Newbie here: need help finding the right timeshare

[Soumak]

Hey Guys,

I'm looking to purchase my very first timeshare. Looking for any and all advice! I have done some vacation with timeshare pitches so am familiar with the retail prices.

After my first timeshare vacation I almost ended up buying retail! Luckly I found TUG that night and immeditely cancled! Since then its been about 5 yrs and 3 more timeshare pitch vacations(2 bluegreen and 1 hilton). I think I'm finally ready for my first purchase and signed up for TUG today as I prep for the purchase.

Could you all help with what you think would fit my background and what to look for so i dont get scammed in the resale market? Im looking to buy resale from tug or redweek. How safe is this? Are posts vetted or do scammers post here also?

Thanks guys! Appreciate it!

1) Is there a vacation destination you wish to visit most of the time or on a regular basis? if so where?
Typically we travel all over the US. Will eventually go internstional. We typically dont go back to the same place twice. Our only consistant visit is to yellowstone where we go every year.

2) Do you want to visit your home resort at least half the time, or do you want to trade more than half the time?
Definitely trade unless its something in yellowstone.

3) What are your 5 top trade destinations?
Glacier National Park
Hawaii Maui
Alberta, Canada
Banff Canada
Smokey Mountains
Acadia NP
Redwood NP
Oregon

4) How many people do you usually travel with - total, including yourself?
4 members

5) Can you travel any time, or are you locked into the school schedule?
Can travel at any time

6) Can you make firm plans 12 or more mos. in advance?
Yes. Im a planner and like to plan things out in advance.

7) Can you vacation for a full week at a time?
Yes. Typically we do 8 - 9 days

8) What level of accommodations do you prefer on a scale of 1 to 5 stars?
4,5

9) How much can you afford to spend upfront, without financing?
7-10k

10) How much can you afford to spend every year for a maintenance fee that will come due right after Christmas, and increase each year?
2k

11) Are you a detail oriented planner?
Oh yea!

12) Do you understand that once you buy a timeshare, it may be very difficult to sell or give away, and you are responsible for all fees, until you do?
Yup!

 

[VacationForever]

If you are willing to drop level of accommodations down to 3 stars, I would highly recommend that you look into Worldmark. It is a point system and has 90 plus resorts. You buy a large enough contract for your travel needs and there are no booking fees. They have Yellowstone, Maui, Canmore-Banff and lots of Oregon locations. You can also add a Wyndham point system to the mix. I don't know anything about Wyndham, other than they are primarily in the East Coast, while Worldmark is mostly in the West Coast.

You won't find 4 to 5 star timeshare resorts in the places where you have listed, except in Maui.

 

[Soumak]

Thanks. I'll definitely take a look at WorldMark. Seems like a good fit. Going to go hang out in their forums for a bit. Is there anyway to do a timeshare pitch vacation with them? I saw that Wyndham and WorldMark are separate if you buy from resale? You can only combine if you buy through original deeds?

 

[VacationForever]

Thanks. I'll definitely take a look at WorldMark. Seems like a good fit. Going to go hang out in their forums for a bit. Is there anyway to do a timeshare pitch vacation with them? I saw that Wyndham and WorldMark are separate if you buy from resale? You can only combine if you buy through original deeds?

Don't go to their timeshare sales pitch because they will tell you about all the benefits with buying from them. The only real difference is "travelshare" which means it comes with a free RCI account (no membership fee) and you will pay for exchanges outside the system, one that you can pay for it yourself when you buy resale. Exchanges via RCI and II are very expensive, $259 and $219 respectively. Internet is also free with Travelshare. But you pay alot more in dues for the "freebies" that are thrown in, which really means that you are paying for all of these when you buy from them.

There is a Wyndham forum and also a Worldmark subforum on TUG. You should also go to wmowners.com. It is a site that is run by Worldmark owners to share knowledge etc. You will get lots of information on the site. It is free to join. When you buy resale, there is no booking reciprocity between Worldmark and Wyndham. Even if you buy direct, the window to cross book drops to something like 9 months and all the desirable locations are usually not available. Worldmark direct pricing is about $3 per point, resale is about 20 to 30 cents per point.

 

[Soumak]

Hey guys,

so I decided that workmark is the right timeshare for me. Thanks @VacationForever! Now I’m looking into buying about 15k points annually because I think this in the right amount of point that will let me take a really nice vacation every year or perhaps 2 normal vacations yearly.

question for you all is, how can I verify that a timeshare is valid when I’m ready to purchase? I read once a seller authorizes the sale I can talk to worldmark about thr details. However one company selling this, surefire vacation said the following:
“
WorldMark requires a form that needs to be notarized by the owner to allow a non-owner to talk to WorldMark about the account. We always get the login information from the owners to verify. We would be happy to send screenshots.
You can verify our A+ rating with the Utah BBB. We have been in business since 2009 with no complaints.
“

I saw other people on wmowners forum had dealt with this company and had good experience with the president of the company.

want to run this by you all and see if there are any concerns. thanks again in advance for your help!

