My Wyndham Timeshare Experience

Notes began on 10-20-2011 You know from time to time you talk to a customer service rep or salesperson and failed to remember something you wanted to discuss with them. So I began to put down thoughts on our ongoing relationship with Wyndham. The results follow.

Background…..My wife and I have always enjoyed vacationing. In the early years of our marriage, we went on a few sales presentations but did not buy. I finally told my wife, if we could not afford to buy I did not want to go to another sales presentation with no thought of buying. In the early 90s, after several years of motel vacations and sharing with my Mom and Dad, we planned a week in Orlando and Disneyworld. Several months before planning to go, I got talked into a visit (and sales talk) at Branson. The presentation was still too expensive in my opinion, but the last person offered what was called the Discovery program. This program allowed us to test the waters (so to speak) at a low cost. So we decided we could use the $2400 for accommodations in Orlando to buy the Discovery program……and use the Discovery program to pay for a week near Disney World…and have a few mini-vacations left over. The program did show us a level of luxury that we had not been accustomed to. At a later visit to Branson, we traded our Discovery in for a small vacation packages. In subsequent years, we have upgraded our weeks into multiple weeks, then points, then Wyndham Club Access, then VIP Gold status.

We always felt we were doing something for our family that we could afford. Of course needs and financial situations change over a lifetime.

Last November (2010) we made the decision to upgrade our timeshare to Wyndham Access VIP Gold. This decision now seems to fall into the category of “What were you thinking?” The increase in the maintenance fees coupled with an additional outlay has somewhat cramped our budget. We have been faced basically with plenty of timeshare to use with very little money to travel to them. While on an early fall trip to Branson, we mentioned this concern, which led to an appointment with Ryan Gist. When we visited with Ryan Gist, he presented us with some possible ways to use the Wyndham Rewards card to offset our maintenance fees. I am not criticizing his or anyone’s style, just sharing personal experiences and expectations that we may have had in error. It continues to be a theme when we visit with Wyndham that they will help with any problem……just be prepared to open your checkbook again.

Our expectations of the card was to get a fast start out of the box. This was to be accomplished by getting 2 cards , one for DY and one for RY. Then we would receive 12000 bonus points for each card after its first use. . Then we would put our “initial Wyndham purchase” on these cards and receive 1 reward point for each $1 spent. The problem here was the terms and conditions said “initial Wyndham down payment”. The word “down” in the terms and conditions means the $698 on the RY card received 698 bonus points, but the $1967 charged on the DY card received 0 points. I have spoken to 2 Barclay managers and they speak a doublespeak that does not answer “why does this transaction get NOTHING?”.

The emails I have sent Barclay seem to be answered by a robot. In most cases my direct question is ignored and replaced by more quotes from the terms and conditions and smooth but repeated apologies. Also I have pointed out emails from their agents that contradict each other.

After some major league frustration with Barclay customer service, I sent an email to bransoncustomercare@wyn.com. This email (10-18-2011)trickled down to Terry Williams and I received a response from him. Terry sent us 2 certificates good for a week each at an RCI resort. Terry stated that these weeks are actually more valuable than the bonus points promised. I called RCI and to use these certificates would cost us $249 for each. So use of these certificates requires a processing fee that actually takes funds out of our pocket equivalent to 2 months maintenance fees. This clearly makes these awards not usable to us. This may be a good certificate to give to friends and relatives, but if I do that I am still charged a guest fee…Wow. Also the time next year that we had scheduled for a large family getaway was November, and these certificates expire in October.

Update 11-02 I received an email today from rci@email.rci.com. It was an advertisement for a BOGO promotion. For $249 I get a week in an RCI condo plus an additional week only usable in March-May 2012. We get these offers regularly plus $199 specials, which calls into question even more---Why was the certificates referred to above valuable at all???????

I also have done some comparison on the value I receive from the rewards program(Wyndham Rewards Visa Card). Since I have used my Discover card for several years, I had that experience to draw on. Of course, the main thing we used our Discover points for was restaurant gift cards, so I will use that as an example.

The Discover card awarded us 1% back. A restaurant card for $50 was discounted to $45 on the Discover redeem process. So this meant we could get a $50 gift card for every $4500 spent (about every 2 months). Discover also ran specials of 5% often. This meant during each quarter our reward dollars grew much faster . Examples for 2011..July – Sep - Gas and Hotels…..Oct – Dec…..restaurants and fashion, etc.

The Wyndham reward visa gives you 2 reward points for each dollar spent. The published redemption price for a $50 gift card requires 12,500 reward points requiring you to charge $6,250 on your card to qualify. I do understand that you get 3 reward points for each $1 spent on certain Wyndham hotels, but we can almost completely disregard this because we have the great condos to spend our time in and will rarely if ever use this feature. Also although it was mentioned in our sales presentation that the visa card has 5% specials, I see no mention of this on their website.

