New to wyndham point system... help?

[paxsarah]

I hear ya but I can see the benefits of being a VIP member and having a little more flexibility in my choices. I don't mind spending a little extra for more choice and not being told no

I just wanted to comment on this. Except for a few small exceptions, VIP does not get you more choice or availability, especially with short-notice traveling as you indicated you can/want to do. I'm pretty sure the only VIP benefits that go toward availability are RARP (which only applies from 11-10 months prior to travel), and the ability to book at the Margaritaville resorts. (Others, correct me if I missed any.) I guess if we're looking at "flexibility" you could throw in unlimited housekeeping and reservation transactions and the extended time to use the points deposit feature, but that's a little bit of a stretch since housekeeping and RTs could be paid for out of the $30-40,000 you could save going resale, and a few extra months of points deposit can mostly be dealt with through smart points management.

Are you really going to get $36k of value out of the Gold VIP benefits?!

This is what it comes down to. Look at the things that VIPs actually get for free (fees, discounts, upgrades), be realistic about how much you would use them (like, will you book 100% of the time in the discount window? probably not), and find a break-even point. And that assumes that nothing goes wrong, your travel patterns never change, and you work the system as hard as you can. Decide if being locked into one style of vacationing until that break-even point is worth it for you. On the other hand, a cheap resale buy-in is also fairly easy to toss off later on if life circumstances change, because we don't have a psychological attachment to how much we spent on it - no sunk cost fallacy.

 

[Braindead]

What is your opinion on the VIP status. I'm ok with the initial costs if the VIP status is worth it long term. Also since everything is point based now vs deed. How does that change the monthly fees. I'm considering buying 300k points for basic VIP and then another 200k to 700k points on resale.

If you end up keeping that Discovery package, it's a little more expensive than it needs to be, but it is not the end of the world. Try it out and see if you like Wyndham at all. If you do, then do your research and decide if and how you want to buy.

If you are unsure whether to rescind the Discovery Package or not
Call today and try to make the reservation you want.
If you get the reservation keep the Discovery as bnoble points out it’s not the end of the world. Probably save a little on a purchase
If you don’t get it rescind today. You will of just learned first hand sales weasels lie.

Advice if you do wish to proceed with VIP Gold
Between now and your Discovery reservation
Do some research on finding possible PIC Plus weeks that you may want to use yourself. As Eric pointed out make sure to do PIC Plus not Express
Then make sure your possible PIC weeks qualify before purchasing
If your satisfied with the Wyndham product then proceed to achieving your VIP Gold account at your Discovery vacation

I would do 2 PIC Plus 3 bedroom with a purchase of CWA points. Why ?
As outlined it’s the cheapest. Still think it can be done for $40,000.00 or less
700k points at a low MF resort such as Desert Blue around $140,000.00. Maybe more or less but they sell large packages for less per point
700k points in CWA maybe $100,000.00 because it’s a large purchase.

Even if Wyndham drops your PIC weeks down the road.
You risked very little financially to get 508k points and learned the system. As I stated buy where you might use them anyway

Biggest benefits of VIP Gold or Platinum in my opinion
Extra time to deposit points into a future year. It’s possible this could save thousands of dollars in any single year if your travel plans change in the last six months of a year.
The ability to choose your room number.
Access to Margaritavilles
You might be surprised at the discounted reservations available if your willing to spend the time searching for the them

 

[Bomoto]

If your bound and determined to be VIP you need to learn about PIC weeks. Get two 3 bedrooms worth 508k points and enroll them into the program when you buy 300k CWA points for $45,000.00 . You will be Gold VIP for under $50k with 808,000 points

Thank you for the responses. Yes, I believe that my situation will benefit me by investing in a VIP gold. Any suggestions or help in finding the two 3 bedroom worth 508k points would be great. And how to switch them to pic program. Is there a guide on how to do it and what type of 3 bedroom unit I'm looking for. Ty

 

[CCdad]

Just a clarification on the eligibility date(s) for the VIP discounts:

Silver (25%), Gold (35%) and Platinum (50%) are eligible for the VIP discount at 60 days (not 30 for Silver vs 45 for Gold as previously stated). The 30 vs 45 vs 60 days from check in refer to the dates when the respective Silver, Gold and Platinum VIPs become eligible for a unit size upgrade.

