[ Thread is unlocked ] Megarenter Rap Lawsuit

[chapjim]

Owners didn't sign up to complete against a business to gain access to a resort they paid for. I can image these mega renters have banks of phones and employees lined up making reservations at 6:00AM. Really a tough situation for all involved.

Keep imaging but try being realistic! For one thing, I doubt many reservations are being made by telephone so it would have to be banks of computers, lots of employees, lots of different VIP accounts with lots of owners listed on each account. And since you're in Colorado, you only have to stay up until 10 PM to book on-line reservations. I don't see your problem (other than fantasizing about banks of phones, etc.).

I've been accused of being a mega-renter and it's just me. One phone, no employees. If it's Friday or Saturday night, I stay up. If not, I wait until morning, but not until 7 AM uniess it's something I don't care that much about.

It's just my wife and me on the account so I max out at two reservations per week. I can ARP into two resorts. Hard to see how I'm keeping a lot of owners from getting their reservations, but I'm called a mega-renter.

 

[ronparise]

I hear you, but its really changing the model to almost a franchise and makes it difficult for the "everyday family" to get the rooms they want and have invested in. People that want to be in the hospitality business should invest in a hotel. If Wyndham allows this and it prevents others from gaining access to rooms, then the "risk" of mega renters should be disclosed during purchase. Still, it doesn't seem fair to change the rules midstream for those like you that have invested time and money to create a business.

To be fair, I didnt invest any money... my first ownership (3 weeks converted to 385000 points) cost me a dollar... everything else was bootstrapped off of that. Part of my income from every deal went into the next deal. until I found a source for free timeshares, Again that goes back to Wyndham... Wyndham refused to take back their own product. I met a number of folks here on Tug that gave me their points, because Wyndham wouldnt take them back and they couldnt sell them, or even give them away except to a fool like me. . And I had a deal with a timeshare relief company (we used to call them post card companies) Folks paid them to get rid of their timeshares... How did they get rid of them?...they gave them to me



Dont expect Wyndham to disclose any risk.. If they did they should be telling customers, that they are paying thousands of dollars for a product, that, good as it is. has no resale value.

I knew from the beginning that this was a hustle, not a business, I had a good run, and it lasted a whole lot longer than I expected it to. Dont feel bad about me or any others. we knew or should have known that it couldnt last. Feel bad for yourself. This sounds kinda crappy and cruel but you own something completely worthless,,,be happy you get any use out of it.

the system is not built built around guarantees. There are less that 400 rooms in New Orleans at Mardi Gras for 900000 owners. do the math
Gorden Gekko said, "If you want a friend, get a dog". When it comes to timeshares, If you want a guarantee , get a fixed week

 

[chapjim]

What they are saying is that if you are not online at 12:01am at exactly the 13 month mark booking your suite, you didn't plan properly and that's tough luck.

<snip>

@am1 way to try to get people on your side, lol... keep it up

No, what I'm saying is if you wait until 7 AM to book a high-demand week, you didn't want it that badly. If an owner can't ARP into a resort for a high-demand week, then he is going to be three months and a few hours late. That's not a mega-renter problem. That's an unrealistic expectation -- a fantasy.

 

[paxsarah]

Thanks to Wyndham enforcing the policy, I guess I don't have to worry about that anymore

Good luck with that. Who are you going to blame when you still get shut out at 7am next time?

 

[HitchHiker71]

I would have to go back & dig out an old post, but I posted that the way to stop rentals is to control GCs. No GCs on discounted & or upgraded reservations no matter if the reservation was made outside or inside the 60 day window. Give less free ones & raise the cost of additional ones drastically maybe $500 or even a $1,000. Say VIPP gets 5 free & you can only buy 2 more then that’s it for the year.

IIRC there’s a clear statement that VIP benefits only apply to VIP owners - and not to anyone else not listed on the account (such as a guest). With that in mind - it would make logical sense that any/all reservations made with VIP discounts and/or room upgrades would not qualify for GC usage. I’m not endorsing this - just reading the VIP program rules.


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[Braindead]

Now you have done it.... You have gone and poked the bear...

