Newbie... researching resale- leaning Marriott or Wyndham, which is best or some of both?

[Stubbs J]

1) Is there a vacation destination you wish to visit most of the time or on a regular basis? if so where?

We are located in PA so we prefer beaches closer (NJ, SC, etc) with FL as an option in case we decide to go further, however we’d like to expand our options west as our kiddos get older (4 and 6 right now )

2) Do you want to visit your home resort at least half the time, or do you want to trade more than half the time?

Flexible, we’d like a consistent place for a week and an additional week we switch out destinations and time of year.

3) What are your 5 top trade destinations?
Europe
Caribbean
Hawaii
California
Florida

4) How many people do you usually travel with?
Minimum of 4 (2 adults; 2 children)
Maximum of 10

5) Can you travel any time, or are you locked into the school schedule?
Mostly school schedule but open to off season or taking time off during school. Would love an option to book for a few nights on whim during weekends

6) Can you make firm plans 12 or more mos. in advance?
Yes

7) Can you vacation for a full week at a time?
Yes

8) What level of accommodations do you prefer on a scale of 1 to 5 stars?

Between 3-5 but prefer higher quality

9) How much can you afford to spend upfront, without financing?

Maximum of 5,000

10) How much can you afford to spend every year for a maintenance fee that will come due right after Christmas, andincrease each year?
Maximum of 4000

11) Are you a detail oriented planner?
Yes

12) Do you understand that once you buy a timeshare, it may be very difficult to sell or give away, and you are responsible for all fees, until you do?

Yes

 

[RNCollins]

Hi Stubbs J,

Welcome to TUG!

I am not an owner in either Wyndham or Marriott but I will try to give you some guidance.

Wyndham uses the exchange company RCI. Marriott uses the exchange company Interval International. RCI has more resorts but Interval generally has better quality resorts. You could look at each exchange company and see which resorts participates in their program. That can give you an idea of what might be listed. Timeshares that are deposited by other owners who are trading will be available for exchange. So what you see in the resort directory may not be available for exchange.

RCI Directory:
https://www.rci.com/resort-director...sorts_and_Offers&track3=Text:Resort_Directory

Interval Directory:
https://www.intervalworld.com/web/cs?a=1500

I think Marriott allows you to rent fewer than 7 days. A Marriott owner would be able to tell you. RCI Points lets you stay less than 7 days.

Hopefully others will chime in with more advice.

 

[Goodflower76]

I can only speak as a Wyndham owner.

With your $4k max maintenance fee limit, you can purchase a decent amount of points to use. MF dues are due monthly. Their points system allows you to book between 2-14 nights at a time and the points you use will depend on time of year and what type of unit. Some resorts have minimum stay requirements. You can book trips "last minute" but could lose those points if you don't cancel within 15 days of your check-in date. If you buy resale, you will not be able to book at ALL the Wyndham vacation destinations- but there are still a lot of options!

 

[Sandy VDH]

Wyndham is very flexible, in a lot of places, and can be acquired fairly cheaply. Points acquired via resale as still points with no restriction other than they don't count towards VIP status levels.

Marriott for resale purchase will likely be more $$ up front, and might be a bit more limiting, but wil still (for now and for a while) trade to other Marriotts utilizing II, in weekly increments. I do not know how DC points transfer, but I thought they do not. Others with more inside knowledge of Marriott will had to add comments.

 

[louisianab]

I'm an all Wyndham "resale" owner (I didn't really buy any, but acquired via the giveaway sections on this board or similar). I don't feel my resorts are limited at all. I have 350k points across several resorts and am well under your yearly MF limit. We generally book for a family of four, but this year are taking a full family vacation of 11+ people across two rentals. I plan about 12-18 months ahead of time for all vacations so that I am ready to book when the season opens. I have also used RCI weeks and extra vacations to extend our points (Disney was a substantial savings for a 1BR for 7 nights - but I had to deposit points that I couldn't use for anything else).

TUG is SUCH a great resource, you will not regret doing all of your due diligence prior to making your decision.

