Upgrading from Gold to Platinum

A.Win · Sep 20, 2014

Hello Tuggers,

Nearly a year ago I considered upgrading from gold to platinum. I needed to buy 300,000 developer points and spend $50K. Or quite a bit less if I took over some bad contracts with higher MFs. Tuggers convinced me it wasn't worth it, so I didn't upgrade.

After reading the Star Island thread, I thought:
Could I buy a fixed week at Star Island or another Wyndham property and pay to convert the week to points? This would be much cheaper than buying 300K developer points right? So if I bought a 3 BR at Star Island, how much do you think they will charge me to upgrade to platinum? Certainly less than $50K right?

I have already PICed 2 other weeks to reach gold, so that is not an option in helping me reach platinum.

Any advice?

Bigrob · Sep 20, 2014

A.Win said:
Hello Tuggers,

Nearly a year ago I considered upgrading from gold to platinum. I needed to buy 300,000 developer points and spend $50K. Or quite a bit less if I took over some bad contracts with higher MFs. Tuggers convinced me it wasn't worth it, so I didn't upgrade.

After reading the Star Island thread, I thought:
Could I buy a fixed week at Star Island or another Wyndham property and pay to convert the week to points? This would be much cheaper than buying 300K developer points right? So if I bought a 3 BR at Star Island, how much do you think they will charge me to upgrade to platinum? Certainly less than $50K right?

I have already PICed 2 other weeks to reach gold, so that is not an option in helping me reach platinum.

Any advice?

Converting a fixed week will not give you VIP-eligible points. It used to - long ago - but that loophole has been closed for about 5 years. I should say, other than in Hawaii. However to convert fixed weeks in Hawaii requires a developer purchase, which puts you right back at square one.

A.Win · Sep 20, 2014

Thanks Eric. So is it generally better to get more points by buying resale contracts? Or is it sometimes better to buy fixed weeks and pay extra to convert them?

Bigrob · Sep 20, 2014

A.Win said:
Thanks Eric. So is it generally better to get more points by buying resale contracts? Or is it sometimes better to buy fixed weeks and pay extra to convert them?

I have some fixed weeks if you'd like to buy and pay extra to convert them. I guess you can see I went down that path and it didn't work for me.

The only case where it might - and I say might, because you would already have to be committed to "deal with the devil" - make sense if it you knew you were going to make a retail purchase to get your platinum. You could get a Kingsgate prime 3br fixed week for free - possibly with an additional gift card or prepaid maintenance as well - and the conversion would be thrown in "for free" ($189 fee plus CWP going forward) - but you'd have a cheap source of 238K points that would be worth close to $1800-2000 in today's market.

A.Win · Sep 20, 2014

Thanks again. That was helpful.
So can you clarify that? You would pay Kingsgate MF of about $1,200 + $189 to Wyndham each year in exchange for 238K? That doesn't sound so good or did I misunderstand?
Do you know how much you would get for an off season week?

Bigrob · Sep 20, 2014

A.Win said:
Thanks again. That was helpful.
So can you clarify that? You would pay Kingsgate MF of about $1,200 + $189 to Wyndham each year in exchange for 238K? That doesn't sound so good or did I misunderstand?
Do you know how much you would get for an off season week?

No, once a week is converted it stays converted unless you fall delinquent on the dues. So it would then be a converted week (points) contract with ARP only for the underlying week. ARP at Kingsgate is meaningless anyway.

You only pay the $189 once at the time of the conversion. But you pay the CWP fee on the 238K points as long as it is a points contract. My points was that even with the CWP of .55 and the MF (I believe a 3BR lockoff has MF around $851, not $1200) that the MF$/K of a converted 3BR lockoff prime week at Kingsgate is good - around $4/K. As such it has value on the secondary market or would serve as a cheap source of points.

A.Win · Sep 20, 2014

OH!!! Now I understand how those converted week contracts work! I have been reading about them but never really understood them. I can see the benefit you are talking about. But it seems like it would be a big hassle for a small benefit. Since I'm lazy, I'd rather just buy a low MF resale contract than go through all that.

Bigrob · Sep 20, 2014

A.Win said:
OH!!! Now I understand how those converted week contracts work! I have been reading about them but never really understood them. I can see the benefit you are talking about. But it seems like it would be a big hassle for a small benefit. Since I'm lazy, I'd rather just buy a low MF resale contract than go through all that.

Absolutely correct.

If you've been doing this awhile, you are likely to accumulate a few "mistakes" along the way in your portfolio.

The key is making lemonade out of those lemons. I haven't quite got there on my boo-boos, but the winners have more than made up for it.

jjmanthei05 · Sep 21, 2014

A.Win said:
Hello Tuggers,

Nearly a year ago I considered upgrading from gold to platinum. I needed to buy 300,000 developer points and spend $50K. Or quite a bit less if I took over some bad contracts with higher MFs. Tuggers convinced me it wasn't worth it, so I didn't upgrade.

After reading the Star Island thread, I thought:
Could I buy a fixed week at Star Island or another Wyndham property and pay to convert the week to points? This would be much cheaper than buying 300K developer points right? So if I bought a 3 BR at Star Island, how much do you think they will charge me to upgrade to platinum? Certainly less than $50K right?

I have already PICed 2 other weeks to reach gold, so that is not an option in helping me reach platinum.

Any advice?

Only reason to go platinum would be if you planned on being a mega renter and you were adding an additional 5 to 10 million resale points to your account on top of the developer purchase. Otherwise think of how long it would take you to recoupe the 50k on the extra 5 or 20 guest certificates and the additional 15% discount. If you are at gold level that is good enough since you are past the housekeeping and reservation transaction issues. Hope this helps.

Jason

Sandi Bo · Sep 21, 2014

Bigrob said:
Absolutely correct.

If you've been doing this awhile, you are likely to accumulate a few "mistakes" along the way in your portfolio.

Ah, but we learn so much from our mistakes

ronparise · Sep 21, 2014

Sandi Bo said:
Ah, but we learn so much from our mistakes

we learn not to make them again, and we learn how to salvage some good use of those mistakes...