Unit size upgrades - if available - and if the Voyager system properly assigns them based upon an as yet undisclosed priority system. There's an assumption that the unit size upgrade is prioritized based upon:

1) the earliest date that a VIP owner asks for the upgrade to a reservation they've booked
2) whether the VIP owner is otherwise eligible for the upgrade based upon the date the upgrade is available to be assigned,
3) if the upgrade is for the next unit size up from the unit that VIP booked, and
4) perhaps prioritized to VIP Platinum first, then Gold second, and finally Silver third in the unlikely event that all three VIP owners requested the unit upgrade on the same day for the same unit size they'd booked.

There's no visibility or accountability that confirms how upgrades are doled out by the Voyager system.

Unit size upgrades after a VIP owner has booked a unit appear to be a random occurrence. Many VIP owners have found upgrade eligible units online, when that unit should have been an upgrade for a reservation they've already booked.

And for the best possible pricing, consider calling the Wyndham Corporate Direct Sales department when deciding whether a developer purchase combined with PIC week enrollment(s) may make sense for your personal travel profile.

 

[Bomoto]

It's just me and the wife so an upgrade isn't what I'm after. 1 bedroom unit with a kitchen is mostly what we will book. It's the last min vacations at a discount on points and if we want a specific location one year. Getting a priority booking for it. Usually we plan an overseas location twice a year. Once for Valentine's week and once around July 18th anniversary. Our other 3 to 4 vacations are random and flexible. I want to make sure that our 2 specific weeks are in different countries every year and are preplanned in advanced. The other weeks I will schedule based on discounted availability. Being able to book those two priority weeks before they sell out and maximizing my points on my variable vacations is why I'm chasing the VIP gold status.

 

[jwalk03]

It's just me and the wife so an upgrade isn't what I'm after. 1 bedroom unit with a kitchen is mostly what we will book. It's the last min vacations at a discount on points and if we want a specific location one year. Getting a priority booking for it. Usually we plan an overseas location twice a year. Once for Valentine's week and once around July 18th anniversary. Our other 3 to 4 vacations are random and flexible. I want to make sure that our 2 specific weeks are in different countries every year and are preplanned in advanced. The other weeks I will schedule based on discounted availability. Being able to book those two priority weeks before they sell out and maximizing my points on my variable vacations is why I'm chasing the VIP gold status.

Wyndham does not have resorts in other countries for you to take advantage of VIP Benefits at. The only way to use Wyndham points to stay in other countries will be through an RCI exchange (options are limited, and the quality of the resorts varies WIDELY!) There will be no priority booking on any of these RCI exchanges.

 

[dgalati]

I have a hard time figuring out how spending $40k+ by buying developer makes more sense than spending ~$4k buying resale to get the same number of points. Are you really going to get $36k of value out of the Gold VIP benefits?! I get that the discount points and upgrades add up, but it would take a lot of discounts and a lot of upgrades to get to $36k, especially when you are nowhere near guaranteed a discount and/or an upgrade on every trip! Only when available, and they often will not be available if you are traveling at peak times and to popular resorts.

Makes very little cents. No pun intended

 

[dgalati]

I have a hard time figuring out how spending $40k+ by buying developer makes more sense than spending ~$4k buying resale to get the same number of points. Are you really going to get $36k of value out of the Gold VIP benefits?! I get that the discount points and upgrades add up, but it would take a lot of discounts and a lot of upgrades to get to $36k, especially when you are nowhere near guaranteed a discount and/or an upgrade on every trip! Only when available, and they often will not be available if you are traveling at peak times and to popular resorts.

Must be the new type of math they teach in school today Core Competency?

