I think they are going to roll that out as a change and only let points that count towards VIP be used for VIP privileges. Another reason why I don't care to buy retail points; I see it coming. It's just like cancel/rebook and unlimited GCs. It can be easily changed within the system. They already have a cap for Club Pass bookings where it can only be up to the amount of retail points that you have. They could just implement it to all bookings where they pull points from your retail contracts first and once you've used those all up in a year, it will then pull points from your resale deeds and not allow VIP benefits.
Anything is possible, but taking this route would inevitably upset the segment of owners who have collectively and historically made the largest dollar investments into Wyndham over time. Doing anything that upsets your most loyal segment of owners is not good business practice no matter how you slice it. This is why the statement "subject to change" while legally accurate with respect to the entire VIP program, which could include termination of the entire program, is highly unlikely.
Since I'm in a sharing mood, what I think will happen is that Wyndham will come up with a way to allow resale contract benefits to stay intact for VIP owners, while altering the structure used for resale only owners over time. What I'm about to say is going to be a bit controversial, but I think something along this line will come into existence in the foreseeable future. Long story short, Wyndham will create a new trust, similar to CWA, that will start to hold resale contracts and deeds. Call it CWR (Club Wyndham Resale) for sake of argument. When resale only purchasers file the paperwork with Wyndham to transfer ownership, the deed(s) associated with that resale contract will be transferred into the CWR trust. The CWR trust can then have limits placed upon it when trading into CWP or any of the other trusts that already exist. Initially this new trust will not have any limits placed upon it when trading into CWP other than the current limits already in place for resale contract owners - such as no Club Pass or Plus Partners program access for example.
Moving forward, what this allows Wyndham to do is to segment resale inventory via the new trust - and to control what other inventory resale owners can access over time. This same approach would also allow VIP owners - who also hold resale contracts - to keep their VIP privileges attached to resale contracts - because the VIP resale contracts will not be transferred into the CWR trust - the inventory attached to these contracts will stay intact within the current trusts (CWA/CWS). Here's the controversial part. We've all heard rumors that Wyndham may place additional limitations on resale owners. Much like Disney is now placing limits on resale, and Hilton has started down this same path. Wyndham, IMHO,
will follow suit, it's simply a question of how and when. Let's assume for a moment that 50% of Wyndham ownership is now resale only owners. What this approach would allow Wyndham to do is to then start placing limits on what inventory CWR can access in the other trusts and can even potentially alter the trading power for CWR into CWP. Would Wyndham do something like this? Very gradually over time would be the only way it could work. The way they would probably start doing this is to draw a line in the sand and say that after a certain date, all new resale contracts processed by Wyndham will migrate into CWR, while current resale holders will stay intact in the current trusts. This would start moving net new resale inventory into CWR that would grow over time. What Wyndham may choose to do is to limit resale
only owners to only the inventory available within the CWR trust, while the developer points owners can access all inventory across all trusts. If we assume that the ownership is 50/50 today for sake of argument, that means that developer points owners would have access to 100% of the available inventory - while resale owners only have access to 50% of the available inventory - and only inventory owned by other resale owners. There are lots of caveats here - but something like this is what I would at least consider doing if I were Wyndham - and wanted to truly start to place more value on owners who purchase developer points vs resale only owners and to gradually head in a different direction over time by gradually placing more limits on resale owners.
Using the above listed model, Wyndham could also then easily allow for VIP owners with resale contracts to also use their resale points with Club Pass and other trusts/programs, while ensuring that resale only owners remain restricted since the CWR trust - because the rulesets are enforced more simply and more easily at the trust level - unilaterally - instead of the current system where the rulesets are dependent upon the contract flag itself (if the contract is flagged resale).
This is something that would need to occur very gradually as doing so too quickly would result in resale owners dumping their ownership enmasse. But over time an approach like this would place more value on purchasing developer points - because you would get access to 100% of the system - while also devaluing resale ownership - because resale only owners would only receive access to a minority of the inventory in the system over time. This is what Disney has already started down the path of doing, and Hilton is not far behind from what I've heard.