Extra Holidays - anyone with experience?

[TonyGSD]

Last weekend at our "owner update" meeting, they suggested us buying points in order to qualify for Extra Holidays. 20,000 points was the minimum purchase requirement, $1.99 a point was a previous offer that we could accept only that day, which we declined, so now there's a standing offer good for 12 months @ $3.86 a point. We're currently silver @ 20,000 points, grandfathered in since Worldmark/Wyndam recently increased silver to 30,000. With this purchase, our typical one week, 10,000 point 2-bedroom unit would only be 4,000 points. But more enticing is the ability to sell weeks we aren't using (4,000 points) at $2,000 each, with us (the owners) receiving 60% of the sale price, or $800-1200 per week sold. It all sounded WAY too good to be true. Doing the math, we could buy the $80,000 worth of points, take two one-week vacations per year, sell the remaining 8 weeks, and gross $6,400 - $9,600 annually. Maintenance would go from $1,800 annually to $3,000 annually, but that's a small price to pay for the potential cash cow. I asked the salesman about the probability of every week being sold, and he said yes, there's no guarantee, but typically 70-80% of the weeks get sold. Still sounds way too good to be true.

I've read a bit on this forum about others' experiences, and apparently you need to book weeks at high demand resorts in peak season to have the best chance of selling them. It all sounds like a huge gamble that I'm not willing to fork over $80,000 just to try.

 

[geist1223]

It is a huge gamble. There are no guarantees. This has been talked about on wmowners.com. All negative. So you use a bunch of Credits to Book a high value week and give it to Wyndham Extra Holidays. Depending on the size of Unit, Season, and Resort this will cost you 10,000 to 30,000 Credits.They may rent out the entire week (rare). They may rent out only a couple nights. They may rent it out at a hugh discount at the last minute. You get a % of what is actually rented but you are out the Credits for the entire week.

The only weeks of which I am aware that only cost 4,000 Credits are semi last minute Bookings through RCI. And you can not rent out RCI Weeks. We are Worldmark Travelshare Platinum. A Unit that cost us 20,000 Credits before we become Platinum still costs us 20,000 Credits.

Reading the Documentation on the Worldmark by Wyndham Site about Extra Holidays there is no minimum # of Credits you must own to use Extra Holidays nor is it required that you be Travelshare.

 

[sue1947]

The 'owner update' is a sales pitch with a sales liar saying anything to get you to buy. The whole pitch is full of lies but it succeeded in getting your interest. You were smart enough to say 'no', but it sounds like too close of a call, so let's look a little more closely:

With this purchase, our typical one week, 10,000 point 2-bedroom unit would only be 4,000 points.

Flat out lie. Any WM owner pays the same thing for a week at any resort regardless of Travelshare vs resale.
You said you have 20K TS credits. That likely cost you somewhere in the $50-$60K range (depending on when you purchased) for something that you could have bought for $5-6000 resale. What exactly have you gotten for that extra $50K? Your travel share dues pay for that 'free' internet and RCI. What have you gotten that is worth $50K? What exactly is worth paying the extra TS dues, much less the added cost of the developer credits? Everything that is TS lower levels, no matter how special they name it, just doesn't pencil out.
Your math trying to make this make sense is based on lots of assumptions.

standing offer good for 12 months @ $3.86 a point.

this is the current standard price aka, the 'let's see how much we can get them to pay' price. There is no 'hurry' to get this price before the 12 months are up.

But more enticing is the ability to sell weeks we aren't using (4,000 points) at $2,000 each, with us (the owners) receiving 60% of the sale price,

This really sounds like the scam phone calls telling you that you have extra weeks in RCI that you can sell to whoever, except RCI doesn't allow that and there aren't any extra weeks.
But let's pretend it's legit. You book a WM week for 4000 credits. Those are the older resorts and low season; none of them will rent for $2000; maybe $200. As Geist mentioned, the experience has been that IF a week is rented, it is likely just for 1 or 2 nights. They take their 40% and you pay a week's worth of credits for a couple nights worth of rent for a very low demand week.

Doing the math, we could buy the $80,000 worth of points, take two one-week vacations per year, sell the remaining 8 weeks, and gross $6,400 - $9,600 annually.

Speaking of doing the math: With the extra $1200 in dues, even if you could rent at the low end, it will still take you 16 years to break even with the $80K purchase.

It all sounds like a huge gamble that I'm not willing to fork over $80,000 just to try.

Correct. There is no gamble. There is no way you will make a profit but a sure bet that Wyndham will be $80K+ $1200/year + all those TS dues richer after having taken all that money out of your pocket into theirs. I suggest you stop going to updates.

 

[HudsHut]

I reread and realized you did not buy. Good.

The Extra Holidaiys often does not rent. They may rent a few days out of 7 and you lose the credits for all 7 nights. They take their 40% of the few nights, and you are left with a tiny amount of revenue, no where close to the cost of the credits you used.

 

[staytuned365]

Last weekend at our "owner update" meeting, they suggested us buying points in order to qualify for Extra Holidays. 20,000 points was the minimum purchase requirement, $1.99 a point was a previous offer that we could accept only that day, which we declined, so now there's a standing offer good for 12 months @ $3.86 a point. We're currently silver @ 20,000 points, grandfathered in since Worldmark/Wyndam recently increased silver to 30,000. With this purchase, our typical one week, 10,000 point 2-bedroom unit would only be 4,000 points. But more enticing is the ability to sell weeks we aren't using (4,000 points) at $2,000 each, with us (the owners) receiving 60% of the sale price, or $800-1200 per week sold. It all sounded WAY too good to be true. Doing the math, we could buy the $80,000 worth of points, take two one-week vacations per year, sell the remaining 8 weeks, and gross $6,400 - $9,600 annually. Maintenance would go from $1,800 annually to $3,000 annually, but that's a small price to pay for the potential cash cow. I asked the salesman about the probability of every week being sold, and he said yes, there's no guarantee, but typically 70-80% of the weeks get sold. Still sounds way too good to be true.

I've read a bit on this forum about others' experiences, and apparently you need to book weeks at high demand resorts in peak season to have the best chance of selling them. It all sounds like a huge gamble that I'm not willing to fork over $80,000 just to try.

My family just returned from LV and their owner update meeting. We bought our 12,000 WM points from the original TrendWest owner. The presenter said something like, since only original timeshare owners are eligible for TravelShare, we were offered 6,000 or 8,000 additional points (I forgot) for about $16,000. That would convert our account and make us eligible for TravelShare. Instead of 1 week of stay for our 12,000 points, we would get 4 weeks of stay. We can use 3 weeks and rent out 1 week each year and the rental income from 1 week for 1 year would cover the maintenance fee for 1 year. They also said Wyndham has transferred maintenance to a third party and our maintenance fee can increase from $103 per month currently to over $500 per month in the near future. We laughed about this claim were enticed about TravelShare. We didn't take the offer and received our gift for attending. Is this a similar experience of Extra Holidays? Same as TravelShare?

 

[geist1223]

Travelshare is not going to let you do 4 weeks of Bookings for the cost of 1 week of Credits. Your original Credits are most likely WM+A Credits. These give you access to Wyndham South Pacific and the ability to Book Wyndham Resorts. So if you are happy with the 12,000 Credits there is no reason to buy Travelshare.