How much is the program fee? Is that the $139... something fee? And is that in addition to your maintenance fees? is it yearly?
The program fee is billed as part of your maintenance fees. The reason you see us mentioning it separately is to avoid confusion.
The program fee per year is $0.58 per thousand points or a minimum of $135 per year, whichever is greater. So again with the math, divide $135 by .58 +
233,000 points (rounded up). If you own less than 233k total annual points you pay the $135 which makes your maintenance fees per point figure higher than someone else who has more points. Say you own 154k and again I'm going to use Grand Desert and 308k for consistency's sake, and I own 308k. You would pay $4.73 x 154 + $135 = $863.42 so your total maintenance fee per thousand points would be $5.61. I would pay $4.73 + .58 x 308 = $1635.48 and that is $5.31 per thousand points. Again the program fee is based on the total number of points you own not per deed or contract in the case of CWA, Club Wyndham Access, points.
Sorry here we go again with the math. Vicki pointed out that you get 1 free $19 reservation transaction for every 77k points you own. So say you find something for 224k which is 3 times 77k but you would still be shy 9,000 points to get over the minimum program fee. At that point the savings of being over the minimum program fee isn't enough to matter because you are so close. So you would pay $4.73 x 224 + $135 = $1194.52. If you had 233k points which is an odd amount you wouldn't typically see but we'll use it anyhow, you would pay $5.31 x 233 = $1237.23 and that would make your cost on 224k points $1189.44 so owning over the 233k minimum is only saving you $5.08 total for the whole year on 224k points because we're doing a cost per point comparison. A savings of $5.08 for the whole year isn't a deal breaker in my book. However when someone only owns that 154k points and would pay $863.42 and those same 154k points would cost someone else only $817.77 because they own enough total to be over the minimum program fee they are paying $45.65 more than someone else with more points would pay on the same number of points. Still not a lot.
What I and other people who own a lot of points have to remember is that for someone who only owns a small amount of points the difference between paying $5.61 or $5.31 doesn't amount to all that much. But when you start talking about 1, 2 or 3 million points the higher cost per point adds up. We own over a million points and our combined maintenance fees are $5.2167 per thousand points. If all our points were CWA our maintenance fees would be $6.57 and Bonnet Creek would be $6.74 per thousand points. Would I want to pay $2480.18 (CWA) or $2787.20 (Bonnet Creek) more a year than we already pay? No I don't! That is why most of us try to balance out our portfolios of what we own with some of this and some of that to cover all our wants and needs.
If someone had told us when we bought our first 77k point deed at Cypress Palms 17 years ago that 6 years later we would have a million points there is absolutely nothing anyone could have said that would have made us believe you. Yet here we are! But our situation was different than many couples. My husband was up to a nice amount of vacation time, he was home based for his job and set his own work schedule. He could start his work day at 6am to be done so we could catch a late afternoon flight on Friday for our Florida vacations. We wouldn't come back until Sunday evening of the following weekend as he could sleep in a little and not start until 9am. Those 9 night/10 day stays used 5 vacation days or only 4 if it was a paid holiday week. When we went to Myrtle Beach we drove and he would schedule an appointment in West Virginia almost down to the Virginia border, the furthest edge of his territory. And he would try to do same thing for the trip back home. Yes the stops for the appointments added more to our travel time but he wasn't using a vacation day. We loved the flexibility owning points gave us. Because he didn't have to compete with other people for vacation time or have to commit to full weeks at the start of the year, when I found cheap flights for our Vegas vacations he could schedule himself off and I could book the resort to take advantage of whatever days had the cheapest flights. There were years that I barely had enough points at the end of the year left to deposit in RCI for just a one bedroom or a studio week. Before we knew it we were taking four big vacations a year of 12-15 nights and a short trip to stay at the Old Town Alexandria resort in Washington, DC too some years. Before buying our timeshare points our big vacation for years was going to the Outer Banks for 2 weeks and sharing a house with 2 other families. Which btw we loved. So we didn't have to give up our OB vacation I set money aside every month for 2 years in my Disney World vacation fund. When our son was as 12 we went and stayed in an inexpensive but adequate motel off Disney property. We were happy with our vacations and they seemed enviable to a lot of people. When we started staying at the timeshares those vacations became very modest by comparison.
Our granddaughter stayed in a hotel room for the first time when they went to the Kalahari Water Park in Sandusky, Ohio to celebrate her 6th birthday. Upon walking into the room she was clearly appalled that their family of 4 was staying in what was actually a nice room. Our son told her it would be fine as it was only one night and they would hardly be in the room as they would be so busy at the water park and arcade. She wasn't buying it. Our son and DIL thought it was so funny they called us immediately to tell us we had ruined their daughter for a normal life. The funniest part was when we talked to her about her birthday after they got back. She told us all about the really small room they all stayed in but that it was okay like her Daddy said because they were very busy and she did have fun. Yup, fun or not they were slumming it in her opinion.
I'm telling you some of our history because I'm hoping to help you dream a little bigger. And to make you think about how you might be able to maximize your vacation time to go more or stay longer. I love reading other peoples posts when they come back a year, a few years, 10 years or more later and tell their stories of how they started out and where they are today. Cindy of rickandcindy23 has some great stories.