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Help! Timeshare is sinking us

Eggrollcreative

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I only own weeks, not points but I am somewhat familiar with points. Don't the points have to be backed up by deeded weeks? Otherwise , companies could sell an unlimited number of points making it virtually impossible to ever get reservations at any decent resort and season in that timeshare system.
Worldmark is points…no deeds. Vacation Internationale is also just points. They tried to convince us upgrading to Travelshare would fix the availability problem. Right…
 

andre10056

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A attorney will only add to the cost of exiting. Walk away and forget about it. If you can't afford to pay rent or electric its a non issue.
I'm not sure that this is good advice. Perhaps if the OP had no assets whatsoever, took the bus and had no car, had pretty close to zero in the bank, lived in a housing project or at least owned no real estate, and was therefore unquestionably "judgement proof", I might agree with you. After all, there are no debtor's prisons any more.

But for most people a possible and likely deficiency judgment in a jurisdiction where the creditor can thereafter go after every freakin asset you have is not something you should just "walk away" from.

They can take your car and any other vehicle/boat that you own, etc, garnish your wages if your state laws will allow it, take your house, do whatever until what they're owed is fully paid. And since a judgement is valid for twenty years, they can wait until you ultimately build up some assets in the future even if you have nothing now.

An attorney would know all of that and would be better able to advise you to achieve your best result.
 

andre10056

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It's been proven through the years that there was a, relatively small (at least by percent of total owners) group of owners that had accumulated, in some cases tens of millions of points and were using a fraction of that for personal use, and renting out the rest. They were making quite a bit of money doing it too. Actual income, not just "offsetting maintenance fees" which is the common lie used by them. At any rate, a few years ago Wyndham somehow found out that one specific owner, had something on the order of 50+ reservations at Gacier Canyon during the Thanksgiving week. Owners complained about this, and other instances (like Mardi Gras in New Orleans, Bike Week at Daytona, etc) that they were having trouble getting reservations for their families because these so called Mega Renters were in many cases monopolizing bookings for self profit. You may not know this, but until recently, if they were a VIP, they could use their resale points and get VIP privilages (upgrades, perks, etc) with those resale points as well.

Your comment about helping resale value for timeshares is a moot point because we all know by now timeshares do and always will have near zero value when we try to get rid of them... we at least want to be able to utilize them as they have been sold to us, while we can. Not compete with owners who think they are Donald Trump selling their timeshare on the black market to scrupulous families looking to save a buck but have no skin in the game...



Yes, but in general, there are the people who RENT, who use the timeshare as an income vehicle, and there are the people who use the timeshare as intended. To vacation with their families.



Speaking for myself, I honestly don't have a problem with the "average owner" that is down on their luck and wants to rent a week or 2 per year. That is absolutely NOT impacting availability. But what Wyndham found out is theres no way to properly enforce the restrictions on one group (the MEGA renter) without affecting the other (the "casual" renter). So they drew a line in the sand, and made changes to disallow both. You have a handful of people running unregulated, untaxed, cash businesses from the smokey basement of their dilapidated midwest home, or doublewide somewhere in the forest of Alabama, which were negatively affecting thousands of timeshare owners just trying to use what they paid for and competing with some scene out of the "fake gambling parlor" in the movie "The Sting"...

There have always been people on TUG who have sided with the mega renters, because they learned a trick or two from them, and several of them who were in the game, are crying foul about how they now have millions of points, and tens of thousands of dollars in MF they can't pay for with rentals... this is a self inflicted issue and it might seem cold or callous but I don't really have any sympathy for this group. They knew what they were doing was wrong, was against the club rules, and more importantly, that it was negatively affecting other owners. And didn't care, did it for pure profit. Greed.

This topic has been discussed to death on here, and you are right, it can be polarizing, but I sleep fine knowing what side of the debate i'm on... and to be clear, regarding the issue of "having to stay up to midnight", that is really a very small issue that you would encounter at only the most sought after resorts and only at PRIME weeks or weekends (think holidays, spring break, etc) and I feel a lot better losing out to some owner or family who is using it for their personal use vs some shyster who is going to park it 10 months out, the hock it on ebay to the highest bidder... THAT is the difference.
I read through this post and wanted to respond to the following:

"It's been proven through the years that there was a, relatively small (at least by percent of total owners) group of owners that had accumulated, in some cases tens of millions of points and were using a fraction of that for personal use, and renting out the rest. They were making quite a bit of money doing it too. Actual income, not just "offsetting maintenance fees" which is the common lie used by them. At any rate, a few years ago Wyndham somehow found out that one specific owner, had something on the order of 50+ reservations at Gacier Canyon during the Thanksgiving week. Owners complained about this, and other instances (like Mardi Gras in New Orleans, Bike Week at Daytona, etc) that they were having trouble getting reservations for their families because these so called Mega Renters were in many cases monopolizing bookings for self profit. You may not know this, but until recently, if they were a VIP, they could use their resale points and get VIP privilages (upgrades, perks, etc) with those resale points as well.

