Wyndham ebay costs at .01 and .20 cost -- what minimum amount would get you one bedrooms in top places like the Carribbean or major cities?



Something between 185,000 and 250,000 annual points have been more than enough for us. Once you own them you can bank, pool, borrow and rent to maximize the value needed.  Naturally you need more for the highest demand periods, bigger units, prime locations or any combination of those. It is the ability to adjust what you want to use each year and where along with the flexibility of how you get the required points that makes the system so great. You are not locked into one resort or one size unit or dependency on third party exchange companies to get what you want, when you want and where you want.  That flexibility requires a bit of a learning curve but it's well worth it in the long run. Even at the 250,000 mark you'll be paying around $5000 plus closing at the high end of $.02/point. What a bargain (no joke in this one)!


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## Lisa P (Mar 29, 2009)

There are more Wyndham owners than owners with any other timeshare company in the world - it's the largest and Club Wyndham (aka FairShare Plus) is the points program which has been in existence for the longest in North America.  There are a lot of older Wyndham owners who don't know how to sell their ownerships or they've left them to heirs who don't know either.  All of this combines with the poor economy and the changes that have impacted mega-points rental businesses and there are naturally more Wyndham resales available on eBay by the PCCs than any other company.

Further, many people who bought fixed weeks many years ago, later converted to points but their mid- and off-season weeks don't yield much in the way of points for the maint fees they pay.  Therefore, they don't sell well at all.  So evaluate the points value for the purchase _and_ maint fee costs when looking for a good deal.

Yes, I think it's a great time to buy rock-bottom priced resales at Wyndham, as long as you can afford the maint fees and are confident that you'll use it.  If we had the cash flow right now, we'd buy more Wyndham points.  We love our 154K.  DH's business is just steady, not exactly gangbusters right now though.  Maybe in a year or two.    The resorts are still terrific!


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## Debbyd57 (Mar 29, 2009)

We are not mega renters (only own 500K points), but are now running into a problem with having too many weeks to use.  FF used to let us rent out our points which we did when we didn't need them.  Now without the ability to rent out excess points, we are left with more weeks and points than we can use which means we will have to sell some of them.  We are trying to hold out until the economy turns around but it is difficult.  There may be others in the same predicament as us that are selling excess points.


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## R&K (Mar 29, 2009)

Does Wyndham offer EOY points? 

How many points for a 1 bedroom prime week at most resorts?


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## falmouth3 (Mar 29, 2009)

Yes they do.  Do a search on ebay for "wyndham timeshare points" and you'll get a number of hits.  Browse through them and you'll find some eoy.

Good luck.

Sue


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## R&K (Mar 29, 2009)

Nice  now what would be a good points to start with? To get into a 1 bedroom at prime season.

I also understand I can buy points if I need them. Correct?


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## ausman (Mar 29, 2009)

R&K said:


> How many points for a 1 bedroom prime week at most resorts?



I would think you would want access to ALL 1BR units at the time you buy resale.

As Wyndham builds new resorts the points values continue to rise. Worldmark owners have issue with that, Wyndham owners generally seem to accept that newer resorts will entail more points.

Points values have moved from 105K-->126K-->140K-->182K and continue. Oceanside in CA is now 203K, Ocean Blvd in NC is 250K, some of the HI resorts are point inflated also up to 250K. 

You would probably be best served asking specifically about certain resorts that you have interest in. I for example probably would not stay in the CA and HI resorts utilising Wyndham and am really only using a small subset of the available resorts.

Alternatively you could join http://forums.WyndhamOwners.org and have access to all the point charts easily. I

If not you could build your own by looking at ebay ads and saving the point chart information or contacting some of the sellers who say they will supply points charts.


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## Darius08 (Mar 29, 2009)

*Wyndham*

Wyndham points can be a great buy. However, points are not tangible (meaning I can write out 10 million points or 100 million...there is no limit) so there can be a very difficult time finding the week/location you desire. When you consider the maintenance fees for 500k points are the vacations really worth it? You could save thousands renting from an existing owner on multiple by owner sites. Timeshare owners may have different opinions however, I cannot justify a $2500 maintenance fee for a resort you could have rented on your own for much less. 
The new price for guests within the Wyndham program has slightly declined the wholesale rentals taking place but only by a margin. The unfortunate thing is when an owner has to buy 200k+ points just to make a reservation for a red week. They are not only competing with other owners but wholesale rental accounts as well.


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## ausman (Mar 29, 2009)

R&K said:


> I also understand I can buy points if I need them. Correct?



Yes BUT a recent change was that Wyndham changed the charge to do so from $5 to $8 within the 90 day period and $10 to rent points a partial night outside the 90 days . They also eliminated the ability to buy/rent points from other members.

So the ability has been severely curtailed and now is prohibitive or non existant.
I wouldn't rely on this anymore.


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## ausman (Mar 29, 2009)

Darius08 said:


> However, points are not tangible (meaning I can write out 10 million points or 100 million...there is no limit) so there can be a very difficult time finding the week/location you desire.



This is nonsence and more applicable to the dollar than a timeshare discussion.


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## Lisa P (Mar 29, 2009)

basham said:


> Points values have moved from 105K-->126K-->140K-->182K and continue. Oceanside in CA is now 203K, Ocean Blvd in NC is 250K, some of the HI resorts are point inflated also up to 250K.


Yes and no.  Oceanside in CA is crazy but there's such limited inventory that you may need to actually pay that if you really want the reservation.

The HI rates are very high but unless you need weeks 51-52, the bulk spacebankings at RCI allow for pretty easy upgrades from lower points deposits for the price of an exchange fee (Wyndham to Wyndham trade into sister resort).