 

[VacationForever]

Hey guys,

so I decided that workmark is the right timeshare for me. Thanks @VacationForever! Now I’m looking into buying about 15k points annually because I think this in the right amount of point that will let me take a really nice vacation every year or perhaps 2 normal vacations yearly.

question for you all is, how can I verify that a timeshare is valid when I’m ready to purchase? I read once a seller authorizes the sale I can talk to worldmark about thr details. However one company selling this, surefire vacation said the following:
“
WorldMark requires a form that needs to be notarized by the owner to allow a non-owner to talk to WorldMark about the account. We always get the login information from the owners to verify. We would be happy to send screenshots.
You can verify our A+ rating with the Utah BBB. We have been in business since 2009 with no complaints.
“

I saw other people on wmowners forum had dealt with this company and had good experience with the president of the company.

want to run this by you all and see if there are any concerns. thanks again in advance for your help!

Good choice! I bought a resale contract in 2013 and sold it in 2017. About a month ago, I just "bought" a contract and we are waiting for Wyndham (Wyndham now owns Worldmark as a management ccompany) to send Docusign to the seller, and then after seller signs, it will go to the buyer. I am of the understanding that once Docusign document is received by the buyer, we can call Wyndham to verify. The way it works is that when the buyer pays $299 transfer fees, it gets the ball rolling with Wyndham. They take about 4 to 8 weeks to "audit" the account to ensure that there is no money owed on the contract and that the maintenance dues are fully paid, and then freeze the account. After they freeze the account, that's when the Docusign gets sent out.

You can always call the other brokers like Michael Dosh and Henri Moreau for any clarification of the process, both listed as trusted brokers on the wmowners webtsite.. My most recent pending purchase is through Michael Dosh.

 

[LindaK]

As a long time timeshare owner who once owned 5 timeshares, I can say that the two timeshares that I hung onto were Worldmark and Vacation Internationale. I am now at a point where I am looking to sell both timeshares because my type of vacations has changed. I bought into Worldmark when the company was 6 months old, so I have a 6,000 point ownership without maid points. You might want to check out Vacation Internationale too as they have lots of west coast and Hawaii properties that are really hard to exchange into using RCI or II. I just placed an add here on TUG for the Vacation Internationale ownership. I have been able to successfully combine the Worldmark and VI properties for vacations, as they both have inventory at some of the same resorts. At one point the two companies had a cooperation agreement where you could book Worldmark units through VI and vice versa. You don't need to have a broker to handle the transfer of these timeshares. It can be done directly with the company and is very easy. I would be happy to answer any questions you might have about either program.

 

[HudsHut]

Surefire Vacations knows what they're doing. If they have access to the account, they have verified the size, current number of credits, whether any amount is past due, etc.

 

[DaveNV]

Just wanted to offer a +1 for buying WorldMark. They have the locations you want near the Parks you want. No underlying deeds, so the rates are the same for everyone, based on what you own. After I bought and sold a number of Weeks timeshares over the years, I sold everything else and ended up owning just WorldMark. It's a great system.

A few thoughts about a 15K account: Why that amount? It'll be 8-10K for a week in most WM locations. Add in the Inventory Specials, Bonus Time, and Monday Madness programs that let you get great deals on other stays, and you can stretch the credits by a lot. You may not really need an account that size. Plus, you can always add on with another purchase, keeping the accounts separate, and moving credits back and forth between your contracts as needed. One bonus of having separate contracts is you get separate Housekeeping Tokens for each account. Just a thought.

Dave

 

[Soumak]

Just wanted to offer a +1 for buying WorldMark. They have the locations you want near the Parks you want. No underlying deeds, so the rates are the same for everyone, based on what you own. After I bought and sold a number of Weeks timeshares over the years, I sold everything else and ended up owning just WorldMark. It's a great system.

A few thoughts about a 15K account: Why that amount? It'll be 8-10K for a week in most WM locations. Add in the Inventory Specials, Bonus Time, and Monday Madness programs that let you get great deals on other stays, and you can stretch the credits by a lot. You may not really need an account that size. Plus, you can always add on with another purchase, keeping the accounts separate, and moving credits back and forth between your contracts as needed. One bonus of having separate contracts is you get separate Housekeeping Tokens for each account. Just a thought.

Dave

Thank you for your feedback. My thought behind the ~15k pts was that I could do one large vacation or 2 or 3 smaller vacations throughout the year. I think I need to research Housekeeping Tokens. I'm not sure how that works. What is the cost of those? Do you only get one per year and have to pay for the others? What price do those run? I think I saw a spreadsheet on wmowners.com about this but didn't focus on that. i'll go take a look at that now.

also just to update this thread a bit with a better statement about how we vacation:
We don’t really have a specific place we vacation. We tend to go to national parks for the most part. We don’t have kids so it’s easier for me to book something during school months. We do a trip with family once a year where we need 2BR for 7-9 days. We will then do another one or two short 3-5 day trip. Our only constant is Yellowstone where we go to every June timeframe(at least the past 6 yrs). Past couple of years we went to Hawaii late January. Prior to that we went to Lake Tahoe, Denali (Alaska), Sequoia NP, Grand Canyon, smokey mountains, ect. We live in Colorado so we always go into Rocky Mountain National park (typically day trips). I’m thinking 15k pts should be good enough to cover a long vacation and then one short vacation per year (unless we go somewhere like Hawaii in which case it would just be one trip that year). Our next upcoming trips are: Banff, Glacier, Redwoods, San Fran, Monterey Bay, places in Oregon/Washington, Grand Canyon North Rim, Mr. Rushmore, Acadia NP, Fall in New Hampshire. Ofcourse we'll continue to go to Yellowstone every year and RMNP also. Thoughts?

 

[DaveNV]

Thank you for your feedback. My thought behind the ~15k pts was that I could do one large vacation or 2 or 3 smaller vacations throughout the year. I think I need to research Housekeeping Tokens. I'm not sure how that works. What is the cost of those? Do you only get one per year and have to pay for the others? What price do those run? I think I saw a spreadsheet on wmowners.com about this but didn't focus on that. i'll go take a look at that now.

also just to update this thread a bit with a better statement about how we vacation:
We don’t really have a specific place we vacation. We tend to go to national parks for the most part. We don’t have kids so it’s easier for me to book something during school months. We do a trip with family once a year where we need 2BR for 7-9 days. We will then do another one or two short 3-5 day trip. Our only constant is Yellowstone where we go to every June timeframe(at least the past 6 yrs). Past couple of years we went to Hawaii late January. Prior to that we went to Lake Tahoe, Denali (Alaska), Sequoia NP, Grand Canyon, smokey mountains, ect. We live in Colorado so we always go into Rocky Mountain National park (typically day trips). I’m thinking 15k pts should be good enough to cover a long vacation and then one short vacation per year (unless we go somewhere like Hawaii in which case it would just be one trip that year). Our next upcoming trips are: Banff, Glacier, Redwoods, San Fran, Monterey Bay, places in Oregon/Washington, Grand Canyon North Rim, Mr. Rushmore, Acadia NP, Fall in New Hampshire. Ofcourse we'll continue to go to Yellowstone every year and RMNP also. Thoughts?

Thanks for explaining. Knowing where you like to go, then owning WorldMark makes good sense for you. The trick will be booking the high-demand locations you want. Yellowstone can be tricky to book, and often requires a Waitlist request to get what you want. It's doable, but takes finesse to make it work right. Same for places like Monterey, and often even for Hawaii. There are a few others. There is high demand and limited availability, so you have to be in the right place at the right time to try to book those locations. If you can't get it on the first try, then the Waitlist is your friend, as it's First Come, First Served for availability.

There is nothing wrong with owning 15K credits. I asked because it's a bit "in the middle" between a more common 12K credit account, and 20K. As I mentioned, a typical WM location will charge 10K credits for a week's stay in a 2BR. If Yellowstone is a must-do every year, then a 2BR there is 13K credits. You might consider beefing up your purchase to 20K, just to give you the extra credits you'll want, and to get a second housekeeping token.

Housekeeping tokens are issued at 1 per 10K credits owned, per year. So with a 15K account, you'd get one a year, issued when your credits are issued. With a 20K account, you'd get two. But if you owned a 10K account and a 5K account, and kept them as separate accounts, you'd still have your desired 15K, but you'd get one HKT for each account. Something to think about. Credits can be moved between accounts as needed, but not housekeeping tokens. It's a way to make the most of what you own.

Prices for housekeeping services have recently climbed, and are now ranging between about $100 to $150 each, depending on the resort and unit size. You have the option when booking at a resort to either use a HKT, or pay cash for the service. Every booking requires a housekeeping token, even if it's just for one night. This makes staying longer more worthwhile, since you'd pay once for housekeeping for a week's stay, or for just one night. When paying cash for the HKT, it makes a single night's stay more expensive.

There are some older accounts available for resale that have no charge for HKTs, but owners know the value of what they have, and they charge very high prices for those accounts. If you do the math, you'd need to vacation an awful lot to cover the extra price to buy one of those accounts, since the only benefit is free housekeeping.

Keep doing your research. You're heading down the right road.

Dave

 

[Soumak]

Just wanted to give everyone an update on where I'm at now. I went with redweek (a redweek verified Worldmark Club Pts) and found 20k pts annually starting in Oct 22 for $4700. This was accepted by the seller (through redweek). Now I need to get some paperwork done and pay the deposit to escrow. Its moving forward!

Thank you all again for the great detailed responses. Appreciate all your help.