What additional expenses should be expected...

[shofam]

As I am looking at an ad for resale timeshares, I have to assume there are expenses other than the maintenance fees, closing costs and transfer fees that I can expect (not including house keeping and additional booking fees possibly). I am assuming that property tax is in addition to the monthly listed maintenance fees, is that correct? Are there any other hidden costs? Thank you so much in advance, for any and all guidance.

 

[Jan M.]

The maintenance fees should include the property taxes. But depending on the person providing the information may or may not include the program fee. The program fee is either $135 or if you own more than 233,000 points would be $0.58 per thousand points. That is based on the total number of points in your account not per deed or contract. If you are buying from a resale company they often don't have the 2019 maintenance fees but give you the 2018 numbers. If you click on Wyndham Vacation Resorts at the top of this page and then look at what we call the stickies at the top of that page you will see threads for 2019, 2018 and 2017 maintenance fees. You may find better information than the resellers have about the maintenance fees on one of those pages. Unfortunately our lists aren't as complete or up to date as I would like to see them be.

The transfer fee will be $299. If you are doing a sale with another owner many of us have had a good experience using LT Transfers and they charge around $215 for the closing costs. Resellers typically charge $250-$750 for the closing costs.

You get 1 Reservation Transaction per year per 77K annual points and after that they are $19 each online but $39 each if you call in and have a Vacation Counselor book the stay for you.

You get 1 housekeeping credit per 1k points. Extra housekeeping credits cost $2.25 per credit. Owners who mostly book a full week or longer stays don't typically have to pay for extra housekeeping credits. Booking more short stays, less than full week stays, will use up more of your housekeeping credits

If you have someone who isn't listed as an owner on the account checking in you will have to use a guest reservation. I believe you get one free guest reservation but it might be two. They are $99 each online, $129 if you call in and have a Vacation Counselor add the guest for you.

 

[shofam]

The maintenance fees should include the property taxes. But depending on the person providing the information may or may not include the program fee. The program fee is either $135 or if you own more than 233,000 points would be $0.58 per thousand points. That is based on the total number of points in your account not per deed or contract. If you are buying from a resale company they often don't have the 2019 maintenance fees but give you the 2018 numbers. If you click on Wyndham Vacation Resorts at the top of this page and then look at what we call the stickies at the top of that page you will see threads for 2019, 2018 and 2017 maintenance fees. You may find better information than the resellers have about the maintenance fees on one of those pages. Unfortunately our lists aren't as complete or up to date as I would like to see them be.

The transfer fee will be $299. If you are doing a sale with another owner many of us have had a good experience using LT Transfers and they charge around $215 doe the closing costs. Resellers typically charge $250-$750 for the closing costs.

You get 1 Reservation Transaction per year per 77K annual points and after that they are $19 each online but $39 each if you call in and have a Vacation Counselor book the stay for you.

You get 1 housekeeping credit per 1k points. Extra housekeeping credits cost $2.25 per credit. Owners who mostly book a full week or longer stays don't typically have to pay for extra housekeeping credits. Booking more short stays, less than full week stays, will use up more of your housekeeping credits

If you or someone who isn't listed as an owner on the account is checking in you will have to use a guest reservation. I believe you get one free guest reservation but it might be two. They are $99 each online, $129 if you call in and have a Vacation Counselor add the guest for you.

Jan, thank you so much for your detailed analysis. I'm so nervous about buying my first timeshare because of the bad reputation that they've had over the years. everything looks good to me when you're buying on the resale market and I'm trying to figure out why such a terrible reputation. Your response is greatly appreciated!

 

[Jan M.]

Jan, thank you so much for your detailed analysis. I'm so nervous about buying my first timeshare because of the bad reputation that they've had over the years. everything looks good to me when you're buying on the resale market and I'm trying to figure out why such a terrible reputation. Your response is greatly appreciated!

If you haven't bought yet a word of advice. You can find points at high maintenance fee resorts or Club Wyndham Access points cheap. But keep in mind they might be cheap to buy but you will owe those higher maintenance fees every year. Not that big of a deal if you only own a couple of hundred thousand points but when you get to half a million points and up, that adds up. If you won't be booking high demand weeks like Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter and summer vacation weeks at high demand resorts you won't need or use the APR, Advance Reservation Priority, to book at 13 months. So it really doesn't much matter where you own and makes having lower maintenance fees more of a priority. If you need those weeks in a 3 or 4 bedroom unit it would be cheaper for you to rent from a VIP owner than use your own points to book them.

