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Historical Maintenance Fee spreadsheet

bendadin

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I need to say that I learned so much from you. Thank you.
 

schoolmarm

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Well, that was a great 'blast from the past'...I do miss Glen's Atozed site. We had all the floor plans, and what rooms had what view and THE SPREADSHEET! Thanks, Ron, for saving it. I couldn't find mine.

<3
 

Richelle

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Thank you!
 

CCdad

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Thanks for this Ron!

It brings back memories of the good old days of the individual Fairfield (FF) Yahoo user groups.; run by the Iowa Hawk before Glenn Benscoter convinced him to turn over Admin rights to the FF Yahoo groups as the Hawk phased out of daily activities.

Then things moved to the forums.atozed.com web site for a period of time. Schoolmarm was correct; that site was built from the ground up with a lot of the information in the owner's directory and on the owner's web site. There was WD push back about that site's use of WD intellectual property when the resort maps, points charts and unit layouts were added.

Much of the information in this MF spreadsheet came from an internal WD source; the FF user groups didn't have the breadth of ownership to build this (much like we currently struggle to do). I had a paper copy of the MF file somewhere and at one point had the XLS file, but that was a couple of old PC hard drives ago.

I'd posted in another discussion how WD used the Standard / Designated Developer Controlled MF rate in a couple of new resorts to entice folks to either buy or equity trade into the lower MF resort. Look at 2005/2006 - 2009 MF rates for Atlantic City and Waikiki Beach Walk. It didn't take long to migrate their low MF rate back towards the average of other UDI points resorts. Atlantic City took just two years to almost surpass the average MF rate, a higher MF rate than many of the more popular beach locations.
 

bendadin

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Is there one of these spreadsheets for the number of units and sizes at each resort? Was that information in a really old directory?
 

CCdad

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Is there one of these spreadsheets for the number of units and sizes at each resort? Was that information in a really old directory?

My recollection is that both the points chart and the unit map with the unit numbers on them were downloaded from a pre-Voyager owner’s web site. Hence WD’s objection to anyone putting them into another owner’s blog.

There was no tracking of a specific resort’s unit sizes and the number of those units in any organized spreadsheet on those two sets of owner blogs.

In some cases, where an owner bought a property while under construction, WD may have given them a Disclosure Statement or Public Offering listing that information for that resort. I don’t know that anyone ever tried to organize it in a spreadsheet.




Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 

ddavid1073

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Ron,
Thanks!. I was just thinking of posting a question on what are the 5 or 6 lowest maintenance fee Wyn Timeshare ANd I thought, Ron would definitely know this. And here you are! Would you share that information with us? Thanks!
 

ronparise

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Ron,
Thanks!. I was just thinking of posting a question on what are the 5 or 6 lowest maintenance fee Wyn Timeshare ANd I thought, Ron would definitely know this. And here you are! Would you share that information with us? Thanks!

Its been some time since I owned any of this And when I was buying I was more of a quantity guy than quality. I owned enough that overall I paid the average. I didnt worry too much about any one contract. There are others here that Im sure have a better fix on this than I do

Having said that,, Canterbury and Panama City come to mind. And the high season converted fixed weeks (especially 3 bedrooms and lockoffs) at Bali Hai and Williamsburg Va
 

dgalati

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Here's another "blast from the past" It gives a little historical perspective on Wyndhams "megarenter problem"


In 2011 when I started to build my little empire, little did I know that Wyndham was actively working to close down the megarenters.
The madness continues and unfortunately
for owners that bought into the BS the squeeze is still focused on owners that offer rentals. It may sound crazy but Sales also continues to sell owners more points on the belief they can rent them and cover maintenance fees. COVID-19 probably put a few out of business that counted on rentals to cover maintenance fees. I suspect with the amount of points that were rolled over into next year a few more will tap out sometime next year.
 
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bobbyoc23

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Here's another "blast from the past" It gives a little historical perspective on Wyndhams "megarenter problem"


In 2011 when I started to build my little empire, little did I know that Wyndham was actively working to close down the megarenters.

What was the outcome of this particular complaint?
 

CCdad

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What was the outcome of this particular complaint?

I think there's an appeal in process if my Google search is accurate.

There may be significant rental activity on Ebay at Sundara Cottages associated with the some of the litigants.
 

