{UNLOCKED] Wyndham notice RE commercial use

[HitchHiker71]

Oh, give it a rest... you say I sound like a broken record?

I assure you the Florida AG (and the entire Florida Republican party) receives more money in campaign contributions from Wyndham than the "2 or 3 affected parties" who would complain. Plus they have legitimate real cases affecting Floridians (you aren't a Floridian, i'm guessing... I am) to be working on. As a Florida resident, I would feel betrayed (see what I did there) if they wasted their time doing what you suggest

I respectfully disagree with you. Holding any company accountable for fundamentally deceptive sales practices isn't a bad thing - while we like to state that the written contract is the only thing that matters - the fact is that oral contracts also matter - so what is said cannot be ignored. Therefore, this topic is certainly something that should get the attention of state AGs as part of an overall solution to tamping down on this type of bad business practice. It is no secret the cognitive dissonance that is practiced by the vast majority of timeshare sales organizations as compared to their customer service and resort management organizations - and big picture - this type of thing has to come to an end one way or another. Wyndham is among them.

@TUGBrian recently posted this article highlighting exactly this outcome for another smaller timeshare entity: https://tugbbs.com/forums/threads/f...-in-deceptive-sales-practices-lawsuit.344827/

If this type of case can be won in a court of law as above, then it starts to set a precedent - and that precedent is potentially very important big picture. We want to see more of these types of legal wins - not less. So with this in mind, I agree with the sentiment expressed by @rickandcindy23 - especially given many of these sales made are to people over the age of 62 - which brings into specific focus elder abuse laws. Until we hold the timeshare companies accountable for their bad business sales practices - nothing is going to change - and a part of that accountability is bringing suits against these companies - and having state AGs take a serious look at the elder abuse aspects and the deceptive sales practices is a mandatory part of bringing change to a market segment that is ripe for such change for many reasons.

 

[grupp]

Wyndham should have had a better control of their sales people. Anyone who purchased because of it and see thousands of rentals should get a full refund.
Thankfully Wyndham first decided to pay people to leave at the remaining owners expense.

I guess you are against capitalism As well.

I am not a Wyndham owner, but occasionally follow these threads. From what have have read it appears with the Wyndham changes that the so called "Mega Renter' are either selling or giving back to Wyndham millions of points. I assume that Wyndham will be reselling the points in the future, but who pays the annual fees on those points while these points are waiting to be resold?

Or is it set up in such a way that it doesn't matter.

 

[rickandcindy23]

From the lawsuit posted by TUGBrian:

"What's concerning for consumers is that business models like these, that are intentionally built to take advantage of good people, are not unique to FantaSea – and in fact, there are many resorts in the timeshare space that are even more egregious in their deceptive practices," Solseng said. "I don't recommend that anyone attend a timeshare presentation, no matter how much they entice you with gifts."

 

[rickandcindy23]

I think at this point I'd expect that Wyndham is reviewing all accounts that have reservations with a certain number of guest certs attached to them. If I were someone like @GrandmaGail and all of my certs were for family and friends with compensation not exceeding my costs, I'd pick up the phone and call Wyndham's legal dept to learn straight from the horse's mouth whether or not my pattern is one that they intended to snare in their net. And if not, I'd ask them what I or they can do to prevent the unnecessary anxiety over it.

Part of the problem with Wyndham is that they will not ever tell us a number of rentals that we are allowed. It's arbitrary.

 

[SueDonJ]

Part of the problem with Wyndham is that they will not ever tell us a number of rentals that we are allowed. It's arbitrary.

I get that. They're looking at patterns rather than numbers. But there is a difference between owners who effectively give away their usage to friends and family for zero profit and owners who make a profit by renting their usage to strangers, and apparently Wyndham is using the guest cert data to mine for rental businesses. If ever a suit is filed and Wyndham comes out on the losing end that's when I'd expect to possibly see them pick a number, but certainly not before.