Your comment about helping resale value for timeshares is a moot point because we all know by now timeshares do and always will have near zero value when we try to get rid of them... we at least want to be able to utilize them as they have been sold to us, while we can. Not compete with owners who think they are Donald Trump selling their timeshare on the black market to scrupulous families looking to save a buck but have no skin in the game..."


So somebody somehow acquired tens of millions of points equivalent to 50 plus super high prime time timeshares at magnificent resorts and is using all of them to reserve Thanksgiving week (which you apparently believe is a highest demand week) at a single resort. Obviously, they must be reserving through the resort's Owner Services, and must be keeping that Owner Services rep on the phone for hours on end. And then that person would call Owner Services and get a guest certificate more than fifty times for the people to whom he rented units.

It apparently took a while, but as you say, "Wyndham somehow found out'. What geniuses they must be to be so perceptive. :)

I personally believe that implementing that strategy, even if it were not stopped by the resort Owner Services, would result in your making even less money than a McDonald's burger flipper. Hence, I find it rather difficult to believe. If the maintenance fee you pay would be exceeded by that much rental positive cash flow (so that the Mega Renter would allegedly earn, as you say, "quite a bit of money"), the points would be worth megabucks so somehow acquiring the equivalent of 50 plus units would cost a fortune. Indeed, how would you even go about acquiring that many? Timeshares Wanted ads on TUG? Nobody would let those extremely valuable points go on ebay for cheap, for example. Especially since the supply and demand situation would NOT be in the buyer's favor in trying to shake loose even units not presently up for sale..

Hence, the return on investment percentage given that initial outlay would never be worthwhile. And I'm sure it wouldn't be so easy to rent out fifty units when you're not the main office of a resort family and your ads won't appear in booking.com, hotels.com, etc. but instead in Redweek or Craigslist. Indeed, given the supply and demand situation in trying to rent out that many units, do you really think you can get top dollar for each unit? Or would you have to advertise them even on Redweek for the lowest weekly rental price, perhaps not even as high as the maintenance fee?

And then, when you ultimately want to sell those tens of millions of points, good luck on trying to get anywhere near what you paid for them (as you point out).

It sounds like something timeshare owners tell each other to whip each other into a frenzy about renters. But appears to be a fantasy to me.
 
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schoolmarm

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I read through this post and wanted to respond to the following:

"It's been proven through the years that there was a, relatively small (at least by percent of total owners) group of owners that had accumulated, in some cases tens of millions of points and were using a fraction of that for personal use, and renting out the rest. They were making quite a bit of money doing it too. Actual income, not just "offsetting maintenance fees" which is the common lie used by them. At any rate, a few years ago Wyndham somehow found out that one specific owner, had something on the order of 50+ reservations at Gacier Canyon during the Thanksgiving week. Owners complained about this, and other instances (like Mardi Gras in New Orleans, Bike Week at Daytona, etc) that they were having trouble getting reservations for their families because these so called Mega Renters were in many cases monopolizing bookings for self profit. You may not know this, but until recently, if they were a VIP, they could use their resale points and get VIP privilages (upgrades, perks, etc) with those resale points as well.

Your comment about helping resale value for timeshares is a moot point because we all know by now timeshares do and always will have near zero value when we try to get rid of them... we at least want to be able to utilize them as they have been sold to us, while we can. Not compete with owners who think they are Donald Trump selling their timeshare on the black market to scrupulous families looking to save a buck but have no skin in the game..."


So somebody somehow acquired tens of millions of points equivalent to 50 plus super high prime time timeshares at magnificent resorts and is using all of them to reserve Thanksgiving week (which you apparently believe is a highest demand week) at a single resort. Obviously, they must be reserving through the resort's Owner Services, and must be keeping that Owner Services rep on the phone for hours on end. And then that person would call Owner Services and get a guest certificate more than fifty times for the people to whom he rented units.