NOLA47

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Is wyndham the only timeshare company having issues with renting units?
 

NOLA47

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I was reading an existing thread on the subject and saw it mentioned that Wyndham had an issue with owners with lots of points and rent lots of units. It was an older thread. I just thought someone might have input on other timeshare companies.
 

Sandy VDH

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@ronparise I am sure you are happy to be out of the rental business during these COVID time. Glad to see you around. Was wondering where you have gone off to.

Cheers
Sandy
 

Richelle

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I was reading an existing thread on the subject and saw it mentioned that Wyndham had an issue with owners with lots of points and rent lots of units. It was an older thread. I just thought someone might have input on other timeshare companies.
They don't like it when people ignore the program guideline that says it's for personal use and enjoyment and not commercial purposes. Wyndham is ok with owners occasionally renting. They are not ok with people using it for commercial purposes to turn a profit. There was more to that thread than just the rentals. Mega renters were buying contracts, depositing the points into the credit pool, and turn around and sell the stripped contract. If the mega renter was honest, they told the buyer that there were no points available. The buyers would take it because it would get them a desirable contract at a much lower price. Meanwhile, mega renters were using those points they didn't pay maintenance fees on to rent out units. They were also using the cancel rebook game to book to stretch those points out even further. From what I understand, the mega renters turned a decent profit. The other problem was there was a bug in Wyndham's system that some mega renters were exploiting. I don't recall the specifics, but mega renters were getting more points because of this bug. Points that did not come from contracts. Another loophole they were taking advantage of, was affiliate contracts that were being counted as developer bought, even if they were bought on eBay. Some had made it to Platnium that way, for a significantly lower price. Wyndham has mostly fixed these flaws. There are still some issues with transferring points to new owners, but that's a different issue then what was discussed in that thread.

I know RCI does not allow renting. I would imagine there are others that don't allow renting. Whether they enforce that rule or not, is an entirely different story.
 

littlestar

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Great to see you post, Ron. Hope you are doing well.
 

ronparise

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They don't like it when people ignore the program guideline that says it's for personal use and enjoyment and not commercial purposes. Wyndham is ok with owners occasionally renting. They are not ok with people using it for commercial purposes to turn a profit. There was more to that thread than just the rentals. Mega renters were buying contracts, depositing the points into the credit pool, and turn around and sell the stripped contract. If the mega renter was honest, they told the buyer that there were no points available. The buyers would take it because it would get them a desirable contract at a much lower price. Meanwhile, mega renters were using those points they didn't pay maintenance fees on to rent out units. They were also using the cancel rebook game to book to stretch those points out even further. From what I understand, the mega renters turned a decent profit. The other problem was there was a bug in Wyndham's system that some mega renters were exploiting. I don't recall the specifics, but mega renters were getting more points because of this bug. Points that did not come from contracts. Another loophole they were taking advantage of, was affiliate contracts that were being counted as developer bought, even if they were bought on eBay. Some had made it to Platnium that way, for a significantly lower price. Wyndham has mostly fixed these flaws. There are still some issues with transferring points to new owners, but that's a different issue then what was discussed in that thread.

I know RCI does not allow renting. I would imagine there are others that don't allow renting. Whether they enforce that rule or not, is an entirely different story.


A little clarification.... one of your points at a time

1) You say that "They don't like it when people ignore the program guideline that says it's for personal use and enjoyment and not commercial purposes."
Thats certainly true, but that line didnt appear in the guidelines until the publication of the 2013/2014 directory, I started doing rentals in 2011.

2) A discussion of the credit pool was also in the directory, It was presented as a way to avoid losing your points if you couldnt use them all in a particular year, or as a way to save points to use for a really big vacation in one of the next two years. What wasnt written in the book was that not only could you "push" points into future, you could also "pull" future points into the present. I didnt know such a thing was possible until a VC told me. Ultimately every first week in January, I would put everything I could into the pool, for the flexibility it offered and because I never had enough points. The point is I didnt sell anything, I was a buyer, not a seller. Until my points manager put a limit on the number of points he would take from me. I was going to have to either stop buying or find a way to sell this stuff.