Normally I'd never suggest that somebody pick up the phone and call Legal. For anything! That's a very quick and dirty way to put yourself in the spotlight uninvited. But in @GrandmaGail's case she's effectively been invited by the letter she received and so if I were in her shoes using guest certs with no profit being generated, I'd give it a try. She can stick to asking questions about how the issue affects only her ownership, and she's free to end the call if it appears that they're mining more information from her.

 

[Sandi Bo]

I am not a Wyndham owner, but occasionally follow these threads. From what have have read it appears with the Wyndham changes that the so called "Mega Renter' are either selling or giving back to Wyndham millions of points. I assume that Wyndham will be reselling the points in the future, but who pays the annual fees on those points while these points are waiting to be resold?

Or is it set up in such a way that it doesn't matter.

I could be wrong, but, I think it works something like this:
1) you commit to giving your points back to Wyndham, if you have any reservations booked they are cancelled, you keep paying maintenance on your ownership until the transfer is complete (can take months, 2-6 is my guess)
2) once Wyndham owns them they can (and will) try to resell for full cost
3) I think whilst in Wyndham's hands they can then use those points to book and rent (a very gray area, this is my guess)

 

[HitchHiker71]

I am not a Wyndham owner, but occasionally follow these threads. From what have have read it appears with the Wyndham changes that the so called "Mega Renter' are either selling or giving back to Wyndham millions of points. I assume that Wyndham will be reselling the points in the future, but who pays the annual fees on those points while these points are waiting to be resold?

Or is it set up in such a way that it doesn't matter.

Assuming the owner doesn't sell to another third party - and utilizes either Wyndham Certified Exit or Wyndham acquires the points sold on the secondary market through a buyer that is indirectly representing Wyndham as the buyer - then Wyndham can determine within the confines of the founding trust documents what they want to do with the points recovered. In general, it is assumed that Wyndham pays the MFs for resale points acquired back to the HOAs so long as they are holding those points - either for future sale to a retail customer - or for rental purposes. There's a bit of gray in the wording of the actual founding trust documents at least based upon my own analysis - so I'm not entirely certain that Wyndham actually ends up paying the MFs in every case - but I know if Wyndham chooses to utilize those points for rentals through EH - then they pay the MFs for those points at least. The going theory is that the sales and marketing division will acquire blocks of inventory for sale periodically - at which point the sales and marketing division then pays the MFs for those points until they are actually sold to a retail buyer.

 

[HitchHiker71]

I get that. They're looking at patterns rather than numbers. But there is a difference between owners who effectively give away their usage to friends and family for zero profit and owners who make a profit by renting their usage to strangers, and apparently Wyndham is using the guest cert data to mine for rental businesses. If ever a suit is filed and Wyndham comes out on the losing end that's when I'd expect to possibly see them pick a number, but certainly not before.

Normally I'd never suggest that somebody pick up the phone and call Legal. For anything! That's a very quick and dirty way to put yourself in the spotlight uninvited. But in @GrandmaGail's case she's effectively been invited by the letter she received and so if I were in her shoes using guest certs with no profit being generated, I'd give it a try. She can stick to asking questions about how the issue affects only her ownership, and she's free to end the call if it appears that they're mining more information from her.

The letter received has been blessed directly by Wyndham legal - I validated this assertion with Wyndham myself. The letter has follow up phone numbers and/or an email address to use if the owner feels that they have been targeted unfairly and/or takes issue with anything in the letter. Oftentimes it takes weeks for anyone to get a response to emails however, and sometimes the owners don't actually receive any response (or at least not that they are willing to admit to on a public forum). I know for a fact that Wyndham is not going to release any "rules of engagement" for renting, as that would basically guarantee that existing commercial renters would then know exactly what to do to "fly under the radar" once that were to happen. Not going to happen. I've asked this question on more than one occasion. As you said - they aren't going to do so unless they are compelled to do so legally - and if they are compelled to do so - be careful what you wish for - that could spell the end of GCs altogether.

