I have been following this thread because a friend of mine is in the exact same position, but after all of the back and forth I am more confused than ever.
Her parents are in ill health now (cancer, dementia, mobility issues). They won't be using their timeshares any more. All that she knows is that all of their contracts are developer purchases, and at least two were purchased for the same reason as the OP - to share with family and friends. I am unsure of how many points they own, and if any of their children are on the deeds. Is there an faq of how she and her siblings move forward from here? Is there value to them since they were developer purchases? Should they have her parents add their names to the deeds to keep any status and to avoid the account being frozen if the kids started using the points? Obviously if there are still outstanding loans they won't assume any debt (I don't think so - my friend thinks that they used a small inheritance to purchase more points). My friend and her siblings are open to using the timeshares so I am trying to give her good advice for moving forward.
I would call Wyndham and have them add the kids' names to the contracts that they own, if they want to use them. I think Wyndham will do that for free. Add each kid's name to the account. Important to do that so heirs don't have to pay for guest certificates, and the heirs are not accused by Wyndham of renting. All of our kids are on our account, and it's been a blessing.
The value is in the status. If they have platinum or platinum founder status, these points can be very valuable to the kids. Within 60 days, founder status gets 60% discounts on all stays, platinum status gets 50% discount. For example, Wyndham Shearwater, where you visited with us last summer, the units are 500,000 for top floor for 7 nights. If you can book that at 60% less points, that's only 200,000 points X (my cost) $6.00 per 1,000, that's only $1,200 per week. Inventory is constantly changing. If you don't see it online now, it could be there tomorrow or next week. A lot of cancellations occur at 15 days before (must cancel by then or lose points).
I have booked a few days at Wyndham Branson Meadows for about $30 per night for our driving trips to /from Orlando. I even had an upgrade to a 2 bedroom that we didn't need, but they did it automatically. The resort is not as nice as Marriott's Willow Ridge or Welk's Timber Lodge, but it's still pretty nice. We get choice of unit assignment and chose high floor.
I asked on an earlier thread what the $$ value would be for a platinum founder status account, and I came to the conclusion that the value of each one (we have two) is about $20,000. What would it cost to get that status from the developer? Probably well over $100,000, but who does that, really? Most people built up to that status slowly. But we did it cheaply by converting old PAHIO weeks to Wyndham points, and it was all quite by accident. I think we paid about $16,000 each. So we feel that both are worth keeping. Our kids are in their 40's and one mostly likes to travel to Europe, so she doesn't use many points, just an occasional trip to NYC for work, and our sons are getting some use from the points. Mostly, we are using the points.