 

[Braindead]

Any suggestions or help in finding the two 3 bedroom worth 508k points would be great. And how to switch them to pic program. Is there a guide on how to do it and what type of 3 bedroom unit I'm looking for. Ty

I was advised to pick a high demand week at a high demand resort. That way you have the best chance of your week staying in the PIC Plus program and if you want to sell someday it will be easier to get back out.
Search 3 bedroom on eBay or look here on TUG and Redweek.
Then make sure they trade through RCI, its a fixed week with no points attached.
Check with Wyndham to make sure the weeks qualify
Purchase weeks and enroll them when making your purchase with Wyndham.
I’m hesitant to name resorts but one mentioned to me. But it’s not where I ended up buying
The Sands of Kahana
You need to go where Wyndham is selling to existing owners. You will find someone more knowledgeable about the program and can walk you through the program. Do not go to a sales office selling to new owners

 

[paxsarah]

Our other 3 to 4 vacations are random and flexible. I want to make sure that our 2 specific weeks are in different countries every year and are preplanned in advanced.

Okay, so when you do the math on how far out your break-even point would be VIP gold to confirm your investment is a sound one, be sure to factor in that you'll only be using the gold VIP discount on 60-70% of your vacations, at most. And as others have noted, there's no VIP benefit that will help you book RCI exchanges into overseas locations. That's really the luck of the draw and setting up ongoing searches early.

 

[Braindead]

I have a hard time figuring out how spending $40k+ by buying developer makes more sense than spending ~$4k buying resale to get the same number of points. Are you really going to get $36k of value out of the Gold VIP benefits?! I get that the discount points and upgrades add up, but it would take a lot of discounts and a lot of upgrades to get to $36k, especially when you are nowhere near guaranteed a discount and/or an upgrade on every trip! Only when available, and they often will not be available if you are traveling at peak times and to popular resorts.

Several factors come into play. I truly believe it’s a personal choice. We all put different values on choices we make
1. Financial standing. There are people that I wouldn’t even recommend that they spend $4k on resale points. Never barrow money for a timeshare
2. Your age. How many years do you expect to travel. Do you have kids that will want your ownership
3. Point deposit could be a big deal. Lose 500k points because your plans changed late in the year. Kiss $2,500-$3,000 goodbye
4. Pick your room. I don’t go to the beach to look at a parking ramp on my balcony. Last resort we were at listened to 3 couples complaining about
their room assignment. Bonnet Creek I want to watch the fireworks from our balcony not a parking ramp or trees
5. We wanted access to Margaritaville without owning there. Glad I didn’t buy there with all of the hurricane damage
6. RARP. I have needed it and used it
7. Unlimited reservations and housekeeping. Little things that add up over the years.
8. Sandi Bo has pointed out that if your willing to put in the effort you can find those high demand reservations in your discount window.
We needed another room for spring break at Bonnet Creek. I have reserved the whole week in the last 30 days for next month

I could be wrong but our experience since Voyagers disaster is that the resort staff seems to be bending over backwards for VIP owners.
Atleast that’s the way we have been treated.

 

[Jan M.]

Silver (25%), Gold (35%) and Platinum (50%) are eligible for the VIP discount at 60 days (not 30 for Silver vs 45 for Gold as previously stated).

My bad! We've been VIP long enough that I didn't realize my info was out of date.

Here is a point chart for Desert Blue in Las Vegas to give you an idea of what a reservation would cost for a gold VIP owner during the discount and free unit size upgrade period vs a non VIP owner. Using the discount and upgrade windows I'm looking at a 5 night stay, checking in on Sunday April 8 and checking out on Friday, April 13. Not sure but I might be off by a day on the 45 day window for the free upgrade on the unit size but you get the idea. There are both a studio and a two bedroom deluxe available. In this case there was no one bedroom deluxe available but it should be taken into consideration that many resorts don't have studios. For calculating purposes I'm going to use my maintenance fees which are not the lowest but are pretty good and also CWA, Club Wyndham Access, maintenance fees to get some comparison. I'm using the figure of $6.34 per thousand points for CWA mf's from what an OP posted. When you look at my figures also take into consideration that the reservation I'm using doesn't include a Friday or Saturday night stay which are a whole lot more points. I used a newer resort for my example because the points to book at them are always higher than the older resorts. The point chart for each resort is established when that resort is brought into the system and that chart will never change. New people often gravitate to the newer resorts so I wanted to give a more balanced view than if I used an older resort for my example