 

[rickandcindy23]

I get that. They're looking at patterns rather than numbers. But there is a difference between owners who effectively give away their usage to friends and family for zero profit and owners who make a profit by renting their usage to strangers, and apparently Wyndham is using the guest cert data to mine for rental businesses. If ever a suit is filed and Wyndham comes out on the losing end that's when I'd expect to possibly see them pick a number, but certainly not before.

Normally I'd never suggest that somebody pick up the phone and call Legal. For anything! That's a very quick and dirty way to put yourself in the spotlight uninvited. But in @GrandmaGail's case she's effectively been invited by the letter she received and so if I were in her shoes using guest certs with no profit being generated, I'd give it a try. She can stick to asking questions about how the issue affects only her ownership, and she's free to end the call if it appears that they're mining more information from her.

And how would they ever figure out what is for profit and what is for friends/ family? This is why I expect more people to get the letters. I would expect even the smallest of players to get letters eventually. After all, a lot of small businesses = one big number of reservations that aren't going to have an owner using them. The rules have to be across the board for fairness.

Wyndham's Extra Holidays is now the only renter of Wyndham that Wyndham allows, and they make all of the rules. You agree to rent through them, or you suffer the consequences. And those rentals can be cancelled up to the day of check-in and you still lose all of your points. Wyndham doesn't protect you from cancellations. They will also rent just part of your reservation and pay you for only part of it. Wyndham doesn't care one bit. They also take their own bloody time to pay the owner of those points.

We chose not to sue but did write to the Florida AG. We have had so-so results, mostly just wanted to point out that Wyndham changes rules. I am actively giving away everything we cannot use ourselves. We have 7 owners on the deeds.

If you are renting Marriott for a profit, even if it's through a third party, this could happen to you as well, and I think all timeshare owners who rent some of what they own should keep an eye on what is happening with Wyndham.

I think of Marriott as a much more honest product, however, and no salesperson at Marriott has ever been deceitful during a presentation that I have witnessed personally. I have experienced it at Westin in an offhand way, but no promises of renting to make money ever came up.

We attended a Westin presentation where they used a lot of speculation about how Marriott would value developer purchases over our resale purchases. The salesperson told us how crazy it would be for us to buy resale Westin mandatory SO's because Marriott wouldn't recognize those. I bought to use, so I didn't care, but it turned out that mandatory options are indeed worthy of the Marriott Chairman's level of ownership. We own two. That was such a crazy timeshare presentation at Westin Ka'anapali, and the ridiculous assumptions of what would "maybe" happen. The two salespeople that hounded us to convert our SBP weeks actually told us that their paychecks are from Marriott. This was 19 months ago.

I also attended a Westin presentation that was all about the old Amex credit card. It was such a joke, I couldn't take the woman at Mission Hills seriously at all. And the second guy told us that it would cost over $1,000,000 to convert our SBP to SO's. I just laughed. What do I need with millions of SO's?

 

[dioxide45]

Oh, give it a rest... you say I sound like a broken record?

I assure you the Florida AG (and the entire Florida Republican party) receives more money in campaign contributions from Wyndham than the "2 or 3 affected parties" who would complain. Plus they have legitimate real cases affecting Floridians (you aren't a Floridian, i'm guessing... I am) to be working on. As a Florida resident, I would feel betrayed (see what I did there) if they wasted their time doing what you suggest

So you are advocating that it is okay for a company that greases the right hands gets away with illicit or even illegal business practices?

 

[GrandmaGail]

I get that. They're looking at patterns rather than numbers. But there is a difference between owners who effectively give away their usage to friends and family for zero profit and owners who make a profit by renting their usage to strangers, and apparently Wyndham is using the guest cert data to mine for rental businesses. If ever a suit is filed and Wyndham comes out on the losing end that's when I'd expect to possibly see them pick a number, but certainly not before.