It apparently took a while, but as you say, "Wyndham somehow found out'. What geniuses they must be to be so perceptive. :)

I personally believe that implementing that strategy, even if it were not stopped by the resort Owner Services, would result in your making even less money than a McDonald's burger flipper. Hence, I find it rather difficult to believe. If the maintenance fee you pay would be exceeded by that much rental positive cash flow (so that the Mega Renter would allegedly earn, as you say, "quite a bit of money"), the points would be worth megabucks so somehow acquiring the equivalent of 50 plus units would cost a fortune. Indeed, how would you even go about acquiring that many? Timeshares Wanted ads on TUG? Nobody would let those extremely valuable points go on ebay for cheap, for example. Especially since the supply and demand situation would NOT be in the buyer's favor in trying to shake loose even units not presently up for sale..

Hence, the return on investment percentage given that initial outlay would never be worthwhile. And I'm sure it wouldn't be so easy to rent out fifty units when you're not the main office of a resort family and your ads won't appear in booking.com, hotels.com, etc. but instead in Redweek or Craigslist. Indeed, given the supply and demand situation in trying to rent out that many units, do you really think you can get top dollar for each unit? Or would you have to advertise them even on Redweek for the lowest weekly rental price, perhaps not even as high as the maintenance fee?

And then, when you ultimately want to sell those tens of millions of points, good luck on trying to get anywhere near what you paid for them (as you point out).

It sounds like something timeshare owners tell each other to whip each other into a frenzy about renters. But appears to be a fantasy to me.
Not a fantasy! Oh, good grief....you can buy great timeshares for $1!! Or mediocre timeshares in a points system that will get you GREAT reservations. I paid $1 plus the $299 transfer fee for Bali Hai--308K EOY; and just $1.25 all in for a 4-BR Massanuttan that I PIC for 308K Wyndham points. $700 for 154K at Sedona. Others have snagged other great bargains.

Annnnnd when you go to sell or get rid of said timeshare, you will get nothing or maybe $1 or a bit more. I gave Sedona back to Wyndham for $0 after many year of using it. I did an equity trade when I enrolled my Massanuttan into PIC. I now have all really low MF resorts with the exception of 105K CWA which was my "price" to get the PICs enrolled.

It was easier to make more money for these mega-renters when ALL of their points (retail and resale) counted for VIP. They don't anymore. And someone with this many points isn't calling in and tying up a rep to make their reservations. It's quicker to do it online. Some people reportedly used multiple computers. And they had customers that rented frequently...some even had their own websites--and some specialized in certain locations--Wisconsin Dells waterpark, New Orleans, etc.

And it DID take Wyndham a long time to figure all of this out...and that is when reservations became limited to 10 per week (or 10% of the resort, whichever was smaller) per resort. And then the retail vs. resale buckets for reservations knocked out the VIP benefits for resale points. And then the owner priority list for quite a few resorts.

All of these restrictions have been used to get the mega renters "under control".
People who have been following the Wyndham fora know this...and know how long it's been going on.
 

chapjim

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andre10056

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Not a fantasy! Oh, good grief....you can buy great timeshares for $1!! Or mediocre timeshares in a points system that will get you GREAT reservations. I paid $1 plus the $299 transfer fee for Bali Hai--308K EOY; and just $1.25 all in for a 4-BR Massanuttan that I PIC for 308K Wyndham points. $700 for 154K at Sedona. Others have snagged other great bargains.

Annnnnd when you go to sell or get rid of said timeshare, you will get nothing or maybe $1 or a bit more. I gave Sedona back to Wyndham for $0 after many year of using it. I did an equity trade when I enrolled my Massanuttan into PIC. I now have all really low MF resorts with the exception of 105K CWA which was my "price" to get the PICs enrolled.

It was easier to make more money for these mega-renters when ALL of their points (retail and resale) counted for VIP. They don't anymore. And someone with this many points isn't calling in and tying up a rep to make their reservations. It's quicker to do it online. Some people reportedly used multiple computers. And they had customers that rented frequently...some even had their own websites--and some specialized in certain locations--Wisconsin Dells waterpark, New Orleans, etc.

And it DID take Wyndham a long time to figure all of this out...and that is when reservations became limited to 10 per week (or 10% of the resort, whichever was smaller) per resort. And then the retail vs. resale buckets for reservations knocked out the VIP benefits for resale points. And then the owner priority list for quite a few resorts.

All of these restrictions have been used to get the mega renters "under control".
People who have been following the Wyndham fora know this...and know how long it's been going on.
Sure you can buy timeshares for $1. But the fact that you can occasionally find these "bargains" because the timeshare was killing someone financially indicates that it's not likely to return much in the way of net rental income. There are very few listed on ebay right now that will be able to generate any rental income over the annual maintenance fee, if they rent at all.