Ocean Blvd in SC is 224K for a lower floor ocean view, 250K for upper floors.  But fortunately, if you can travel prior to the 3rd week of June or after the 2nd week of August, it's a pretty easy trade into a 2BR in Tower 4 (across the street) at Ocean Blvd through RCI with 42K weeks - again, placing an ongoing search prior to the bulk spacebankings.  We got two 2BRs this way so we're bringing friends this summer.     If you need prime July weeks in MB, you'll need to book on points but at least there are alternatives.  A 1BR at Westwinds is only 126K and at SeaWatch, it's 140K-154K, depending on the building.

If I only needed a 1BR and I didn't plan on visiting the newest beach and urban locations every single year "in season," then I'd get 154K.  If I did want to be ready for more of the pricier reservations, then 200-224K would be preferable.  With care in selecting your home resort(s), this could cost under $800/year.... or a whole lot more, so look carefully.  HTH!


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## randyz (Mar 31, 2009)

R&K said:


> Does Wyndham offer EOY points?
> 
> How many points for a 1 bedroom prime week at most resorts?



For the higher end resorts:
San Diego - 231,000
Waikiki  189,000 to 425,000 (very variable depending on week and floor, most in 200's)
Kona - 154,000 or 203,000  (2 locations)
Daytona - 140,000
Bonnet Creek Orlando - 166,000
Vegas - 154,000
San Francisco - 300,000

These are high end resorts at prime time. Bonnett Creek for example can be had for 84,000 in low season.

Another thing to note is many more resorts can be had for 100 - 150K. If you had 200k points you could do a lower value resort one year, credit pool the balance and do a higher end (eg 240k) resort the next.

Also recall that Interval and RCI exchanges are 105k for 1bdr and 154k for 2bdr. This could affect the point value purchased.

Randy


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## Timeshare Von (Mar 31, 2009)

It should be pointed out in this discussion that some of the Wyndham inventory can be easily obtained via RCI exchanges with fixed weeks.  I regularly get Kona Hawaiian Village, sometimes even with my 1BR Kingsgate shoulder week (wk 18 - early May).  I have also gotten their other two sister resorts on the Big Island through RCI with average fixed week traders.


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## Bill4728 (Mar 31, 2009)

timeos2 said:


> Even at the 250,000 mark you'll be paying around $5000 plus closing at the high end of $.02/point. What a bargain (no joke in this one)!



You would be very unlucky if you had to pay anywhere near $5000 for a 250K pts wydham TS. I've seen lots for $2500 and heard of many for less than $1000. Can you get the newest Wyndham resorts resale for $1000? no but at many of the older Wyndham resorts you can find deals for 250K pts for $1000 or less.  That is my idea of a bargain!!


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## Kozman (Mar 31, 2009)

As a Wyndham owner, I've found that you can get a great deal by depositing 28K points with RCI.  This coming July I used a 28K deposit to get a week at Smoky Mountain in a 2br sleeps 8.  The total cost was a lot less than using the points chart!


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## jemmielou (Jun 13, 2009)

*exchange with RCI*

remember that you have to pay the exhange fee with RCI of 164.00


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## Culli (Jun 13, 2009)

Bill4728 said:


> You would be very unlucky if you had to pay anywhere near $5000 for a 250K pts wydham TS. I've seen lots for $2500 and heard of many for less than $1000. Can you get the newest Wyndham resorts resale for $1000? no but at many of the older Wyndham resorts you can find deals for 250K pts for $1000 or less.  That is my idea of a bargain!!



Very true with the cost, I got 3 contracts over the last year or so for a total of 500k pts and including closing costs and resort transfer fees I don't even have $2500 into it.  Watch the MF as I have seen them hit over $6 per 1k, IMO if you can keep it at $5 per 1k or less you are doing pretty good.  Yes you can get cheaper MF but you will probably pay more up front and they are hard to find.  

Good pts on the RCI deposits, I have only done it once but have heard people with good luck.  The one I did I got a 3br at GC for a week my daughter is off school, yeah I got the RCI fee but since I was going to eat the pts at the end of year anyway......I feel it was a steal


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## g-force (Jun 14, 2009)

I'm not familiar with how wyndham works but I'm just basing this question to what I read in the posts. Why does wyndham allows you to exchange your points to RCI for lower points? What I mean is for example , to get a 1BR in las vegas for 1wk you have to use 154,000 pts but if you exchange to RCI you can deposit 70,000 pts with the same resort or comparable resort. This is just an example. With 154,000pts I can get 2 vacations by exchanging to RCI but the downsidee is I might not get a wyndham resort. Am I understanding this correctly? Or am I totally wrong?


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## Cathyb (Jun 14, 2009)

LisaP:  We are Worldmark owners so I am trying to understand Wyndham -- are you 'assigned' a home resort with Wyndham and that determines your annual fees?  Could you or someone else please elaborate a little on this.

With Worldmark there is no home resort and fees are paid according to the number of credits you own.


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## EAM (Jun 14, 2009)

*Club Wyndham Select vs. Club Wyndham Access*

With Club Wyndham Select (I think I have the right term), you buy points at a specific resort and your maintenance fees are tied to that resort.  You also have the right to reserve at 10-13 months at the resort where you own.  Club Wyndham Access is a new program that is more like Worldmark; as I understand it, in Access your points are not tied to a specific resort and you have the right to reserve at some (NOT ALL) resorts at 10-13 months before checkin.  The resorts you can reserve at 10-13 months with Access have usually been still available less than 10 months before checkin.