It is obvious to me at this point that all reward cards are not created equal. The use of reward points versus percentage back causes one to have to really think on which is better. We signed up for the Visa Reward Card because of the anticipation of it helping on out maintenance fees, but 10,000 reward points are required to offset our maintenance fee by $60. So at the best case scenario, we can use WRVC and receive $60 off of our maintenance fee----or we can use Discover the same amount and receive $100++ in restaurant cards. It is my opinion that it is going to take at least twice as long to reach the goal with the Wyndham Reward card as it would with the Discover card. Of course the main use of reward points would be to offset our maintenance cost. This may prove to be a very, very, slow process, especially since Barclay has not allowed the bonus points discussed above.

Also, I should comment here about the 0% for six months promotion on the card. I talked to a Barclay rep about my ongoing use of the card. He said that I should consider the purchases and the initial Wyndham purchase as 2 different entities. He explained that the latter was at the 0% rate but my purchases would be at 14.99%....which meant I should pay off enough to pay my purchases each month to avoid interest charges. Unfortunately that is not how it really works!!! In order to avoid interest charges you must pay off the whole balance. This means…..as long as you have ANY balance on the card, you will be charged 14.99% on your purchases beginning from the day you make the purchase. This interest rate negates any small reward point accumulation that you get.

So my evaluation of the Wyndham Reward Visa Card would be 1) The value of the rewards is well below the value of Discover and other cards. 2) The 0%APR is of value only if you do not use the card for other purchases (and of course, that is what you signed up for). 3)The 12000 bonus points that Ryan Gist told us about (showed us the brochure on his desk) was not referred to specifically in the terms and agreements, therefore was disallowed by Barclay. 4) The $1967.07 charged on the card for our initial Wyndham purchase was not shown as a “down payment” so did not qualify for any points (I still can’t get anyone at Barclay to explain why. They said I had to wait 30 days to appeal unawarded points. After the 30 days, I did so, and now they gave me a claim number and said it would take another 30 days. 5) The customer service at Barclay has been very poor. I have sent and received over 20 emails. Many of the emails received contained information that were contradictory to each other. I have grown to prefer emails because you have something in black and white to refer back to for proof. I have also called their customer service 6 or 8 times. Many of these conversations did not give me correct information. I also was contacted by 2 managers and faxed in more than 8 documents. With all the time and effort spent, I have received no help in resolving my issues with the card.

Update 11/19 Today I migrated all my auto-pays back to my Discover card. I have decided the WRVisa was not worth using.

Update 11/20/2001 Note: after the 30 day wait, the 1967 points referred to above did show up.

I realize there is the possibility that some of the problems we have had was just miscommunication. Like hearing “initial Wyndham purchase” instead of “initial Wyndham down payment”. We told Ryan that we did not want to have “buyers remorse” when we walked out of his office. He said that we probably would have some measure of it no matter what we decided. For the 2^nd time in a row after a Wyndham transaction we do feel remorse for what we ended up doing. The 1^st remorse was when we made an additional $20,000 investment to go to VIP Gold, and struggled after to keep up with the additional payment and the maintenance. Ryan’s answer was to invest a few more thousand dollars into more points and use these additional points to convert into maintenance. We opted instead to do a trial “Discovery” program with Terry. We are hoping we can learn how to work this so it will help. Some of the features of this program have not held up to scrutiny. We will probably use the additional points on condos instead of cruises because the limited itinerary’s of the cruises. We are beginning to feel that even the $2500 spent on the Discovery program was just another ultra-expensive week in a condo.I don’t know what the future holds, but I don’t see us using the frozen price feature after we pay our last 2 investments off. We are just hoping to find ways to ease the maintenance burden on ourselves and our kids.

During our sales presentation with Ryan, he reviewed the “safe house” concept. I can see where this concept has some value for us, but there is one big gap. If we desire to safe house a large unit for November or December, with the intention of cancelling it and upgrading into it, we are faced with a large number of cancelled points that we have no time to use (if we could find any availability, that is).

We are very disappointed in our beginning relationship with Wyndham Rewards Visa Card and our ongoing relationship with Wyndham. I am going to print these thoughts out and make it required reading to anyone that knocks on our door at a Wyndham resort.

Selling your condo yourself

One of our concerns has been….and continues to be….the cost of maintenance. My wife and I really enjoy our timeshare. We have accumulated 500,000 points in the Club Wyndham system. This gives us perpetual ownership in the system enough to satisfy our vacation needs and the needs of the families of our 2 children. It also gives us a perpetual cost in the form of maintenance fees. The fees are also revalued each year and who knows anything that is going down in price these days. As we evaluate our costs, we find that if we multiply our maintenance fees by 12 we come up with a sum that is in our budget a major cost. If we took that yearly maintenance by itself, that would be enough to rent a condo for a couple of weeks.