Too many Airbnb alternatives out there which allow people to rent beautifully furnished and professionally cleaned condos or homes for a fraction of what hotels charge. And that of course would be your competition.

Might you tell us for what you rented your "standing on the carcass of others" purchases? How many hours did you regularly spend on ebay before finding one or two or three that you might choose to bid on? And how much time did you spend on preparing and responding to the ads you placed?

Because it seems to me that becoming a timeshare rental mogul is about the most ridiculous moneymaking strategy that I've ever heard. Almost as bad as someone planning to buy low and sell high on timeshares. All that effort and time to possibly generate pennies but more likely lose big. Like I said, better to be a burger flipper at McDonald's.
 

andre10056

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All of these restrictions have been used to get the mega renters "under control".

Being somewhat cynical about the real reason behind changes like this, rather than what was purported to be the reason, I might suggest that it had more to do with encouraging people to buy retail and punish those who bought or were considering buying resale.
 

HitchHiker71

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Sure you can buy timeshares for $1. But the fact that you can occasionally find these "bargains" because the timeshare was killing someone financially indicates that it's not likely to return much in the way of net rental income. There are very few listed on ebay right now that will be able to generate any rental income over the annual maintenance fee, if they rent at all.

Too many Airbnb alternatives out there which allow people to rent beautifully furnished and professionally cleaned condos or homes for a fraction of what hotels charge. And that of course would be your competition.

Might you tell us for what you rented your "standing on the carcass of others" purchases? How many hours did you regularly spend on ebay before finding one or two or three that you might choose to bid on? And how much time did you spend on preparing and responding to the ads you placed?

Because it seems to me that becoming a timeshare rental mogul is about the most ridiculous moneymaking strategy that I've ever heard. Almost as bad as someone planning to buy low and sell high on timeshares. All that effort and time to possibly generate pennies but more likely lose big. Like I said, better to be a burger flipper at McDonald's.

Whether you choose to believe that people utilize(d) timeshares for commercial enterprises is up to you - but all you have to do is search these forums and you'll see these folks were shut down by Wyndham - and some of them aren't/weren't very happy about it at all. The fact is that many a "mega-renter" ran commercial rental/vacation businesses largely built on top of condo timeshare rentals - and many still do - here's one website purpose built for timeshare rentals just as one example: https://www.go-koala.com/

There are still quite a few owners that run commercial enterprises out there (not just with Wyndham timeshares) - and they learned to make pretty good money doing so over time - measured in the six figure ranges per year. I've personally spoken to more than a few of them over the past several years to learn more about what they did and how. Wyndham is definitively cracking down on those who are violating the commercial use clauses - just ask any of them - some of which are here on this forum and will admit that they have been targeted and shut down (most won't post such details on a public form though) and are now dumping their larger resale contracts. These folks are a very small part of the overall ownership base - they are edge cases that Wyndham has targeted via cease and desist legal warning letters - after which their use of GCs was suspended when the commercial use continued.
 

andre10056

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Whether you choose to believe that people utilize(d) timeshares for commercial enterprises is up to you - but all you have to do is search these forums and you'll see these folks were shut down by Wyndham - and some of them aren't/weren't very happy about it at all. The fact is that many a "mega-renter" ran commercial rental/vacation businesses largely built on top of condo timeshare rentals - and many still do - here's one website purpose built for timeshare rentals just as one example: https://www.go-koala.com/

There are still quite a few owners that run commercial enterprises out there (not just with Wyndham timeshares) - and they learned to make pretty good money doing so over time - measured in the six figure ranges per year. I've personally spoken to more than a few of them over the past several years to learn more about what they did and how. Wyndham is definitively cracking down on those who are violating the commercial use clauses - just ask any of them - some of which are here on this forum and will admit that they have been targeted and shut down (most won't post such details on a public form though) and are now dumping their larger resale contracts. These folks are a very small part of the overall ownership base - they are edge cases that Wyndham has targeted via cease and desist legal warning letters - after which their use of GCs was suspended when the commercial use continued.
I thought Koala gives every timeshare owner an opportunity to list their timeshare (and their ownership had to be verified by Koala). As such. it's just another website similar to Redweek and MyResortNetwork, but not the domain of a single "mega renter" (quote unquote).

I think that people who may have wanted to, during some years, rent out their timeshare if they didn't plan on traveling is what might make people angry if their ability to do so was taken away. If that's NOT the "commercial use" to which you refer, why place any restrictions whatsoever on individual resale purchasers?