You can go ahead and use my name. I think anyone thats been around here any length of time knows who you are talking about

The thing is, you dont know what you are talking about. And if you are going to argue that this mega renter, took over a resort to make your argument against renting...you lose.

First La Belle Maison ... There are 134 units at this property. When I was active you had to call in at exactly 8am, 13 months ahead of check in to get a Mardi Gras reservation, and then as now you had to own either CWA points or La Belle Maison points to get an ARP reservation I owned both My problem was that by the time I finished making my reservations using La Belle Maison points the CWA reservations were gone... so I uses all my La Belle Maison points for Mardi Gras reservations.. I went for the 4 night reservations ahead of Mardi Gras Tuesday, (Fri, Sat, Sun and Mon). There were very few 2 bedroom units at the resort, so I didnt even try for them.. I would make one studio reservation and as many one bedrooms as I could. To get them all I would need about about 15 million LBM points, I had less than 4 mm, but remember that I wasnt the only person on the phone and the reservations clerk I was talking to, wasnt the only one working. So what would happen is that the reservations were gone before I was able to use all my points.. I would generally get 10 + reservations...I never got as many as 20... so 10% maybe...hardly control

Avenue Plaza has 264 units..(i think). A big chunk of those units are Worldmark units.. I owned some Worldmark credits, but thats not under discussion here, another big piece of the resort was deeded weeks, sold by the guy (Mr John) that converted the property to timeshares. Some of those weeks had been converted to points but could only be used in the ARP window for the week noted on the deed, some were no doubt Mardi Gras, but not many... I owned two dedicated Mardi Gras weeks not converted to points, but .. also not under discussion. Any weeks unsold by Mr John were taken over by Wyndham after Mr John died. and as near as I can tell, the ones not put into Worldmark, went into CWA.

So at 13 months I used my CWA points for as many Avenue Plaza reservations as possible... But remember I started on the phone working with my La Belle Maison points... By the time we got to Avenue Plaza they were gone.
I never understood why, but there were always some Mardi Gras reservations available at 10 months... Not many and you had to be quick, but I always got a couple then.. Bottom line using Wyndham points at Avenue Plaza I might have 5 Mardi Gras reservations

since we are talking about control, lets look at all of Wyndham and all of my ownerships... out of about 400 units I could get at best 50 reservations or
12% (and most of them were Worldmark) thats not enough to control anything. You might say I was lucky to get that...

and dont think cancel and rebook and upgrade increases the number of reservations. If anything Id lose a reservation or two in the 60 day window And there was no such loophole with worldmark or the weeks ownerships, At LaBelle, if I was lucky , Id start with 10 one bedroom reservations and one studio and end up with 10 one bedrooms at half the studio price and one half price studio.. Nice to be sure, but still only 11 units to rent. (the points I got back doing the cancel and rebook thing couldnt be used for Mardi Gras,, those reservations were already taken.. I did use them for other things, but usually I just flipped them for cost to a points manager

You know I have a ton of respect for you, you helped me immensely & you always responded to my PMs.
But we have disagreed at times & always kept it respectful. I will try to keep it that way here but I remember things a little different.

MR[mega renters] or PM[point managers] never had their wife or someone else calling at the same time as the mega renter themselves making reservations tying up 2 lines & 2 VCs or more? Today it would be different individuals logged into different accounts.
Would VCs stay on the line making multiple reservations before hanging up to start over with a different owner?
MR or PM never had more than one account to get around the 10 unit limit ?
MR or PM never had help from another owner tying up reservations?

I don’t want to go over the past on everything, I like that you say the points saved made more reservations for rentals whether it was you or the Point Manger.
It’s great to here that you & your family are very healthy enjoying life!! Thank You for all you’ve done for me & the TUG family!!!

@chapjim I don’t know who called you a mega renter but I never thought of you as one, yes you do rentals but a far cry from being a mega renter in my book.

Others that I know like you are being thrown in that group also by some & Wyndham with the letters they’ve received, that’s a shame. As Ron always said others will be collateral damage when rule changes are made. This is another one of those instances with roughly 4,000 of us taking yet another hit to our VIP benefits due to a few rule violators.

Wyndham seems to always use a blanket policy method when making rule changes to all owners verses only going after targeted individuals.