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## EAM (Jun 14, 2009)

g-force said:


> I'm not familiar with how Wyndham works but I'm just basing this question to what I read in the posts. Why does Wyndham allows you to exchange your points to RCI for lower points? What I mean is for example , to get a 1BR in las vegas for 1wk you have to use 154,000 pts but if you exchange to RCI you can deposit 70,000 pts with the same resort or comparable resort. This is just an example. With 154,000pts I can get 2 vacations by exchanging to RCI but the downsidee is I might not get a wyndham resort. Am I understanding this correctly? Or am I totally wrong?


You are understanding it correctly.  It all depends on the trading power RCI assigns to the deposited points and the destination week.  If there is an excess supply of weeks at the destination resort and area, a 70K (or even 28K) deposit will pull it.  If there is high demand and low supply for the destination week, you might not be able to get it even with a  3BR red points deposit.


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## Lisa P (Jun 14, 2009)

g-force said:


> Why does wyndham allows you to exchange your points to RCI for lower points? What I mean is for example , to get a 1BR in las vegas for 1wk you have to use 154,000 pts but if you exchange to RCI you can deposit 70,000 pts with the same resort or comparable resort.


Actually, it's RCI, not Wyndham, which allows this.  It's really no different from someone who owns at studio lockoff at a Marriott resort and they deposit it with II, then trade up into another Marriott resort in a 1BR or 2BR.  This is called an "internal exchange" through an "external exchange company."  The exchange companies give a small trade power "boost" to requests to trade back into a sister resort with the same management company.  This encourages owners to deposit with the exchange companies (and pay them fees) rather than exchange truly internally or push their management to establish internal exchange apart from the exchange company.

Since Wyndham practices bulk spacebanking, where they drop a whole month's worth of deposits into RCI at once, the supply temporarily exceeds demand and your lowly studio points deposit is able to snag a larger or redder unit.   



Cathyb said:


> LisaP:  We are Worldmark owners so I am trying to understand Wyndham -- are you 'assigned' a home resort with Wyndham and that determines your annual fees?  Could you or someone else please elaborate a little on this.
> 
> With Worldmark there is no home resort and fees are paid according to the number of credits you own.


You're not really assigned a home resort.  With Wyndham, you purchase a contract which is tied to a home resort, either deeded to an underlying timeshare unit there or to a percentage of the whole resort.  So you select it when buy.  Your maint fees are based on whatever is happening there at your home resort, whether you ever vacation there or not.  This is why the maint fees are so much higher at urban resorts (higher labor costs and taxes) and oceanfront resorts (higher insurance premiums and weathering) than at quieter locations.  With WorldMark, your maint fees are averaged over the costs of maintaining ALL of their resorts together.  But as they respond to requests to build more in urban and oceanfront locations, the higher the averaged fees will get but it's very, very gradual and less subject to assessments overall.  HTH.


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## e.bram (Jun 14, 2009)

Your home resort gets you ARP there, which can be invaluable in reserving at short season high demand area TSes. Also might get you a more desirable unit(ie. high floor waterfront). Well worth the extra MFs


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## ace2000 (Jun 14, 2009)

g-force said:


> I'm not familiar with how wyndham works but I'm just basing this question to what I read in the posts. Why does wyndham allows you to exchange your points to RCI for lower points? What I mean is for example , to get a 1BR in las vegas for 1wk you have to use 154,000 pts but if you exchange to RCI you can deposit 70,000 pts with the same resort or comparable resort. This is just an example. With 154,000pts I can get 2 vacations by exchanging to RCI but the downsidee is I might not get a wyndham resort. Am I understanding this correctly? Or am I totally wrong?


 
RCI allows you to make a deposit of a week into their system. 

Wyndham allows you to break up your points into blue studio weeks. So, 112K points can be split up into 4 blue studio weeks of 28K. That makes that 112K capable of pulling in 4 RCI trades. 

Keep in mind, these are low-valued weeks and won't pull much in return. But they will occasionally pull in space-banked weeks and also late inventory. I've pulled in several 2BR weeks with a 28K deposit.

Also keep in mind that each RCI trade will cost you the fee of approx. $170 a piece.


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## tenntom (Jun 17, 2009)

We are seling 511,000 points because our children and grand children want more privacy so we rented a beach house this year and will continue to do so..But vacations are always great...


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## esk444 (Jun 19, 2009)

People who pay PCC's to unload their timeshares almost always fits this profile:

1) Bought a timeshare years ago, usually 10-20+ years.
2) Circumstances changed in their lives and they never use it anymore.
3) Never had success with exchanges, renting, and it was a hassle finding a family member or friend who wanted to use it every year.
4) Sick of paying ever escalating MF.  
5) Tried to sell in the past, often paying upfront fee with no success.

I'm guessing with a Wyndham, you'll probably see older, lower point resorts on ebay than you will the newer, more upscale places.  Those owners would fit the profile better.


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## Kozman (Jun 20, 2009)

Debbyd57 said:


> We are not mega renters (only own 500K points), but are now running into a problem with having too many weeks to use.  FF used to let us rent out our points which we did when we didn't need them.  Now without the ability to rent out excess points, we are left with more weeks and points than we can use which means we will have to sell some of them.  We are trying to hold out until the economy turns around but it is difficult.  There may be others in the same predicament as us that are selling excess points.



If you purchased retail, you have VIP Gold.  Therefore, you can make reservations for others and get a free guest certificate.  As VIP Gold you get 10 free per year.  I think regular non-VIP get one free guest certificate per year.  So, if you can get one renter to a 2br prime time you can unload some of your points.


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## deejay (Jun 23, 2009)

I've considering adding Wyndham to my portfolio, but it looks like I would need about 200,000 points. What's the average maintenance fee for that many points?


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## Culli (Jun 23, 2009)

deejay said:


> I've considering adding Wyndham to my portfolio, but it looks like I would need about 200,000 points. What's the average maintenance fee for that many points?



