Wyndham Total Value Option

[coinlieutenant]

Good morning. I am a four year Shell Vacation Club owner of the West Club (10000 points). Our home club is Vino Bello and we have enjoyed our use of the timeshare. Unfortunately, I am a Naval Officer and get moved and deployed more than the average Joe. We want to keep our timeshare for eventual more predictable use, but the Navy still owns us until retirement (less than five years away).

We were recently offered the option to purchase 1500 Wyndham points to become "Signature Choice" owners that would bring us more directly into the Wyndham family. We were informed of the option to sell back to Wyndham (Total Value Option?) with this membership. It is appealing to us because our total value option, if needed would be about 1000$ per year more than our maintenance fees.

Can anyone elaborate on this? Is it for real?

Happy we are part of the TUG community now and look forward to learning more.

V.r
coinlieutenant

 

[weems637]

I'm as southern as it gets so anything inside the Mason Dixon Line for me:

Smokey Mountains for a fall foliage tour
Anything Destin for the sugar white sands for sure
Panama City Beach for that "right on the beach" feeling with the toes in the sand and a margarita in my hand
Nashville for twangs, bachelorettes in pedal bars, and an outlet mall visit for sure
Bonnet Creek was pretty awesome this year minus the sharks circling the pool

That's it, so far.....

 

[vacationhopeful]

The ONLY thing Sales' weasels want is YOUR MONEY! They live on commissions and WYNDHAM CORPORATE is a sales entity ... sell, sell, sell ... that is the career path to senior management is SALES!

I have been a Wyndham Vacation owner for ~10 years and a Shell owner for about 4+ years (8500 pts).

I have LOTS of Wyndham points and fixed weeks ... but to buy ANY points from them for some "fluff" option is total crap.

Wyndham points has had a program - buy points and WE promise to do a buy back at 20% ... they imply it is all you own ... but the very fine print is, ONLY those paid off points that your brought thru their "buyback" program.

Then, within this last year, they came up with a NEW program, call OVATIONS ... you can just give them back (for free) all or (now) some of the points YOU own from where ever you got them.

Save your money ... and the sales weasels are NOT truthful.. but masters of "spin" and "half-truths".

 

[55plus]

I am retired Air Force and was able to use my points while I was active duty and even more since I retired. Since retiring I purchased more Wyndham points through resell, not from lying Wyndham sales weasels. Read through TUG and you will save yourself tens of thousands of dollars. You will learn the ins and outs of buying, owning and using timeshares.

Since retiring we spend 3 months during the winter months in Myrtle Beach and Daytona Beach using our points. Life is good...

 

[ronparise]

Good morning. I am a four year Shell Vacation Club owner of the West Club (10000 points). Our home club is Vino Bello and we have enjoyed our use of the timeshare. Unfortunately, I am a Naval Officer and get moved and deployed more than the average Joe. We want to keep our timeshare for eventual more predictable use, but the Navy still owns us until retirement (less than five years away).

We were recently offered the option to purchase 1500 Wyndham points to become "Signature Choice" owners that would bring us more directly into the Wyndham family. We were informed of the option to sell back to Wyndham (Total Value Option?) with this membership. It is appealing to us because our total value option, if needed would be about 1000$ per year more than our maintenance fees.

Can anyone elaborate on this? Is it for real?



Happy we are part of the TUG community now and look forward to learning more.

V.r
coinlieutenant

1500 shell points or 1500 Wyndham points?

It cant be 1500 Wyndham points by the way

 

[coinlieutenant]

Thanks for the prompt replies, although I am not sure if I did a good job explaining the question.


First question is if anyone is a Signature (Choice, Elite or Premier) owner of Shell by Wyndham?

Second is if anyone has ever heard of this total value option. This is not Ovations (where you can sell back your points now (for free) or after five years of ownership for 30% of the per point cost at the time. This is to sell back your yearly points if you can't use them.

I do very much want to learn the ins and outs of the timeshare business. We were able to buy our points in 2011 when things were ugly for shell so our overall cost per point, even with the 1500 Wyndham points would be quite low.
This is why I think it could be a loophole that COULD be good.

Thanks for the help
John

 

[vacationhopeful]

Yes, Shell and Wyndham are separate ... but the brains behind the marketing PUSH at Shell are now strickly "WYNDHAM" bull crap.

3 levels of Signature (Shell) vs 3 levels of VIP (Wyndham)? Developer brought counts; resale points are lowlifes (according to sales).

Selling usage of points back to Shell? Not heard that one; but Wyndham pts owners can have Wyndham "rent" their booked weeks thru Extra Holidays (not a good deal to almost anyone as they will take the first rental opportunity for even 1 nights of your 7 night reservation, charge you 40% commission and some other "booking" fees and then let the other 6 nights be UNAVAILABLE in the rental pool ... sending you an accounting 30 days AFTER your reservation is over).

Wyndham rental branch (Extra Holidays) takes reservations made by owners (in the Wyndham points world or fixed week ownerships) and markets those, collects ANY rental for any part of a 7 night reservation (been known to rent just 1 night) but mark the entire 7 night rental as GONE). They take 40% plus credit card processing fees as their cost & profit.

