Wyndham resorts

[kdude72]

Hello all.

My wife and I have been on and off looking at timeshares for the past year. We are a growing family and are looking for an easy to use system.

I've been searching resales and frequently see Wyndham points and Wyndham resorts for fairly cheap.
There's currently one on Ebay that I'm keeping my eye on with a pretty high points value.

I've went through the Wyndham website and searched through these forums some here as well.

I have a couple of questions I hope you could answer for me.
The ebay listing lists the trading company as RCI with 308,000 annual points. Is that who Wyndham uses for their exchanges or are they saying the 308,000 points are through RCI and not Wyndham. If so that's pretty misleading.

As for the Wyndham system itself I've noticed they sort of have different "tiers" based on your resorts point values and if you're part of the margaritaville system or the system used for out of country resorts. How does a person know which tier you are in when buying resale?

Perhaps I should send the seller a message and ask some more questions. I definitely don't want to buy in blind but need it to be somewhat cheap as we are on a tighter budget.

Thanks for all the help and insight.

 

[rickandcindy23]

The points are Wyndham points and no exchange fees are necessary to book Wyndham resorts with Wyndham points. You can search any resort on Wyndham's website without being logged in to see point charts. There are some great resorts in Wyndham. My favorites are Branson Meadows, Bonnet Creek, Steamboat Springs, and a few others. I am anxious to try some new ones over the next few years. I actually really like Fairfield Bay, AR, because it's remote, beautiful units, and the views are fantastic from the Fairways units. Pagosa Springs, same thing. Beautiful units (the remodeled ones) and golf course views.

RCI is the exchange company, an alternative to using your Wyndham points for Wyndham resorts. You can deposit your points into RCI to trade into resorts outside of the Wyndham system, but the exchange fees are $299 a pop.

 

[Fido Chuckwagon]

Hello all.

My wife and I have been on and off looking at timeshares for the past year. We are a growing family and are looking for an easy to use system.

I've been searching resales and frequently see Wyndham points and Wyndham resorts for fairly cheap.
There's currently one on Ebay that I'm keeping my eye on with a pretty high points value.

I've went through the Wyndham website and searched through these forums some here as well.

I have a couple of questions I hope you could answer for me.
The ebay listing lists the trading company as RCI with 308,000 annual points. Is that who Wyndham uses for their exchanges or are they saying the 308,000 points are through RCI and not Wyndham. If so that's pretty misleading.

As for the Wyndham system itself I've noticed they sort of have different "tiers" based on your resorts point values and if you're part of the margaritaville system or the system used for out of country resorts. How does a person know which tier you are in when buying resale?

Perhaps I should send the seller a message and ask some more questions. I definitely don't want to buy in blind but need it to be somewhat cheap as we are on a tighter budget.

Thanks for all the help and insight.

The most important thing to look at when purchasing Wyndham is the maintenance fees. Specifically you want to look at the cost per thousand points. Ideally you want to get something that is less than Club Wyndham Access (which can be gotten right now basically for free). CWA runs in the mid $7 per 1k points range.

 

[kdude72]

Thank you for the feedback. I'm going to post a link to the listing here to maybe help answer my questions.
The listing is sort of vague to me (or maybe I just don't understand).
I'm assuming the listing is for this resort with a weekly usage that brings 308,000 point on RCI.
What I don't see though is what size unit this is for so that makes me wonder what the listing is actually for.

So the Wyndham points and RCI are seperate exchanges? I found a list on this site somewhere that said Wyndham uses RCI but maybe that just meant Wyndham units can be traded on RCI's network?

P.S please don't outbid me if I decide to bid lol.

WYNDHAM SMOKY MOUNTAIN, 308,000 POINTS, ANNUAL YEAR USAGE, TIMESHARE FOR SALE | eBay

WYNDHAM SMOKY MOUNTAIN. Guests enjoy swimming year-round at the complex's two indoor and outdoor pools. There's also an outdoor kiddie pool and "water jets" with fountains, buckets, and water cannons, and two outdoor hot tubs.

www.ebay.com

 

[rickandcindy23]

RCI is optional. IF you have points leftover at the end of a year, you can deposit them to RCI. It's way more expensive to book anything in RCI. An RCI account is included with the program fees you pay to Wyndham. For example, your fees might be $6.00 per 1,000 + .71 per thousand for program fee, and that fee pays for your RCI account. The RCI account can only be used for Wyndham points. It's not an RCI account you can buy additional weeks and drop into that account. FYI.

As I said before, it costs $0 to book in Wyndham with your Wyndham points, as long as you don't book two nights here and two nights there. The exception would be housekeeping, which is not unlimited, but as long as you are using (I think) 70,000 points to book reservations, you don't have to pay housekeeping. You get one free for every 70,000 points. So if you book 30,000 points, and 30,000 points over and over again, there is an extra expense to a few nights at a time.

