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Getting Temporary VIP vs. Permanent VIP

jjmanthei05

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...Will I be able to rent well or only cover the MF? There are so many variables to platinum ownership!

This is like asking "can i make money in the stock market"? The answer is yes as long as you know what your doing (where to rent and when) and get lucky once in a while.

Jason
 

Bigrob

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I won't try to talk you into or out of this decision. I'll just give you my perspective. I have, by trial and error, figured a few things out and like a few others that have posted here, found ways to rent. My approach is undoubtedly different from most and I won't go into it here.

If it were strictly for personal use, I wouldn't even consider contemplating a move from gold to platinum unless there was a way to do it cheaply. As Ron mentioned, the loophole to do it cheaply is gone. I'm going to assume you already PIC'd 2 3BR's pulling 254K each. If not, upgrade your PICs (you should be able to replace a PIC without a new retail purchase but it may take a few calls to make it happen).

I had use of a platinum account for a period of time but lost it and am back to "only" gold. As others have said, there is not a huge difference - the biggest thing is the extra 15 days of upgrade window. 5 extra guest certificates, but if you're primarily using it for personal use that might not be a big difference. The point savings difference is more dramatic when you can book and upgrade at the same time at day 60.

If you had 5M points in the account and were renting a bunch, it would make sense. But based on what you've described, you might just want to pick up some more resale points cheap.
 

jjmanthei05

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no effort, John calls and we make a deal


Seriously, it would be too much effort if all I had was a few million points, But this is what I do every morning, and I have three travel agencies that bring me customers...They do the heavy lifting

Ive already made my money for the year, and the money is in the bank. All my points are in reservations. . What Im doing now is just waiting for my new contracts to close,,,and then do it again

You saving any of these for me? Lol

Jason
 

A.Win

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Bigrob and comic have suggested I buy resale and after some deliberation, I agree. Based on my desire for mostly personal use and minimal renting, this is the better approach.

Aside from saving $30-50K for the upgrade, I won't be locked into a lifetime commitment of trying to recoup the investment. If I buy resale, I can get rid of it at any time.

Platinum would make more sense if I wanted to rent much more... and pick up more than 1 million points. At this point, I definitely don't want to go there.

THANKS FOR YOUR INPUT!
 

Bigrob

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Bigrob and comic have suggested I buy resale and after some deliberation, I agree. Based on my desire for mostly personal use and minimal renting, this is the better approach.

Aside from saving $30-50K for the upgrade, I won't be locked into a lifetime commitment of trying to recoup the investment. If I buy resale, I can get rid of it at any time.

Platinum would make more sense if I wanted to rent much more... and pick up more than 1 million points. At this point, I definitely don't want to go there.

THANKS FOR YOUR INPUT!

I just noticed you own at Massanutten... Is that what you pic'd?
 

lcml11

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Thanks for the examples. Those seem like situations where rich friends (rich in points at least) are doing you a favor.

Are you sure these deals are available to EVERYBODY at ANYTIME?

If that is the case, then renting is better than buying resale.

You are right that renting can be better than buying resale. You just need a stable source of supply over a 1 to 5 year time frame.
 
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A.Win

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You are right that renting can be better than buying resale. You just need a stable source of supply over a 1 to 5 year time frame.

Renting may be better than resale for a regular owner.
But as GOLD VIP already, buying resale will be better than renting for me.

Bigrob - I have 2 2-BR Mass units Picked. Will try to change that to 2 4-br units. When I asked last year, they said not possible. That will be 508K instead of 308K points. I have learned that there are better units to PIC out there, but I've been too lazy to seek them.

If I buy resale, I will aim for National Harbor. Low MFs and close to home.

Finally, sales will try hard to push me to Platinum somehow. I suspect they will pitch Club Pass, the estate planning thing, and lie to me about other small benefits. Am I missing any big differences between platinum vs. resale? I'll try hard not to fall for their sales tricks!
 

lcml11

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Renting may be better than resale for a regular owner.
But as GOLD VIP already, buying resale will be better than renting for me.

Bigrob - I have 2 2-BR Mass units Picked. Will try to change that to 2 4-br units. When I asked last year, they said not possible. That will be 508K instead of 308K points. I have learned that there are better units to PIC out there, but I've been too lazy to seek them.

If I buy resale, I will aim for National Harbor. Low MFs and close to home.

Finally, sales will try hard to push me to Platinum somehow. I suspect they will pitch Club Pass, the estate planning thing, and lie to me about other small benefits. Am I missing any big differences between platinum vs. resale? I'll try hard not to fall for their sales tricks!

You are probably going to find that they will only let you upgrade your PICs with a new purchase. If you go that route, Ron is right, look at Wyndham Resale contracts to do this. I am assuming the PIC rules still can be used. There has been some chatter about something called PIC Express. Do not understand it at this point. Do not know if the old PIC rules are now gone.

Per Owner Care, A new purchase can get you in PIC under the Old PIC rules or under Pick Express. A purchase has to also be done if PIC Express is used.
 
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Whoozr

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curious about PIC

How would one know which timeshare locations are best to use for turning PIC weeks into Wyndham points? I thought about purchasing a Massanutten timeshare for personal use but it would rather buy it resale and then use it to maintain my VIP level with Wyndham. I currently have a temporary Silver VIP membership and would like to hang on to it as cheaply as possible. Doesn't have a lot of benefits but I like the ability to upgrade to the next level of rooms and the points discount. If I have to give it up, oh well it was good while it lasted.
 

pacodemountainside

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See Page 347 of Directory for the allocation chart.