Very fortuitous for you to discuss things with "more than a few of them" who apparently shared all their secrets. And even revealed their alleged high six figure incomes. I'd love to know how they bought their many tens (hundreds?) of millions of points, where they advertised their numerous " vacation opportunities" that would each time result in a successful rental transaction that gave them positive cash flow, and how much time they spent doing it.

And maybe you can post links to the posts in which mega renters "admitt(ed) that they have been targeted and shut down". I'd love to read all about it.
 
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chapjim

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I thought Koala gives every timeshare owner an opportunity to list their timeshare (and their ownership had to be verified by Koala). As such. it's just another website similar to Redweek and MyResortNetwork, but not the domain of a single "mega renter" (quote unquote).

I think that people who may have wanted to, during some years, rent out their timeshare if they didn't plan on traveling is what might make people angry if their ability to do so was taken away. If that's NOT the "commercial use" to which you refer, why place any restrictions whatsoever on individual resale purchasers?

Very fortuitous for you to discuss things with "more than a few of them" who apparently shared all their secrets. And even revealed their alleged high six figure incomes. I'd love to know how they bought their many tens (hundreds?) of millions of points, where they advertised their numerous " vacation opportunities" that would each time result in a successful rental transaction that gave them positive cash flow, and how much time they spent doing it.

And maybe you can post links to the posts in which mega renters "admitt(ed) that they have been targeted and shut down". I'd love to read all about it.

The real issue is how they managed the points, not how they acquired them -- multiple accounts, each with multiple owners, points managers, etc.

With less than five million points, I was far from being a true mega-renter and never came close to making a profit of even five figures. Nevertheless, I was targeted and shut down. PM me with specific questions if you are interested and not just posturing. I'll tell you all about it.

Edit: I had just under three million resale points. Still have 777,000 after selling off five contracts a year ago.
 
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HitchHiker71

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I thought Koala gives every timeshare owner an opportunity to list their timeshare (and their ownership had to be verified by Koala). As such. it's just another website similar to Redweek and MyResortNetwork, but not the domain of a single "mega renter" (quote unquote).

I think that people who may have wanted to, during some years, rent out their timeshare if they didn't plan on traveling is what might make people angry if their ability to do so was taken away. If that's NOT the "commercial use" to which you refer, why place any restrictions whatsoever on individual resale purchasers?

Very fortuitous for you to discuss things with "more than a few of them" who apparently shared all their secrets. And even revealed their alleged high six figure incomes. I'd love to know how they bought their many tens (hundreds?) of millions of points, where they advertised their numerous " vacation opportunities" that would each time result in a successful rental transaction that gave them positive cash flow, and how much time they spent doing it.

And maybe you can post links to the posts in which mega renters "admitt(ed) that they have been targeted and shut down". I'd love to read all about it.

Without exception almost all of the resale points that the "mega-renters" acquired were via the resale market for pennies on the dollar. The scale of points owned varies widely - from those like @chapjim as he freely admitted in his post (around 5mm points), to tens of millions of points. Another owner who has publicly admitted to being shut down is @rickandcindy23 here on TUG - so I'm tagging her and she can respond if she so desires. There are others - but as I said - most have not publicly admitted to this fact and won't do so - but are more likely to respond with details via DM or outside of the forum altogether. Koala was simply an example of a large scale points manager with a nice front-end website to facilitate rentals. Most "mega-renters" utilized widely different approaches to run commercial rental enterprises. Some focused on certain resorts and built relationships with those resorts and targeted certain popular times (holiday weeks, special event weeks (Daytona 500, bike weeks in Myrtle, Mardi Gras, just to name a few examples), and then grabbed as much inventory as they could with available points. When your average MFs are around $6/1000 and you're renting demand weeks/events at $20/1000 it's not hard to make money. That's $14/1000 of gross profit. If an average rental consumes 50k points - that's $700 per room rented. If you rent ten rooms that week - that's $7000 in gross profit for one week of rentals, consuming 500k points (not many if your holding tons of points). Most of these folks that I'm speaking about ran full time rental businesses - this was their primary income source. Most of these owners have been targeted and are no longer running their Wyndham rental businesses.

This is one of many threads here on TUG that deal with the cease and desist letters that owners have received:


You are welcome to do your own searching to find additional content along this line if you so desire...
 

andre10056

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The real issue is how they managed the points, not how they acquired them -- multiple accounts, each with multiple owners, points managers, etc.

