[ Thread is unlocked ] Megarenter Rap Lawsuit

[Eric B]

Take a look at all the 60-day rentals on Ebay for places like Bonnet Creek and Glacier Canyon. Do you really think other owners "don't want them" for their getaway vacations? The megarenters use a lot of resale points with the 50% discount to book these cancellations within the 60-day window. After the changes in mid-August, many of these will not be adequately profitable without the 50% discount, and owners will book these desirable reservations for the vacation they paid for with their initial purchase and ongoing maintenance fees.



There have been a number of posts about how it is easier to sell to an existing owner (upgrade) than non-owners.


The HOAs do not get a dime of these rentals. The maintenance fees are paid whether or not someone stays in a unit. Someone will be paying the maintenance fees on those 1M+ contracts selling on Ebay as a result of resale points no longer qualifying for VIP discounts.


There will be less profiteering on desirable cancellations within 60-days. The no-longer-profitable but desirable dates at places like Bonnet Creek and Glacier Canyon will remain available from the cancellation date to day 0 for owners to book at full points cost. (More availability for owners, which is a positive development from the owners' point of view.)

Thank you for your feedback. Reasonable minds can disagree, of course. We'll see what the net result winds up being after the latest updates are done. IMHO, Wyndham has the power to set up the program guidelines in a way that greatly reduces the use of the system by the megarenters as well as the information necessary to identify who they are if they so choose. For some reason, they've made the business decision that it isn't in their best interest to do that. I'll be interested in seeing what happens to systemwide availability once things are are implemented and the perturbations settle down. I have no illusions that this will cure the issues people have with being able to reserve high demand times on short notice.

 

[dgalati]

Every rental reservation booked for a non-Wyndham renter removes that exact amount of available inventory for an actual Wyndham vacation owner
Commercial renters made hundreds of millions of points rental reservations (at least)
Therefore commercial renters removed hundreds of millions of points of inventory availability for renters that was made inaccessible to Wyndham vacation owners

Double the number of available rooms it took out of the system if the rentals were using 50% VIP discount in the 60 day discount window

 

[VacayKat]

The very small portion of owner mega renters you refer to control hundreds of millions of points for the pure purpose of commerce. When this small portion of owners target certain resorts and timeframes, they wipeout availability for other owners who have a desire to vacation at certain locations with family.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that Wyndham is wiping out these megarenters. Therefore, when the availability continues to be difficult to get my hope is that you turn your frustration towards Wyndham where it belongs for setting up a system which allowed things to occur (and creates inherent competition for highly desired weeks/locations due to a points based system rather than a weeks based system) and promoting rentals.
I hope I'm wrong and you are suddenly able to make all the reservations you want in the future, but I really just think that there aren't enough rooms to go around for the locations and times when all owners want them.

edited to correct brainfart in bold above.

 

[HitchHiker71]

Where i would disagree with things is if one set of owners had to abide by one set of rules while another set had to abide by a different set of rules. A local businessman, who sits on the town council, wants to change the rules for renting homes in the area so that people have to rent for 30 days or longer, unless you stay in a hotel or hotel property. Well, he owns the 5 Star hotel in town and all its other properties. He would be able to rent his houses short-term because they technically are part of a hotel property. That I don’t agree with.

Wyndham has a system. It is up to them to enforce that system without disenfranchising owners who bought into Wyndham expecting to use their system for personal use but now cannot due to a handful of people that Wyndham cannot seem to “control.”

So, am I FOR mega renters? Not directly. I am for Wyndham owners using the system as Wyndham had designed. Am I against mega renters? Not directly. Shouldn’t any owner who wants be able to rent points they aren’t going to be able to personally use? I realize there are technicalities and intricacies I am glossing over. My point, however, is that if someone buys a product they should be able to use that product as designed…in our case, reserving rooms at resorts with points purchased, whether retail (with “club benefits”) or resale (without those benefits).

Blessings!