Normally I'd never suggest that somebody pick up the phone and call Legal. For anything! That's a very quick and dirty way to put yourself in the spotlight uninvited. But in @GrandmaGail's case she's effectively been invited by the letter she received and so if I were in her shoes using guest certs with no profit being generated, I'd give it a try. She can stick to asking questions about how the issue affects only her ownership, and she's free to end the call if it appears that they're mining more information from her.

Thanks for the advice. I have never advertised anywhere as I do not use GCs to make money. I have never heard of Koala or knew about this user group before I started investigating this threatening letter. I will consider contacting Wyndham’s legal department as I have had issues with many changes Wyndham has made in the last 10 years or so that have negatively impacted owners.

 

[SueDonJ]

We chose not to sue but did write to the Florida AG. We have had so-so results, mostly just wanted to point out that Wyndham changes rules.

If you are renting Marriott for a profit, even if it's through a third party, this could happen to you as well, and I think all timeshare owners who rent some of what they own should keep an eye on what is happening with Wyndham.

I think of Marriott as a much more honest product, however, and no salesperson at Marriott has ever been deceitful during a presentation that I have witnessed personally. I have experienced it at Westin in an offhand way, but no promises of renting to make money ever came up.

We attended a Westin presentation where they used a lot of speculation about how Marriott would value developer purchases over our resale purchases. The salesperson told us how crazy it would be for us to buy resale Westin mandatory SO's because Marriott wouldn't recognize those. I bought to use, so I didn't care, but it turned out that mandatory options are indeed worthy of the Marriott Chairman's level of ownership. We own two. That was such a crazy timeshare presentation at Westin Ka'anapali, and the ridiculous assumptions of what would "maybe" happen.

I also attended a Westin presentation that was all about the old Amex credit card. It was such a joke, I couldn't take the woman at Mission Hills seriously at all. And the second guy told us that it would cost over $1,000,000 to convert our SBP to SO's. I just laughed. What do I need with millions of SO's?

I've mentioned that recently (the last few years) I've used my Marriott ownership for rentals, mostly via a TUGger's rental business but a few times on my own with TUGgers known to me. I have no doubt that Marriott is watching every other company to see how the issue of owner rental businesses is being dissected. It started with Disney (DVC) putting a number to guest certs on reservations years ago and it's continuing with Wyndham lately taking a sledge hammer to some owners' reservations. I fully expect that Marriott will continue the trend but have no idea whether what they implement will fall at either extreme or somewhere in the middle, and no idea if my less-than-five rentals per year will be affected. It's a weird place I'm in because I would like to see the rental businesses be given lower priority/access to at least the high-demand inventory, but that's the inventory I book with my Abound Exchange Points and place with a rental business! So if/when Marriott does whatever it might do, just like everyone else I'll have to look at my ownership and determine if it still makes sense after Marriott changes things.

Like you I haven't been personally on the receiving end of a deceptive Marriott sales presentation but I've never been one of the people who go to them for fun. I have the one sales rep who sold me my Weeks and I've booked with her to get info (she's an owner, too) but it's been quite a while since we've had any contact. I don't begrudge the people who do take advantage of sales presentations, though, and I do believe that many of them are given misinformation by sales reps. I think it's good to get the word out that some Marriott sales reps aren't any more ethical than some who work for other companies.

 

[SueDonJ]

Thanks for the advice. I have never advertised anywhere as I do not use GCs to make money. I have never heard of Koala or knew about this user group before I started investigating this threatening letter. I will consider contacting Wyndham’s legal department as I have had issues with many changes Wyndham has made in the last 10 years or so that have negatively impacted owners.

@HitchHiker71 posted after me, #83, and he's much more knowledgeable about this issue and Wyndham. Pick his brain if you feel like you need some guidance on how to approach Legal, and good luck!