VIP Gold
78,000 points needed to book that 5 night stay in a studio for gold VIP, Sunday-Thursday only. Free upgrade on the unit size to the two bedroom deluxe.
At my mf's: $391.80.
At CWA mf's: $494.52
Yes the both the studio and the upgrade to the two bedroom deluxe are currently available for the 5 night stay starting on April 8th.
Free and unlimited transaction fees and housekeeping credits for gold and platinum owners. Silver gets only 1 free transaction credit I believe.

Non VIP
Transaction fee $19 online, $39 over the phone. Depending on what you own you will get at least one free one.
Housekeeping Credits need for the studio are 28 and for the two bedroom are 77. Housekeeping credits cost $2.25 each if you don't have enough left. Thank you paxsarah for the help with this. Non VIP owners get 1 house keeping credit for every 1,000 points I'm editing this post to eliminate the transaction fees and housekeeping credits costs as paxsarah pointed out they don't seem significant enough to include them unless you are using a lot of short stays.

120,000 points needed to book the studio Sunday-Thursday only.
At my mf's: $602.93 - $391.80 gold VIP cost = $211.13 potential savings for a VIP gold owner with no upgrade.
At CWA mf's: $760.80 - $494.52 gold VIP cost = $266.28 potential savings for a VIP gold owner with no upgrade.

300,000 points needed to book the 2 bedroom deluxe Sunday-Thursday only
At my mf's: $1507.32 - $391.80 VIP gold cost = $1115.52 potential savings for a VIP gold owner with free upgrade
At CWA mf's: $1902.00 - $494.52 VIP gold cost = $1407.48 potential savings for a CWA point VIP gold owner with free upgrade and $1510.20 potential savings for an owner with my mf's.

Here on TUG, look in the stickies on the Wyndham forum, you can view the Wyndham directory to look at the point charts for the different resorts you would want to go to in the next year or so. Make sure you are looking at the times of year you might want to go to those resorts. There are a number of resorts you might not want to visit in the value seasons because of the weather at those times. Desert Blue doesn't have a value season, just high and prime seasons. Start running the numbers to realistically see what you would spend on a years worth of vacations both as a VIP gold owner and a non VIP owner. Also factor in if you would only go if you got the discount or free upgrade. You might ask people here on TUG if it is likely that you would end up paying full points to be able to get reservations at the resorts you are considering. Another thing to take into consideration is that some resorts like Emerald Grande in Destin, Florida, only have a small number of one bedroom units, no studios, and even the one bedroom units are a lot of points to book. For many resorts there is typically availability in the smaller units you say you would use but that isn't always the case at every resort.

Only you can decide if the numbers make sense to you in the long run when it comes to being a VIP owner. Take a good hard look at the maintenance fees of where you could own and CWA. As my example clearly shows the mf cost per point adds up in a hurry when you own a lot of points and intend to own for years to come. There is another thread you should read. Wyndham Changes PIC Points 10 Years Later; Loss of 200,000 Points

 

[paxsarah]

Transaction fee $19 online, $39 over the phone
Housekeeping Credits need for the studio are 28 and for the two bedroom are 77. Housekeeping credits cost $2.25 each if you don't have enough left. Sorry I forget how many free housekeeping credits non VIP owners get based on what they own. But for this purpose we are going to pretend you have used all of your free ones.

As an alternate data point, I’m pretty sure I’ve never paid for housekeeping credits and we’ve owned since 2010. If you do mostly 5-7+ night stays you may never have to; if you do mostly 2-4 night stays you probably will. And we’ve maybe paid for 1-2 reservation transactions in that time.

 

[Jan M.]

