I’m with the others on the rescinding and agree that availability is limited this close to your checkin date, regardless of if you have resale or retail points. The only three things you do not get with resale points are VIP status, Club Pass locations (WorldMark resort bookings for $99 fee), and Plus Partners. RCI comes with every Wyndham membership but you can only book full weeks. To book individual nights, you need RCI nightly stays which you only get through Plus Partners. That’s the only good thing, I can think of for Plus Partners and that’s only if you need it. The perks membership anyone can get for a yearly $60 fee. it’s only free in your first year (resale doesn’t get one free year). Gold and Platinum VIP get it free. I get it free as Gold VIP, but I can get better or the same discounts without it. Many agree it’s not worth it. As far as Club Pass bookings, if you are going to use them at least once a year, it would be worth it to buy a resale WorldMark contract on eBay. You won’t have to pay the $99 fee to book and the 10’s of thousands of dollars for the ability to do so. As far as VIP, it’s debatable on whether or not it’s worth it. Discounts and upgrades are hard to come by in prime season which include most major holidays, summer break, spring break, and winter break. They also include things like Mardi Gras where the event happens almost the same time every year. Daytona bike week is difficult to get unless you book very far out. If you travel during low or value seasons, there should be plenty of availability during the discount and up grade windows. Silver and above have unlimited housekeeping credits which are required with every reservation. If you make multiple weekend trips a year, you might run out of those. If you do one or two full weeks out of the year, you should be fine. The Margaritaville Access is good but silver gets to book only six months out, and only during hush and low season gold gets anytime of year but only 8 months out. Platinum can book 10 months out. The extra time to use the points deposit feature is nice. It gives you more time to decide your vacation plans before deciding to roll them over to the next year. If you pass your deadline, you can only deposit in RCI or let them expire. Those are just a few of the benefits of VIP. The rest can be found in your directory. A lot of VIP owners will buy enough points to go VIP and then buy the rest through the resale market. The points they buy on the resale market will get the same benefits as retail except it cannot advance VIP status and you cannot use them for Club Pass bookings. You can still get discounted and upgraded bookings (when available) on reservations made with those points. Like most other things with Wyndham, that’s subject to change.
If you do not need either of those three things, resale is by far the best value. However, there is one thing you might want to consider. You may want to consider buying the discovery package. You have to buy that through Wyndham and unfortunately it requires you to sit down with a sales person, at a resort, but it allows you to try out the program commitment free. It’s good for two years. After the two years you can either walk away, or buy resale or retail package. You do not have to deal with the hassle of selling or giving it away. If you buy retail, the money you spent on the discovery package can go towards a retail purchase. The package is usually around $3,000 to $4,000. You also don’t have to worry about maintenance fees, housekeeping credits, reservation transactions, etc. aside from having to sit down with a sales person two times (the first to buy the package, and a second on your first vacation with the package), the downsides are that you are limited to what resorts you can book, because not all participate with discovery, and you have to call to make your reservations. Discovery members cannot book online, however, you can explore the website and confirm reservations you already made.
If you must have those three things, you have to buy your points through Wyndham. I would recommend you utilize the PIC program like Hitchhiker71 and I did. We both got Gold VIP at a fraction of the retail cost. It’s still way more expensive then retail, so be sure you really those three things are worth that kind of money. Really sit down and consider the monetary and perceived value and then determine if you want to spend that kind of cash. I don’t recommend VIP to someone that can only spare a week of vacation a year, or cannot use the vendors otherwise.
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