 

[troy12n]

12:01am at ARP...

 

[Cyrus24]

It's actually 12:00am, that is when the new day arrives. If you wait until 12:01, you've waited too long.

 

[CO skier]

Think about it, If Wyndham takes an action to cut my profit in half, what my reaction going to be, Wyndham thought we would go out of business rather than work for half the money.. Some did, but some doubled up. If Im making $100000 doing 100 reservations a year, at $1000 profit each. and you cut me back to $500 each. My reaction should be obvious.. Ill make 200 reservations

You posted the same idea in 2017 ... sort of ... but left out the most important part this time.

Really? A 60,000,000 points owner is going to double their ownership to make twice as many reservations at half the profit? Highly doubtful.

If you are right that mega renters will adapt and figure out how to make money at this And if they can no longer get 3 bedrooms at half the studio rate; they will have to make more reservations for the same money

More rentals has to mean less availability for the other owners

But that's all theoretical. Things may change going foreword but for now I know a number of mega renters that are planning to retire, looking for other opportunities, or selling out. I don't know of anyone building a significant position right now. And the points managers are either quitting, taking on no new accounts or changing their business plans significantly

There were also a number of posts in 2017 that commented on noticeable improvements in availability.

If the changes hurt VIP and megarenters how can that not be positive for resale owners who actually want to use the points? I have noted greater availability pretty much everywhere.

 

[Sloane S]

It's "tough luck" and "poor planning", not greedy, wanna-be travel agents playing internet slum lord

this is the second or third time I’ve seen you use this term on the forum. I don’t think you understand the meaning, unless you are saying the Wyndham properties are sub-standard and the renters tried to intimidate their customers.

“A slumlord (or slum landlord) is a slang term for a landlord, generally an absentee landlordwith more than one property, who attempts to maximize profit by minimizing spending on property maintenance, often in deteriorating neighborhoods, and to tenants that they can intimidate.”

 

[rapmarks]

Eliminating, or severely limiting GC's will completely solve this problem. Completely. No workarounds.

I can suggest a workaround. I know owners who run rentals at Christmas mountain. They check in and meet their renters and give them the keys and parking pass, etc. their ownership allows four one week reservations at a time. They might rent two nights, turn over the unit, and get another three nights, they keep the reservation under their name.
I Had someone ask me to get on the deed with her, she would book bonus time, rent it out, and I would go check in and meet her renters, I was supposed to pay the $500 fee to add my name to the deed, I couldn’t book anything except bonus time for myself. I turned down this “marvelous” offer.
so I supposedly could get lots of Wyndham points, book glacier canyon exclusively, and do the ten minute drive and check in, hand my renters the keys, no gc required, go home, make loads of money.

 

[CO skier]

When wyndham resells the mega renters 700 million points, you will have 2000+ regular owners booking those points so no additional inventory will open up.

The big difference, that some people just cannot understand, is that 700 million points of availability opened up that Owners will book and use for their personal vacations (undeniably a good thing for the Club and Owners), and 700 million points of availability will no longer be offered as rentals (good or bad thing does not matter, because non-owners have no status in Club Wyndham).

That is how Owners will benefit in the future at the expense of renters. Judging by the millions of Club Wyndham points being dumped on Ebay, the improvement is already underway.

 

[troy12n]

this is the second or third time I’ve seen you use this term on the forum. I don’t think you understand the meaning, unless you are saying the Wyndham properties are sub-standard and the renters tried to intimidate their customers.

“A slumlord (or slum landlord) is a slang term for a landlord, generally an absentee landlordwith more than one property, who attempts to maximize profit by minimizing spending on property maintenance, often in deteriorating neighborhoods, and to tenants that they can intimidate.”

Was using slumlord as a derogatory term to the mega renters, not the product. If I wasn't a fan of the product, I wouldn't be an owner. I'm happy with the quality of the product.

I was using slumlord to refer to a "shrewd landlord". If you would like I can stop using that term.

 

[Lisa P]

I can suggest a workaround. I know owners who run rentals at Christmas mountain. They check in and meet their renters and give them the keys and parking pass, etc. their ownership allows four one week reservations at a time.

