wyatt-wyatt
TUG Member
I've noticed that some points-based timeshare Companies provide substantial maintenance fee discounts for memberships with larger volumes of points. For example, at Club Melia a 40,000 option membership ("options" mean "points" in Melia language) often has total annual fees of around $850. Amazingly, a membership at the same home resort with double the options (80,000) often only charges total annual fees of around $950 (i.e. ~$100 more). Some of the "discount" in cost per point can likely be accounted for by the fact that part of the total annual costs is a network fee, which stays at the same level $100 to $200 level regardless of how many options are associated with the membership. That said, this still doesn't account for the entire difference.
Perhaps Melia structures its memberships this way to convince people to buy memberships with larger options (notably, the upfront purchase price of larger memberships is quite high, so perhaps they make their money on the initial purchase, rather than higher maintenance after that). Whatever the reason, the resulting effect is that when buying resale (where the purchase price is often low), there is a substantial advantage (in a bang for the buck sense) to buying larger memberships, rather than smaller.
In contrast, Wyndham doesn't seem to offer a substantial discount for larger memberships. The annual maintenance fee for a membership with 300,000 annual options is only marginally less than twice the membership of one at the same home resort with 150,000 options. The effect of this is that (assuming one doesn't need to travel every year) it appears to make just as much, if not more, sense to buy a smaller membership, and then (if necessary) bank points over a few years to pay for any big trip one wants to take.
Perhaps I am mistaken in noticing this difference between Wyndham and Melia, but it got me thinking, are most other major points-based timeshares (Marriott, Hilton, Hyatt, Sheraton/Westin, etc.) in the Wyndham camp (charging the same maintenance fees per point no matter how many points are owned) or the Melia camp (charging a lower maintenance fee per point for higher point memberships, so that the annual maintenance for the larger memberships is only slightly higher than for the smaller memberships)?
My gratitude for anyone who can shed light on this subject.
Perhaps Melia structures its memberships this way to convince people to buy memberships with larger options (notably, the upfront purchase price of larger memberships is quite high, so perhaps they make their money on the initial purchase, rather than higher maintenance after that). Whatever the reason, the resulting effect is that when buying resale (where the purchase price is often low), there is a substantial advantage (in a bang for the buck sense) to buying larger memberships, rather than smaller.
In contrast, Wyndham doesn't seem to offer a substantial discount for larger memberships. The annual maintenance fee for a membership with 300,000 annual options is only marginally less than twice the membership of one at the same home resort with 150,000 options. The effect of this is that (assuming one doesn't need to travel every year) it appears to make just as much, if not more, sense to buy a smaller membership, and then (if necessary) bank points over a few years to pay for any big trip one wants to take.
Perhaps I am mistaken in noticing this difference between Wyndham and Melia, but it got me thinking, are most other major points-based timeshares (Marriott, Hilton, Hyatt, Sheraton/Westin, etc.) in the Wyndham camp (charging the same maintenance fees per point no matter how many points are owned) or the Melia camp (charging a lower maintenance fee per point for higher point memberships, so that the annual maintenance for the larger memberships is only slightly higher than for the smaller memberships)?
My gratitude for anyone who can shed light on this subject.