I recommend new owners look for 308k points at Grand Desert. The maintenance fees aren't the lowest but they aren't anywhere near the highest either. They run $4.73-$4.72 per thousand points depending on which tower you would own in and those figures don't include the program fee. So you would add another $0.58 per thousand points for the program fee because you would have enough points to be over the minimum charge of $135. Most first timers don't buy enough points to do much of anything with and 308k is a decent amount of points. You might endup buying more but that could be enough for you. It would be enough to give you options of being able to go to more resorts for a full week and still have points left for a long weekend or even another week at lower point resort or lower point/season week.

 

[shofam]

If you haven't bought yet a word of advice. You can find points at high maintenance fee resorts or Club Wyndham Access points cheap. But keep in mind they might be cheap to buy but you will owe those higher maintenance fees every year. Not that big of a deal if you only own a couple of hundred thousand points but when you get to half a million points and up, that adds up. If you won't be booking high demand weeks like Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter and summer vacation weeks at high demand resorts you won't need or use the APR, Advance Reservation Priority, to book at 13 months. So it really doesn't much matter where you own and makes having lower maintenance fees more of a priority. If you need those weeks in a 3 or 4 bedroom unit it would be cheaper for you to rent from a VIP owner than use your own points to book them.

I recommend new owners look for 308k points at Grand Desert. The maintenance fees aren't the lowest but they aren't anywhere near the highest either. They run $4.73-$4.72 per thousand points depending on which tower you would own in and those figures don't include the program fee. So you would add another $0.58 per thousand points for the program fee because you would have enough points to be over the minimum charge of $135. Most first timers don't buy enough points to do much of anything with and 308k is a decent amount of points. You might endup buying more but that could be enough for you. It would be enough to give you options of being able to go to more resorts for a full week and still have points left for a long weekend or even another week at lower point resort or lower point/season week.

Once again, terrific and helpful advice! I would buy you a beer or two if I could!

 

[Jan M.]

I would buy you a beer or two if I could!

If you become an owner and we are ever at the same resort at the same time, l'll let you! We've had a lot of fun meeting other Tuggers at the resorts.

 

[ecwinch]

One reason timeshares have a bad reputation is most people become owners by making an impluse decision without doing any research - and then quickly develop buyers remorse when they learn how much they have over invested. As RonP has often said ... most people spend more time making a decision on which pair of of shoes to buy, then the time spent buying a timeshare.

To me, I call it “overinvestment remorse”. It is not much different then buying a good stock at a market peak, and then lamenting the purchase when the price falls.

It still might be a good stock - you just paid too much for it. Some people never get past that, and it colors their perception.

 

[WinniWoman]

Also- some people don't understand what they bought and don't learn how to use what they own and then are disappointed when things don't work for them. So learn everything you can and have realistic expectations going in and you will be fine.

 

[shofam]

I cannot thank you all enough for the input you are provided! I really believe that I am an informed consumer at this point.... Thanks to you all!

 

[ecwinch]

I cannot thank you all enough for the input you are provided! I really believe that I am an informed consumer at this point.... Thanks to you all!

The fact that you are here, and asking questions - probably puts you in the 1-2% of people who invest the time to learn before they leap.

 

[jojuvan]

Jan, thank you for that info! I am also looking to purchase resale, and want all the info I can get before I do! I think around 200,000 points would be good for us. We want to stay around $100/month in maintenance fees. Seems like Bali Hai is a good resort with low MF also?? I've been checking Ebay and Tug daily for good packages.

 

[Swans5]

Jan, thank you for that info! I am also looking to purchase resale, and want all the info I can get before I do! I think around 200,000 points would be good for us. We want to stay around $100/month in maintenance fees. Seems like Bali Hai is a good resort with low MF also?? I've been checking Ebay and Tug daily for good packages.

Bali Hai has low MF, and that was a point of persuasion for us taking on a deed in the family. With 200K/yr annually, you should be below $100/mo.

 

[Jan M.]

Jan, thank you for that info! I am also looking to purchase resale, and want all the info I can get before I do! I think around 200,000 points would be good for us. We want to stay around $100/month in maintenance fees. Seems like Bali Hai is a good resort with low MF also?? I've been checking Ebay and Tug daily for good packages.