3) I bought a lot of points on eBay. Only once did I get a contract with missing points and all it took was a phone call and they made me whole.
Dumping stripped contracts on unsuspecting buyers just didnt happen

You make it sound so easy...buy, strip and sell, but I couldnt find anyone that would buy (or even take for free) stripped contracts. and I couldnt find any brokers that would try to sell them either, I got to the point that when someone would ask me; "What is your exit plan" my answer was that i would die, and leave the problem for someone else.

It took a while but I found a guy who said he could get it done He only accepted 2/3 of what I gave him because they wouldnt take converted weeks and he wouldnt tell me who his buyer was...(the deeds I signed were to some anonymous LLC.) Ultimately I found that Wyndham was the buyer, The chain of title went from me, through my guy to the LLC through another broker (who worked for Wyndham) and ultimately to Wyndham .

So, Did I/we take advantage of Wyndham??? I dont think so. I was paid $5/1000 points and I believe each of the other players were paid about the same.. so Wyndham paid $15/1000, Maybe $20.. If they had to hold the contracts for two years to make up for the missing points; maintenance fees at $6/1000 for two years their total investment was under $35/1000 points.. These points were in the salesman's hands, quicker and cheaper than building a new resort.
I dont think I took advantage of Wyndham.
I did get the use of a lot of points without paying the fees, but that dosent mean that that the fees weren't paid...the deal was.... I got the points, my buyer got the contract and the responsibility for two years of fees Win-Win-Win

4) We megarenters were not the only ones that did the cancel/rebook thing. I was at an annual meeting where several small owners were complaining that it was getting difficult to do a cancel/rebook. These guys believed it was their right to get every reservation at half price. At least we megarenters knew it was a game and we knew it wouldnt last

5) The bug you are talking about was one i didnt know about at the time, although I should have.. As I understand it, you could cancel a reservation and get your points back. And the next day the reservation was back in the account and you could do it again.
If it did happen to me I didnt realize it. I didnt do a daily accounting (or weekly or monthly) I just kept buying to keep ahead of my renting.

When Wyndham suspended our accounts it was because we had more points in our accounts than our ownerships justified. They did not just go after megarenters, They caught a bunch of small owners in their net too. Wyndham knew about cancel rebook, they knew about the credit pool, I told them about cheap VIP. and I told them that they had purchased my stripped contracts. There was other stuff too, like using the 4 use years to roll points forward so they never expired. But for the longest time they absolutely refused to believe that their system was flawed, And except for a few of us mega renters that worked the loopholes really hard, I think it was that flaw in Wyndhams system that brought most of the suspended accounts to that point. and because none of those guys abused the system on purpose; they are still owners and Im not

FYI the first contracts I bought were 3 converted weeks at the New Bern NC property, one of the early Fairfield resorts, and it came with a Silver membership

6) About profit.. When I started renting I focused on one thing, and that was Mardi Gras, As I bought more I added to the account and expanded to other holiday and festival weekends in New Orleans The profit wasnt great, My rentals paid for my maintenance fees with enough points left for a vacation or two for myself. I didnt really make much until another tugger contacted me to let me know how to get a platinum account with , a 125000 point eoy contract ($6000 down and $6000 financed) and several Pahio weeks. But there ws only one salesman at Bali Hai that could make it happen. I called him and he did..... twice. Then working with another tugger we figured out how to get a Platinum account without any developer purchase... He bought a 500000 point Bali Hai contract on eBay and it went into its own account and it was a Gold account. He called me to ask if I knew what happened. I didnt but I had a Silver account with contracts purchased on eBay...So we put our heads together and figured out what our accounts had in common. tested our assumption and determined that any contract number that started with 0080... would contribute to VIP.. that was affiliate contracts as you said, plus some Pahio contracts and ElCid contracts. so I ended up with 5 Platinum accounts

I dont think I would have made enough profit to make it all worthwhile, except for the half price reservations, 150 guest confirms, and free housekeeping. Even then If I had to pay Wyndham prices for 5 Platinum VIP accounts, the return on investment would not have been enough to satisfy me. and since I would have had to finance 5 million points I think I would have lost money

I didnt know it when I started but Wyndham had made a lot of rule changes to make renting unprofitable just before I bought my first contract. I believe that Windham's top management believed that they had solved their megarenter "problem" and they took their eye off the ball. which allowed me and others to do what we did without interference.