Exactly - in other words intent matters yes? In the case of anyone running a commercial enterprise - this use case clearly violates documented Wyndham commercial use clauses. Did Wyndham turn a potentially blind eye to this for a long time? Looks that way to me. Has Wyndham changed their tune over the past five years or so? Yep - starting in 2016 when the most egregious megarenters were forced out (though most of them settled out of court prior to actually being forced out). I have empathy for anyone who has built a business that became their lifeblood and that business (and source of income) is now being targeted. That's never an easy place to be. As I said on another post - the company I worked for was acquired last year and my career was thrown for a serious loop and, being the primary breadwinner in my household, we were put way out of our comfort zone. For those that are now in this bucket - I feel for you. That said, the writing has been on the wall for years now given what occurred in 2016, and again now in 2021 with even greater intent on Wyndham's part with the recent letters that have gone out to those who rent frequently. I dearly hope that everyone that falls into this small bucket saw the writing on the wall - and has planned accordingly. If not, please do so - as the time of the megarenter is quickly coming to a close IMHO.

 

[Eric B]

I hope I'm wrong and you are suddenly able to make all the rentals reservations you want in the future, but I really just think that there aren't enough rooms to go around for the locations and times when all owners want them.

Think you mean this....

 

[paxsarah]

Alright, suppose I agree to your premise, if I, an owner, have points available to me, and I can not find any availability at the resort that I want to book at during a certain time frame, but find gobs and gobs of availability at Extra Holidays and end up shelling out loads of money per night to rent the resort, is that not the same problem?

I asked essentially this same question on one of the other threads a few days ago. FB users are big mad when they can't find availability with their own points, but they can find it for rent for cash on eBay or Travelocity or wherever. What happens, perception-wise, when EH (and whatever other outlets Wyndham may use to rent out inventory) becomes the main source for rentals of Wyndham resorts? Even if real availability is opened up for actual owners through all these changes, for the owner who doesn't manage to book it, are they still mad but now it's just more likely they're mad at EH?

 

[VacayKat]

Think you mean this....

hahah, oh man... yep, it's true. Guess my fingers and my brain were moving at two different speeds.

 

[dgalati]

Take a look at all the 60-day rentals on Ebay for places like Bonnet Creek and Glacier Canyon. Do you really think other owners "don't want them" for their getaway vacations? The megarenters use a lot of resale points with the 50% discount to book these cancellations within the 60-day window. After the changes in mid-August, many of these will not be adequately profitable without the 50% discount, and owners will book these desirable reservations at full points costs to enjoy the vacation they paid for with their initial purchase and ongoing maintenance fees.
There will be less profiteering on desirable cancellations within 60-days. The no-longer-profitable but desirable dates at places like Bonnet Creek and Glacier Canyon will remain available from the cancellation date to day 0 for owners to book at full points cost. (More availability for owners, which is a positive development from the owners' point of view.)

Mega renters profited at all owners expense. Fortunately someone at Wyndham realized just how much it was costing Wyndham or owners would be still taking it on the chin. Don't be delusional and believe this was done exclusively for owners benefit. Clear example - Ovations and Certified exit they do help owners but ultimately who profits the most from the exit programs?

 

[HitchHiker71]

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.

The Wyndham of old would have done exactly that. The current Wyndham ELT obviously wants to give the megarenters the opportunity to make a graceful exit prior to taking more punitive steps. For anyone who received a the letter in scope, you have been forewarned. The next steps taken IMHO will likely be similar to those taken in 2016 if Wyndham does not see cessation of the violation of commercial use clauses.

 

[VacayKat]

I asked essentially this same question on one of the other threads a few days ago. FB users are big mad when they can't find availability with their own points, but they can find it for rent for cash on eBay or Travelocity or wherever. What happens, perception-wise, when EH (and whatever other outlets Wyndham may use to rent out inventory) becomes the main source for rentals of Wyndham resorts? Even if real availability is opened up for actual owners through all these changes, for the owner who doesn't manage to book it, are they still mad but now it's just more likely they're mad at EH?

Just looked - and for the dates at Christmas in my desired location there is availability on EH that I couldn't book which would have given me better accommodations. Also, as I've mentioned before Travelocity is one of the outlets that Wyndham uses for its inventory, it isn't an owner renting there. There are a couple on Redweek but as it's a partially owned Wyndham property, pretty sure those are folks who own weeks (as they already have units assigned). Essentially, I am competing with Wyndham, or owners who give inventory to EH (probably very low as the rate of return is next to nil).

