Please don’t just commmet rescind without some reason why.
Ok we are new to timeshares. We have friends that own them with different companies and we have looked at them multiple times and we are numbers people. We travel a lot and do tend to end up spending a lot on vacations it seems in the last couple years. We have two younger children. We bought into a time share yesterday and excited but of course joined a bunch of groups and reading mixed reviews and now not sure if it was the best approach or not. I thought I was familiar with them to an extent but have now found so many more boards and realized I was not. We have time to rescind so I would like honest opinions. It does seem there is benefits from buying through the company so I would like to hear both sides. We are flexible on dates and we like to go to different places and go to where timeshares are. We liked that we could exchange for RCI.
We got a total of 154,000 points with 246,000 bonus points which puts us VIP Until 12/20. Through Wyndham club. We have unlimited last calls. Our maintance fee is $86/month and we got it for $23,000. We were able to do this with half 0% interest for 15months and the remainder 14% and plan on paying the other half off pretty quick so it doesn’t cost much more than what we pay. In the last two years we have gone to Disney twice. I do see listings on eBay for points for obviously way cheaper but not sure on the extras and perks.
Rescind for a couple reasons (some already mentioned, but I’ll echo)
First, buying from the resorts is always the most expensive way to get points. It’s like buying souvenirs inside Disney when both your Disney Euphoria and prices are the at their highest. You could get that same package (including bonus points and temp VIP) for about $20,000 from corporate telesales. Sometimes they even have cash rebates. You can get the same package on eBay for free, and you might not even have to pay closing costs and transfer fees.
Second, what you did, was the equivalent of walking into a random car dealership and buying a car on the spot with no research or price comparison. That is crazy to me, and I believe to you too. We research the next car we are going to buy, but a lot of people don’t research timeshares, even though they cost roughly the same. If you rescind now, you can take your time researching your options. There are a lot of other timeshare systems out there, or you could just rent from another owner. I’m partial to Wyndham because there are more options inside the system then others have. If you stay inside the Club Wyndham system, the only time you have to pay a fee to book, is if you run out of reservation transaction credits or housekeeping credits. Speaking of which, did you research the fees? I like Wyndham because their fees are lower compared to most systems. They don’t charge you to cancel but you’ll want to do that 15 days or more out so you don’t forfeit your points.
Third, you might be able to just go with straight resale. With resale, you don’t get VIP, Club Pass, the ability to convert your points to Wyndham rewards, or Plus Partners. A lot of people here only have resale and are perfectly happy with it. You may not need those extra benefits. I generally recommend people either rent for awhile, or buy a resale contract on eBay when they are first starting out. Pick a contract like CWA or Bonnet Creek. Those will be cheap (not usually free though) and easy to dump if you decide timesharing is not right for you. You can find someone to take it off your hands, or turn it into Ovations. You don’t want to do this with retail, unless you have no other choice, because you’d be throwing away $23k.
Fourth, you really need to decide if timesharing is right for you. It’s not for everyone. It works best for people who can plan 13 months or more out when availability is the best. That’s not to say it won’t work for people who travel last minute, but you will have to be much more flexible in where you go. Also, the maintenance fees increase every year. Normally it’s 1% to 5% a year, although some are more and some go down. If you get caught in a financial bind, they can be tough to unload quickly. Having a popular contract will help, but it can sometimes take 3-6 months to get rid of. That does not help you if you got laid off or unable to work because of illness.
Fifth, the reasons you bought in, might not be real. The sales people like to embellish, stretch the truth, or outright lie. Someone said the #1 reason people are angry about their purchase is because they feel like they got ripped off. They feel that way because they were feed a lot of misinformation and bought based off that misinformation. When they got the real information, they realized there is not as much perceived value (and monetary value) as they thought there was. They may feel if they had the real truth, they either would not have purchased, or would not have paid as high of a price. Also, their anger is not just towards the sales person. They are angry at themselves for not doing their due diligence, to make sure what the sales person told them was the actually truth, instead of blindly trusting them.
Finally, the fact that you are here, asking that question, should tell you something. Your gut is telling you something is not right. Trust your gut. You can always go back and buy from telesales at a cheaper price if you want those retail benefits, or buy resale. Just do your research to make sure timesharing and Wyndham is right for you. Disney is another nice system, but the resale value is not as cheap as Wyndham or other systems because Disney exercises right of first refusal. If someone bought a Disney contract for $1,000, Disney could choose to refuse the transfer, but they would have to pay the seller the $1,000 and take it back. The original buyer would get their money back, but they would have no timeshare. The last one I saw on eBay went for about $14,000 and I think it was for 150 points, but I might be wrong on the # of points. There is no way of knowing if Disney exercised their right if first refusal on that one. Disney has fewer internal options, but they do have an exchange program like Wyndham does.
I am a gold VIP, and don’t regret it. When I first bought 10 years ago, I mostly knew what I was walking into because my parents had a timeshare. I knew about the increasing maintenance fees. I knew that you had to plan ahead. I also knew the cancel rebook tactic the sales guy was trying to tell me was a “benefit” was actually a loophole that Wyndham would eventually close, and they did, nine years later. I was in my 20’s and could smell his Bs a mile away. Maybe my BS meter is more finely tuned then others. I hope this gives you enough reasons to consider. Just make sure, if you have not already, to check your contract to confirm you’re still in the rescission period, and how much time you have left.
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