Free Fixed Week Conversions?

[stevenh21]

Now my mind is questioning should I go through with conversion. I liked the pros and con list used by previous poster so I am going to list mine.

Pro:

• Flexibility- during Covid we were not permitted to travel to Florida without quarantining and losing 2 weeks of work. In future should there be another issue( resort closure or travel restriction), we would have other options for travel.
• Pooling of points: I could add those 126K points to my 326k points
• RCI pooling points rather than an RCI points and RCI weeks account
• MERGE Peter stated he may be able to merge account without cost. My husband is a co owner of this property and his name is on title.
• No Cost and can be canceled

Cons:

• Fees Maintenance fees are increased due to fees
• Love our unit. We would not wish to stay in the other buildings on the property. We have the Ocean View and beach access. We love the amenities that are on the property across the road but really like the beach and quiet of the Ocean view building. We would have priority booking at the property, but I don't know if we would get a room in the Ocean view building as they are only a few.

It does look like the pros win, but the ocean view and beach access are appealing. Good luck with your decision. I wonder if Peter would be able to convert our Georgia week. I worked with the other person you mentioned. We did finish signing our docs for Flagstaff yesterday.

 

[Lisa P]

Cons:
Love our unit. We would not wish to stay in the other buildings on the property. We have the Ocean View and beach access. We love the amenities that are on the property across the road but really like the beach and quiet of the Ocean view building. We would have priority booking at the property, but I don't know if we would get a room in the Ocean view building as they are only a few.

We have 2 contracts. Both were originally deeded fixed weeks, converted to Club Wyndham points many years ago. It is my understanding that if we wish to stay in our underlying deeded week, we only need to contact Wyndham more than 10 months ahead (during the Advance Reservation Period) and notify them of our intent to use it for that year. The associated points are then taken from our account and we're given the reservation. When we don't reserve our underlying week... at the 10 month mark, the default is to add the underlying week into Wyndham's points inventory for the Standard Reservation Period. Best of both worlds.

IMO, it would be worthwhile to clarify with Wyndham whether your conversion would work the same way, assuring you of your ability to use your fixed week/unit as the owner, if you request your reservation during ARP. If you are converting your contract to a Club Wyndham Select, it may be that your ARP for those points is only valid for your underlying deeded week - does that include for your week and unit? If you are converting to UDI points, then your ARP for for those points would be valid for any reservation at your home resort. So clarify what kind of ARP you would have for that contract's points.

 

[stevenh21]

We have had so many problems completing this conversion process, I had to think if I really wanted to share here. I have made updates, on this thread, throughout the attempted conversion. DW and I signed the contract on October 28, as did a rep for Wyndham, on November 4. Wyndham financial dept decided we needed to start making payments on December 5. My feeling is that this was a month too early. I had no way of checking anything about this online as account had not been set up. It was on financial's system but not on the system that Owner Care could help me. IT still does not have our account activated, even though we have made two monthly payments. I have talked to several financial and owner care reps, get different stories. December 1, a financial rep told me I needed to pay 2021 maintenance fees directly to the resort. I did that right away. The next day I was told that was a mistake. The only way owner care can look up the account is with the original case number for the conversion.

The contract had Plus Partners checked along with the 2020 program fee of $180. When I received the Annual Club Wyndham Assessment Summary for 2021, the fee was listed as $165. Somehow Plus Partners evidently was lost or changed inspite of the contract. In mid December I learned the rep who started the conversion was supposed to be guiding it through to completion. It took about 5 days to communicate with him. He couldn't see details due to it not being in the owner care computer system. He said we would have to wait until IT was finished with it. I don't even know what month the use year begins.

One of the reps I talked with shared that emails are still going out to some weeks members offering the same conversion program. The link in post #3 still works to go to the "From Fixed to Flexible" program description. It states the program is available until February 28.

I hope that others have better luck in completing their conversation.

 

[stevenh21]

Yea! Finally have online access to the converted weeks account. Yesterday I made my bi-weekly attempt to create the account and it finally took my info to create the password, etc. Of course I have not been notified that IT had completed their job. The points were not added until January 26, which makes me further question why I was billed in November for payment in December. Also, Plus Partners was not listed on the account as was listed on the conversion contract. I will be following up on those two items.

 

[Richelle]

Yea! Finally have online access to the converted weeks account. Yesterday I made my bi-weekly attempt to create the account and it finally took my info to create the password, etc. Of course I have not been notified that IT had completed their job. The points were not added until January 26, which makes me further question why I was billed in November for payment in December. Also, Plus Partners was not listed on the account as was listed on the conversion contract. I will be following up on those two items.

You're going to have to give IT more than a few days to do everything and notify you it's done. You're not the only one with ownership changes in the works right now. Their workload is heavier than normal right now.

 

[Lisa P]

The points were not added until January 26, which makes me further question why I was billed in November for payment in December.

On a points account, I believe the monthly maint fees are paid a year in advance so in case you choose to use all of your current year's points in January, the maint fees will have already been paid. If you paid for a full year this last December on the weeks ownership, it may have been to bring your account paid up in full for the year before beginning the monthly payment plan which pays in advance of the next year. Hope that makes sense.

 

[bnoble]

On a points account, I believe the monthly maint fees are paid a year in advance

This is true for converted weeks. Fees are assessed in the year prior to use, so the (monthly) fees you pay in Year N are intended to cover the underlying resort's MFs in Year N+1. For UDI ownerships, fees are assessed in the year of use.

 

[Lisa P]

Good info Brian!

 

[stevenh21]

Lisa P and bnoble (Brian), thanks for your comments on weeks conversion maintenance fees being paid a year ahead. I had been given a heads up by another member about that. Financial info in the conversion contract listed a year's amount paid in advance, but without full explanation as to how that worked. The November bill to be paid in December was only an amount for one month. As previously stated I did pay 2021 maintenance fees directly to the resort in December. I did have two different Wyndham reps tell me that points were only paid for in the year of use. So things were confusing. In the end, 2021 was prepaid, and 2022 is being paid monthly. The good news is it did turn out to be a conversion to CW Select.