The purchase price is believable. I gave away all of my resale contracts, including bigger Smoky Mountains points packages than this one. The market is currently flooded with owners getting out, but don't let that stop you from taking this one for a cheap price. That closing company is pretty slow, however. If they ask for reimbursement of MF's, I wouldn't do it. If you cannot even use the points until October, what would be reason to buy from a company that closes slowly.

 

[bnoble]

To piggy-back on Cindy's advice: think of RCI as a "sometimes a bonus" thing, but not a reason to buy this. There are some really good reasons to use Wyndham points in RCI, but that's not Wyndham 101, it's more like Graduate School.

308K in Wyndham is a healthy number. Smoky Mountains has decent MFs, below Club Wyndham Access. It's not the best $/K in the system, but it's fine. If you can see yourself using 308K internally every year, it would be worth a bid. To get a sense for that, look through the current directory at the available resorts. Consider ONLY Club Wyndham resorts. You would not be eligible for WorldMark/Club Pass resorts, and Affiliate/Associate resorts tend to have so little inventory that it's easiest to just ignore them.

2023-2024 CW Directory

media.wyndhamvo.com

 

[rickandcindy23]

Something I discovered with Wyndham is it's actually cheaper to book directly through Wyndham than through RCI for exchange.

Case in point:
I received an exchange for a 3 bedroom at Dolphin's Cove in Anaheim (another of my favorites I should have listed). $6.00 per 1,000 points (my average for 2023) + $299 exchange fee. I could get the same dates for 175,000 points in a 3 bedroom for October via Wyndham directly without paying $299 exchange fee. Bargains are hard to find in RCI.

Currently, I can get Bonnet Creek through RCI in January several different ways:

12 points for January dates (in weeks with generic weeks that are not Wyndham). My cost on that week would be about $800 with the high exchange fee, about $500 in maintenance fees + $300. That's a bargain.
That same exchange through Wyndham/ RCI would be 165,000 Wyndham points + $300 exchange fee. So much more expensive than using a week.

Wyndham points, that week is only going to be 189,000 points. No RCI exchange fee. You are much better off booking with Wyndham points for Wyndham resorts.

My point: Don't use RCI.

 

[kdude72]

To piggy-back on Cindy's advice: think of RCI as a "sometimes a bonus" thing, but not a reason to buy this. There are some really good reasons to use Wyndham points in RCI, but that's not Wyndham 101, it's more like Graduate School.

308K in Wyndham is a healthy number. Smoky Mountains has decent MFs, below Club Wyndham Access. It's not the best $/K in the system, but it's fine. If you can see yourself using 308K internally every year, it would be worth a bid. To get a sense for that, look through the current directory at the available resorts. Consider ONLY Club Wyndham resorts. You would not be eligible for WorldMark/Club Pass resorts, and Affiliate/Associate resorts tend to have so little inventory that it's easiest to just ignore them.

2023-2024 CW Directory

media.wyndhamvo.com

Can you tell me why we wouldnt be eligilble for Worldmark? Is it something that you have to buy additionally or a seperate membership all together?

 

[kdude72]

Something I discovered with Wyndham is it's actually cheaper to book directly through Wyndham than through RCI for exchange.

Case in point:
I received an exchange for a 3 bedroom at Dolphin's Cove in Anaheim (another of my favorites I should have listed). $6.00 per 1,000 points (my average for 2023) + $299 exchange fee. I could get the same dates for 175,000 points in a 3 bedroom for October via Wyndham directly without paying $299 exchange fee. Bargains are hard to find in RCI.

Currently, I can get Bonnet Creek through RCI in January several different ways:

12 points for January dates (in weeks with generic weeks that are not Wyndham). My cost on that week would be about $800 with the high exchange fee, about $500 in maintenance fees + $300. That's a bargain.
That same exchange through Wyndham/ RCI would be 165,000 Wyndham points + $300 exchange fee. So much more expensive than using a week.

Wyndham points, that week is only going to be 189,000 points. No RCI exchange fee. You are much better off booking with Wyndham points for Wyndham resorts.

My point: Don't use RCI.

So let me ask you this. Do the Wyndham resorts not have a great points value on the RCI market? The reason I ask is the resorts down in Mexico seem to all be Worldmark so we would possibly need to use RCI for those trips.

 

[Volkyro]

To piggy-back on Cindy's advice: think of RCI as a "sometimes a bonus" thing, but not a reason to buy this. There are some really good reasons to use Wyndham points in RCI, but that's not Wyndham 101, it's more like Graduate School.

2023-2024 CW Directory

media.wyndhamvo.com

Thanks for posting this. I was about to hop in with some questions on point values, and this is incredibly helpful.

 

[rickandcindy23]

So let me ask you this. Do the Wyndham resorts not have a great points value on the RCI market? The reason I ask is the resorts down in Mexico seem to all be Worldmark so we would possibly need to use RCI for those trips.