I dont believe Wyndham would have ever figured things out except for that flaw in the system that generated extra points


So what you said in your post was accurate, but the reality was far more nuanced
 

Richelle

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A little clarification.... one of your points at a time

1) You say that "They don't like it when people ignore the program guideline that says it's for personal use and enjoyment and not commercial purposes."
Thats certainly true, but that line didnt appear in the guidelines until the publication of the 2013/2014 directory, I started doing rentals in 2011.

2) A discussion of the credit pool was also in the directory, It was presented as a way to avoid losing your points if you couldnt use them all in a particular year, or as a way to save points to use for a really big vacation in one of the next two years. What wasnt written in the book was that not only could you "push" points into future, you could also "pull" future points into the present. I didnt know such a thing was possible until a VC told me. Ultimately every first week in January, I would put everything I could into the pool, for the flexibility it offered and because I never had enough points. The point is I didnt sell anything, I was a buyer, not a seller. Until my points manager put a limit on the number of points he would take from me. I was going to have to either stop buying or find a way to sell this stuff.

3) I bought a lot of points on eBay. Only once did I get a contract with missing points and all it took was a phone call and they made me whole.
Dumping stripped contracts on unsuspecting buyers just didnt happen

You make it sound so easy...buy, strip and sell, but I couldnt find anyone that would buy (or even take for free) stripped contracts. and I couldnt find any brokers that would try to sell them either, I got to the point that when someone would ask me; "What is your exit plan" my answer was that i would die, and leave the problem for someone else.

It took a while but I found a guy who said he could get it done He only accepted 2/3 of what I gave him because they wouldnt take converted weeks and he wouldnt tell me who his buyer was...(the deeds I signed were to some anonymous LLC.) Ultimately I found that Wyndham was the buyer, The chain of title went from me, through my guy to the LLC through another broker (who worked for Wyndham) and ultimately to Wyndham .

So, Did I/we take advantage of Wyndham??? I dont think so. I was paid $5/1000 points and I believe each of the other players were paid about the same.. so Wyndham paid $15/1000, Maybe $20.. If they had to hold the contracts for two years to make up for the missing points; maintenance fees at $6/1000 for two years their total investment was under $35/1000 points.. These points were in the salesman's hands, quicker and cheaper than building a new resort.
I dont think I took advantage of Wyndham.
I did get the use of a lot of points without paying the fees, but that dosent mean that that the fees weren't paid...the deal was.... I got the points, my buyer got the contract and the responsibility for two years of fees Win-Win-Win

4) We megarenters were not the only ones that did the cancel/rebook thing. I was at an annual meeting where several small owners were complaining that it was getting difficult to do a cancel/rebook. These guys believed it was their right to get every reservation at half price. At least we megarenters knew it was a game and we knew it wouldnt last

5) The bug you are talking about was one i didnt know about at the time, although I should have.. As I understand it, you could cancel a reservation and get your points back. And the next day the reservation was back in the account and you could do it again.
If it did happen to me I didnt realize it. I didnt do a daily accounting (or weekly or monthly) I just kept buying to keep ahead of my renting.

When Wyndham suspended our accounts it was because we had more points in our accounts than our ownerships justified. They did not just go after megarenters, They caught a bunch of small owners in their net too. Wyndham knew about cancel rebook, they knew about the credit pool, I told them about cheap VIP. and I told them that they had purchased my stripped contracts. There was other stuff too, like using the 4 use years to roll points forward so they never expired. But for the longest time they absolutely refused to believe that their system was flawed, And except for a few of us mega renters that worked the loopholes really hard, I think it was that flaw in Wyndhams system that brought most of the suspended accounts to that point. and because none of those guys abused the system on purpose; they are still owners and Im not

FYI the first contracts I bought were 3 converted weeks at the New Bern NC property, one of the early Fairfield resorts, and it came with a Silver membership

6) About profit.. When I started renting I focused on one thing, and that was Mardi Gras, As I bought more I added to the account and expanded to other holiday and festival weekends in New Orleans The profit wasnt great, My rentals paid for my maintenance fees with enough points left for a vacation or two for myself. I didnt really make much until another tugger contacted me to let me know how to get a platinum account with , a 125000 point eoy contract ($6000 down and $6000 financed) and several Pahio weeks. But there ws only one salesman at Bali Hai that could make it happen. I called him and he did..... twice. Then working with another tugger we figured out how to get a Platinum account without any developer purchase... He bought a 500000 point Bali Hai contract on eBay and it went into its own account and it was a Gold account. He called me to ask if I knew what happened. I didnt but I had a Silver account with contracts purchased on eBay...So we put our heads together and figured out what our accounts had in common. tested our assumption and determined that any contract number that started with 0080... would contribute to VIP.. that was affiliate contracts as you said, plus some Pahio contracts and ElCid contracts. so I ended up with 5 Platinum accounts