That can vary between high 3's to in the 7's per 1k pts.  I have bought resale and my MF average right around $5 per 1k.  I feel if you can keep it around $5 per 1k you are doing pretty good as to get much cheaper I have found the asking prices to be higher.  Others probably have different opinions on it.


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## wsrobinson (Jul 3, 2009)

*New Wyndham Owner*

I just bought 168K points at Wyndham Smokey Mountains (biennial usage) for $769 (including $300 closing cost, $236 current yr maint fee, $125 resort transfer fee and bid amt of $108).  Is that a good deal?  They seem to keep plummeting on eBay.  I saw 186K annual on Edisto Island not sell with an opening bid of $1 and closing costs of $635 total.  It would seem to me to be a good deal to get 186K annual points for $636.  Am I missing something?


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## timeos2 (Jul 3, 2009)

*Where's the joy?*



wsrobinson said:


> I just bought 168K points at Wyndham Smokey Mountains (biennial usage) for $769 (including $300 closing cost, $236 current yr maint fee, $125 resort transfer fee and bid amt of $108).  Is that a good deal?  They seem to keep plummeting on eBay.  I saw 186K annual on Edisto Island not sell with an opening bid of $1 and closing costs of $635 total.  It would seem to me to be a good deal to get 186K annual points for $636.  Am I missing something?



Yes, you most certainly are. The "joy" of paying $15 -20,000 for the exact same points from a Wyndham sales weasel.  Of course if you DID pay the extra $14-19,000 you'd be eligable for the "free" VIP designation. With that you might (remember, all VIP "perks" are subject to change/discontinuation) get a free newspaper (the USA Today not the local one for the resort area you may visit) and the possibility of a "free" upgrade to the next larger size unit IF there are any available. And possibly a discount in points used to reserve some use time IF you wait until very close to the actual start date. So those "free" perks cost you thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars - no wonder they can give them away!  

Points are points and the true cost is the ongoing annual fees. Buying them initially as inexpensively as possible only makes sense as you seem to have caught on to.  You won't miss the "joy" of a major contribution to the Weasel Maintenance and Operation Fund that your paying retail price would have meant. You get nothing else of guaranteed value except that one time "donation" to a charity no one wants to help support. You did well.


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## bnoble (Jul 3, 2009)

Considering Smoky has one of the better MF/K ratios at the UDI resorts, I think that was a fine deal.


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## letsgobobby (Dec 19, 2009)

out of curiosity: there is currently an E BAY auction for 1.4 million points, about $4500 annual MFs. Can a buyer split these up, say selling half? 750,000 points and an annual MF of $2250 +/- seems pretty good, if you can sell the other half (or have a ton of vacation time).

of course who knows where the auction will end up.


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## Jya-Ning (Dec 19, 2009)

letsgobobby said:


> out of curiosity: there is currently an E BAY auction for 1.4 million points, about $4500 annual MFs. Can a buyer split these up, say selling half? 750,000 points and an annual MF of $2250 +/- seems pretty good, if you can sell the other half (or have a ton of vacation time).
> 
> of course who knows where the auction will end up.



If it is all in the same deed, you can not, it will cost too much.

Jya-Ning


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## am1 (Dec 19, 2009)

I would not buy a Wyndham timeshare under 300k.  The closing costs and the higher program fee make small points packages cost prohibitive.    Even with free closing and a $1 purchase price there is very little value.  It may be worth it if you are currently paying for an RCI account or are just planning to deposit 28k weeks into RCI.  The hassle of being associated with Wyndham and learning the system for just one week a year is not worth the headache.  

Also if you ever wanted to get rid of it then it would be very hard to do it without coming out of pocket.  

Just wait till you can buy at least 300k.


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## BocaBum99 (Dec 19, 2009)

esk444 said:


> People who pay PCC's to unload their timeshares almost always fits this profile:
> 
> 1) Bought a timeshare years ago, usually 10-20+ years.
> 2) Circumstances changed in their lives and they never use it anymore.
> ...



Not sure where you got your information, but this is NOT correct.  Number 1 is absolutely not true.  People who dump their timeshares to PCCs bought as recently as this year.  LOTS of them.


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## BocaBum99 (Dec 19, 2009)

timeos2 said:


> Purchased at resale Wyndham is a great value. Some of the recent changes have not been owner friendly but, with the glaring exception of the no rental points to other owners, can largely be ignored or worked around.  At resale prices (which are around $.01-.02 per point) the Wyndham system is hard to beat for value.
> 
> But far too many Wyndham owners got in at retail price (of course EVERY purchase was at retail at some time but recently the spread between retail and resale is so great that any retail purchase is bordering on being a complete ripoff of the buyer. How many people can think a loss of 90% or more of the purchase price on the day the ability to rescind is a good deal?).
> Those owners are the ones desperate to dump the ownership and understandably are completely disillusioned with Wyndham (and maybe timeshares in general after such a complete hosing on value for the dollar).  The really sad part is they  cannot sell unless they pay off the original purchase price, then can only get a few pennies on resale AND may even PAY more for a PCC or others to resell the ownership. They get shafted over and over again on what should have been a great purchase in a flexible system with plenty of internal resorts and more. But the loss of value on retail purchases sours it all and many simply cannot get by that.
> ...



There is no need to purchase Wyndham points.  You can rent them for below maintenance fees.  Paying any money to purchase Wyndham points is a waste of money.  That can change if Wyndham cuts maintenance fee budgets by 25% across the board and passes on the savings to owners.  Then, they need to get rid of their stupid nickle and diming fees.   If you want to travel 3 or 4 days per trip, you end up paying extra housekeeping and transaction fees.  If you have 2 units at a single resort, they charge you $99.  Wyndham is one of the top 3 worst timesharing companies on the planet.