Keep in mind to PIC a new purchase you would probably have to buy around 105K Developer points for ball park $17-$18K. If salesperson knows you are going to PIC will probably ask higher price. Factor in MF on resale purchase and new purchase would cost over $1,000 in MF and lost earnings on say $18K and very pricey!

Of course, Wyndham gets $89 fee!
 

Bigrob

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Renting may be better than resale for a regular owner.
But as GOLD VIP already, buying resale will be better than renting for me.

Bigrob - I have 2 2-BR Mass units Picked. Will try to change that to 2 4-br units. When I asked last year, they said not possible. That will be 508K instead of 308K points. I have learned that there are better units to PIC out there, but I've been too lazy to seek them.

If I buy resale, I will aim for National Harbor. Low MFs and close to home.

Finally, sales will try hard to push me to Platinum somehow. I suspect they will pitch Club Pass, the estate planning thing, and lie to me about other small benefits. Am I missing any big differences between platinum vs. resale? I'll try hard not to fall for their sales tricks!

Please review your PIC contract carefully. You can expect sales to tell you that you'll need a new purchase, but check the language of the contract. You may find that you are allowed to substitute without an additional purchase. I think you'll still fall short, but if the difference is 105K instead of 300K points, it might be enough of a difference to reconsider.

Don't close your mind to other resale opportunities besides National Harbor. Low MFs but pretty high upfront costs for resale. You can get nearly free contracts at Smoky Mountains, for example and get either a lot more points or spend a lot less. Smoky Mountains is right about $5/K so is still below average.

There's no telling what Sales is likely to say in trying to get you to buy something. Just remember they don't feel at all compelled to stick to factual statements. I think you already know the main differences between gold and platinum. It really boils down to 3 things: a 50% discount instead of 35% at the discount window; the upgrade window opens at day 60 instead of day 45; and you get 20 more guest certificates (the statement that platinum gets 15 and gold gets 10 is technically correct, but platinum gets 15 for the first 1M and another 15 for any points over 1M up to 2M, so assuming you don't get exactly 1M points but go a little over, you will get 20 additional GCs for a total of 30).

Other things they pitch are worthless (get your maintenance fees paid with the Wyndham credit card! rent your excess points with extra holidays!) so pay no attention to it.
 

lcml11

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Smoky Mountain is a excellent choice for a re-sale contract. There are a few that are currently available on E-Bay. It is a great resort whether you use it or just use your points.
 
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A.Win

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Thanks to TUGG, I turned down the opportunity to upgrade to Platinum. Your predictions were quite accurate.

To buy the 300K points I needed, I had to pay about $50K more for CWA. Once I said no to that, they found a creative way to reduce that cost quite a bit. It was very very tempting, but it involved higher MFs at a less desirable location.

Unless I want to become a mega renter and add 2 million or more points, it just isn't worth it.

If/when I need more points or weeks in the future, I will buy resale, I could rent from another owner, or I could buy fixed weeks, use RCI, or other exchanges.
 

ronparise

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You saving any of these for me? Lol

Jason

Im using some of what Im learning here to bring my 3rd account to Platinum. Its yours when and if I can do it, of course you know what I want in exchange
 

ronparise

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There's a nice National Harbor contract closing on ebay in an hour,,,get your bid to esnipe soon
 

Bigrob

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Too rich for me sadly


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

am1

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There's a nice National Harbor contract closing on ebay in an hour,,,get your bid to esnipe soon

Just put my bid in. No mention of paying the mfs that have already been paid for 2014.

five figures
 

Bigrob

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Did you get it?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

jeffwill

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After 15 years, I'm so glad I'm out of Wyndham all together. My Ego for Platinum is out of my mind.

I now have over 300k RCI points and get last minute Gold Crowns (50k pts.) for only 7500 pts. Do the math-- 40 weeks @ $199. With prepaid MF's on my purchases-- I don't have MF's till av. 2017.

It works for me.
 

Vacationfuntips

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Here is my view. Hold tight to your money. Listen to the advice of those who have done the numbers. You can rent from someone else if you want another vacation and it may even be cheaper than the points or maintenance fees that you would pay? Rentals are not easy! There are just way too many people selling vacations on ebay, Craig's List and other places for way too cheap.

There is too much competition in the timeshare world for sought after dates, even with ARP and there is lots of planning involved. Look and study ebay SOLD prices - not just active listings.

I used to look at rental prices and ask myself how can these people sell vacations for under the cost of their maintenance fees using x amount of points, get guest confirmations, pay end of auction fees, answer all of those questions, etc...?

Some people have mastered the system, and they do very well for themselves! The higher your purchase price and maintenance fees - the harder you must work to figure out how are you going to use, rent, give or loose those points? Will your strategy work well for you?

If you want more vacations for you, think very carefully before buying any more points contracts or even CWA. You can still borrow your own points from a future use year. You can credit pool and save points for that special trip, or even buy yourself some time -3 years with the credit pool feature to figure out how you will use the points that you already have?

RCI is another great way to get some fabulous vacations using last call - a week for under $300. With RCI Last Call, there are No exchange fees and you DO NOT use up any Wyndham points to do it! Additionally, RCI extra vacations has great deals when they run specials. Plus, RCI has specials/ promotions for $199 vacations.

With all of the rentals and deals out there - do you really need more points?

Cynthia T. :)
 
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jeffwill

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Well said Cynthia. DONT SPEND MORE MONEY. Learn how to accomplish what you want, with what you already have. My system works for me. Ron's works for him. There are MANY more examples.
 
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