 

[dioxide45]

I've mentioned that recently (the last few years) I've used my Marriott ownership for rentals, mostly via a TUGger's rental business but a few times on my own with TUGgers known to me. I have no doubt that Marriott is watching every other company to see how the issue of owner rental businesses is being dissected. It started with Disney (DVC) putting a number to guest certs on reservations years ago and it's continuing with Wyndham lately taking a sledge hammer to some owners' reservations. I fully expect that Marriott will continue the trend but have no idea whether what they implement will fall at either extreme or somewhere in the middle, and no idea if my less-than-five rentals per year will be affected. It's a weird place I'm in because I would like to see the rental businesses be given lower priority/access to at least the high-demand inventory, but that's the inventory I book with my Abound Exchange Points and place with a rental business! So if/when Marriott does whatever it might do, just like everyone else I'll have to look at my ownership and determine if it still makes sense after Marriott changes things.

Like you I haven't been personally on the receiving end of a deceptive Marriott sales presentation but I've never been one of the people who go to them for fun. I have the one sales rep who sold me my Weeks and I've booked with her to get info (she's an owner, too) but it's been quite a while since we've had any contact. I don't begrudge the people who do take advantage of sales presentations, though, and I do believe that many of them are given misinformation by sales reps. I think it's good to get the word out that some Marriott sales reps aren't any more ethical than some who work for other companies.

It is fairly rare that I have heard deceptive sales practices at a Marriott presentation. Usually just the usual exaggerations about how great Explorer offerings are and how easy it is to make reservations. Early on, many years ago, I heard about how it was an investment and would go up in value. I have also been pushed the option of renting. This was the entire focus of a sales presentation at Ocean Watch. How to book reservations with points and how to rent them out on Facebook groups. So if one is to take that advice and start doing that for Marriott only to later clamp down on renting, I could see where one might have a gripe.

 

[Jan M.]

I just received the Rule Violation Letter regarding commercial use, and reading through this thread of messages, I’m confused as to why I got the notice. I use a lot of GCs mainly for friends and family as I can’t travel as much any more but I don’t advertise or use any service. I do receive money to cover maintenance fees from a couple of my friends who live in resort areas who have their friends and family visit frequently. Could it be that on these GCs I use the friend’s email address on these reservations?

Afaik it's not just the number of guest confirmations the owner has used but also the percentage of points the owner put guest confirmations on. If you've put guest confirmations on more of your points than you've used for yourself that flags your account for a letter to be sent.

As far as upcoming reservations with guest confirmations on them that's your call if you want to take the risk of not cancelling them. You can safely assume if your guests use those reservations and you make any new reservations with guest names on them then all your reservations with guest names on them will be cancelled. You will also be blocked for adding guest names to any reservations for a minimum of 90 days.

Once an owner receives the second letter and gets blocked it seems that Owner Strategies is unmoveable in their stance. I haven't heard any owner say what's happen after their guest suspension expired if they went back to using guest confirmations. I believe the letter mentions that their account could be suspended so even the owner couldn't use it for whatever period of time.

You should consider adding your family members names to just the smallest contract in your account so you don't have to use guest confirmations for those family members. The less appealing alternatives are downsizing your account or getting out of Wyndham altogether.

 

[troy12n]

Sour grapes... you have a vested interest in things staying status quo. The rest of us owners have a vested interest in getting rid of people like you.

As Spock said, "the needs of the many, outweigh the needs of the few... or the one"

The "vast majority of owners" have spoken, and we applaud Wyndham for finally taking a stand against renters exploiting loophole after loophole in an effort to make money over allowing owners to use the timeshare they bought.

 

[HitchHiker71]

Thanks for the advice. I have never advertised anywhere as I do not use GCs to make money. I have never heard of Koala or knew about this user group before I started investigating this threatening letter. I will consider contacting Wyndham’s legal department as I have had issues with many changes Wyndham has made in the last 10 years or so that have negatively impacted owners.

If you follow up with legal - I would limit your feedback specifically to any concerns you have about the letter you received and provide actual evidence that contradicts the assertions made in the letter specific to your account and why.

The broader issues of your observations about rule changes over the past ten years are not going to be germane to the letter nor is the legal department going to be able to do anything about these complaints. If you have broader complaints about what Wyndham is doing with regard to impacting owners - I recommend you send these issues to the CEO whose mailbox is monitored by an entire team at: Michael.brown@travelandleisure.com.