Unfortunately more people are getting savvy about wanting to own where they have low maintenance fees. My personal rule of thumb is if I can recover the higher purchase cost of getting something that has the lowest point maintenance fees in under 7 years that is a no brainer. 7-10 years I have to think about it. Over ten years, I'm out. But I'm taking into consideration that we are 67 and 69 so not planning 10 years out like younger people might. I'm going to work with some theoretical numbers here to illustrate what I'm trying to explain. Say 308k points at a resort with maintenance fees of $4.25 sells for $2500 after the closing costs and transfer fees are added. Then take the same number of points at a resort with maintenance fees in the middle, $5.50 per thousand points, that you could get for almost nothing or just the closing costs and transfer fee so we will say $550. $2500 - $550 = $2000 then divide that by $385 ($5.50 - $4.25 = $1.25 x 308 which is how many thousand point you would have) That comes out to 5.2 rounded up and means it would take 5.2 years to recover the higher purchase costs of having lower maintenance fees. You can substitute your own actual numbers into that formula to figure out if something is worth the price to you. And keep in mind that what is worth the price to you may differ from what is worth the price to me or to other people and that is perfectly okay.

I'm going to use something we own as another example. One of our deeds is for 308k points at Grand Desert in building 3 which has the higher maintenance fees. We pay $4.82 per thousand points plus you as a resale points owner would pay another $0.58 per thousand for the program fee so $5.40 per thousand. That would make the 2019 maintenance fees on 308k points $1663.20 or $138.60 a month. If you owned in towers 1 or 2 it would be $4.73 per thousand plus the program fees so at $5.31 per thousand points, $1635.48 or $136.29 a month. $2.31 a month or $27.72 a year isn't enough to care about for me. $100 a month would get you 226k points in Grand Desert towers 1 and 3. For a resort with lower maintenance fees like Panama City Beach it would be $4.93 with the program fee and your $100 a month budget would get you 243k points. National Harbor at $4.82 would get you 249k points.

As we like to say here on TUG, at ten months points are points. Some people have found that they are able to get the reservations they want at ten months or less without needing to own at a higher maintenance fee resort. That they don't need to have ARP (Advance Reservation Priority) to be able to book at 13 months at their home resort or resorts in the case of CWA (Club Wyndham Access), points. Bonnet Creek is a good example. Many families absolutely have to have the 3 and 4 bedroom units the week of Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter and peak summer vacation weeks for their "must have" Disney World vacations. They are willing to pay CWA or Bonnet Creek's high maintenance fees to ensure they get that. A few people posted that they could book 2 two bedroom units or a two bedroom unit and a one bedroom unit at 10 months or less because they had older kids or their parents going with them so didn't have to have everyone in one unit. Many people have a mixture of points and that works very well for them. Meaning they have some CWA or Bonnet Creek points for instance to cover their "must haves" and balance those out with also owning points at a resort with low maintenance fees to book their other stays.

A huge consideration in figuring out where you want or need to own is how flexible your family is in being able to take vacation time. If the husband. wife, grown kids who travel with you most of the time, etc. have to put in for vacation time at the start of the year or have very little flexibility about when they can go, then having ARP to be able to secure the stays at 13 months to make sure you have what your family needs becomes your top priority. That's when some owners just have to suck it up and get over it when other people talk about how low their maintenance fees are because what works for those other people simply isn't going to work for them. The people who find they are going to have to pay high maintenance fees to secure their "must haves" often take some vacation time that is easier to find too. They are the ideal candidates for picking up more points at a resort with very low maintenance fees to bring the average of what they pay in maintenance fees down.

Have you looked at the points charts for the different resorts you are pretty sure you would like to go to and see what 200k points will get you? You mentioned owning around 200k points to keep your maintenance fees around $100 a month. $100 or a little more a month should get you more than 200k points and honestly I'd be willing to bet that you will be back within a year buying more points if you don't get more than 200k. The single most common mistake most all owners make is not buying more points the first time they buy. Even buying resale unless you get lucky you will be paying those closing costs and transfer fees every time you buy which ends up costing you more. Most people have no idea how many points they will need and look at the point charts thinking a one bedroom suite or one bedroom deluxe will be fine for their family. They are used to staying in hotels so that seems luxurious to them. I'm here to tell you that within a year or two once most of us started staying at the resorts we look back and laugh at ourselves. That one week a year vacation and 77,000 point week at Cypress Palms in the one bedroom suite sounded fine if not absolutely wonderful to many of us with our then 1 or 2 small kids. Boy oh boy do your expectations of what you will want and how much you will go change once start using the resorts! Although something like 16 years later we have stayed in the one bedroom suites with our little granddaughter and it was fine as we were very busy going to the Disney Parks and Legoland. So it's not like you can't ever go back once you've seen Broadway as the saying goes.

Cypress Palms, Orlando

One bedroom suite.