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## ace2000 (Dec 19, 2009)

BocaBum99 said:


> There is no need to purchase Wyndham points. You can rent them for below maintenance fees.


 
Not true. Wyndham points can no longer be rented... you can rent a booked reservation, but not points.


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## BocaBum99 (Dec 19, 2009)

vacationhopeful said:


> Some of the changes are very unpopular with megaowners who are also running a fulltime rental business.  Adding a $99 Guest Certificate onto the points MF cost, Paypal costs, eBay costs, transaction fee costs becomes too much for including a profit when your rental pool is losing their jobs or can go onto Expedia which offers the same places cheaper.  Those cheaper Expedia units can come from the 90% of the excess inventory at the 60 day mark or from units (fixed weeks, floating weeks or points) who have NOT paid their MFs, but the debt is reduced by only the pennies leftover from the "normal costs to rent".  Wyndham rents the units, keeps almost all the money, and lets the HOA be bill collectors or incur the costs of foreclosuring - which is spread around to the other "paying" TS MF owners.  Plus, Wyndham gets new sales prospects to pitch their products to (who think all their vacations will be that cheap).
> 
> JMHO,



Just 2 years ago, the easiest rental business on the planet was becoming a megarenter with Wyndham.  All you needed to do was get a platinum VIP account and grab reservations at 50% discounts within the 60-day booking window and rent away.  It was like shooting fish in a barrel.  Since you could rent points from Wyndham at $5/1000, you also had unlimited inventory.  When they raised the fee to $8/1000 and added the guest certificate fee, that hurt the megarenters, but didn't put them out of business.  The death blow to megarenters was when they disallowed transfer of points between accounts.  By eliminating the unlimited cheap inventory, they put out of business most of the small time renters.  

However, a new rental market is emerging for Wyndham.  I expect that within a year or two, it will be nearly as big as it was last year.  However, it's no longer possible to do it as a small time player.  You truly have to be a big time renter.  The only people who are getting screwed are owners who used to be able to recover their maintenance fees by renting their points to megarenters.  Now, they can only get 1/2 if they are lucky.  All this will lead to is a greater default rate of owners who can't pay their maintenance fees and can't cover them with rentals anymore.


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## BocaBum99 (Dec 19, 2009)

ace2000 said:


> Not true. Wyndham points can no longer be rented... you can rent a booked reservation, but not points.



It's only not true for someone not creative enough to pull it off.  You can't transfer the points, but you can still rent them.  Given how Wyndham put all the small time megarenters out of business, all the competition has been wiped out.  It's like shooting fish in a barrel now.


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## ace2000 (Dec 19, 2009)

BocaBum99 said:


> It's only not true for someone not creative enough to pull it off. You can't transfer the points, but you can still rent them. Given how Wyndham put all the small time megarenters out of business, all the competition has been wiped out. It's like shooting fish in a barrel now.


 
I guess you're playing word games with 'renting points' then.  You can advertise a set amount of points, book a reservation for someone else, but you cannot rent your points out directly.


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## BocaBum99 (Dec 19, 2009)

ace2000 said:


> I guess you're playing word games with 'renting points' then.  You can advertise a set amount of points, book a reservation for someone else, but you cannot rent your points out directly.



I am NOT playing word games.  I bought 1.5M Wyndham points yesterday and sold them on the same day.  I sold the POINTS.  I didn't rent any reservations.  Just because you can't figure it out, don't assume that others can't either.


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## timeos2 (Dec 19, 2009)

*No system is good enough to say they couldn't cut costs*



BocaBum99 said:


> There is no need to purchase Wyndham points.  You can rent them for below maintenance fees.  Paying any money to purchase Wyndham points is a waste of money.  That can change if Wyndham cuts maintenance fee budgets by 25% across the board and passes on the savings to owners.  Then, they need to get rid of their stupid nickle and diming fees.   If you want to travel 3 or 4 days per trip, you end up paying extra housekeeping and transaction fees.  If you have 2 units at a single resort, they charge you $99.  Wyndham is one of the top 3 worst timesharing companies on the planet.



The same could be said for any of the systems such as Bluegreen, DRI, etc. Renting is always cheaper and has no ongoing obligations as you do if you commit to a purchase.  Every system could bring things into better value for the dollar if they cut 25% (or even 10-15%) on the maintenance fees. Some do have more onerous fee structures than others, although I have never had a problem with the Wyndham fees (never paid one except pooling cost yet in over a decade) but I do know some that have issues with that especially for short stays.  The same can even be said for weeks owner based programs both for the potential for better value with lower fees and that renting will be cheaper than owning.  

If looked at strictly from a financial view there are very few, maybe no, timeshares that make sense to own. But if you want to be assured of location, dates, unit types, etc then the cost of ownership vs the work needed to rent every use might be worth the difference. One thing for sure. There is no timeshare or system worth developer prices. Not one. No exceptions anymore. There are some that are better values than others at resale but any timeshare should be purchased resale if at all.


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## ace2000 (Dec 19, 2009)

BocaBum99 said:


> I am NOT playing word games. I bought 1.5M Wyndham points yesterday and sold them on the same day. I sold the POINTS. I didn't rent any reservations. Just because you can't figure it out, don't assume that others can't either.


 
LOL - so you're going to keep it a mystery then?  We'll just assume you are correct even though you won't explain the details and Wyndham very clearly states that you cannot rent your points to other owners.


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## BocaBum99 (Dec 19, 2009)

ace2000 said:


> LOL - so you're going to keep it a mystery then?  We'll just assume you are correct even though you won't explain the details and Wyndham very clearly states that you cannot rent your points to other owners.