As an alternate data point, I’m pretty sure I’ve never paid for housekeeping credits and we’ve owned since 2010. If you do mostly 5-7+ night stays you may never have to; if you do mostly 2-4 night stays you probably will. And we’ve maybe paid for 1-2 reservation transactions in that time.

Thanks for addressing that. You didn't indicate how many points you own to see how what you have compares to what this person is proposing owning.

I have very little first hand knowledge of transaction fees and housekeeping credits as we've been VIP for so long and got to silver so quickly thanks to bonus points. I wasn't sure whether or not to include those fees but the person who started the thread gets 8 weeks of vacation time a year and can go pretty much whenever so I thought he might be going enough to have to pay for them at some point in his use year if he wasn't VIP. I hope OP will add their experience in regards to paying for transaction fees and housekeeping credits. It will be interesting to see what OP post to conclude if these are benefits that would actually save this person some money if he was VIP gold.

I thought about adding the point values and math for Grand Desert to my earlier post to give some comparison between higher and lower point resorts but the post was long enough as it was with just the Desert Blue figures. I settled for telling him to look at the point charts for various resorts.

If this person were able to do what Braindead suggests with a developer purchase(s) with two PIC's to reach the gold level I'm guessing it might actually be possible to break even at some point. You might have to own for 10 years and have to be really dedicated to making sure you used the VIP benefits as much as possible to break even. We had already spent the money before I found TUG so I never was in this person's position of having so much knowledge and help at my fingertips.

For the people who spent in the range of what we did it would be interesting to see what those people say about whether they think it is possible to break even ever. No I'm not going to say what we spent because even thinking about it makes me cringe and wonder what possessed us. As my husband says the money is spent so forget about it and just enjoy using the resorts. And I did just that until the new website. If Wyndham would just get the kinks worked out of the website and other issues resolved I could easily go back to just enjoying using the resorts.

 

[Rich2699]

It's just me and the wife so an upgrade isn't what I'm after. 1 bedroom unit with a kitchen is mostly what we will book. It's the last min vacations at a discount on points and if we want a specific location one year. Getting a priority booking for it. Usually we plan an overseas location twice a year. Once for Valentine's week and once around July 18th anniversary. Our other 3 to 4 vacations are random and flexible. I want to make sure that our 2 specific weeks are in different countries every year and are preplanned in advanced. The other weeks I will schedule based on discounted availability. Being able to book those two priority weeks before they sell out and maximizing my points on my variable vacations is why I'm chasing the VIP gold status.

There are obviously some advantages to being VIP, but if you're mainly doing it to save 25% or 35% of your points then another way that you might want to look at it is that buying re-sale you're getting that discount and probably much more up front. Sure, it is nice to not have to consider housekeeping points and some of the other perks, but if you aren't concerned about upgrades, guest certificates, etc. I'm not sure that you'll get the value of the initial investment.

 

[paxsarah]

Thanks for addressing that. You didn't indicate how many points you own to see how what you have compares to what this person is proposing owning.

We’re billed for 269,500 annually, but our actual points allotment is higher in odd years, lower in evens due to EOY contracts. The HK credits are issued as 1 per 1,000 points, so it shouldn’t really matter how large an account one has, but rather as I stated, the length of the trips one takes on average. However, in the case of a larger account where all trips are shorter weekend jaunts, the owner could end up paying a lot in HK. We stick more to the 5-7 night range and have never had a problem.

Edit to add some math:
Say he buys 700k points and plans to take 8 weeks of vacation in a 1br. Example 1, he takes 4 full weeks and 4 weeks where he splits the week between two locations (or just call it 8 long weekends) - so 12 reservations. That’s going to cost 12 x 63 housekeeping credits = 756, so he’ll be paying for 56 HK for the entire year in that scenario. Example 2, his vacations are entirely 5-night stays. 11 stays is 55 nights (1 night shy of 56 or 8 weeks). 11 stays is 693 HK credits, and he wouldn’t have to pay any out of pocket.

OTOH, if every week is split into two stays (I.e. 16 total stays), that’s 1,008 HK where they’d be paying 308 out of pocket for the year - not cheap!