Fees increases everywhere

[presley]

I'm not sure I'd recommend any timeshare to any person newly looking into it. The fee increases everywhere really add up. I can accept that MFs go up every year, but when you add in all the other fees..... ouch!

HGVC: My actual MFs didn't go up (I own affiliates), but the reserves did.
Property tax - always goes up in California.
All booking fees and club fee have gone up.
Open season - cash rates - many up to the point that it's probably cheaper to book through a discount booking site.
The prices of resale transfers is high enough that it will have to reduce resale prices to compensate.

Shell: Okay, I was one of the ones who had my fees go down this year. Most people had significant increases because the board decided to change how they figure the rates without any type of member notification. Our exchange company, II has increased all their rates/fees.

WorldMark: They always have small increases, but the biggie right now is that all of sudden, many of their resorts have to charge TOT. I posted the fees in the Worldmark forum. Some of the rooms are really expensive in taxes now. I can only imagine what people who bought from the developer last month are thinking now with these increases (housekeeping and bonus time increased, too).

Exchange companies in general are charging a lot. I think the worst value I've ever seen is exchanging HGVC in RCI. You pay high MFs and taxes and then over $200. to exchange for something that is probably valued at a lot less. SFX started charging over $200 for an exchange unless you pay them a lot of money for a platinum membership. II added a new resort category - elite. I think they just did that change the trading value so if you don't own an elite one, it will be harder to trade into one.

Just thinking out loud. I just don't see how I could recommend any of this to a newbie.

 

[vacationhopeful]

.... you add in all the other fees..... ouch!

....WorldMark: They always have small increases, but the biggie right now is that all of sudden, many of their resorts have to charge TOT. I posted the fees in the Worldmark forum. Some of the rooms are really expensive in taxes now. .....

Okay ... WHY?

The "transit occupancy tax" is usually charge for short term rental units .. like motels and hotels.

Is this based on state law? Or a city ordinances? Length of stay? That it is a "club" verses a traditional timeshare ownership of deeded property?

 

[ronparise]

I'm not sure I'd recommend any timeshare to any person newly looking into it. The fee increases everywhere really add up. I can accept that MFs go up every year, but when you add in all the other fees..... ouch!

HGVC: My actual MFs didn't go up (I own affiliates), but the reserves did.
Property tax - always goes up in California.
All booking fees and club fee have gone up.
Open season - cash rates - many up to the point that it's probably cheaper to book through a discount booking site.
The prices of resale transfers is high enough that it will have to reduce resale prices to compensate.

Shell: Okay, I was one of the ones who had my fees go down this year. Most people had significant increases because the board decided to change how they figure the rates without any type of member notification. Our exchange company, II has increased all their rates/fees.

WorldMark: They always have small increases, but the biggie right now is that all of sudden, many of their resorts have to charge TOT. I posted the fees in the Worldmark forum. Some of the rooms are really expensive in taxes now. I can only imagine what people who bought from the developer last month are thinking now with these increases (housekeeping and bonus time increased, too).

Exchange companies in general are charging a lot. I think the worst value I've ever seen is exchanging HGVC in RCI. You pay high MFs and taxes and then over $200. to exchange for something that is probably valued at a lot less. SFX started charging over $200 for an exchange unless you pay them a lot of money for a platinum membership. II added a new resort category - elite. I think they just did that change the trading value so if you don't own an elite one, it will be harder to trade into one.

Just thinking out loud. I just don't see how I could recommend any of this to a newbie.

Add at all up. Is it still cheaper than renting

If so it works for me

 

[bogey21]

Add at all up. Is it still cheaper than renting

Ill assume you are right about that but if you take into account the difficulties some are having making exchanges or using points, renting may be looking more attractive.

George

 

[presley]

Okay ... WHY?

The "transit occupancy tax" is usually charge for short term rental units .. like motels and hotels.

Is this based on state law? Or a city ordinances? Length of stay? That it is a "club" verses a traditional timeshare ownership of deeded property?

According to the website:
"Lodging Tax (LT)/Transient Occupancy Tax (TOT)
Taxes are required to be charged on reservations made for owner stays at certain resorts. These taxes can have different names but are commonly referred to as lodging taxes or occupancy taxes. The taxability of stays and the rate at which the nightly stays are taxed vary by taxing authority (state and/or local) based on the location of the resort. Rates are not determined by WorldMark and are subject to change without notice. Any applicable taxes must be paid in full at the time a reservation is made."

