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Just converted our CWA to Deeded, was this a worthwhile update?

Srivera

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My husband and I are new owners, we bought in April this year, 105k points with CWA. Just had our first owner update this past Sunday and wound up converting to deeded ownership with Margaritaville in Puerto Rico. They said it was generating the most revenue, had the lowest maintenance fees, and that Margaritavilla was separating from Club Wyndham and eventually Wyndham owners would not be able to book Margaritavilles but being deeded through Wyndham would lock us in with all their locations. Also claimed this would lock in our maintenance fees at $134/month for the 205k points vs the $73/105k CWA we had. The money we spent on out initial purchase was applied to the new contract but now we have an additional +$23k or so financed. Was this a worthwhile purchase? We didn't get to look at the price for deeded ownership with any other locations available, did we overpay by going with Margaritaville? Should we rescind?
 

wjappraise

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Rescind.

Most, if not all, of what you were told is not true. You’ve fallen victim to the classic Wyndham sales pitch “you current ownership is the wrong type … we need to sell you a new one to convert.”

I can guarantee next time you go to a sales pitch, they will yell you that you need to convert to CWA.

By the way - MF goes up every year, you are never locked in at the current rate.

Rescind.
 

Ty1on

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Yes rescind, and I would strongly suggest absolutely refusing any future "uodates" until you have used what you already bought for a while. Theyll tell you anything to get you into that sales pitch, then tell you anything to get you to spend more money.

When and if you decide you want more points, if you want to throw money away into the diminishing returns of VIP status, then after youre comfortable with the 105K you already have is the time. Some research will show you that you will be financially much, much better off buying a low maint fee contract on the resale market and avoiding VIP altogether.
 

wjappraise

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By the way. You can buy margaritaville ownership on the secondary market - eBay et al - for pennies on the dollar and have access to margaritaville units that way. No need to pay $23,000 for 100k points that will only reserve about three nights a year at Rio mar.
 

Ty1on

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And by the way, $23K for 100K points is about the going retail rate. They didn't do you any favors on pricing, either. If you wanted to add about that many points resale, you could do it at a decent MF resort for two or three thousand tops.
 

Iggyearl

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Srivera, congratulations on finding this site, and asking your questions. It may be the luckiest thing you've done recently. An "owner's update" is nothing more than a disguised "sales meeting." This website is full of information regarding all the timeshare companies and their products. You should familiarize yourself with the Wyndham forum and learn the ins and outs of ownership. You would be best advised to rescind your recent purchase as recommended above. You did not "buy" the product. It was "sold" to you. Step back and learn about resale. The happy members of Tug are versed in the resale market, which will save you thousands of dollars. Education is your friend.
 

chapjim

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My husband and I are new owners, we bought in April this year, 105k points with CWA. Just had our first owner update this past Sunday and wound up converting to deeded ownership with Margaritaville in Puerto Rico. They said it was generating the most revenue, had the lowest maintenance fees, and that Margaritavilla was separating from Club Wyndham and eventually Wyndham owners would not be able to book Margaritavilles but being deeded through Wyndham would lock us in with all their locations. Also claimed this would lock in our maintenance fees at $134/month for the 205k points vs the $73/105k CWA we had. The money we spent on out initial purchase was applied to the new contract but now we have an additional +$23k or so financed. Was this a worthwhile purchase? We didn't get to look at the price for deeded ownership with any other locations available, did we overpay by going with Margaritaville? Should we rescind?

How many of these promises/claims are documented in the contract? If they are not in the contract, then you aren't getting what you thought you were getting and rescission is your best move.
 

55plus

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Yes, rescind now and don't look back. Go to the secondary for more points. Ask your question here, not in a sales weasel's office. They'll lie like the sinners they are.
 

MikeandLisaR

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11.02 Use Year. All Members shall be assigned a “Use Year” which determines the expiration date of such Member’s Points for that particular year. Each Member shall have as the end date of his “Use Year” one of the following four quarterly dates:: March 31, June 30, September 30 or December 31.


