What Should I Buy?

[Cateacher]

1) Is there a vacation destination you wish to visit most of the time or on a regular basis? if so where? Right now I'm looking for flexibility as we travel one week a year for comp dance and then five to six 2-3 night weekends between Feb and May.

2) Do you want to visit your home resort at least half the time, or do you want to trade more than half the time? Trade more, no home destination.

3) What are your 5 top trade destinations?
Anaheim, CA
SF, CA
San Jose, CA
Monterey, CA
San Diego, CA

However, I do want to take kids to Hawaii and would like to take the wife to Australia-NZ someday.

4) How many people do you usually travel with?
2-4 depending on work

5) Can you travel any time, or are you locked into the school schedule?
School schedule

6) Can you make firm plans 12 or more mos. in advance?
Yes

7) Can you vacation for a full week at a time?
Once a year

8) What level of accommodations do you prefer on a scale of 1 to 5 stars?
3-4 stars

9) How much can you afford to spend upfront, without financing?
5K

10) How much can you afford to spend every year for a maintenance fee that will come due right after Christmas, and increase each year?
2K

11) Are you a detail oriented planner?
Yes

12) Do you understand that once you buy a timeshare, it may be very difficult to sell or give away, and you are responsible for all fees, until you do?
Yes

 

[taterhed]

So, I'll jump in with a quick suggestion; no real need to nit-pick this one.

You want to be able to reserve short stays.
You want west coast properties
You have modest purchase cash
You want access to great exchanges once a year

So, the short notice, short stays speaks clearly to points.
Points are usually expensive (Marriott, HGVC) but there are less expensive points timeshares
Worldmark has great West Coast presence, is flexible and affordable
Wyndham has lots of resorts, flexible, affordable.

If you're right for timeshares.....Worldmark or Wyndham are probably where you should look.

The problem with the short stays (2 days) is this: you get charged housekeeping on many/most reservations. That's $66 to $150 (studio-4br) per stay; 1 day or 7. About $70 1br or $90 2 br. This can drive up the costs. But, don't fear, they give you lots of opportunities to book for cash or under flexible 'madness' rates as well. These are much less, from $65 a day up. Could you get a cheaper hotel? Maybe (Motel 666), but we're talking about a timeshare room, usually complete with a kitchen, utensils and a much larger room etc... Also, the atmosphere/people at a timeshare are usually much nicer than you'll find at a roadside Motel Hell.

Worldmark is a much easier easier (for me) that has great access to a lot of resorts. They are not as big as Wyndham, and not as east-coast oriented, but they have access to Interval International, and Worldmark can and will pull some very amazing exchanges if you know what you're doing. Hawaii and Aussie/Nz are doable with Worldmark/Interval without a doubt. I know this from experience.

The nice thing about Worldmark, is they give you lots of opportunities to book stays (short or long) using methods other than your owned points or at a discount (weeks inside of 60 days on II). This is key. This will extend your ability to book vacations. Also, you automatically 'bank' points from year to year and can borrow from next year.

Finally, with Worldmark, buying is easy. Buy resale--easy and safe. A fully-loaded account (study to find what this is) should be no more than $.40 a point--all in--including transfer. Buy it, use it, sell it if you don't like it. That simple. Worldmark accounts buy/sell all the time. No drama. You can even rent-out the points if you find you can't use them one year.

A 10,000 point account is a great starter for medium usage, if efficient by maintenance fees and relatively easy to find.

One factor: I'm not just suggesting a WM account, I'm suggesting a WM account AND an Interval account as well. (RCI is up to you....I'm a member, but they provide little that I like and their exchange fees are getting worse by the year.) This opens up TONS of resorts and locations--including Marriotts and Hyatts etc... So, when you look at the cost, remember to factor in the Cost of the WM and the cost of the annual II membership/exchange costs. Don't want any surprises here.