Since you have Wyndham, you should be able to see the fees for the resorts that are both Wyndham and Worldmark. It's over $50./night for a 4 bedroom in Anaheim with WM. That should be the same when booking through Wyndham according to the above info from the website.

 

[Timeshare Von]

Hawaii charges a per night based on unit size "occupancy" tax on timeshare stays, whether by the actual owner, an exchanger or renter.

 

[ronparise]

Ill assume you are right about that but if you take into account the difficulties some are having making exchanges or using points, renting may be looking more attractive.

George

That was meant to be a question. Is it cheaper than renting?

 

[VegasBella]

That was meant to be a question. Is it cheaper than tenting?

Probably not cheaper than tenting but might be cheaper than renting

I know that even with my fee increases it's cheaper than renting. But if we were renting for every vacation we'd just take fewer vacations. Our total spending wouldn't go up dramatically. I prefer our current situation owning timeshares but there may come a time in the future when I would rather not have the burdens that come with them.

I definitely do not recommend timesharing to anyone. I feel like there are just so many personal variables (schedule, finances, preferred destinations, vacation style etc) and variations of timeshares (weeks vs points, deeded vs non, small vs large, etc etc). Each situation is so unique.

 

[classiclincoln]

What do you expect?

Yes, fees go up each year. So does everything else. People get raises; who do you think pays for them? Expenses go up; who do you think pays for that?

Everything goes up (except energy costs and gold right now). That's called life.

 

[WinniWoman]

Yes, fees go up each year. So does everything else. People get raises; who do you think pays for them? Expenses go up; who do you think pays for that?

Everything goes up (except energy costs and gold right now). That's called life.

People get raises? I haven't had a raise in 4 years!:annoyed:

 

[vacationhopeful]

People get raises? I haven't had a raise in 4 years!:annoyed:

Have you have to do a GIVEBACK on your pay rate? I had MORE income 10 years ago than the past 6+ years ... all the while working longer and harder.

 

[rickandcindy23]

Except for WorldMark, fees seem to go up faster than our income and the cost of living increases for the year.

Our Kauai Wyndham fees are going up because the property taxes increased. It's a bit disconcerting; however, they haven't done anything like Maui did with timeshare property tax increases. I have to be thankful for that.

RCI is out of control with exchange fees. I think it's gone up $20 yearly for the last two years. I am using II more for the value I get out of my weeks. I am trying to get II to take Val Chatelle as an exchange property, but they are resistant to taking on a small resort of six units. Not enough money for them. Too bad because our owners don't want RCI and don't use it much anymore.

 

[Sugarcubesea]

Have you have to do a GIVEBACK on your pay rate? I had MORE income 10 years ago than the past 6+ years ... all the while working longer and harder.

I had to do that 3 years in a row, not only did I not get a raise but to keep my job I had to take a pay cut… I finally had enough and moved to a new company with better benefits and a higher pay….

 

[rickandcindy23]

That was meant to be a question. Is it cheaper than renting?

We have been doing a lot of manufactured spend on our Chase Ink Bold card. An 8,000 spend on that card at office supply stores is worth 40K points when transferred over to Hyatt (5X points). I buy a lot of gift cards for things I ordinarily buy with credit card and use the gift cards instead. 5X points is a lot better than 1X.

We also buy Visa cards and deposit them into Bluebird, which is electronic checking we use FREE. We can pay our mortgage, maintenance fees, insurance, water, power, gas, HOA dues, etc., all with those cards.

Check to see what 40,000 points gets you with Hyatt. We transfer the points through the Ultimate Rewards Portal each month to several different places. I can see an end to using RCI in our future, especially when traveling to places in Europe. I have no intention of staying one place for 7 nights, and what's available to us anyway?

 

[WinniWoman]

Have you have to do a GIVEBACK on your pay rate? I had MORE income 10 years ago than the past 6+ years ... all the while working longer and harder.

On one of my past jobs I did. I ended up leaving, but long and short of it is now I am making the same salary I made 16 years ago. And- same here- more hours between commuting and everything else- all the while I am getting older and older. UGH! I guess I should be happy I have a job still at this point. I try to be thankful.