With less than five million points, I was far from being a true mega-renter and never came close to making a profit of even five figures. Nevertheless, I was targeted and shut down. PM me with specific questions if you are interested and not just posturing. I'll tell you all about it.
Yes but you're kind of making my point as to "acquisition". Presumably, you spent a good bit of time identifying optimal opportunities to acquire "rental attractive" points. And, over a period of time, accumulated less than five million points. So how does the mega renter acquire many tens of millions of points, even a hundred plus million points? Especially since he doesn't want to pay up for them and wants to, like you and many others, get them for near zero?

I would think he can't accumulate that many points. Or perhaps can do so only by placing ads (and I don't know where) offering to pay up for points.

OK but that's only part of the puzzle. "(M)ultiple accounts, each with multiple owners, points managers, etc." sounds intriguing. :)

And it sounds like many things were shut down allegedly in response to mega renters. Resale owners being relegated to the lowest priority. Guest certificates not to exceed 10% of a week's stays. Etc., etc. In fact, now that I think of it, could it be that these actions allegedly in response to mega renters could merely have ben excuses to assuage owners who were po'd about poor reservation opportunities? I'm wondering if there has been any improvement post-anti-mega-renter changes with regard to reservation availability.

And a pm will be on the way. Thanks.
 

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So how does the mega renter acquire many tens of millions of points, even a hundred plus million points? Especially since he doesn't want to pay up for them and wants to, like you and many others, get them for near zero?

I would think he can't accumulate that many points. Or perhaps can do so only by placing ads (and I don't know where) offering to pay up for points.
I don't know why you think acquiring resale Wyndham points is more difficult than it actually is.
Resale owners being relegated to the lowest priority.
Resale-only owners are and have always been fine. (Same for non-VIPs with a combination of resale and retail points.) Nothing changed for them.

Resale contracts owned by VIP owners used to receive VIP benefits (discounts, upgrades, unlimited housekeeping, etc). Wyndham changed its IT in 2021 to distinguish between contracts in a VIP account and removed the VIP benefits from their resale contracts. (And while some VIPs stated their resale points were then "worthless," resale owners had been operating under the non-VIP rules all along and found their points worthwhile.)
 

andre10056

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Without exception almost all of the resale points that the "mega-renters" acquired were via the resale market for pennies on the dollar. The scale of points owned varies widely - from those like @chapjim as he freely admitted in his post (around 5mm points), to tens of millions of points. Another owner who has publicly admitted to being shut down is @rickandcindy23 here on TUG - so I'm tagging her and she can respond if she so desires. There are others - but as I said - most have not publicly admitted to this fact and won't do so - but are more likely to respond with details via DM or outside of the forum altogether. Koala was simply an example of a large scale points manager with a nice front-end website to facilitate rentals. Most "mega-renters" utilized widely different approaches to run commercial rental enterprises. Some focused on certain resorts and built relationships with those resorts and targeted certain popular times (holiday weeks, special event weeks (Daytona 500, bike weeks in Myrtle, Mardi Gras, just to name a few examples), and then grabbed as much inventory as they could with available points. When your average MFs are around $6/1000 and you're renting demand weeks/events at $20/1000 it's not hard to make money. That's $14/1000 of gross profit. If an average rental consumes 50k points - that's $700 per room rented. If you rent ten rooms that week - that's $7000 in gross profit for one week of rentals, consuming 500k points (not many if your holding tons of points). Most of these folks that I'm speaking about ran full time rental businesses - this was their primary income source. Most of these owners have been targeted and are no longer running their Wyndham rental businesses.

This is one of many threads here on TUG that deal with the cease and desist letters that owners have received:


You are welcome to do your own searching to find additional content along this line if you so desire...
OK. I think the mega renters, if they tried to make money on events that I personally know about would not have done so well. I'm familiar with the Daytona 500 and bike week in Myrtle Beach...having owned in the past at New Smyrna Beach and Myrtle Beach respectively around those times...and those events wouldn't generate any alleged big dollar rental.

In fact, those offseason weeks (cold early March at Daytona and relatively dead May in Myrtle Beach) weren't even full up at the respective resorts. Those events are primarily weekend events and most people might not see the need to stay 8 days and 7 nights during offseason.

But no matter. I question their being able to rent out their units at that much of a premium over their maintenance fees. But if chapjim says he made in the single digit thousands, perhaps it may have been possible for the most knowledgeable timeshare person who understood the whole chain and knew full well how to not only acquire but also rent at a net profit.

I guess they'd just have to hope and pray there was no hurricane or whatever.
 
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bnoble

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There are some facts that, together, I think you might be missing: First, it is trivial to obtain Wyndham points with “good” (though maybe not “great“) ongoing costs for not much more than the cost of transfer (several hundred dollars). Second, at ten months prior to check in, points are points—it doesn’t matter where you own, you can book anything stil available in the system. Third, even when Wyndham was the Wild Wild West, there were lots and lots of highly desirable weeks available at the ten month mark; very little required owning at any particular resort.

