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