Renting out instead of staying in

Even though the benefit of Holiday Credits sounds great and we all love having holidays, the situation sometimes arises when unitholders just can't use their credits before they expire.

In looking at online sales of Holiday Credits, it's not unusual to see somebody selling their Credits with 2-3 years worth of available points, suggesting that they haven't used their credits for 1-2 years. No wonder they are selling!

Remember -- you can save up your credits to use next year. The disclosure information says:

You can save some or all of your Holiday Credits for one year to extend your holiday time the following year (all unused Holiday Credits will automatically carry over for use in the following year, and expire at the end of that year, unless you have an accepted reservation... before then.

But here's the sweet spot... you can make bookings up to 13 months ahead!

Example:

• Let's say that you receive credits each year on 1-Jan
• On 1-Jan-05, you receive 6000 credits
• They remain active until 31-Dec-06 (awarded in 2005, carry-over into 2006)
• On, say, 15-Dec-06 you could make a booking for 10-Jan-08 (yes, 2008!)
• So, you've used your 2005 credits in 2008 -- 3 years later!
• And if you're careful with the timing, you could use your 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008 (borrowing forward) points for the same period. (Note: You could only use your 2008 credits in 2007, so you'd actually need 2 separate bookings to make this happen.)
• Result: 4-years credits on the one holiday!

But, let's say that even with all this flexibility, you find that your points are expiring. What can you do?

Rentals

As an owner, you can give or rent your reservations to another person. Just tell WorldMark the name of the guest! Note that you you have to use the points to make the reservation -- you're not selling the points -- rather, you're renting out the apartment during the time of your booking.

There are a couple of hard-to-police rules, such as:

• If you book under Bonus Time (where you pay for accommodation instead of using Credits) you can't charge more than you paid -- this is obviously to avoid people "making money" on the system
• You can't charge an illegal fee (which was probably stipulated for the lawyers)

As the person making the booking, the 'Owner' is responsible for the booking, so it's best if you only give it to friends & family. If your guests wreck the joint, you'll be the one who pays!

I have not seen any online listing of rentals for WorldMark South Pacific. There are occasional listings for WorldMark in the USA. I've seen one as low as US$70 for a week's accommodation. The listing basically said the winner can choose their own destination.

So, while you're effectively paying over $1000 for your week of holidays, the market value could get as low as $100 if your credits are about to expire -- be careful!

-- Fabbo.