I dont think I would have made enough profit to make it all worthwhile, except for the half price reservations, 150 guest confirms, and free housekeeping. Even then If I had to pay Wyndham prices for 5 Platinum VIP accounts, the return on investment would not have been enough to satisfy me. and since I would have had to finance 5 million points I think I would have lost money

I didnt know it when I started but Wyndham had made a lot of rule changes to make renting unprofitable just before I bought my first contract. I believe that Windham's top management believed that they had solved their megarenter "problem" and they took their eye off the ball. which allowed me and others to do what we did without interference.


I dont believe Wyndham would have ever figured things out except for that flaw in the system that generated extra points


So what you said in your post was accurate, but the reality was far more nuanced

For the record, I didn't specify you in any of this. In fact, the only real part I thought about you specifically was the stripped contracts because of comments I saw in an earlier thread. There were multiple mentions of stripped contracts and your name. I just now did a search of "stripped contracts" because I knew I wasn't imagining things. Even though you crossed my mind on this, I at no point thought you were the only one who would do this. If there was a loophole, many people would be using it.
1596455140214.png

1596455701358.png


For point 1, the language was added two years or so before they started suspending accounts. When that language was added, one could assume they did that because people were using the program for commercial purposes, so it should have been obvious that they meant for the points manager to stop. Whether it was reasonable to expect them to stop, is another story. I agree with you on point 2. I didn't think there was anything wrong with putting points in the credit pool the first chance you got. Aside from being able to take bigger vacations, it was a way to ensure you didn't lose points at the end of the year, assuming you actually took vacations during those 3 years For point #4, I never said mega renters were the only ones who took advantage of that. As far as mega renters knowing the game wouldn't last, I mostly agree. I don't think all mega renters expected Wyndham to take it away, but the smart ones did. It was common sense that Wyndham would eventually take it away because those discounts were never meant for the prime inventory that people (including non-mega renters) were using it for. The cancel rebook game was a loophole. Again, if there is a loophole, many people would use it. For point #5, again, I never mentioned you specifically. There was actually a different mega renter that came to mind that did know it was happening, but I am not going to call them out in public. I'm sure if someone digs deep enough, they can probably find out on their own, but I won't mention it here. I thought they terminated his/her account, but I could be wrong. For #6, I am not sure if you think, that I thought the affiliate contract loophole was wrong in any way. That was Wyndham's internal system and if it was a big deal, I would think they would have tried harder to fix that problem. It's not on the owner to correct Wyndham's mistakes, nor would I expect them to know it was a mistake. If they got VIP out of it, that's great. Wish I would have known about it earlier. Also, if you didn't make any profit, why did you stick with it for so long? I'm not sure if it was you or someone else who mentioned it was a lot of work, and almost a full-time job. Just curious. Was it a hobby? One thing is for sure, the changes might have taken out some mega renters, but many are still alive and well today.
 

ronparise

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For the record, I didn't specify you in any of this. In fact, the only real part I thought about you specifically was the stripped contracts because of comments I saw in an earlier thread. There were multiple mentions of stripped contracts and your name. I just now did a search of "stripped contracts" because I knew I wasn't imagining things. Even though you crossed my mind on this, I at no point thought you were the only one who would do this. If there was a loophole, many people would be using it.
View attachment 24454
View attachment 24455