You could get a couple million points resale for what you paid, but be careful. And I have no knowledge of Margaritaville other that we like St, Thomas. They might realign the new points to a latter year. They also don't count towards VIP, if that matters to you. There are so many things to consider when buying. It'll take hours of research. This is a good place to start. Hope you don't do like I did and wait until some thing negative happens, IMO, to start digging into the rules.
 

OutSkiing

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Margaritaville is not a particularly low maintenance fee either perhaps depending on the resort. We bought 126k Rio Mar points off ebay to see what access it gives us and the maintenance including program fee is $7.46 per thousand ($6.80 before program fee). It does allow access to Pigion Forge .. the only thing we get so far that VIP did not give us. There may be other Margaritavilles that behave like Pigion Forge in the future.

On the CWA side, anyone who is stuck with a larger CWA developer contract and does want to keep VIP status, I have come to the conclusion that it might make sense to pay a big 5 digit amount to jump to a contract not as likely to increase maintenance fee as much. CWA went up 15% in 2021 and I think it will do simlar in future as people ovate or default high maintenance fee contracts so they get added to the CWA trust. A property that increases fee at 2% to 3% compared to 10% to 15% has a mind blowing difference over 10 to 15 years.

Bob
 

r4rab

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Margaritaville is not a particularly low maintenance fee either perhaps depending on the resort. We bought 126k Rio Mar points off ebay to see what access it gives us and the maintenance including program fee is $7.46 per thousand ($6.80 before program fee). It does allow access to Pigion Forge .. the only thing we get so far that VIP did not give us. There may be other Margaritavilles that behave like Pigion Forge in the future.

On the CWA side, anyone who is stuck with a larger CWA developer contract and does want to keep VIP status, I have come to the conclusion that it might make sense to pay a big 5 digit amount to jump to a contract not as likely to increase maintenance fee as much. CWA went up 15% in 2021 and I think it will do simlar in future as people ovate or default high maintenance fee contracts so they get added to the CWA trust. A property that increases fee at 2% to 3% compared to 10% to 15% has a mind blowing difference over 10 to 15 years.

Bob

I'm not sure where you are getting your 15% increase.
My ownership is largely CWA (plus a Margaritaville contract which as you note is on the high side). Including program fees, total MFs across all contracts look like they increased 4.25% from 2020 to 2021. A big jump, yes, but not 15%.
 

Ty1on

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I'm not sure where you are getting your 15% increase.
My ownership is largely CWA (plus a Margaritaville contract which as you note is on the high side). Including program fees, total MFs across all contracts look like they increased 4.25% from 2020 to 2021. A big jump, yes, but not 15%.
I see $6.28 to $6.61, +5.25%, but yeah, not nearly 15%. Nevermind, "including program fees"
 

OutSkiing

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I'm not sure where you are getting your 15% increase.
My ownership is largely CWA (plus a Margaritaville contract which as you note is on the high side). Including program fees, total MFs across all contracts look like they increased 4.25% from 2020 to 2021. A big jump, yes, but not 15%.

My bad .. my 300k cwa points cost $1845 in 2020 (excluding program fees) and $1983 in 2021 (excluding program fees) so it was a 7.4% increase. Still quite a lot.

Bob
 

Ty1on

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My bad .. my 300k cwa points cost $1845 in 2020 (excluding program fees) and $1983 in 2021 (excluding program fees) so it was a 7.4% increase. Still quite a lot.

Bob
$6.15 was the operating fee portion of the 2020 MF rate only. Add $0.13 Reserve Fee to get to $6.28 total MF. The 2021 rate you cite, $6.61, IS the total fee ($6.48 Op Fee + $0.13 Reserve Fee). The increase in total Maintenance Fee was only 5.25% from 2020 to 2021.
 
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markb53

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My bad .. my 300k cwa points cost $1845 in 2020 (excluding program fees) and $1983 in 2021 (excluding program fees) so it was a 7.4% increase. Still quite a lot.