What is "the RCI market?" I gave specific examples of very expensive exchanges using Wyndham points in RCI. RCI charges exchange fees.

If you want WorldMark for Mexico, buy WorldMark instead. I love WorldMark. We own 46,000 WM points (different currency from Wyndham and cannot be compared one to the other).

Just because there are resorts listed in the RCI directory, that doesn't automatically give you access to those resorts.

If the resort system doesn't bank inventory into the exchange company, you aren't going to get that inventory through RCI, no matter how much you want it, or how far in advance you enter a search for it.

 

[bnoble]

with Wyndham is it's actually cheaper to book directly through Wyndham than through RCI for exchange.

Sometimes this is true, sometimes it isn't. As a counter-example, consider Club Wyndham Canterbury in San Francisco. The 1BRs there are 126K points plus exchange fee through RCI, 300K if you book direct. Even with the exchange fee, RCI is a better deal for most people. Of course, Wyndham needs to deposit the dates you want, so it's not a guarantee. But, you can always book it internally and then run a search without depositing points and see if it hits. If so, bingo, you save some points.

Can you tell me why we wouldnt be eligilble for Worldmark? Is it something that you have to buy additionally or a seperate membership all together?

You cannot book WorldMark resorts directly with resale Wyndham points. You would have to own WorldMark credits separately, go through RCI, or rent/exchange from a WorldMark owner. All of those are "extra" on top of just owning Wyndham points.

IMO: The decision to buy (or not buy) Wyndham points should be based solely on whether or not you want to use those points for Club Wyndham resorts, and the overall costs are reasonable. There are dozens and dozens of such resorts, and most of them are good-to-very-good, if not great. Save the WorldMark etc. etc. for some other time. If on the other hand you like WorldMark's roster of resorts better, buy WorldMark and forget about the Wyndham resorts for now. You can see the WM roster in their directory here:

https://worldmark.wyndhamdestinations.com/content/dam/wyndham/content-fragments/worldmark/editorial/news/2024/2024-2025-resort-directory/2024-2025-worldmark-resort-directory.pdf

When you are looking at the WorldMark directory, ignore all of the Club Wyndham resorts. Those cannot be booked directly with resale WorldMark credits. If you are a resale buyer, consider WorldMark and Wyndham to be completely separate systems.

 

[rickandcindy23]

@bnoble Yeah, that is true that there are some bargains in RCI with Wyndham points. High-point resorts like Shearwater for 205,000 points + exchange fee of $300 is still better than 400-500K Wyndham points. Our exchanges were on the top floor, actually, which was incredible.

Still going back and forth on what to do with our ownership of Wyndham, but I see real value in it. If Wyndham starts charging nightly fees on exchanges, like Hilton is doing, which I think is disgusting, that could really make me want to keep Wyndham points to use only in Wyndham. I can exchange into a lot of the resorts now with my weeks.

 

[HitchHiker71]

Stepping back for a minute - there are two very large timeshare trading systems out there - those two are RCI and II (Interval International). Travel & Leisure (which owns Wyndham Destinations - their timeshare arm) actually fully owns RCI - meaning it's a wholly owned subsidiary of Travel & Leisure. That's why all Wyndham timeshare entities will integrate with RCI for the most part. Wyndham Destinations owns Worldmark The Club, Club Wyndham, Shell Vacation Club (SVC), and Margaritaville Vacation Club (MVC) - though MVC is directly integrated with Club Wyndham (it's actually integrated via the internal Wyndham exchange system called Club Wyndham Plus) so it's not really "separate" from Club Wyndham like Worldmark and Shell are in comparison - and therefore doesn't require the use of Club Pass to book MVC inventory - but MVC does have more strict booking limitations for Club Wyndham owners. For a resale owner - you'll only be able to book MVC inventory a maximum of five months out (as opposed to up to 10 months out when using your points in the SRP for Club Wyndham resorts).

As @rickandcindy23 said, if you're really looking to vacation primarily in Mexico - then Club Wyndham resale likely isn't a good match for you. If you are actually looking to use the resale contract to book vacations in actual Club Wyndham listed resorts on a regular basis then Club Wyndham may be a good match for you. The single biggest reason that people end up not liking timeshares they buy is because they don't really understand how timeshares work, and are pushed into buying a retail timeshare contract when it's not a good match for their vacation styles. Here's a couple of articles on how to determine if Wyndham timesharing is right for you (and really timesharing in general):

Is timesharing right for me?

The purpose of this article is to establish what we consider to be a few hard and fast rules to live by when attempting to determine conceptually if timeshare ownership is a good match to meet your…

wyndhamexperts.wpcomstaging.com

Did I Do the Right Thing?

Q: I just bought Wyndham points at the resort. Did I do the right thing? A: This is a question that has been asked, ever since they started selling timeshares in the ’60s. It’s a reasonable questio…

wyndhamexperts.wpcomstaging.com

Keep asking questions - we are all here to help!