For point 1, the language was added two years or so before they started suspending accounts. When that language was added, one could assume they did that because people were using the program for commercial purposes, so it should have been obvious that they meant for the points manager to stop. Whether it was reasonable to expect them to stop, is another story. I agree with you on point 2. I didn't think there was anything wrong with putting points in the credit pool the first chance you got. Aside from being able to take bigger vacations, it was a way to ensure you didn't lose points at the end of the year, assuming you actually took vacations during those 3 years For point #4, I never said mega renters were the only ones who took advantage of that. As far as mega renters knowing the game wouldn't last, I mostly agree. I don't think all mega renters expected Wyndham to take it away, but the smart ones did. It was common sense that Wyndham would eventually take it away because those discounts were never meant for the prime inventory that people (including non-mega renters) were using it for. The cancel rebook game was a loophole. Again, if there is a loophole, many people would use it. For point #5, again, I never mentioned you specifically. There was actually a different mega renter that came to mind that did know it was happening, but I am not going to call them out in public. I'm sure if someone digs deep enough, they can probably find out on their own, but I won't mention it here. I thought they terminated his/her account, but I could be wrong. For #6, I am not sure if you think, that I thought the affiliate contract loophole was wrong in any way. That was Wyndham's internal system and if it was a big deal, I would think they would have tried harder to fix that problem. It's not on the owner to correct Wyndham's mistakes, nor would I expect them to know it was a mistake. If they got VIP out of it, that's great. Wish I would have known about it earlier. Also, if you didn't make any profit, why did you stick with it for so long? I'm not sure if it was you or someone else who mentioned it was a lot of work, and almost a full-time job. Just curious. Was it a hobby? One thing is for sure, the changes might have taken out some mega renters, but many are still alive and well today.


No doubt I took your post personally and my response was more than just a little defensive. But after all, Im the only self identified "megarenter" that posted here. I know you didnt mention my name, but who else could you be talking about

I really believe that Wyndham's top management thought that they had ended what they called "megarenting" by 2010 and took their eye off the ball. And I think we would still be renting except for the one guy that "broke" Wundhams computers when he tried to move millions of points to the credit pool on one phone call

regarding profit..
I started buying Wyndham timeshares for my own use, Unfortunately I did it without my wifes knowledge. When I told what I had done she said in no uncertain terms that buying timeshares was one of the dumbest things I had ever done. Interestingly she didnt say, "you better sell this stuff" She said; "You better find a way to rent this shit" So I did. and I had the worst luck I could possible have, I was successful at it.. I made enough to pay all my fees and return the money I spent back to our checking account and had enough points to spend a week at Bonnet Creek at Christmas

My first goal was to make enough that I could vacation a month or two with my profit. That worked so I made a new goal... to make $2000 a month....That worked too.. And that would have been the end of it except that I learned how to get a Platinum account for less than $12000 and I found an opportunity to go really big. And I did. . but instead of hiring a staff, I signed my accounts over to a points manager I kept some points for my own rentals, to keep the $2000 a month cash flow going and just barely broke even with the points manager (he paid $6/1000 points)........until the lights went on.. The Credit Pool I could buy a million point contract, and using the credit pool I would have 3 million points for my points manager and he would pay me $18000. less maintenance fees, I would net $12000 but thats not really profit as I was still on the hook for 2 years of fees In the following years I would break even on that million point contract Not a great strategy as I had to keep buying to keep the cash flow going,. I expected to keep buying at 10 million points a year for five or six years and then walk away. but I was trying to find a way to sell or give away the older contracts (stripped of points) I think I was able to get rid of three contracts; one very small contract to a guy that wanted another name one one contract in his account and one Canterbury contract (theres a story for another time, on how I got that contract) and one Panama City Beach contract But then I found a guy,, He took 20 million points in the first year after I found him, and in the second year, and third year I was able to buy strip and sell.. And then game over Wyndham froze my accounts...

So in less than 6 years I went from $0 to $20000 a year to $120000 to $180000 and back to zero.... But if you have been following along you see that I made very little from renting, My points manager made the big money. I made my money buying , then selling the points to one guy and selling the empty contracts to another, So no it wasnt just a hobby, and my cash flow was pretty good for a couple of years, but I made very little money actually doing vacation rentals

When Wyndham took me out, they offered no money but promised not to sue me.. I turned that down and asked for $1,000.000 to go away.... We settled somewhere between those two extremes.
 

Richelle

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No doubt I took your post personally and my response was more than just a little defensive. But after all, Im the only self identified "megarenter" that posted here. I know you didnt mention my name, but who else could you be talking about
I'm pretty sure when people talk about megarenters, they are not always talking about you. The same applies to my post. A megarenter doesn't have to identify themseleves as a mega renter to be a megarenter. My post was not directed at one specific megarenter. It sounds like from your post, the points manager would qualify as a megarenter?
 
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