I think you need to challenge your own assumptions and definitions.  You assumed that Wyndham said you can't rent your points.  What they actually said was that you can't TRANSFER your points.  You equate renting with transferring.  That is the fundamental flaw in your thinking which leads you to say things that are false.

Any owner can offer their 100,000 Wyndham points for rent.  If they offer them for $4/1000, the renter pays them $400.  The detail of whether or not the reservation is booked on the owners account or the renters account is not material to the fact that the points are rented.  PWNED.


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## BocaBum99 (Dec 19, 2009)

timeos2 said:


> The same could be said for any of the systems such as Bluegreen, DRI, etc. Renting is always cheaper and has no ongoing obligations as you do if you commit to a purchase.  Every system could bring things into better value for the dollar if they cut 25% (or even 10-15%) on the maintenance fees. Some do have more onerous fee structures than others, although I have never had a problem with the Wyndham fees (never paid one except pooling cost yet in over a decade) but I do know some that have issues with that especially for short stays.  The same can even be said for weeks owner based programs both for the potential for better value with lower fees and that renting will be cheaper than owning.
> 
> If looked at strictly from a financial view there are very few, maybe no, timeshares that make sense to own. But if you want to be assured of location, dates, unit types, etc then the cost of ownership vs the work needed to rent every use might be worth the difference. One thing for sure. There is no timeshare or system worth developer prices. Not one. No exceptions anymore. There are some that are better values than others at resale but any timeshare should be purchased resale if at all.



No, that's NOT true.  You make a general statement that is false.  All you have to do any reasonable rent vs. own analysis and you will see that Nearly 100% of Wyndham points ownerships are not better when owned.  

There are many ownerships where owning is better than renting even in today's market.  I can prove it with a simple spreadsheet.

Wyndham can be worth it if you use RCI to trade back into Wyndham resorts and that is your primary reason for owning it.


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## ace2000 (Dec 19, 2009)

BocaBum99 said:


> I think you need to challenge your own assumptions and definitions. You assumed that Wyndham said you can't rent your points. What they actually said was that you can't TRANSFER your points. You equate renting with transferring. That is the fundamental flaw in your thinking which leads you to say things that are false.
> 
> Any owner can offer their 100,000 Wyndham points for rent. If they offer them for $4/1000, the renter pays them $400. The detail of whether or not the reservation is booked on the owners account or the renters account is not material to the fact that the points are rented. PWNED.


 
So, what happens after you get the points rented?  You have to book a reservation for them because the points can't be transferred, correct?

Like I said earlier, we're playing silly word games here.


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## bnoble (Dec 19, 2009)

ace2000 said:


> So, what happens after you get the points rented?  You have to book a reservation for them because the points can't be transferred, correct?



Not necessarily.  It depends on who you mean when you say "you".

DVC used to allow unlimited point transfers, and a few very enterprising people made a nice business renting points from other members, transferring them in, and renting reservations to other people.

To attempt to put a stop to this (along with point washing and a few other odds and ends), DVC added a rule that you could only have at most one transfer, in OR out, in any given account for any given use year.

The mega-renters' response?  They now have themselves added as "Associate Members" to the original owners' accounts---which gives them the authority to make reservations in an owner's name without having to involve the owner.  From an owner's perspective, this is almost identical to a transfer.  In particular, the owner doesn't actually need to do anything.  You need to trust the mega-renter a little more, but there is at least one DVC mega-renter who has built a very successful business out of this.  And, it has been perhaps *too* successful, because Mickey recently changed the rules limiting the number of accounts on which any one individual can be an Associate member.

But, with Wyndham---and its online reservation capability---this model would be even easier.  It's a little more work for the mega-renter, because you have to manage lots of little distinct pots of inventory, but it's not *that* much more work.


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## ace2000 (Dec 19, 2009)

BocaBum99 said:


> There is no need to purchase Wyndham points. You can rent them for below maintenance fees.


 
Here's the original quote...  Boca or BNoble, tell us all where you 'can rent them for below maintenance fees'????  Please enlighten us all...


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## Jya-Ning (Dec 19, 2009)

ace2000 said:


> Here's the original quote...  Boca or BNoble, tell us all where you 'can rent them for below maintenance fees'????  Please enlighten us all...



Go to forums.atozed.com, check "I have point to rent", and see what the rental market it is.

But, the rental market is not going to stay in current economic situation.  And although I have not check, I don't think it is 100% down to MF.  Maybe 70% of the time though.

The owner post there are renting the point.  The only question is who will doing the reservation.

Jya-Ning


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## ace2000 (Dec 19, 2009)

Jya-Ning said:


> Go to forums.atozed.com, check "I have point to rent", and see what the rental market it is.
> 
> But, the rental market is not going to stay in current economic situation. And although I have not check, I don't think it is 100% down to MF. Maybe 70% of the time though.
> 
> ...


 
And you have just stated what I said earlier. And like I said earlier, we are playing word games here.  I won't be holding my breath waiting for a reply from bnoble or boca on where one can 'rent' points cheaper than the maintenance fees either.


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## Jya-Ning (Dec 19, 2009)

ace2000 said:


> And you have just stated what I said earlier. And like I said earlier, we are playing word games here.  I won't be holding my breath waiting for a reply from bnoble or boca on where one can 'rent' points cheaper than the maintenance fees either.



Maybe different maybe the same.  When I think of rent a reservation, I expect the reservation already made.  When I think rent point, I will expect I as an rental can determine where to use these points.  In other word, I may use the same point amount for 2 or 3 trips.

But they basic says the same thing, even when the transfer still allow.  

With transfer, the other side will need to be owner though.