 

[dominidude]

We have been doing a lot of manufactured spend on our Chase Ink Bold card. An 8,000 spend on that card at office supply stores is worth 40K points when transferred over to Hyatt (5X points). I buy a lot of gift cards for things I ordinarily buy with credit card and use the gift cards instead. 5X points is a lot better than 1X.

We also buy Visa cards and deposit them into Bluebird, which is electronic checking we use FREE. We can pay our mortgage, maintenance fees, insurance, water, power, gas, HOA dues, etc., all with those cards.

Check to see what 40,000 points gets you with Hyatt. We transfer the points through the Ultimate Rewards Portal each month to several different places. I can see an end to using RCI in our future, especially when traveling to places in Europe. I have no intention of staying one place for 7 nights, and what's available to us anyway?

I looked into this shortly a while back and the math didn't seem to add up.

The gift cards I see at office supply stores seem to be mostly for restaurants, not for things like grocery stores or gas station.

Also, buying a $100 visa or MC card costs like $7, yes depositing into Bluebird is free, but I can't get past the $7 purchase fee.

Am i wrong in anything I said? I'd love to know

 

[rickandcindy23]

I looked into this shortly a while back and the math didn't seem to add up.

The gift cards I see at office supply stores seem to be mostly for restaurants, not for things like grocery stores or gas station.

Also, buying a $100 visa or MC card costs like $7, yes depositing into Bluebird is free, but I can't get past the $7 purchase fee.

Am i wrong in anything I said? I'd love to know

You have to have the Chase Ink Plus Visa card (or Chase Ink Bold MasterCard) to get 5X at office supply stores. We each have a card, so we buy gift cards from Staples and use those for Bluebird electronic checking. Then we pay all of our bills, even some maintenance fees, with the Bluebird.

The math works for us, but hey, I am just a 60-year-old woman with time to work the system. I got my info from Flyertalk.com. I read almost all of the manufactured spend threads from top to bottom and learned so much. I figured out that naysayers of the system I do most are big players in that system. They just don't want others to figure out how great it is and get it shut down for them. They say things like, "Yeah, if you live in the Bay Area, forget any option of loading Bluebird because it's shutdown by Walmart." Oh, sure. :rofl:

Just some simple math I did yesterday with Hyatt reservations we made for a hotel stay in Portland: Hotel cost in cash $162+ tax OR 8,000 points, which we transferred from Chase Ink Bold, total cost for 8,000 points is $48. We get the Staples $300 gift cards at $308.95. So $190 reservation for $48 worth of points. Yeah, it's worth every cent.

Also, Southwest is about $155 in value for our total cost of $53.70 in gift card purchases. I love Southwest.

 

[rickandcindy23]

I looked into this shortly a while back and the math didn't seem to add up.

The gift cards I see at office supply stores seem to be mostly for restaurants, not for things like grocery stores or gas station.

Also, buying a $100 visa or MC card costs like $7, yes depositing into Bluebird is free, but I can't get past the $7 purchase fee.

Am i wrong in anything I said? I'd love to know

Each of our Ink cards has $50K limit for 5X, so we have a total of $100K we spend to get 500K points. That is a lot of Southwest and Hyatt vacations. The only card you can get is the Chase Ink Plus for 5X now. The Ink Bold we have is no longer available. Don't know why.

We also pay our property and income taxes this way, which amounts to at least $30K per year for those. Bluebird has checks we use for those things. The checks just have to be verified ahead of time for funds available and I write a code on the check that Bluebird gives me. Works great.

 

[philemer]

Each of our Ink cards has $50K limit for 5X, so we have a total of $100K we spend to get 500K points. That is a lot of Southwest and Hyatt vacations. The only card you can get is the Chase Ink Plus for 5X now. The Ink Bold we have is no longer available. Don't know why.

We also pay our property and income taxes this way, which amounts to at least $30K per year for those. Bluebird has checks we use for those things. The checks just have to be verified ahead of time for funds available and I write a code on the check that Bluebird gives me. Works great.

You can also use the Chase Sapphire Preferred card to build up UR pts and then xfer to hotels & airlines (limited #).

My Bluebird card got shut down last month. Many, many folks are reporting the same problem. :annoyed: