Overvaluing low mfs?

[CO skier]

As a small time renter, I can't break even at these higher resale prices. Add to that the inability to cancel/rebook and no upgrade frequency, Wyndham is winning and my previous renters are losing.

Or it could be that the owners who are now finding these units available and reserving them at full points and taking their families on vacation are the winners.

 

[wjappraise]

Or it could be that the owners who are now finding these units available and reserving them at full points and taking their families on vacation are the winners.

Or...more based in reality, the folks at Extra Holidays love being able to cherry pick the inventory. It’s not going to owners. Reality check time, brother. Stop passing out the KoolAid.

 

[CO skier]

Or...more based in reality, the folks at Extra Holidays love being able to cherry pick the inventory. It’s not going to owners. Reality check time, brother. Stop passing out the KoolAid.

As an example, I am thinking about those Bonnet Creek 3 and 4 bedroom Presidentials that were cancelled and rebooked for half the price of a 1 bedroom, then rented at tidy profits.

It is not so profitable anymore, and what was marginally profitable reservations before -- using cancel/rebook -- are no longer profitable at all, as an earlier post explains.

So go ahead and show me all those 3 and 4 bedroom Presidentials being offered by Extra Holidays that used to be so common on EBay using cancel/rebook/upgrade. I can wait ... probably forever.

Can't find any? Then who is staying in these units? Maybe owners booking them at or near 13 months at full points for their family vacations?

 

[CO skier]

Or...more based in reality, the folks at Extra Holidays love being able to cherry pick the inventory. It’s not going to owners. Reality check time, brother. Stop passing out the KoolAid.

What you keep missing is that Wyndham could have cherry picked every cancel/rebook attempt under the old rules. If cherry picking the best reservations for Extra Holidays is Wyndham's game, the new rules put them at a disadvantage versus the old rules, because most owners who book the best reservations using full points for their family vacation under the new rules do not cancel the reservation and give Wyndham a chance at it (if your conspiracy is to be believed).

 

[CO skier]

I currently have a 375k Bali Hai contract with a total M/F of $1495.50. That would allow me to bid up to $2,277 on a resale contract.

Last month the OP paid $1600 total for 375K Bali Hai, $600 less than your max. It seems like the deals are still out there.

 

[schoolmarm]

Bali Hai is a valuable deed to own. Besides low MFs, it comes with an Outrigger membership that allows you to book the Outrigger resorts.

I am happy with my Bali Hai stripped contract I got from Ron. The MFs that I paid without use of points were WAY lower than the price of any Bali Hai contract on the market at the time. And I kept getting Bali Hai sold out from under me.

 

[Sandi Bo]

Reading between ALOT of lines, I think the one unhappy with stripped contracts was WYN themselves.

The jist of what I got was that they took back stripped contracts and then didn't like that they didn't have anyone paying maintenance for a couple years. I wouldn't think Wyndham would really care if a contract was stripped, as long as someone was paying the maintenance. They only cared when they found themselves holding the contracts.

I say shame on Wyndham, who should understand this timeshare stuff better than them?

 

[ronparise]

It all depends on what we are going to call “stripping the contract”. You are using the 2020 points in 2020. I don’t call that “stripping the contract” and I never considered that to be selling a “stripped contract “when it was discussed prior to May 2017.

If you use 2020 points in January 2020. Then sell that contract it will not be transferred until June at the earliest.
The new owner might go 6-7 months before using 2021 points for a 2021 reservation.
When “stripped contracts” were sold Wyndham might of transferred the contract in 2 months so the new owner would not be able to use the first use years points in that year for over 2 1\2 years.

I really don’t think your comparing apples to apples in how “stripping the contract “ was discussed prior. Prior the buyer could have the contract transferred today with the January 1, 2021 being the first use points available that’s what I called “a stripped contract” that can’t happen today

It doesn’t matter what you call it; the end result is a contract that has less points in it than one would expect


For those that followed my wyndham “career”. And regarding that famous Canterbury deal.

That contract and others I offered here on tug was offered here because my regular buyer wasn’t buying at the time. As soon as my regular buyer was back in business I with drew my offers, but there weee a few deals in process that I let continue to closing

And for those interested. My “business” developed into what it ultimately becam over time.

1) I started out buying holding and renting to pay mf and enjoy a “free” vacation every once in a while. My very first purchase on eBay for a dollar made me a silver vip but the reservations I made to rent were made at 10 months and I didn’t know about cancel and rebook for a discount

2) at one point I developed a relationship with a title company and a post card company. I put the two together so the title company was doing the post card companies title work. My reward was that I got all their Wyndham points transferred to me at no cost

3) I got big quick; too big to manage my account myself, I found a travel agency that knew Timeshares to do the work of finding and servicing customers. Basically I turned my account over to them and they paid most of my mf

4) as I said above, my first purchase made me a silver vip. And I had heard of other owners that became vip with small direct purchases and the rest from the secondary market. I set about to figure out how to do that myself and was referred to a particular salesman at Hawaii resort that could make it happen. The secret was that some of the original Pahio weeks contracts were not coded as resale contracts and would count toward vip even if purchased on the secondary market when converted to points. I didn’t know which weeks would work so I bought a bunch of them. I bought two 126 eoy contracts from that salesman in two caaounts and converted three Pahio weeks into each account and ended up with 2 Platinum VIP accounts

5) I then figured out that certain Pahio points contracts would maintain their vip status when transferred so I bought everyone I could get my hands on and built 3 more platinum accounts (total five)

6) the free contracts kept coming and I grew to 30 million points.
That points manager paid me $6/1000 points

7) so you ask, what’s the point. The points manager was barely paying my mf. He was doing well using my vip benefits to get discounts and upgrades but what’s in it for me. This is wheee the credit pool comes in. For each million point contract(s) I bought I turned over 3 million points to my manager and he paid me $6/1000 or $18000. My mf was $6000 so $12000 positive cash flow in the first year of ownership. In future years I broke even ie the points manage covered mf

8) the problem of couse is that I had to keep buying to make money and the question was how big is too big. So I want looking for some way to dump the striped contracts the alternative was to cap things at about 50 million points and hope to make about 50 cents per 1000 points (that was the difference between my mf and what the points manager was paying). That would be about $25000 per year , nice but not want I had gotten used to

9) I found a guy who knew a guy who arranged a sale. I sold 20 million points to some LLC for a half a penny a point. I would have sold it all but they only wanted 300000 point I contracts or bigger udi contracts

 

[ronparise]

To continue

10) so now I was able to buy strip and sell the use of the points to a points manager and sell the contract

11) the buyer was not buying all the time. And they didn’t buy in the winter so there were times I got worried that they wouldn’t be back in the spring and I offered some contracts here on tug

12) my business became a buy, strip and sell thing, but it all came to an end in August 2016. ...... a happy ending to be sure, but I would have preferred to keep it going


So now the credit pool is dead, and so is my secret path to VIP and there are a number of other new rules like the 10 night limit rule and the guest confirm at booking rule designed to end the practice of large scale commercial renting

I honestly don’t see any way to make money using Wyndham Timeshares anymore, at least not the kind of money we used to be able to make but that’s what they said when I started this thing. It was right after the last big set of rule changes when several megarenters were put out of business. I didn’t know any better and just jumped in. I’m betting someone smarter than me or at least not biased by my experience, to jump in and figure out how to make money at this

 

[ronparise]

Or it could be that the owners who are now finding these units available and reserving them at full points and taking their families on vacation are the winners.

Given the points requirements and maintenance fee costs and the cost to buy. I don’t see that anyone wins. 250000 points will cost a new buyer about $40000. Amortized over 20 years is $2000 a year. 250000 points for a week in Orlando at $7/1000 mf will be $1750. Add it up and a weeks vacation will cost nearly $6000 for the first 20 vacations

So buy on the secondary market. Those prices are going up too as evidenced by this thread. But make no mistake the days of cheap secondary market contracts are numbered I am absolutely sure that Wyndham is out to control the secondary market

 

[ronparise]

Reading between ALOT of lines, I think the one unhappy with stripped contracts was WYN themselves.

The jist of what I got was that they took back stripped contracts and then didn't like that they didn't have anyone paying maintenance for a couple years. I wouldn't think Wyndham would really care if a contract was stripped, as long as someone was paying the maintenance. They only cared when they found themselves holding the contracts.

I say shame on Wyndham, who should understand this timeshare stuff better than them?

Listen to Sandi folks, she knows what she is talking about

 

[Braindead]

so now I was able to buy strip and sell the use of the points to a points manager and sell the contract

11) the buyer was not buying all the time. And they didn’t buy in the winter so there were times I got worried that they wouldn’t be back in the spring and I offered some contracts here on tug

12) my business became a buy, strip and sell thing, but it all came to an end in August 2016. ...... a happy ending to be sure, but I would have preferred to keep it going

You summed up my summary. I’m not revealing any secrets here. Ron posted for all to see that when his account was froze he owned 10 million points yet had reservations that would use 90 million points.

 

[Railman83]

Last month the OP paid $1600 total for 375K Bali Hai, $600 less than your max. It seems like the deals are still out there.

Bali Hai is a valuable deed to own. Besides low MFs, it comes with an Outrigger membership that allows you to book the Outrigger resorts.

I am happy with my Bali Hai stripped contract I got from Ron. The MFs that I paid without use of points were WAY lower than the price of any Bali Hai contract on the market at the time. And I kept getting Bali Hai sold out from under me.

Does resale Bali Hai get you the outrigger?

 

[Braindead]

Reading between ALOT of lines, I think the one unhappy with stripped contracts was WYN themselves.

The jist of what I got was that they took back stripped contracts and then didn't like that they didn't have anyone paying maintenance for a couple years. I wouldn't think Wyndham would really care if a contract was stripped, as long as someone was paying the maintenance. They only cared when they found themselves holding the contracts.

I say shame on Wyndham, who should understand this timeshare stuff better than them?

Couldn’t agree more. I didn’t blame Ron and others for doing what they did.
What UPSET me to no end
WYN not only allowed it. WYN AIDED AND ENCOURAGED the action by buying the stripped contracts as Ron points out selling 20 million points in a single year of stripped contracts himself.
Yes its shame on WYN not Ron and others! Ron was an entrepreneur!!

 

[Braindead]

Does resale Bali Hai get you the outrigger?

Yes unless it’s changed in the last few months.
But it’s a bad use of points. Takes a lot of points for hotel room. In Waikiki it specifically says you will get a city view room for 567,000 points for a week. Weeks 1-50 are the weeks available.

 

[Braindead]

Does resale Bali Hai get you the outrigger?

I need to clarify.
It has to be a Bali Hai UDI contract to get Outrigger.
If you bought a converted week you will not get Outrigger

 

[CCdad]

RPMI listed an $8,995 + closing costs Buy it Now for 65xk Bali Hai Villas set of points the same day this unction closed.

After the 436K points went for over $8k, they either pulled their auction or someone jumped on it at a relative bargain price.

Their auctions tend to have the buyer take over MFs at closing vs after the final Wyndham transfer is complete.

 

[cayman01]

Does resale Bali Hai get you the outrigger?

Yes it does. I have it and bought resale.

 

[Braindead]

Does resale Bali Hai get you the outrigger?

Yes it does. I have it and bought resale.

I have it also bought resale
It has to be a UDI contract
Converted week does not
If you go to the Owership details page on the website
The UDI contract will show Outrigger
A converted week will show Select

 

[ronparise]

Couldn’t agree more. I didn’t blame Ron and others for doing what they did.
What UPSET me to no end
WYN not only allowed it. WYN AIDED AND ENCOURAGED the action by buying the stripped contracts as Ron points out selling 20 million points in a single year of stripped contracts himself.
Yes its shame on WYN not Ron and others! Ron was an entrepreneur!!

No shame on anyone

My buyer reviewed the contracts I presented. The points status was clear on each one and the sale price reflected that status

Consider this; If the buyer was wyndham, and I’m not saying it was. And if they had to hold the contract for three years before it “recharged” they would have invested another about $15/1000 points in addition to the purchase price which was less than $5/1000 points. So a total investment of $20/1000 points. They sell this stuff for up to $200 per 1000 points. So their cost of goods sold would have been 10%. This was a good deal for me, and if wyndham was the buyer a good deal for them

You might also consider that when Wyndham took back contracts through Ovation, if the owner had purchased the points from Wyndham; wyndham would give them 3 years of points as payment

 

[Braindead]

No shame on anyone

My buyer reviewed the contracts I presented. The points status was clear on each one and the sale price reflected that status

Consider this; If the buyer was wyndham, and I’m not saying it was. And if they had to hold the contract for three years before it “recharged” they would have invested another about $15/1000 points in addition to the purchase price which was less than $5/1000 points. So a total investment of $20/1000 points. They sell this stuff for up to $200 per 1000 points. So their cost of goods sold would have been 10%. This was a good deal for me, and if wyndham was the buyer a good deal for them

You might also consider that when Wyndham took back contracts through Ovation, if the owner had purchased the points from Wyndham; wyndham would give them 3 years of points as payment

8) the problem of couse is that I had to keep buying to make money and the question was how big is too big. So I want looking for some way to dump the striped contracts the alternative was to cap things at about 50 million points and hope to make about 50 cents per 1000 points (that was the difference between my mf and what the points manager was paying). That would be about $25000 per year , nice but not want I had gotten used to

9) I found a guy who knew a guy who arranged a sale. I sold 20 million points to some LLC for a half a penny a point. I would have sold it all but they only wanted 300000 point I contracts or bigger udi contracts

Actually I would’ve used a lot stronger language than “shame on WYN” but kept it clean and used Sandi Bo terminology.
I have always enjoyed your perspective and your openness!! Neither one of us takes our discussions personally!!

I’ll share my perspective from not being involved with the “stripped contracts”
We both agree you were going to hit a cap of ownership at some level. You say maybe 50 million. Or it would’ve gotten out of control and imploded on itself.
Your margin was so narrow. You say 50 cents per thousand. It could’ve turned to breakeven or a loss at anytime.

So what happens ?
Wyndham comes along needing inventory to sell.
You and few others have tens of millions points contracts that are stripped.
My money bets those stripped contracts weren’t held for 2 years before being resold.
Wyndham reloaded them contracts with full points and sold them within months.

End result looks from the outside
Wyndham patted you guys on the back and saying good job in getting us inventory to sell
Now go back out and do it again so we can buy more inventory from you when needed
I don’t think you could’ve just kept buying and stripping for years without Wyndham coming along aiding and abetting

As you say - you planned on dying at some point. I’m glad Wyndham came along for you and your still here in excellent health!!

But yes “SHAME ON WYNDHAM “

GOOD FOR YOU and I truelly hope you enjoy yourself as a past Wyndham owner!! Glad you came out ok!!
Hope you have many years of enjoyment and prosperity infront of you !! Along with staying around here for further discussions!!!!

 

[ronparise]

I think you are right about wyndham needing inventory to sell. And Another need I think they need is inventory to rent

And I think the intend to corner the secondary market

When Wyndham was building their goal was to keep the cost of goods sold under 15%. Given a $200/1000 points sale price that means they could go as high as $30 per 1000 on the secondary market.

 

[CO skier]

The jist of what I got was that they took back stripped contracts and then didn't like that they didn't have anyone paying maintenance for a couple years. I wouldn't think Wyndham would really care if a contract was stripped, as long as someone was paying the maintenance. They only cared when they found themselves holding the contracts.

If that is all there is to the story, why didn't Wyndham just refuse to take back stripped accounts?

Instead, Wyndham radically altered the Club program to eliminate the credit pool and along with it the ability of owners to strip and sell the stripped accounts to anyone. Why did Wyndham replace the Credit Pool with the Points Deposit feature that only allows pushing points into future years?

Clearly, there is more to this story than "they [Wyndham] only cared when they found themselves holding the [stripped] contracts".

 

[spackler]

Instead, Wyndham radically altered the Club program to eliminate the credit pool...

The credit pool change was the worst part of all the program changes they made, IMHO. It made vacation planning far more difficult.

 

[Arimaas]

The credit pool change was the worst part of all the program changes they made, IMHO. It made vacation planning far more difficult.

As a newbie to Wyndham, can some explain the credit pool? Thanks.