 

[CO skier]

I have no illusions that this will cure the issues people have with being able to reserve high demand times on short notice.

I agree and do not think the changes in 2017 and now are intended as a cure to all ills in Club Wyndham. The March and June and mid-August changes appear to be a compromise. There will certainly be rentals made and offered using the 2 Guest Certificate exemptions for the restricted dates at the highly desirable and profitable resorts and dates.

There have been posts from VIPs that they will book their >60-day reservations using resale points to save the developer points for VIP discounts in the 60-day booking window. Some owners may take the same approach and rent out on Ebay or elsewhere what they book within 60 days.

Wyndham will likely run reports comparing guest usage prior to and after these latest changes to judge the effectiveness. The 1M+ points contracts appearing on Ebay clearly suggest there will be less resale points used within the 60-day window, and that will lead to more owner availability, but I do not know how anyone not privy to Wyndham's reports could determine how effective the changes were.

 

[HitchHiker71]

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

I believe this is also a violation of Wyndham usage terms and conditions - I'll dig up the verbiage and post it - but this is no different than violating the commercial use clauses in essence.

 

[HitchHiker71]

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

MRs received a cease and desist letter shortly after the updated GC policy was announced. If the offending reservations are not proactively cancelled by the owner(s), Wyndham will cancel the reservations. I suspect if Wyndham doesn't see cessation of the offending behavior - the accounts in scope will be subject to auditing/suspension - akin to what occurred in 2016. The only difference is - the offending accounts received warning letters this time around.

 

[HitchHiker71]

I agree and do not think the changes in 2017 and now are intended as a cure to all ills in Club Wyndham. The March and June and mid-August changes appear to be a compromise. There will certainly be rentals made and offered using the 2 Guest Certificate exemptions for the restricted dates at the highly desirable and profitable resorts and dates.

There have been posts from VIPs that they will book their >60-day reservations using resale points to save the developer points for VIP discounts in the 60-day booking window. Some owners may take the same approach and rent out on Ebay or elsewhere what they book within 60 days.

Wyndham will likely run reports comparing guest usage prior to and after these latest changes to judge the effectiveness. The 1M+ points contracts appearing on Ebay clearly suggest there will be less resale points used within the 60-day window, and that will lead to more owner availability, but I do not know how anyone not privy to Wyndham's reports could determine how effective the changes were.

If you look at the GC restrictions through a certain lense - and with respect to renting - we can all see easily that it is the higher demand/higher occupancy rate resorts that have blackout periods for GC usage. Wyndham is not applying blackout periods to many of the older resorts that aren't as popular and are lower on the points charts. Wyndham wants third party renters to target this subset of resorts to help raise occupancy rates - whereas Wyndham doesn't need help raising occupancy rates at the resorts in scope for the blackout periods - in fact they likely have the opposite problem - owners complaining about a lack of availability - with GC occupancy rates beyond tolerance levels - hence the changes in scope.

 

[HitchHiker71]

Not angry, just pointing out that you are a commercial renter. As for me, I'm no more of a commercial renter than you are. A few GC's per year to friends and family. Compensation comes in many forms.

If you received a cease and desist letter from Wyndham for commercial use activity - you're being identified as someone who is violating the terms of commercial use clauses. Wyndham has already defined what is or is not a commercial renter - no need for anyone on this thread to attempt to do so as a result.

 

[Eric B]

If you received a cease and desist letter from Wyndham for commercial use activity - you're being identified as someone who is violating the terms of commercial use clauses. Wyndham has already defined what is or is not a commercial renter - no need for anyone on this thread to attempt to do so as a result.

Have they done so publicly in explicit terms that would put people on notice of where the line is before they get such a letter?

Edited to add: it's possible that they haven't done so because they can use the help on occupancy levels in the non-high demand resorts...

 

[richardm]

Trying to figure out what you think an "actual" Wyndham owner is.... Guess someone who owns points and pays maintenance fees isn't qualified in your warped point of view. Keep drinking the cool aide..

 

[rapmarks]

I believe this is also a violation of Wyndham usage terms and conditions - I'll dig up the verbiage and post it - but this is no different than violating the commercial use clauses in essence.