I am pretty sure rent out reservation still beat the MF most of the time.  If not, most of the mega renter will already dump their business.

But for non-VIP owner, although the MF is the same, with no upgrade and discount, you may find sometimes you can not beat the MF.  But that happen even before the adjustment.  Of course, now add $99 instead of $30 makes a big difference on a lot of equations.

Jya-Ning


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## bnoble (Dec 19, 2009)

> I won't be holding my breath waiting for a reply from bnoble or boca on where one can 'rent' points cheaper than the maintenance fees either.



Jim's not going to tell you, because that's part of his business advantage.  I don't have such a business, so I'm happy to speculate.  

We're at the point where most of the Wyndham deeds have crept over $5/K. Tom Cornelius has 14 different Wyndham deeds available for sale.  Only two are under $5/K.  The average across the 14 is $5.30.  Tom generally avoids the more expensive MF/K deeds, because they are too hard to sell, so the real average is probably higher.  

Folks at atozed are generally advertising availability between $4.50-$6.  Most are at $5.25 or below.  Those are asking prices, for people who still have to do all the work to reserve, and they generally include GC fees (though not always).  If you tell them you'll take all their points, and do all the work, you can probably negotiate a lower price.

So, it seems pretty easy to obtain points for less than your typical MF.  And that's only for MFs.  It ignores any acquisition costs.  At Tom's typical prices these days, including closing etc., add another $0.30-$0.50 or so per K if you amortize at 7%.



> we are playing word games here.



If you think this is just a matter of word games, you haven't thought things through.  From the perspective of an owner who is trying to dispose of some unwanted points, there is a *big* difference between renting reservations, and selling the use of those points to someone else.  Renting reservations is a pain---the tire kickers, mind-changers, can you get me a bigger unit, can we change the dates, etc. etc. etc.  Letting someone else deal with all that is a lot less work, and that itself has value---and can still be done in the current sysetm, without a transfer, by just giving someone else access to your account.


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## letsgobobby (Dec 19, 2009)

BocaBum99 said:


> Wyndham can be worth it if you use RCI to trade back into Wyndham resorts and that is your primary reason for owning it.



why is it better to do this than just use your Wyndham points to book directly from Wyndham? FYI I am a complete new-bie.


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## Culli (Dec 19, 2009)

letsgobobby said:


> why is it better to do this than just use your Wyndham points to book directly from Wyndham? FYI I am a complete new-bie.



I have been following this thread and see stuff all over the place on comments and suggestions.  Here is my take on it all - most comments are how to make the most of your points and situation.  I for one just want a fair deal to travel in nice, large accomidations for a fair price.  If you buy resale and find a nice MF to point combo Wyndham is a great product (or at least for our family) and fairly easy to use.  It is when people are trying to completly maximize their situation such as make money renting, getting accomidations for 29k exchanges etc.  To make the absolute most and get great accomidations for next to nothing is when it gets complicated.  

I saw a comment that it is a rip off for contracts under 300k.  Well we have 4 contracts that add up to 651k and our MFs avg about 4.5 per 1k.  Not great but not bad; I think this a very cost effective way to stay at great places.  We live close to a wyndham that is attached to a waterpark and use it all the time.  Actually we are in a 3br right now and having a blast, we walked by some of the "hotel" rooms of the waterpark and WOW what a difference.  They are probably paying a fair amount more per night then what ours would equate to with MFs.  I have also traded into this place with a 29k but that took some persistance calling etc, and that was a crazy deal for us.   We like to make plans ahead of time so we don't mind making the ressies and we get much better accomidations in peak seasons for much cheaper than going thru the resort.  Now I'm sure I could rent for cheaper (???) but I'm very happy with the price we pay for using our contracts.  We have a family of 5 (soon to be 6) So hotel rooms are pretty much out of the question.  We often bring friends up with us to enjoy.  We make 3-7 day ressies and really nevery have a problem with HC.  The GC thing kinda pisses me off because I would love to bring friends and get them their own room, they would pay me a fair price but the $99 for a GC makes it not so cheap.  

We are staying 4 days here in a 2br over NYE which will avg to $165 nite for a 2br.  I couldn't get a hotel room here for that price much less a nice condo.  Soooooooooooo if you buy resale and use your pts for yourself and not try to make money renting etc or worry about getting the very very very very very best deal the Wyndham system works great.  I use for our family and might occasionally make a ressie for a friend with our free GC, and make few hundred - win/win.  Now if I paid 80-130k from the developer for my 651 (not exactly sure what retail is) I would be hard pressed to recomend the system as a great deal.

We have used RCI system and it takes some patience and savy.  We have had a good trade or 2 but in general I think Wyndham trade power is very low in RCI.  But you can extend your value.  Good luck with your new purchase, it is  not that bad to get use to and once you do you will enjoy great vacations for a fair price.  

I always check TUG to get a hint or two, trying to absorb it all at once is OVERWHELMING!!!  Reading TUG and using the system you will figure out how to be a power user of the system.  Heck you probably already know much more than the avg Wyndham owner.


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## bnoble (Dec 19, 2009)

> why is it better to do this than just use your Wyndham points to book directly from Wyndham


It can give you a lower cost per night.  As Culli writes, it's not a *bad* deal to use your points to book directly with Wyndham---in fact, it can often be a pretty good deal when you compare to rental rates.  But, it *can* be an even better deal to go through RCI.

Here's an example.  A summer week at Wyndham Smoky Mountains is 166K points booked internally.  Last year, I obtained an exchange there with a 70K deposit plus an exchange fee.  If you figure that points are worth approximately $5/K, the total cost to me was the equivalent of about 108K points, or a 35% discount.  And, I might well have been able to get that week with an even smaller deposit.