It is not hard to go from those three facts to the basis of a reasonably profitable rental business: You can acquire points with almost no capital outlay, those points have attractively low ongoing costs, and those points can be used to secure high-value time.

The devil is in the details of course: how do you select inventory and how do you develop a clientele? But, that’s definitely A Thing You Can Do, because many folks here have done it.

Of course, the “three facts” are also why Wyndham is a fantastic system to own as a resale-only owner—there is plenty of headroom between costs and value for such owners. And, many folks here have done that as well.
 

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OK. I think the mega renters, if they tried to make money on events that I personally know about would not have done so well. I'm familiar with the Daytona 500 and bike week in Myrtle Beach...having owned in the past at New Smyrna Beach and Myrtle Beach respectively around those times...and those events wouldn't generate any alleged big dollar rental.

In fact, those offseason weeks (cold early March at Daytona and relatively dead May in Myrtle Beach) weren't even full up at the respective resorts. Those events are primarily weekend events and most people might not see the need to stay 8 days and 7 nights during offseason.

But no matter. I question their being able to rent out their units at that much of a premium over their maintenance fees. But if chapjim says he made in the single digit thousands, perhaps it may have been possible for the most knowledgeable timeshare person who understood the whole chain and knew full well how to not only acquire but also rent at a net profit.

I guess they'd just have to hope and pray there was no hurricane or whatever.

I never said it was easy - that's why only a very small portion of owners did this type of thing. They generated expertise and leveraged that expertise over time - and some made six figure incomes doing it full time (again, a very small handful when compared to the overall ~425k Wyndham ownership base). Those demand events were just examples I've heard about during my travels on this topic - they aren't to be taken literally - as I've never run a commercial rental enterprise and cannot speak from direct experience - and I simply won't share any details I've been told about privately. The bottom line is that where there's a will there's a way - and a very small handful of owners made good money renting - otherwise they wouldn't have done it at all right? People aren't going to expend significant effort on a full time basis and make no money. Others rented as a side hustle on a part time basis and probably didn't make nearly as much money - but whatever they did make was worthwhile to them - otherwise they wouldn't have done it in the first place.
 

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And it sounds like many things were shut down allegedly in response to mega renters. Resale owners being relegated to the lowest priority. Guest certificates not to exceed 10% of a week's stays. Etc., etc. In fact, now that I think of it, could it be that these actions allegedly in response to mega renters could merely have ben excuses to assuage owners who were po'd about poor reservation opportunities? I'm wondering if there has been any improvement post-anti-mega-renter changes with regard to reservation availability.

And a pm will be on the way. Thanks.

The highlighted response above is one of the arguments we've had many a debate about previously here on TUG - that Wyndham is simply making the mega-renters out to be the enemy - for their own purposes - to gain back inventory to rent under their own programs. There's likely at least some truth to this assertion.

At the last Wyndham owner's meeting - Wyndham indicated that last year owner-based reservations increased 7% overall year over year - indicating their efforts were working (if you believe them of course). That might not sound like much - but if there were 1mm reservations across 425k owners last year - a 7% increase would equate to 70k more owner-based reservations for example.
 

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OK. I think the mega renters, if they tried to make money on events that I personally know about would not have done so well. I'm familiar with the Daytona 500 and bike week in Myrtle Beach...having owned in the past at New Smyrna Beach and Myrtle Beach respectively around those times...and those events wouldn't generate any alleged big dollar rental.

In fact, those offseason weeks (cold early March at Daytona and relatively dead May in Myrtle Beach) weren't even full up at the respective resorts. Those events are primarily weekend events and most people might not see the need to stay 8 days and 7 nights during offseason.

But no matter. I question their being able to rent out their units at that much of a premium over their maintenance fees. But if chapjim says he made in the single digit thousands, perhaps it may have been possible for the most knowledgeable timeshare person who understood the whole chain and knew full well how to not only acquire but also rent at a net profit.

I guess they'd just have to hope and pray there was no hurricane or whatever.
And in addition to bnoble's clear and correct post....it does seem like you are missing some key points with the Wyndham system. It is SO not like RCI or other weeks systems and THAT is why I bought it! I rarely have an entire week to go somewhere and I typically use my timeshares to have a "home away from home" for out of town work.