Feel free to ask any follow up questions if you require any additional guidance - we are all here to help!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[GrandmaGail]

If you follow up with legal - I would limit your feedback specifically to any concerns you have about the letter you received and provide actual evidence that contradicts the assertions made in the letter specific to your account and why.

The broader issues of your observations about rule changes over the past ten years are not going to be germane to the letter nor is the legal department going to be able to do anything about these complaints. If you have broader complaints about what Wyndham is doing with regard to impacting owners - I recommend you send these issues to the CEO whose mailbox is monitored by an entire team at: Michael.brown@travelandleisure.com.

Feel free to ask any follow up questions if you require any additional guidance - we are all here to help!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Understood and thanks.

 

[am1]

Sour grapes... you have a vested interest in things staying status quo. The rest of us owners have a vested interest in getting rid of people like you.

As Spock said, "the needs of the many, outweigh the needs of the few... or the one"

The "vast majority of owners" have spoken, and we applaud Wyndham for finally taking a stand against renters exploiting loophole after loophole in an effort to make money over allowing owners to use the timeshare they bought.

Everyone has equal access to booking reservations. You want equal outcome not equal opportunity. Sadly you are not alone. If you cannot plan ahead and book as soon as availability opens up then timeshares are not for you.
I allowed tens of thousands of people to stay at nice places who could not afford timeshares or want to get involved.

One thing for sure is mega renters would always pay their maintenance fees.

 

[Jan M.]

Unfortunately the recession of 2008 hit the resorts hard over the next several years with owners defaulting on their maintenance fees and being foreclosed on. This is what led to the development and introduction of Club Wyndham Access.

I suspect it also led Wyndham to temporarily ignore the renting being done by the growing number of owners we refer to as megarenters. The necessity of keeping the resorts solvent was a more pressing concern.

One thing for sure is mega renters would always pay their maintenance fees.

Once the the megarenters usefulness in paying the maintenance fees on the large number of points they owned to supply their business wasn't as needed Wyndham started making changes to force them out of business. Unfortunately their attempts were laughably unsuccessful as some of us here on TUG predicted they would be.

Fairfield then Wyndham aptly demonstrated their incompetence in managing the trust according to the governing documents by failing to enforce the rules. Under Michael Brown's leadership as CEO we've seen a determined and concerted effort to change that.

 

[HitchHiker71]

Everyone has equal access to booking reservations. You want equal outcome not equal opportunity. Sadly you are not alone. If you cannot plan ahead and book as soon as availability opens up then timeshares are not for you.
I allowed tens of thousands of people to stay at nice places who could not afford timeshares or want to get involved.

One thing for sure is mega renters would always pay their maintenance fees.

I disagree with your assertion that it's equal opportunity vs equal outcome. Let's use math to make my point. If a "mega-renter" holds 10mm points and makes 100 reservations using those 10mm points, assuming 95% of their bookings are for renters and not owners - then that's 9.5mm points used towards non-owner reservations. If we assume that each reservation, for sake of argument, uses 100k points, that's 10 reservations for each 1mm points used, or 100 reservations across the 10mm points. That's 95 reservations going to renters, with only a paltry 5 reservations going to actual owners, versus 100 reservations from actual owners using the product for which it was intended (not in violation of the commercial use clauses) if rentals were removed from the equation and those slots/reservations were then available for other owners to consume. I do agree that timeshares require owners to plan ahead - regardless of whether it's owner vs owner - or owner vs renter - but it is quite obvious that Wyndham wants much less owner based rentals moving forward - as is blatantly obvious from the cease and desist letters that continue to be received to this day. When rentals are required, what Wyndham clearly wants is more EH based rentals when owners cannot use their points for direct personal use or for close friends and family.

 

[rickandcindy23]

We booked everything within 60 days. Everyone had the ability to book whatever we were able to book. Tenacity and patience is required.

