Is VIP gold 300 or 400k point or more. I see all different posts. I'd like to keep my initial investment to under 40k for VIP gold. Is that reasonable?
Braindead explained about buying a couple of weeks on the resale market at a non Wyndham property that when enrolled in the PIC program will give you enough points to help you reach a VIP level with a purchase of points directly from Wyndham. That would be the cheapest way to reach gold. But even then I'm not sure you could do it for $40k. Maybe in the past but I wouldn't count on being able to do it now. If you look at my profile information you can see that we are not only platinum but also presidential reserve owners. We did that before I found TUG and yes we spent a boatload of money
I don't know if Wyndham is still giving bonus points when you buy but they are usually good for two years if I remember correctly. And I think we had to pay maintenance fees on the bonus points. They typically gave you enough bonus points to get you to a VIP level or the next higher one if you were already VIP. Many people like us got used to having the better benefits of the VIP levels thanks to bonus points and ended up buying more points to keep that level. Silver isn't that big of a deal for the money you spend as you only get at 25% discount at 30 days out. For most people 30 days is a pretty tight window to schedule and plan a vacation so it is harder to make use of the discounts and upgrades. Gold gets you 35% at 45 days out and platinum gets you 50% at 60 days out. All three VIP levels get you an upgrade on the unit size if something is available.
Before my husband finally retired at the beginning of this month he was home based and set his own work schedule so we were able to make good use of the discount and upgrades on the unit size. Before we moved to Florida I worked 50-60 hour work weeks but like my husband I was able to take time off without a great deal of advance notice. Most people don't have that luxury. We haven't been tied to a school schedule for 14-15 years as we started taking some vacations by ourselves when our son was a junior in high school. When we went on vacations we went back to the same areas/resorts as I needed to be on vacation my first day in, not take several days to acclimate to a new resort in a new city. We came to Florida in January or February and stayed at Sea Gardens in either a one or two bedroom unit in the Ocean Palms building. March was Las Vegas, Grand Desert, for a convention for my job and we added some extra days as it was our anniversary. The end of May before schools let out we went to Myrtle Beach and stayed at Ocean Boulevard. September or October was back to either Myrtle Beach or Las Vegas and we always had a two bedroom unit at both places. We went to DC, Old Town Alexandria, one year for several days over the 4th of July and one other time for a few days in either the Spring or Fall and both times were in a one bedroom unit. We were never in a position of having to have reservations for set dates. Nor did we need three or four bedroom units either. We went when I found reservations and reasonably priced flights for the Florida and Las Vegas trips. We drove to DC and Myrtle Beach so I didn't even have to work around finding flights for those vacations. Sometimes I had to keep searching and also had to piece together the reservations to get the length of stay I wanted. I wasn't trying to find reservations over Thanksgiving, Christmas or Easter nor over the summer when school is out. Being able to book, plan and travel in under 45-60 days worked for us but wouldn't for many people. My point in all this is that yes I was able to get the discount on the reservations and often the upgrade too but the only reason I was able to do this was because we could make what I found work for us. And I wasn't using the old book, cancel, rebook, upgrade trick to get them either which is no longer possible as of last year with the new website. Many unhappy VIP owners are now finding since the new website that they are no longer able to get the discount and upgrades they did in the past.
I would get that Discovery package rescinded today while you still can. If you can find the thread where people have talked about the Discovery packages you will find that you won't have access to all the Wyndham resorts and there are some restrictions too. Then think long and hard about spending the money to be gold VIP as it is likely going to be more money than you are anticipating. It might end up being worth if for you given your work situation but I think you need to take more time to think this through. One other thing you should consider. You mentioned buying resale points to stack the benefits in a VIP account. I wouldn't count on that in the future. Yes it could continue for years to come, but it could also end tomorrow. This is Wyndham. We've learned a lot in the past year and a half and very little of what we've learned has made us happy.