However, there is no free lunch.  Booking internally is very simple---it's a reservation system.  An exchange system is a little less convenient, as you have to take what RCI can get you.  For example, we normally prefer to travel Saturday to Saturday.  But, Wyndham deposited 2BRs with a Sunday check-in last summer.  We ended up coming home on Saturday, so that we could have Sunday to collect ourselves and get ready for the work week.  This reduced our vacation by a day, and reduced our discount to 25% vs. what it would have taken to book the 6-night stay.


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## esk444 (Dec 21, 2009)

BocaBum99 said:


> Not sure where you got your information, but this is NOT correct.  Number 1 is absolutely not true.  People who dump their timeshares to PCCs bought as recently as this year.  LOTS of them.



Thanks for calling me out on a 6 month old post and doing it in a unnecessarily rude manner.  If you thought that post was inaccurate, all you had to do is simply say so and explain why (preferably 6 months ago).  And maybe we could have had a civil discussion about it, instead of an antagonistic one.

I posted that most PCC inventory were mostly property held by owners for a long time until they got sick of it.  It's not like that is an outrageous lie, as you imply.  

I bought a timeshare from a PCC about two years ago and I asked for a specific property that was pretty new (maybe 5 years old at the time).  The owner of the PCC told me that they never really saw that resort because their products (i.e. the bogus vacation club) catered toward owners at timeshares that got sick of going to the same place ever year and got lousy trades through RCI or II.  He specifically mentioned that 10-20 year owners were their "sweet spot."  When I was looking to buy a timeshare back then, I rarely saw anything that was relatively new on ebay.  Plus, most people who buy timeshares from developers buy on credit.  So most new timeshares purchased in the past year would not be a good candidate for a PCC (or a charitable donation for that matter) because the property would be subject to a mortgage lien.

I don't KNOW if this was true, but it sounded credible to me.  But I might be wrong.  Who knows?  I put it in the post because I wanted to be helpful to someone and to add some relevant info to a good thread, as many people in this Wyndham board have been very helpful to me when I was thinking of buying a Wyndham timeshare in the past.  

But don't worry, I won't bother posting in the Wyndham thread again if posters won't be treated with civility.


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## trinaqueen (Dec 21, 2009)

*To ESK444*

I wouldn't allow "certain" people to discourage you from posting and being helpful to other Wyndham owners.  I've had a person go back and forth with me recently and I just let it go.  I know that my info posted helped saved an owner 450K points on one trip, so I'm good.

Just ignore them and keep it moving!


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## BocaBum99 (Dec 21, 2009)

letsgobobby said:


> why is it better to do this than just use your Wyndham points to book directly from Wyndham? FYI I am a complete new-bie.



Because due to quirks in trading power assignments and internal preferences, you can often times make a very small deposit of say 28000 points and trade up to a 2br unit that would normally cost 203,000 points.  You pay an exchange fee.  But, you save lots of points.


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## BocaBum99 (Dec 21, 2009)

esk444 said:


> Thanks for calling me out on a 6 month old post and doing it in a unnecessarily rude manner.  If you thought that post was inaccurate, all you had to do is simply say so and explain why (preferably 6 months ago).  And maybe we could have had a civil discussion about it, instead of an antagonistic one.
> 
> I posted that most PCC inventory were mostly property held by owners for a long time until they got sick of it.  It's not like that is an outrageous lie, as you imply.
> 
> ...



I apologize that you felt my post was rude.  That wasn't my intent.  My intent was to correct misinformation that you promulgated as fact.  Anytime anyone presents such falsehoods, I will point them out in a similar way to emphasize the points that are incorrect.

Perhaps you should consider saying "you heard" something to be true rather than simply stating as fact something that isn't.


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## bnoble (Dec 21, 2009)

> due to quirks in trading power assignments and internal preferences


For what it's worth, I'm finding that, since the 5/30 "adjustments", the internal preference has been weakened somewhat.  Not too many data points yet, but a few.


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## BocaBum99 (Dec 21, 2009)

bnoble said:


> Jim's not going to tell you, because that's part of his business advantage.  I don't have such a business, so I'm happy to speculate.
> 
> We're at the point where most of the Wyndham deeds have crept over $5/K. Tom Cornelius has 14 different Wyndham deeds available for sale.  Only two are under $5/K.  The average across the 14 is $5.30.  Tom generally avoids the more expensive MF/K deeds, because they are too hard to sell, so the real average is probably higher.
> 
> ...



Correct.  It's fun to watch ACE try to wiggle his way out of his "Not True" assertion by saying WE are playing word games.  I find it ironic that he is trying to spin the situation where True means Not True.  That sounds like a word game to me.


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## BocaBum99 (Dec 21, 2009)

bnoble said:


> For what it's worth, I'm finding that, since the 5/30 "adjustments", the internal preference has been weakened somewhat.  Not too many data points yet, but a few.



That's too bad for Wyndham owners.  It would be good for the system overall if there were other competition that would be driving down exchange fees.  But, since that isn't true, it just makes exchange with RCI less and less attractive over time.


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## BocaBum99 (Dec 21, 2009)

bnoble said:


> Not necessarily.  It depends on who you mean when you say "you".
> 
> DVC used to allow unlimited point transfers, and a few very enterprising people made a nice business renting points from other members, transferring them in, and renting reservations to other people.
> 
> ...



You are much smarter than I am.  This is very clever.  Funny that Ace just won't admit that renting points is possible when all the facts are presented in such gory detail.

All I know is that I can get Wyndham points for cheaper than my own maintenance fees.  So, I wish I hadn't bought all the points I did.  And, I think my points have the lowest or second lowest MF in the entire Wyndham point system.


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