If this sounds interesting, there is a thread here on TUG (under Wyndham) and a great website, WMOwners.com

Good luck

 

[Cateacher]

Rob, appreciate the time you took to respond. I have an SPG card that I have used the past 5 years to get free hotel stays for us and we've used that religiously on almost every purchase we can make (of course never carrying a balance). We are fine in a hotel for a couple nights and about half the time it's just my wife and oldest daughter for dance as I am coaching and have to work, so with those I could use my SPG/Marriott points when it's just them. However, after my wife booked us the Wydham Grand Desert this past week in Vegas and getting upgraded from a 2 bdrm to a lock out (now I know why) for a 5 night stay it would be tough to go back to a hotel for a long stay. It's nice to have a little privacy and the kids obviously enjoyed having their own separate hotel room. Yes, the wife forgot to include the $150 cleaning fee when telling me what a "great price" she got it for

I liked Wydham because of the huge network of properties, but they do lack a west coast presence, so I will look into WM for sure.

I know there's a Wydham card, is their a WM card?

Cheers!
Bill

 

[taterhed]

Yes, Wyndham manages WM, so the Wyndham card works for WM....AFAIK; I did check the T&C real quick and WM is mentioned in the earn points section.

So, the deal with Worldmark: You have access to all the WM properties (North AM), and some access to Wyndham properties (WM has units in these properties and vice versa), access to some properties in the S Pacific (some as points, some as rental, not a very good rental deal) and tons of properties via Interval. I wouldn't mess with RCI unless they had something you really wanted.

Wyndham is a different animal. Similar points system, similar fees....but different system overall. They have ARP (priority and one resort) and CWA (priority at multiple resorts). They have different MF's, different scale of points (10k WM equals 160-240k Wyndham) and more.

Head to the TUG comparisons and other FAQs in the Newbies section or on TUG2.net Lots of info there.

You could consider a Marriott or VSE property, but the $$$ would be tight and based on your selections, you'd be trading a great deal.

Hopefully others will reply: Wyndham and WM are both great systems; WM is cheaper and easier to get in/out. Wyndham has greater access and more options than WM. Of course, WM trades in Interval (Hawaii and other 4*+ resorts), Wyndham trades (almost exclusively) in RCI. More resorts, but less quality and higher fees (at this time).

Cheers.

 

[geist1223]

With resale WM Points the only South Pacific Resort for Direct Booking through WM is Fiji. There are 2 different ways to get to New Zealand and/or Australia with WM Points. 1. Trades RCI, II, or other trade organizations. 2. Buy expensive WM Developer Points from Wyndham.

 

[taterhed]

With resale WM Points the only South Pacific Resort for Direct Booking through WM is Fiji. There are 2 different ways to get to New Zealand and/or Australia with WM Points. 1. Trades RCI, II, or other trade organizations. 2. Buy expensive WM Developer Points from Wyndham.

I've never taken the time to actually see how many of the listed properties were shared between WM and WMSP. In fact, I see now that it's only Fiji. In your experience are any of the 'rental' rates for WMSP resorts worth reviewing? The few I've looked at are equal or higher than market.

So....there is a ton of Interval inventory for the SP. A quick search of the next year showed 21 resorts.

Additionally, I think you can still buy Worldmark South Pacific points...if that's your gig...and full access to all the WMSP resorts.

Thanks @geist1223

 

[geist1223]

We have stayed at several WMSP Resorts with Developer Points - Coffs Harbour, Sydney (twice), Rotorua (twice), and 7 Mile Beach (Tasmnia). We have also stayed at Fiji. We greatly enjoyed all of our stays and did not mind the Point cost. At Coffs Harbour we stayed at Terraces and not Treetops. The units were in great need of Rehabilitation. We complained to both BOD's - WMSP and WM. They ended up giving us our Points back. The Condo's at Treetops cost a lot more Points and are smaller. The Condo's at Terraces are hugh. WMSP has several different Red Weeks at each Resort. We Book during some of the lower Red Weeks. The Wait List works well with WMSP. Last time we Booked Sydney we wanted a 2 Bedroom Condo but only 1 Bedroom Condos were available. So we Booked 2 of them and Wait Listed for 2 Bedroom. We got a 2 Bedroom Unit off the Wait List. If you call in to the VPC try and get a Rep that has worked with WMSP. We try and head Down Under in January or February - our winter their summer. The exception is if you are going to North Australia. Then you want to go during their winter because their summer is rainy season.

You can buy WMSP Points/Accounts. Developer pricing is very similar to Wyndhqm/Worldmark. It can be hard to find WMSP resell. They use to be available on TUG and were about $1.00 per Point.