My Advice to Wyndham / Worldmark... Timeshare Traveler Episode 202

[Clifbell]

I wanted to provide Club Wyndham / Worldmark a list of what they should do more of to improve their program. I consider myself an experienced traveler and knowledgable of their program. But I also have some ideas on how the program could be better.

In this video, I go through the major opportunities for Club Wyndham / Worldmark. I try to express the opportunity from a Client's perspective but also why it would be good for owners. The first opportunity is to allow all members access to all locations (the more options the more you buy). The second opportunity is to expand the use of the internal exchange system known as Vacasa. The third is new Features I would like to see. The last issue is how to can competitive to with the timeshare industry.

My Advice to Wyndham / Worldmark... Timeshare Traveler Episode 202

Map of all my timeshare reviews

 

[jp10558]

I agree that getting things more open across systems is probably a selling point. These companies continue to not really integrate and instead have limited internal exchanges. I'd open them up to resales as well - I'm probably more likely to trade in my HGVC Seaworld for a DRI property than for HGVC just due to locations. With Wyndham I would be about equal wanting Wyndham vs Worldmark locations. That said, it might work equally well resale to just sell me a parallel Worldmark ownership IDK from the management PoV.

 

[paxsarah]

The problem with changes to Vacasa and Wyndham Rewards is they're separate companies. Neither of them are part of the same corporation as Club Wyndham, and they're each different corporations from each other as well. There's no direct connection between Club Wyndham/Travel + Leisure and Vacasa.* Wyndham Rewards isn't Club Wyndham's loyalty program, it's Wyndham Hotels and Resorts' loyalty program, and there's just marketing agreements between the various corporations. So in order for Club Wyndham/Travel + Leisure owners to convert timeshare points directly to Vacasa, they would need to develop a completely independent agreement between T+L and Vacasa from scratch.

The problem really is that Wyndham salespeople sell these programs as if they're more a part of timeshare ownership than they really are. In the end, Wyndham Rewards is only tangentially related to Club Wyndham, and Vacasa is only related via Wyndham Rewards.* It's my opinion that when they did the corporate name change from Wyndham Destinations to Travel + Leisure Co in 2021, it would have been the perfect time to rename Club Wyndham (and Worldmark by Wyndham) entirely and remove the association with the hotel brand name.

* (T+L may own a small amount of equity in Vacasa from when Vacasa bought Wyndham Vacation Rentals from Wyndham Destinations 5 years ago, but Vacasa's stock has dropped so steeply since it went public that I can't imagine it's a very valuable stake.)

 

[Clifbell]

The problem with changes to Vacasa and Wyndham Rewards is they're separate companies. Neither of them are part of the same corporation as Club Wyndham, and they're each different corporations from each other as well. There's no direct connection between Club Wyndham/Travel + Leisure and Vacasa.* Wyndham Rewards isn't Club Wyndham's loyalty program, it's Wyndham Hotels and Resorts' loyalty program, and there's just marketing agreements between the various corporations. So in order for Club Wyndham/Travel + Leisure owners to convert timeshare points directly to Vacasa, they would need to develop a completely independent agreement between T+L and Vacasa from scratch.

The problem really is that Wyndham salespeople sell these programs as if they're more a part of timeshare ownership than they really are. In the end, Wyndham Rewards is only tangentially related to Club Wyndham, and Vacasa is only related via Wyndham Rewards.* It's my opinion that when they did the corporate name change from Wyndham Destinations to Travel + Leisure Co in 2021, it would have been the perfect time to rename Club Wyndham (and Worldmark by Wyndham) entirely and remove the association with the hotel brand name.

* (T+L may own a small amount of equity in Vacasa from when Vacasa bought Wyndham Vacation Rentals from Wyndham Destinations 5 years ago, but Vacasa's stock has dropped so steeply since it went public that I can't imagine it's a very valuable stake.)

These are excellent points. I just don't understand why Wyndham didn't try to do a better integration and leverage across the brands.

 

[dioxide45]

Integrating brands is not something that timeshares do well. Being deeded real estate, they can't really change the rules all that much from what was originally sold as deeded weeks. Thus they put up these exchange companies, that are registered as exchange companies to facilitate cross brand bookings. While they might look like direct bookings for the front end user, they are still exchange companies on the back end and their inner workings aren't all that different from II or RCI.

I would think that Club Wyndham held on to the name due to their licensing agreement with Wyndham Hotels. That allows them to get fed a lot of people through the cross marketing on the hotel and Wyndham Rewards side. Once I reactivated my Wyndham Rewards account, I started getting emails with promos to pay for 4 days and 3 nights somewhere and attend a timeshare presentation. That comes with the affiliation with Wyndham Hotels & Resorts. Wyndham Hotels doesn't necessarily want to sever the relationship because they get a big licensing fee just for offering up their brand to these properties and they get a chunk of the sales revenue.