Bob

I own CWA and PCB (Which has one of the lowest of the Maintenance Fees in the system) If you compare those two over the last 10 years. CWA has gone up in that time 36.5% in ten years. PCB in the same 10 years has gone up… 36.85%. PCB is still much cheaper. 4.53/k as opposed to 6.61/k. But they have gone up at roughly the same rate.
 

OutSkiing

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$6

$6.15 was the operating fee portion of the 2020 MF rate only. Add $0.13 Reserve Fee to get to $6.28 total MF. The 2021 rate you cite, $6.28, IS the total fee ($6.48 Op Fee + $0.13 Reserve Fee). The increase in total Maintenance Fee was only 5.25% from 2020 to 2021.
Sheesh .. I was comparing top line off the 2020 pdf with top line on 2021 online tally .. I see the 2021 program fee was folded into the exposed total.

so its $6.28 compared to $6.61 or 5.25% increase.

Thanks!

Bob
 

Ty1on

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I own CWA and PCB (Which has one of the lowest of the Maintenance Fees in the system) If you compare those two over the last 10 years. CWA has gone up in that time 36.5% in ten years. PCB in the same 10 years has gone up… 36.85%. PCB is still much cheaper. 4.53/k as opposed to 6.61/k. But they have gone up at roughly the same rate.

Yeah, there was that one stair-step year when CWA increased double digits, but the 3 (?) years before that it was virtually unchanged from year to year ($4.90 in 2015, $4.99 in 2016, then BOOM $5.60 [+12%] in 2017. I don't have the rates prior to 2015). I remember in TUG when the 2017 rate was published, there was some panic. I think it's ranged from 5% to 7% increase yearly since that bump, but looked at over a wider period of 10 years, it's pretty average. They really head-faked owners with the low increases the first few years. 5%-7% is on the upper edge of normal rate increases with 7% bordering on the "alarming" range, and if these kind of increases continue, there will eventually be no value in owning them--you may as well own Bentley Brook.
 

Ty1on

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Sheesh .. I was comparing top line off the 2020 pdf with top line on 2021 online tally .. I see the 2021 program fee was folded into the exposed total.

so its $6.28 compared to $6.61 or 5.25% increase.

Thanks!

Bob

Well I made my own error that I didn't see until you quoted it LOL. Changed the second $6.28 to $6.61.
 

bendadin

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I'm not sure if anyone said this but I was told that Margaritaville was not allowed to be traded back in. That is not a risk that I would be willing to take.
 

rickandcindy23

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You absolutely need to rescind. This is not a good company to buy from the developer. Buy resale and be happier. Too bad you already bought 105K developer. You needed to rescind that, but definitely don't go through with this new scam.
 

OutSkiing

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I own CWA and PCB (Which has one of the lowest of the Maintenance Fees in the system) If you compare those two over the last 10 years. CWA has gone up in that time 36.5% in ten years. PCB in the same 10 years has gone up… 36.85%. PCB is still much cheaper. 4.53/k as opposed to 6.61/k. But they have gone up at roughly the same rate.
Wow .. PCB must have had some big increases .. seems like with recent year cwa increases above 5% (and higher as Ty1on mentioned) PCB would have had some heavy increases too.

I wish the Wyndham site would have historic PDFs of assessment fees to make comparisons easier.

Bob
 

markb53

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Wow .. PCB must have had some big increases .. seems like with recent year cwa increases above 5% (and higher as Ty1on mentioned) PCB would have had some heavy increases too.

I wish the Wyndham site would have historic PDFs of assessment fees to make comparisons easier.

Bob
There is a sticky at the top with a google doc file with MF back to 2012. And there is another one floating around here somewhere with MF from 94 to 2012.
 

WyndhamBarter

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markb53

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Hey Mark - I was gonna hunt this down and repost it, but Ron’s old dropbox file has been deleted.

Looks like maybe you had your hands on it recently?

https://tugbbs.com/forums/threads/historical-maintenance-fee-spreadsheet.306762/post-2592007

Could you upload somewhere and re-post? Kinda ancient history, I guess.

Try this link from my google docs. I will try to remember not to delete or move it ;-)
 

markb53

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