If their ownership cancelled multiple concurrent or overlapping reservations booked under the same owner name and only allowed multiple concurrent reservations with GCs once or twice per year during prime season, it would curtail their business. Doing this to cover maintenance fees on a typical account (not mega-millions of points) in some years or to provide actual occasional gifts to friends and family is not the same as the business model you've described, which is against the contract rules at a number of timeshare companies including Wyndham.

 

[troy12n]

I can suggest a workaround. I know owners who run rentals at Christmas mountain. They check in and meet their renters and give them the keys and parking pass, etc. their ownership allows four one week reservations at a time. They might rent two nights, turn over the unit, and get another three nights, they keep the reservation under their name.
I Had someone ask me to get on the deed with her, she would book bonus time, rent it out, and I would go check in and meet her renters, I was supposed to pay the $500 fee to add my name to the deed, I couldn’t book anything except bonus time for myself. I turned down this “marvelous” offer.
so I supposedly could get lots of Wyndham points, book glacier canyon exclusively, and do the ten minute drive and check in, hand my renters the keys, no go required, go home, make loads of money.

As soon as Wyndham announced these changes, believe me, the hamster wheels inside these mega renters brains started spinning to try to find ways to work around the restrictions.

What you say is certainly possible, but unless they live near the resorts in question, that would entail travel, at their expense. This would cut into their profit margin. Also with no GC's it would require them to have a limited number of reservations per week at any given time. Plus if they have multiple reservations in different locations, you can't be at two places at once.

But if history has shown us anything, people will always try to find ways to work the system to their advantage. The same cat and mouse game that law enforcement plays with the criminals day in and day out...

Limiting GC's, after the changes they are making now, would be a game changer. And they all know it. And fear it.

Like I said, even though i'm not a renter, and have never, ever used even one GC, I see them as a net positive benefit and value-add for ownership in general. I would say actually that the number of free GC's they allow now, is perfectly acceptable. They could even allow owners to buy a limited number more. Or not. I would actually not be in favor of completely eliminating them. But limiting them would fix the problem we have now, no doubt.

 

[rapmarks]

As soon as Wyndham announced these changes, believe me, the hamster wheels inside these mega renters brains started spinning to try to find ways to work around the restrictions.

What you say is certainly possible, but unless they live near the resorts in question, that would entail travel, at their expense. This would cut into their profit margin. Also with no GC's it would require them to have a limited number of reservations per week at any given time. Plus if they have multiple reservations in different locations, you can't be at two places at once.

But if history has shown us anything, people will always try to find ways to work the system to their advantage. The same cat and mouse game that law enforcement plays with the criminals day in and day out...

Limiting GC's, after the changes they are making now, would be a game changer. And they all know it. And fear it.

Like I said, even though i'm not a renter, and have never, ever used even one GC, I see them as a net positive benefit and value-add for ownership in general. I would say actually that the number of free GC's they allow now, is perfectly acceptable. They could even allow owners to buy a limited number more. Or not. I would actually not be in favor of completely eliminating them. But limiting them would fix the problem we have now, no doubt.

That is why I specifically mentioned Glacier Canyon,which is ten minutes away. this is a property which has very little undesirable time. Add someone to the deed, pay them $50 to check in and meet your renter, no gc required

 

[The trumpster]

This is more accurate: If you and your brother own a property and he rented it to a stranger, you can't use it even though you own it, and he kept the money for himself.

Except you have the same opportunity to choose your week use it as your brother does. Everyone has the same opportunity to book anything. Also these mega renters spent a lot more money to get many more points and pay a lot more in maintenance fees so in your analogy your brother would own 99% of the house and pay 99% of the money to keep the house maintained. So why shouldn’t he be able to rent it out even when you have the same chance to choose your week as he does. And again even if there wasn’t mega renters there would still be the same amount of points floating around the problem is there are more points then there should be this is a wyndam issue. it doesn’t matter who owns the points the issue is how many points there is.

 

[Mongoose]

So what is actually happening to the points contracts and MR investment?

 

[eschjw]

I guess the big question is, why don't they just do a big 2016 style account suspension on all the mega renters, cancel their reservations, and let the rest sort itself out. They obviously have the analytics to know who these people are and who to selectively target. It should be easy enough to see who has BC/GC/OW/NOLA "booked out" on certain dates.