With Wyndham you do NOT have to stay/rent a whole week. You do not have to stay/rent the resorts you own. So successful renters could just rent a few days for the SuperBowl or the Inauguration (Typically one of the lowest season's points wise. I love going to DC for work in January it is SO cheap) or Mardi Gras. Or weekends when school is in session for resorts with a water-park.

It is very easy to find re-sales on the TUG board and on eBay. If you know that you want low-maintenance fees and are not in a hurry, it's fairly easy and not time-consuming at all. You can set up an ongoing search on eBay and they email you matches. I saw a post on TUG by Glen when he was dumping some stripped contracts and the deal for Bali-Hai was so good that I didn't care that I had to wait a couple of years to use the points.

You seem to think that I'm a mega-renter. I am not. But I've been a Wyndham owner and fora participant for long enough to know the ropes, the history and the in's and out's of Wyndham. I have used a handful of guest reservations in my tenure as an ownership. Usually because friends and relatives ask if I have a timeshare in "location they want to go to". Or other convention-goers ask if I have room in my huge condo that I booked for a national conference. I suppose if I were to do this commercially (YIKES, I DO NOT want to get shut down) it would take some time.
 

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The devil is in the details of course: how do you select inventory and how do you develop a clientele? But, that’s definitely A Thing You Can Do, because many folks here have done it.
Oh. So that's how the "+Quote" works. :)

Yes. I can see that, if someone fortuitously does everything precisely right, it might be possible to make some amount of money. But I bet that many others did not fare too well. Reserved the wrong resort and/or at the wrong time. Zero rental income. Sheer maintenance fee expense.

Which is probably what many individual owners encounter when they can't travel themselves and try renting. Which is why they hope and pray they can rid themselves of their timeshare.

Of course, now the former Wyndham mega renter owns tens of millions of points which they can't rent out. Again, zero rental income. Sheer maintenance fee expense. Hope they can at least give all their points away.

And since the timeshare industry is a copycat industry, how long before other resort families implement these "anti-mega-renter" (quote unquote) policies (possibly as a means to explain away poor prior availability)?
 

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I think that’s the difference between someone doing this as at least a side hustle (if not more) vs. an owner just looking to get a few bucks back. Someone who is planning to make a go of this is probably willing to put in a little time in learning some of the ins and outs of running this as a business. Some of the “ex-renters” will tell you that they weren’t doing anything particularly special, they just put in the work. (And a few even said that back in the day.)

For example, one of the other advantages of a points-based system like Wyndham is that you can get a couple of bites at the apple for the same points. Try reserving something early in the use year; if that doesn’t rent cancel and get your points back and try again mid-year. You might get three or four shots at it. Alternatively, you don’t pre-book anything at all but instead try a model where you satisfy requests. That’s what many of the Bonnet Creek renters/points managers did, and they did it well.

(In the interests of full disclosure: My ownership is all about taking vacations. I do other things to pay for them.)
 

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Zero rental income. Sheer maintenance fee expense.
You're getting a crash course on how the Wyndham system actually works as you throw things out there that don't really apply. I'd guess all/most successful megarenters were VIP, probably Platinum, which means they have all year to move their points to a future year. (Prior to 2017 it was even easier, as you had three full years to use your banked points.) Wyndham has no penalty for cancelling a reservation 15+ days out. So they could basically try, try again until they booked something that rented.
 

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At the last Wyndham owner's meeting - Wyndham indicated that last year owner-based reservations increased 7% overall year over year - indicating their efforts were working (if you believe them of course). That might not sound like much - but if there were 1mm reservations across 425k owners last year - a 7% increase would equate to 70k more owner-based reservations for example.
I'm wondering if 2022 having been a pretty much zero Covid year, while 2021 having had a very bad 2020/2021 winter season as I recall, might have played a role in that 2022 7% year over year owner reservation increase.
 

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You're getting a crash course on how the Wyndham system actually works as you throw things out there that don't really apply. I'd guess all/most successful megarenters were VIP, probably Platinum, which means they have all year to move their points to a future year. (Prior to 2017 it was even easier, as you had three full years to use your banked points.) Wyndham has no penalty for cancelling a reservation 15+ days out. So they could basically try, try again until they booked something that rented.
I thought they were now prevented from renting. That they were shut down from renting. So how would moving their points to the future be beneficial?
 

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Now you are just arguing to argue. Maybe someone else will play.
No. Just responding with my thoughts on what I was told. I didn't know it would be deemed "an argument".

Am I missing something about what I was told about the mega renter just pushing his points off to the future? Did I misinterpret what it means that they were shut down? Was it only a temporary suspension but they'd be able to rent to their heart's content in the future?

I'm sincerely puzzled.
 
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