Extra Holidays is NOT interested in maximizing YOUR return .. they want YOU to pay all costs (like their processing fee on the credit card payments). The Wyndham resorts are set up for 7 night stays ... hence, your reservation is MARKED as rented for the entire time even if the GUEST paid for only the first night.

 

[raygo123]

When you say Wyndham points, is this an add on to existing shell points? Something like allows access to Wyndham? Or just plain Wyndham points?

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

 

[Ty1on]

When you say Wyndham points, is this an add on to existing shell points? Something like allows access to Wyndham? Or just plain Wyndham points?

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

I think he means Shell points sold by Wyndham?

 

[raygo123]

I think he means Shell points sold by Wyndham?

Yea, figured, once I rad the previous post. Wyndham sure does create culture shock, you must comply!

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

 

[coinlieutenant]

Agree, all a bit confusing and I am very skeptical of all claims and promises from the salesman.

I want to see the contract of course that guarantees what we think is happening.

We bought developer points via shell in 2011 at vino bello. 10000 points for about 2.89 a point. Shell was in distress financially at the time and the economy was not great.

Wyndham bought shell in 2012. What this guy is saying is that as part of the buyout, shell owners, depending on how many points they had with shell, could be grandfathered in to wyndham benefits. One of the benefits is this total value option, where unused points can be sold back to wyndham. USUALLY, This option is not ideal given that the retail wyndham points are about 10 dollars a point. A buyer could break even or a little better on MF but you could never make up the difference in purchase price in a lifetime. In our case, the difference is around 1000 per year.

We could make up the purchase price in sell backs in 9 years if we sold every year and pay our maintenance fees to boot.

Supposedly, all the former shell employees who were owners were given one take it or leave it offer to do this when the take over took place. Some took, others didn't and now regret it. All shell owners were given the same option. This is our chance. If we decline, then the grandfathered clause is annotated and no longer offered. The sales pitch had been very low key.

Just trying to get input from other owners.

John

 

[Ty1on]

I would ask myself, if all owners were given this wonderful opportunity, why I am only hearing about this two years later.

 

[coinlieutenant]

I had heard about it but we hadn't been to a sales update in person due to Navy reasons. You have to accept our decline in person.

Not saying it isn't some scam, just replying to your question.

 

[55plus]

I had heard about it but we hadn't been to a sales update in person due to Navy reasons. You have to accept our decline in person.

Not saying it isn't some scam, just replying to your question.

Anytime you talk to and give money to a sales weasel you are being scammed because during your conversation you are being lied to about something and not receive some of the things you are told. Search 'Wyndham Vacation Resorts complaints' and see for yourself.

 

[vacationhopeful]

I had heard about it but we hadn't been to a sales update in person due to Navy reasons. You have to accept our decline in person.

Not saying it isn't some scam, just replying to your question.

That BS about having to sign off on an OFFER is a common RUSE by Wyndham timeshare salespersons.

In sales BS .. it creates the sense of NOW ... BUY NOW! Decide NOW. Better than sliced bread and BUY NOW!

Run and run fast and as far as possible when that happens in any sales meeting.

Did they call this an "Owner's Update"? Us Wyndham owners (here on TUG) generally go to those meetings for the $100 gift card, food, free coffee or soda, trinkets ... and time HOW long it takes the sales weasels to walk us over to "gifting". I have collected my "loot" within 5 minutes of signing the sign in sheet.

This past weekend ... I was not even ASKED to go to an owner's update when I checked in. No loot ... actually, I had to think when posting this WHERE that resort's sales group works.

PS I did met a bunch of nice owners in the hot tub and told them about eBay and how cheap Wyndham points are.... and the 4 of us ladies finished off 5 bottles of their wine. And I was invited to their brunch the next morning. Fun group. Fun time. AND no slimy, slicked down, cheap suit timeshare salesmen.

 

[coinlieutenant]

Linda,

I believe you. I am just trying to get info on the program, but no one seems to have it.

How would you use the 10000 points that I have at Shell? I am trying to learn about way to maximize my points. Don't want to lose them due to the Navy.

Additionally, I have a major medical procedure (bone marrow transplant) next week and will be out of commission for a good year.

Thanks for the help.

V.r
John

 

[tschwa2]

My guess is 2% of what the agent said is real and the other 98% is manure. If you bought into it rescind now and do more research. Wyndham/Worldmark/Shell never buys back points giving you even 90% of what you pay in MF for those points, let alone enough that it would cover your MF's plus the buy in cost. If they were so desperate for points they would keep the points and use them for themselves. I think you would likely find that you would be lucky to cover 50% of your mf if you sell back every point for the next several years. Sales does extremely fuzzy math. They may have forgotten to mention that you would also need to do something like charge $30,000 per month on a Wyndham credit card and pay it off each month in order to earn additional credits to your MF.

If your contract isn't specific about numbers than the numbers that the sales person mentioned mean nothing.

 

[coinlieutenant]

Definitely didn't buy it. Was trying to find out about it.