It should be, no argument from me

 

[55plus]

Someone didn't get the memo: CHRISTMAS IN ORLANDO! - vacation rentals (craigslist.org)

 

[HitchHiker71]

I think that you might be over estimating how many folks agree with you. I do not even see a majority of people in this conversation in agreement with your argument. I get that you feel this way and you have a right to your feelings, but when the situation doesn’t change when Wyndham cracks down on the very small portion of owners ’megarenting’, who will your next target be? It should be Wyndham, and I hope you come to see that. I guess what keeps me sane in these devolving discussions is that wyndham owners on the forums are a very small portion of all owners and very few (probably none) either think about screwing other owners over or are actively angry at owners for poor availability.
Also - your using school girls pejoratively is an offense to girls and women and I’d appreciate your using more appropriate language.

I think you're underestimating the number of folks that agree with TUG in so far as the majority of the owner base is concerned. TUG is the exception not the rule. I'm an admin/moderator on a good number of the FB forums - and from what we moderate out on the FB forums - the vast majority of FB group members have no love for MRs - and there are a LOT of owners that fall into this bucket on the FB forums - far more than are apologists for the MRs. It is true that the "new crew" here on TUG may be in the minority - but as I've said previously - the new will supercede the old - that's just the way it goes in this life. So while the "new crew" here on TUG might be in the minority today - we are the future - the "old crew" represents the past - and the past is going away - on that I think we're all seeing this play out right before our eyes - and Wyndham is at the helm - and there's nothing anyone here can do to stop it. For my part - I work with Wyndham every week - and based upon my considerable amount of experience here on TUG - I'm one of the only people that actually works with Wyndham. I don't buy into the "us vs them" mantra that underlies much of the sentiment expressed by the "old crew" here ont TUG - I buy into the "let's work together" to make our collective ownership experiences better with Wyndham - because that's what I believe in doing to make things better. That said - I'm not angry over anything - but I do disagree with the premises of most of the arguments made by the MRs with respect to their beliefs - and I have been and will continue to be vocal about why that it is when appropriate.

 

[HitchHiker71]

I read through this whole thread and that other 18 page one, and I cannot understand why some people are hating on the mega-renter as if Wyndham is a poor disenfranchised mom and pop store owner.

My take is that Wyndham took serious notice of the money rentals were making in the secondary market and wants to monopolize piece of the pie. Like someone said in the other thread Wyndham wants to be the only mega renter in the game through their EH site.

I also don't understand how getting rid of the mega renter increases availability? I'm a newbie resale owner, so help me understand. If one owner with 67M points is forced to liquidate his/ her portfolio doesn't that mean there are now potentially 67 new owners with 1M points still trying to get La Belle Masion for mardi gras? I see it getting worse not better, or am I missing something?

We've already proven this oft used theory is incorrect - a TUG Wyndham owner even ran a test by submitting a blackout period rentral to EH recently for January timeframe just to see if EH would accept a reservation that overlapped into a blackout period. The reservation was turned away by EH - for exactly this reason. Feel free to run the same test yourself - you'll get the same result. Wyndham is currently honoring the same blackout periods on EH for owner reservations.

 

[am1]

I've often seen this example used - that everyone has the same equal opportunity. But the problem with this example is that it lacks the context of intent. As everyone knows - intent matters - it matters legally (established motive) and it matters when using the reservation system. Your intent was to run a commercial business - and that is a very different intent than someone booking strictly for personal use. The system was never designed with the intent of running commercial enterprises. The system was designed with the intent of scheduling personal vacations. Now, there are those that will then say - hey - everyone booking personal reservations also has the same equal opportunity - but most of those folks saying this - are VIP owners with unlimited HK/RTs - whereas the majority of actual owners - are not VIP and therefore don't have the luxury of being able to reserve and cancel constantly without having to bear RT costs repeatedly. So it's easy to say - hey - book everything 10-13 months in advance - on the off chance that you could actually use it - but that's easier to say when there's no additional out of pocket costs involved every time yes?