Something else to remember is that at the start of your use year you can pay the $39 to move some or all of your points to a future use year, up to 2 years. That works well if you want to plan a big vacation in the next year or two or you know you have a lot going on that year and won't be able to use some or all of your points. You can also borrow points from the next use year for reservations made within 90 days of the check in date. Points you haven't used at the end of your use year can be deposited into RCI. Some people do that at other times of their use year because they want to go someplace Wyndham doesn't have a resort. There are literally thousands of resorts all over the world you can book through RCI.

 

[Jan M.]

Duplicate point chart deleted.

 

[jojuvan]

Great info, Jan! I'm learning so much from you! I know what I want, and where I'd want to stay (mostly).. which is why I chose around 200,000 points. I know more would be great, but to start this would suit us just fine. I'm having a hard time finding 200,000 (plus or minus) points packages on Ebay and Tug2. Any other good places to look? Any reason to not get 2 smaller points packages, that equal my desired points range? (Besides paying multiple transfer fees.. but I"m hoping to find a listing that the seller pays most fees.)

 

[Jan M.]

Great info, Jan! I'm learning so much from you! I know what I want, and where I'd want to stay (mostly).. which is why I chose around 200,000 points. I know more would be great, but to start this would suit us just fine. I'm having a hard time finding 200,000 (plus or minus) points packages on Ebay and Tug2. Any other good places to look? Any reason to not get 2 smaller points packages, that equal my desired points range? (Besides paying multiple transfer fees.. but I"m hoping to find a listing that the seller pays most fees.)

Keep in mind that free or cheap isn't always as free or cheap as it seems. A lot of those listings you see that the seller is paying all or most of the fees are for points at resorts with the highest maintenance fees. What typically happens is that after a couple of years many people "readjust their portfolio" to get rid of those early deeds with high maintenance fees and replace them with points at resorts with lower maintenance fees. They end up paying the fees for someone else to take what they want to get rid of. This is part of the learning process for many people. 200k points is an odd amount; you typically see listings for 77k, 154k, 224K 254k, 308k.

Just remember that only points from deeds at the same resort can be combined for ARP at that resort. Other than paying more money for multiple purchases that is the only thing I can think of.

Take a good long look at the point charts at the resorts you think you will go to and make sure 200k is enough to get you what you want. Then think about my numbers. 308k points at Grand Desert in towers 1 or 2 would be $1635.48 or $136.29 a month. Yes that is $36.29 a month over your $100 a month target maintenance fees, but.... If you find out which I predict you will, that you need more points and then pay just one time the $299 Wyndham transfer fee and the $215 LT Transfers charges for the closing costs that comes to $514. Then divide that $514 by your $36.29 and you get 14.2 months that $514 would have paid the higher maintenance fees to have more points right from the start.

The #1 thing most owners have in common is "if I knew then what I know now". I'd have to say the number of people who spent their money the smartest way possible is very low, no more than 10-15% at the very most, compared to the rest of us who fall into that if we had known category. We are the last people who should ever tease or pick on you if a year or two later you are posting I wish I had.....Many of us truly believed we were making informed and smart buys at the time we made them but in a year or two or five our timeshare wants and needs changed. So just make the most informed and best choices for your family that you can at this time and if later on you find yourself wishing you had done things differently don't worry about it. Until you become an owner and actually use your points I don't think anyone can truly predict how many points they will want/need nor the resorts they will come to enjoy going back to the most.

 

[shorts]

Great info, Jan! I'm learning so much from you! I know what I want, and where I'd want to stay (mostly).. which is why I chose around 200,000 points. I know more would be great, but to start this would suit us just fine. I'm having a hard time finding 200,000 (plus or minus) points packages on Ebay and Tug2. Any other good places to look? Any reason to not get 2 smaller points packages, that equal my desired points range? (Besides paying multiple transfer fees.. but I"m hoping to find a listing that the seller pays most fees.)

When looking at the point quantity to purchase, you might also might want to keep a couple other things in mind. Reservation transactions are issued per 77k - so bumping up to just 231k points will get you an additional transaction for the year (3). Also I believe 231k is the threshold to reach for paying the minimum program fee. Any contract with points below 231k points will pay the the same annual program fee as someone with 231k points, so why not purchase at least that many to begin with.

 

[jojuvan]

How much is the program fee? Is that the $139... something fee? And is that in addition to your maintenance fees? is it yearly?

 

[Jan M.]

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.

 

[shofam]

Your insight and your history is awesome! It is truly appreciated... thank you for sharing!