I don’t see anything about it in their list of benefits: https://www.go-koala.com/memberships
According to the guy I spoke to from KOALA the membership has a guaranteed payout of a certain amount per point. You have to list it at their recommended price though. The membership has a yearly fee and does not carry the % listing fee that the free listings do.
I did it already and that is why I am wondering if anybody did this already and what their experience has been like.
A lot of WinpointVIP subscribers learned this the hard way when Wyndham changed the rules in 2017-ish (whenever automatic VIP upgrades were introduced and essentially eliminated the old "cancel/rebook" scam). WinpointVIP tried to survive for a few months on 60-day VIP discounts, then folded, as I recall.
It looks like they are trying to attract higher end rentals with this VIP program. It doesn't look like Marriott weeks are eligible for Gold VIP, but could be under Platinum. Their 8% commission model wasn't competitive against Redweek for those higher end premium Marriott resort rentals. They still earn revenue on the booking fees paid by the renter. This could be cheaper for those owners that rent a lot of Marriott weeks using Redweek Full Service.
I have successfully used Redweek and VacationCandy in the past. I recently got an email from Koala inviting me to speak with them about their VIP program. I own 8 Marriott legacy weeks. Yesterday I paid $399 to sign up for the Platinum VIP service. They will list, market, and rent my weeks. At the initial phone meeting, they walked me through and helped me connect my bank account with Stripe. I still have my weeks listed with Redweek and VacationCandy. I will try Koala for one year…I hope it works. The new ownership at Redweek has made listing my weeks with them less desirable since they push my non verified weeks further down. I will report back if/when I get some rentals.
Do they give you any type of guarantees that they will actually rent your weeks? I have had good experiences with dealing with Koloa, but not very successful renting anything there. $400 is a lot to pay to them if they never actually rent any of your listings.
I will look into it for mine, but I think just listing with Koala will work fine.
@jwalk03 of those non-Koala platforms...does one outperform the others?
I too have had VacationCandy find my week on Redweek. So now I will have my weeks listed on VacationCandy, Redweek, and Koala. If my weeks rent, my net will essentially be the same on all sites. The renter will pay more to rent from VacationCandy and Koala (because of their commission). The Koala concierge wanted to rent a couple of my weeks for less than I would net on Redweek. I already price my weeks on the low end of the competition on Redweek. To be able to compare, I asked for the same net to me so that I can compare the various sites for this year.
@eyedude My experience with VC is so far just posting my weeks for rent on that site...shows to me as a table of what I have submitted to rent. Nobody from VC has ever contacted me for any reason. Should I be doing something more?
I too posted on VC and Redweek. VC twice reached out to me via my Redweek posting. I did not do a thing. I do not think they knew I was renting my week on VC when they contacted me via Redweek. In fact, my listings were verified and protected. I think they might have been looking for specific weeks. My two weeks were Marriott Mountainside during Sundance and Newport Coast during Christmas. I have also rented weeks directly with VC.
@eyedude Thanks...how do you rent weeks directly with VC?