Finally, let's examine that equal opportunity vs equal outcome assumption. Since intent matters - and the system was and still is being used for too entirely different use cases - then we cannot simply ignore intent - which is what some seem to want to do here. Since there's a very small but significant subset of owners - called megarenters - that are working with an entirely different intent (motive) than what the system was intended to facilitate - the idea of equal opportunity not equal outcome doesn't apply. Why? Because the equal opportunity in this case is the ability to book a vacation reservation for a personal use. This isn't something anyone can argue against based upon this simple logic analysis that I already shared in another megarenter thread:

All CWP reservations made for commercial rental purposes violate Wyndham Commercial Use Terms & Conditions
Commercial renters made tens of thousands of reservations consisting of hundreds of millions of points for commercial rental purposes
Therefore commercial renters violated Wyndham Commercial Use Terms & Conditions

True or False?

True (based on documented Wyndham T&Cs)

With the above listed analysis foremost in mind, and using the undeniable fact of this truth - then we can invalidate the argument of equal opportunity given the opportunity is to book personal vacations - and none of the opportunities for megarenters or anyone else running a commercial business - are booking personal vacations for personal use. It really is that simple folks. It may not be what some want to hear - and inevitably they will likely disagree - but it will be difficult to establish any valid premise when we look at things from the above listed factual perspective. If anyone doubts this perspective - simply look at the response from Wyndham embedded in the article:

First tell that to the sales people who got their directions from management. Tell that to the people who never once told me what I was doing was against Wyndham policy before I walked away (drove away in a rental car).

And then don't hate the player hate the game. Not much in life is fair. I made the most of what I could (mostly). I should have done more and went all in. I left a lot of money on the table for various reasons but that is life. 98% of the time I made sure to be able to be online when bookings could start and well as cancel at the last possible moment at night to be able to rebook in morning. Then if I was going to walk away from a reservation at 15 days or inside if booking in the morning and cancelling at night I would book the book the middle 2 or 3 nights breaking the week up. That way 3 people would get reservations or upgrades instead of one upgrading a full week or booking a full week.

 

[HitchHiker71]

So what’s the answer? My opinions
1. No discounts & or upgrades using GCs.
2. Resorts have to help on owners checking in for rentals. An owner doing rentals lives close by a resort & is constantly checking in. There’s only a few employees assigning unit numbers they know who they are.
3. Get control of the amount of GCs being used by a few. Raising the cost & less free ones.
4. I’m open to a family & friends list.

I’m 100% against the current blackout list ruining family & friends group vacations & hope it goes away ASAP. Tomorrow isn’t soon enough for me!!!
This is the worst thing Wyndham could’ve come up with IMHO!! Wyndham stop punishing practically all owners with the blackout list!!!!!!

I'm fine with the proposed items above. Richelle and I have explicitly had several conversations and proposals for item 4 above, dependent upon the use cases in scope. I continue to push this option as a valid part of an overall solution. I've also seen suggestions to simply stop allowing for purchase of additional GCs. That's not something I've considered in the past - I need to think about this option more as it relates to any possible F&F program.

 

[Cyrus24]

If you received a cease and desist letter from Wyndham for commercial use activity - you're being identified as someone who is violating the terms of commercial use clauses. Wyndham has already defined what is or is not a commercial renter - no need for anyone on this thread to attempt to do so as a result.

I did not receive a cease and desist letter. But then, I only own 168K in resale. My point was that by the definition of some on the forum anyone who rents if violating intent and is an evil MR. Yet, one who does complain loudly has rented via LMR and has also taken compensation for rooms rented for coveted Daytona Bike week. I'd just like to know where the line is. It's time Wyndham defined the line!!! And, since no line exists, it seems that we most likely are all in violation of the rules since we have all either rented for cash or taken some type of compensation for putting friends and family up in room at a Wyndham resort.

 

[Cyrus24]

The Blackout Program seems to be working. BC has openings every weekend, except one, for the next 60 days. I have to wonder if we won't see this type of bump in availability after the MR's are gone and the Blackout BS is stopped? Or will MR's just suck up weekends at full point cost then just start charging more in rent for the units? Could a person still not come out ahead renting at a price similar to that being offered on EH by Wyndham?
Still not sure that availability will improve after the MR point ownership is reduced.