So I began to look for ideas to defray this maintenance burden. A trip to Branson (and a talk with a rep there) gave me some ideas. I had some points that I may not need so…. Idea #1…..let extra holidays sell some of my points. Not a bad idea, but it seems that every good idea is full of pitfalls. You have to give up your points 30 days or more before the time of check-in. Extra Holidays cannot guarantee they can rent your condo. If they can’t you just lose your points (bummer). If they are successful they will keep 40% of the collected revenue (bummer). And most of the time the rental is not the high price you would think…instead it is a low cost sales 3 or 4 day weekend……not really worth you giving up your points for.

So in an effort to find a way to defray some of the costs, the representative at Wyndham Branson recommended that we find a high volume time and try to sell a week. So I embarked on a new experience…idea #2. Late in 2010 I booked two units….a studio and a 1 bedroom…in New Orleans for a 4 day weekend that included the BCS Football Championship. I thought ”what a great time to book a condo. The teams will be announced on Dec 4, 2011, and 150,000 rabid college football fans will be looking for a place to stay. And they will only find $300-$500 a night hotel rooms….AND MY CONDO.” The ad was put on Tuscaloosa craigslist because Alabama was one of the teams that was announced to participate (the other was LSU, which is within driving distance of New Orleans). The ad looked like this on Craigslist.

Reservations available January 6 -9 in New Orleans La Belle Maison Resort. This reservation allows a Friday check-in.......exploration of New Orleans all week end.....go to the big game on Monday (Roll Tide)......then celebrate the victory on Monday night (or drown your sorrows....not). Resort is two blocks from French Quarter. Also easy and affordable access to all areas of the city by trolley.
The reservation is for a 1 bedroom condo. The condo sleeps 4....1 king bedroom and 1 queen sleeper sofa in the commons (living room) area. The total rent for the 4 nights is $1000.
The resort is a five star resort and can be viewed at https://www.wyndhamvacationresorts.com/ffr/index.do and then explore our resorts. The resort is rated #3 of 146 hotels/motels in New Orleans by TripAdvisor.
If interested you can email me for payment arrangement and I will send a reservation confirmation in your name.

For anyone asking for other times.....the holidays...(Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year, followed by the BCS Championship), are all huge in New Orleans. There is no other availability in this resort until after Jan 10th. Emails with requests for these times will be ignored.

The reservation is complete and does not require any type of sales presentation. The reservation does not include game tickets.
also available.....a smaller studio condo for $700..412 sq ft....assorted sleeping arrangements.......same time frame, check-in, location etc.

· Location: New Orleans, 2 blocks from French Quarte

· it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

PostingID: 2748879415

So I sat back and waited. And then the emails came. I recieved an email from someone wanting my condo for a honeymoon. The honeymoon was paid for by the person’s employer. And since they only wanted to write one check for everything, they wrote the check for an extra $3000. They asked me to keep an additional $100 for my trouble and send the extra to their “travel agency” in Texas. Of course by now everyone who is reading this is smelling a scam. Yeah….me too. I must admit I got a little bit of enjoyment stringing these scammers along and in the meantime involving 2 city police departments and the financial fraud department of Columbia University. But when it all shook out, I spent my time with no results. Over the next few weeks , I received numerous emails from obvious scammers. I also received numerous emails telling me to advertise in a different location for free for better results. Of course free doesn’t REALLY mean free in this case. I also heard from numerous people who thought since I was trying to sell my condo, I must be interested in the newest and greatest work from home opportunity. I also got numerous emails (phishing expeditions) from “craigslist” stating that my account had been compromised and I should share sensitive information with them.

The truth is my adventure into selling my condo myself gave me absolutely nothing but a email client crammed full of spam.

On Nov 18, as a VIP member I was able to upgrade the studio into a 2 bedroom. I did this more as an exercise to gain experience, than a desire to get a larger, nicer unit. My expectation is I will have to cancel both units in a day or so.

On Nov 21 2011, I got an email expressing interest in my 2 BR. Unlike the dozens of emails I have received before, this one seemed to be from a REAL person. The email was from a legitimate email address (not a hotmail or gmail) and was signed by what seemed to be a real person. After a couple emails, I suggested payment through paypal. She agreed. One hour later I received the $1000 in my paypal account. The next morning (after Wyndham processing) I sent the guest confirmation. I transferred the $960 ($1000 minus the 3% commission) to my personal checking account and all seems well. I must say after the numerous negatives I have to say about my Wyndham experience, this was finally a positive I needed.