 

[SabresFan]

I own at DVC, and would love to buy more there, but both developer and resale prices are too rich for my blood. So I've been looking around at the other chains. Generally, I think Marriott will cost more for initial purchase, and for maintenance fees than Wyndham. It does look like it is possible to buy MVC Destination points and get them transferred to you, but it is quite expensive. Marriott will charge you $750 for each 250 point chunk, so if you buy 1000 points that fee alone is $3000. Plus there are a couple of other fees you get hit with if it's your first purchase of Marriott points. So for me, Marriott is not really a serious consideration, but that is only because of price, not because there is anything wrong with Marriott.

But based on the ratings here on TUG and on Trip Advisor, I'd say Marriott and Westin both get higher overall ratings than Wyndham, although Wyndham doesn't stink. It also depends on the exact resort - in one town where both chains are present the Marriott unit might be rated higher, while in a different town the Wyndham property might be rated higher. So you should also look at the exact places you want to travel to, and compare both the number of resorts and their average ratings.

One way I have been doing my market research is I am keeping a spreadsheet of sold listings on eBay. Here are the column headings:
Chain (Marriott, Wyndham, Hilton, Worldmark, etc)
Resort
City
State
Points or room type (2 BR, or 1 BR, or 2 BR lockoff, etc)
End Date
Seller
eBay Item Number
Final Bid price
Winning Bid
MF Due at Close
Closing Cost
Transfer Fee
Any other Fees
Total Amount to be Paid (both paid to seller and the chain) = sum of the above
Annual Maintenance Fees
MF per 1,000 points
Total Due / Number of Points
Trading Company (usually II or RCI)
ROFR Required
Use Year (the month your year starts in for Points, or Platinum vs Gold vs Silver for floating weeks)
Years (annual or even or odd)
If not Points, the weeks that can be booked

After about six weeks of this I now have 244 lines of sold listings in my spreadsheet. Of course some of these fall through, so maybe 2/3 only go all the way to completion. But it does give you an idea of what the market is doing, and when you are getting a great deal versus average or poor. You also get an idea of how easily you can let this one go and find something else just as good if the bidding gets out of hand on this one. You can also start spotting inefficiencies in the market, like some resorts are very popular to buy and others are not. Or if you buy 3 Wyndham contracts of 100,000 points each, you end up paying 3 transfer fees of $299 each, while if you buy one contract of 300,000 points you only pay that $299 transfer fee once.

I basically look at timesharing as an arbitrage opportunity. You want to buy a timeshare cheap with cheap maintenance fees and then trade it for something that would have been expensive if you bought it yourself. And if you can't trade it, then use it for a vacation that is cheaper than paying rentals (which you can do because you bought it cheap with cheap maintenance fees).

Here are two very similar closed sales a day apart, with very different total amounts due at closing:

Wyndham Club Access Points Varies Varies 1,282,000 3/13/2019 seans0302 - 192848805034 - $3,950.00 - $0.00 - $0.00 - $0.00 - $3,950.00 - $6,944.28 - $5.42 - 0.0031 - RCI No January Annual Points
Wyndham Club Access Points Varies Varies 1,203,000 3/14/2019 cybernaut303 - 372621454942 $- 1.00 - $6,088.00 - $425.00 - $299.00 - $6,813.00 - $6,088.00 - $5.06 - 0.0057 - RCI No January Annual Points

 

[Stubbs J]

Thanks for all the great advice. I’m still digging around and checking eBay and the boards. Also looking at renting this summer from here or eBay at one or both of our preferred resorts and area (mainly looking myrtle beach-Virginia beach areas as they are popular destinations and closer to PA than the Florida ones).

Something else I should have mentioned which may or may not be a factor. Maybe some tuggers have experiences similar. My husband travels a lot for work and earns decent rewards with marriot as that’s what he’s been using for almost eleven years of traveling for work. So he has a high status with the marriot points and also just upgraded his marriot card to the bonvoy to get the 100,000 bonus points. This is another reason we are considering marriot as we might e able to extend vacations using points earned on marriot rewards and using his marriot card to buy and book things at the hotels and resorts. I’m not sure how much impact or carry over that has and I know Wyndham has similar systems in place that we could switch him over to if needed. Any input from anyone on this would also be appreciated!

So glad I found tug and didn’t buy the developer prices at our recent presentations in Florida .

Thanks tugs!