No regrets

And on the flipside...

I just returned from a 3-day vacation at the resort in Indio. And it was a great time there! The resort was awesome & thew workers there were very friendly. It was great!

My husband and I went to a presentation on the 2nd day, but we told the sales guy up front that we were only there to give points to our uncle (who was the owner) and that we weren't interested in buying. So the rep gave us a condensed version and gave us a tour of the presidential suite, another guy came and gave us some quotes, which seemed pretty reasonable, but we couldn't afford it at this time. So we walked out with our $75 AMEX gift cards, which I was able to use to buy lunch today.

But all in all, our experience at the presentation was great. We knew how to say no and our sales agent knew to respect that. Sorry for those who had bad experiences. I'd like to hear more from owners though, as none of us are owners.. OWNERS, please fill us in. I met a lady who's been an owner for 15 years! No complaints! and my sister in law met an owner who signed up 3 years ago, and he had no regrets.

Good to hear! If you want to hear from owners, pay a visit to the Worldmark Owners Community. While the holidays are good, it seems that the shenanigans continue for owners, with Wyndham trying to keep firm control of the resorts, too, rather than putting it in the hands of the owners. Watch out for those housekeeping fees!

-- Fabbo
Tags: trendwest worldmark

The one day of the year

A reader writes...

My husband and I recently purchased vacation credits through Worldmark, and we are very frustrated with it!

We had plans to go to Hawaii about a month after we purchased the package and asked them if we could possibly use our new vacation credits at the timeshare in Waikiki. The sales rep looked at his computer, said that it was unavailable at the time, but told us that it would "most likely" be available by the time we went. Much to my surprise, Worldmark only ones 1-5 properties for that location and it only available for ONE DAY over the next year!!

How is it even possible that they can post that they have a property there! The salesmans straight us LIED to us on numerous occasions and I'm so angry with their deceitfulness. I want to picket in front of their property because I am so mad. Does anyone else feel the way I do? I have experience NOTHING GOOD from them, and I'm sick of their sales people telling me that it's so awesome. IT IS NOT!

Picket? Yes! You should even open a sales office outside the Wyndham location, selling credits for half price. Imagine the marketing sign -- "After the presentation, come out here and buy for half price!" Hehe.

-- Fabbo

Tags: trendwest worldmark

No holidays, No help

From Shaz:

I wish I had found this site before I parted with $10,000 in 2002.

I had payed for the credits which i have managed to use only 3 short times as it is never convenient to Trendwest when i can take holidays. Today I called to see if they could assit to sell my shares as i was informed that Century would help me sell them when i wanted to. I was told in no uncertain terms that it wasnt their problem and that i should keep paying my yearly fees. If i didnt do this they will accumalate all of the fee and take me to court to get this.

I informed them that I am not interested in their service now hence i didnt think I should pay the fee as i could never get the service when it was convenient to me. the costomer service in Qld AUST disagreed.

Any ideas?

Ah, if I could only get $10,000 everytime somebody asked me this!!

Put simply, sell now! You can do this via eBay (sample auctions) via via resellers such as RedSeason (who very much know the market).

Prices are around $1/credit but just remember -- the longer you hold onto it, the more it costs you. So, get out as soon as possible.

Another option is to 'sell' your annual points and earn money -- see a recent blog post of mine for an example of somebody doing exactly that.

-- Fabbo
Tags: trendwest worldmark

Timerent!

From a message left by a reader:

I bought my membership secondhand 5 years ago and have not used it for a holiday once.

Each year I post my credits for rent at the price of the maintenance fee plus 1050 dollars. It is generally rented within three weeks and I only pay forty eight dollars for the rental listing....I love Worldmark!!!

-- Pete

Yes, renting out time is apparently acceptable under the Worldmark rules. In fact, my only ever stay at a Worldmark property was done via credits that I purchased from an owner.

Just one caveat -- the Worldmark owner still holds responsibility for any damages caused by the renter, so be careful dealing with complete strangers!

Using the rental money to pay for the anuual housekeeping fees is a good idea, especially since you've earned some money on the side. When people consider purchasing Wyndham credits, I suspect that they don't factor in the annual costs. Those costs alone come close to the cost of a normal holiday, which makes the whole timeshare thing worth considerably less.


-- Fabbo
Tags: trendwest worldmark