I think it's been made pretty obvious there are not a huge number of these people running the table with million of points.

Yes, that is the big question. They should be able to use analytics to selectively target the real mega renters without inflecting the possible collateral damage to all of the owners out there. Many of them are just trying to cover fees for points they can not use or to make a few bucks to cover their sunk purchase costs.

I have rented from 2 Wyndham owners this year and neither of them were mega renters. They both were paid TUG members and I had to talk one owner thru the process to maximize the benefits for both of us. He was a silver VIP and he got more money when the upgade I really wanted came thru. The other owner was savey enough to give me a discount because they were already staying at the resort and could check-in for me, thus saving a GC. One was a LMR needed request and the other was a LMR.

Wyndham is really just throwing out the babies with the bathwater instead of using the analytics they should have to stop the big guys. WHY?

 

[rapmarks]

If their ownership cancelled multiple concurrent or overlapping reservations booked under the same owner name and only allowed multiple concurrent reservations with GCs once or twice per year during prime season, it would curtail their business. Doing this to cover maintenance fees on a typical account (not mega-millions of points) in some years or to provide actual occasional gifts to friends and family is not the same as the business model you've described, which is against the contract rules at a number of timeshare companies including Wyndham.

Against the contract? Would that include checking in one room and checking in for family in another room. Just curious. I am not a Wyndham owner

 

[eschjw]

deleted

 

[tschwa2]

Against the contract? Would that include checking in one room and checking in for family in another room. Just curious. I am not a Wyndham owner

Yes. Wyndham does not allow an owner to have more than one reservation under his/her name. If even one night overlaps they can cancel one of the reservations. They want the $99 guest fee even if the owner is staying in another unit. If an ownership has more than one owner and both will be there then each owner can hold a reservation and check into that one reservation (even if they are then letting friends or family use the other unit) without paying the guest cert fee.

If you ever confirm an RCI exchange or rental this would apply at stays with Wyndham. They will not let one person check into multiple units. A guest cert must be purchased for more than one units at the same resort.

 

[CPNY]

What they are saying is that if you are not online at 12:01am at exactly the 13 month mark booking your suite, you didn't plan properly and that's tough luck.

I think some of you are seeing the issue now. It's "tough luck" and "poor planning", not greedy, wanna-be travel agents playing internet slum lord from their laptop in the middle of the night...

@am1 way to try to get people on your side, lol... keep it up

This is how it is in almost all other systems as well. I already have reminders in my calendar for 11:55pm for two dates in November to check availability at a resort I want. If you can’t book midnight at the booking window don’t expect highly desired resorts during peak times. That’s not because of “mega renters” that’s just the game. If you won’t book at midnight and expect availability to be there when you want, you’re going to be upset more often than not.

You can’t blame mega renters for the lack of planning ahead. TS ownership isn’t for everyone.

 

[T-Dot-Traveller]

Because being a member of TUG obviously conveys knowledge of ownership of timeshare systems...

If anything, i've learned that TUG, in all honesty is a place where some mega renters shared some really bad advice which largely negatively affects normal owners.

This place seemed to in fact be an education forum for prospective mega renters. People like Ron were your pied piper...

I've been a timeshare owner a lot longer than i've been a member of TUG, so try again.

Hi @troy12n
I think you are conflating the Wyndham forum with TUG.

TUG has many forums and owners from many Timeshare systems.
IMO - mega renting threads and discussions are mostly specific to the Wyndham Forum.

Some TUG members and guests own in multiple TS systems and view or post in multiple forums.;
while others simple stick to a specific area of interest.

TUG Lounge is an interesting source of postings about non TS topics
that are within the guidelines of that forum.

Speaking to guest status - I hope you are enjoying the ads ; while helping support TUG and
@TUGBrian 's commercial interests.

 

[55plus]

How many GC's are you using for the multiple 1br units in the party? That many friends and family? Are you receiving any compensation for those key reservations? Are you renting out units??????? Might you also be part of the problem?

The units are for myself, brother-in-law and my military biker buddies. No rentals; the lodging is on me, the drinks, ammo (if we go shooting) and cigars are on them.