 

[Sandi Bo]

We booked everything within 60 days. Everyone had the ability to book whatever we were able to book. Tenacity and patience is required.

Not after today, LOL! Waitlist!

 

[paxsarah]

I disagree with your assertion that it's equal opportunity vs equal outcome. Let's use math to make my point. If a "mega-renter" holds 10mm points and makes 100 reservations using those 10mm points, assuming 95% of their bookings are for renters and not owners - then that's 9.5mm points used towards non-owner reservations. If we assume that each reservation, for sake of argument, uses 100k points, that's 10 reservations for each 1mm points used, or 100 reservations across the 10mm points. That's 95 reservations going to renters, with only a paltry 5 reservations going to actual owners, versus 100 reservations from actual owners using the product for which it was intended (not in violation of the commercial use clauses) if rentals were removed from the equation and those slots/reservations were then available for other owners to consume. I do agree that timeshares require owners to plan ahead - regardless of whether it's owner vs owner - or owner vs renter - but it is quite obvious that Wyndham wants much less owner based rentals moving forward - as is blatantly obvious from the cease and desist letters that continue to be received to this day. When rentals are required, what Wyndham clearly wants is more EH based rentals when owners cannot use their points for direct personal use or for close friends and family.

It seems like what you're describing is collective outcome - or perhaps more accurately demographic outcome. (And not much about opportunity, really.) If the goal is to have more owners in general occupying units (what I'm calling demographic outcome), then yes - mission accomplished.

But I think when some owners are like, "Yay, the megarenters are out of business!" they're thinking of individual benefit to themselves as an existing owner. However, the only impact I see to existing owners - since there are still just as many points in the system chasing the same limited number of popular reservations - continues to be the possibility that some of those new owners are not very good at using their points compared to the megarenters. It might be a slight bump to opportunity.

 

[troy12n]

I take issue with several aspects of your post, and will break them down individually.

Everyone has equal access to booking reservations. You want equal outcome not equal opportunity. Sadly you are not alone. If you cannot plan ahead and book as soon as availability opens up then timeshares are not for you.

This one is probably the one that is the most disingenuous. And here's why.

All owners have the equal opportunity to book stays. That is accurate. But what your statement ignores a couple key things. I believe you failed to state this purposely to make your argument look better... but I digress.

1. Your average owner gets one, and exactly one opportunity to book a high demand resort at peak location, at peak demand. What I mean by this is, let's take NOLA Mardi Gras week or Daytona Bike week... your average owner needs to book this at midnight 13 months out. They have one shot because they are competing for this slot against all other owners. Right?

Well... here comes people like AM1, and Ron, and RickAndCindy, who have 10 million points (9 million of which are resale) and all of which had VIP privilages up till recently), and 10 "names" on their account which allows them to make 10 (or whatever arbitrary number of fake names they have listed on the account) simultaneous bookings.

So your average owner is not just competing against the other owners, they are competing with the slumlord renter crew who is paying a buddy 12 pack of beer to be up at midnight to "book fake vacations" parked in the name of an "owner" who doesn't really exist, while it waits to have a GC assigned to it after the sale.

2. You ignore the "buying power" that mega renters flexed on the booking scene. This cannot be ignored. You thrown 10 million points at a handful of high demand weeks, and you have made your nut for the year.

I would really be curious how many actual bookings some of the worst offenders actually used for themselves.

I allowed tens of thousands of people to stay at nice places who could not afford timeshares or want to get involved.

And you screwed tens of thousands of owners the ability to book stays they PAID for the ability to book.

One thing for sure is mega renters would always pay their maintenance fees.

Sure, you all paid your MF because the moment you didn't, Wyndham would shut off the gravy train and your revenue stream would halt, and some of you might have to get a job...

If there's one thing the mega renters all have in common is they refuse to acknowledge they have done anything wrong. The cognitive dissonance that leads to such an ethical failure in one's brain to allow this is just shocking to me.