What follows is an explanation of what I personally did using the information available to me through the Member’s directory, my learning on TUG, The Wyndham Resort Forums, and my experimentation with the use of Wyndham points. Reading about how I used the system to my advantage may provide you with ideas that help you recognize and get more of the exceptional value that Wyndham points can provide, if you know how to use your points effectively.  A lot of the give and take with RCI® that you will perceive to be apparent between the lines happens because RCI® can be flexible once they have your points. Your success exchanging your points with RCI® will depend a lot on what you know and how you use what you know.  Here you get the chance to learn in some detail what transpired as I used my Wyndham points between August 3, 2009 and May 3, 2010.

If you prepared yourself by reading some or all of the previous articles, especially Article VIII – How To Maximize Your Points (“The Nuts & Bolts”), you should be able to follow the transactions. Your experiences may vary from mine; but reading about how I used my 2009 and 2010 points may help you discover new ways to take advantage of your point ownership. In case you jumped into Article X without reading all of the previous articles, allow me to update you and explain to you what I had available to use when I gained access to points on August 3, 2009.

During the early part of June, 2009 I purchased four separate Wyndham contracts re-sale which give me access to a total of 469,000 points every year going forward. Three of the contracts provide access to 364,000 points with a Use Year that ends December 31 of every year. The fourth contract provides 105,000 points with a Use Year that ends on March 31 of every year.

Illustration # 1 shows how my contracts are displayed when the Wyndham website at www.wyndhamvacationresorts.com is accessed.

Illustration # 1 - CLUB WYNDHAM^® Plus Contracts

Notice that two of the contracts are biennial with one being every even year and one being every odd year. The effect of the two together is to give me 210,000 points every year.  Wyndham provides its point owners with a view of their points at least two years in advance.  When you look at illustration # 2 below you will see a reasonable representation of what my point status was like when access to my points was first obtained on August 3, 2010.  Although, there are no “cancelled points” or “Credit Pool” points showing, a screen similar to the one in illustration # 2 would show such points if the point status required such a showing.

An examination of Illustration # 2 may indicate to you that my overall account appears to be missing 105,000 points for the year 2009.  But the point status, as displayed, is accurate as of the date my points became available. Wyndham refers to the 12 month period for using your points as your Use Year; and the Use Year for that particular 105,000 point contract runs from April 1 through March 31. So, the 105,000 points for 2009 hit the previous owner’s account on April 1, 2008 with an end date of March 31, 2009.  As a result, what you see in Illustration # 2 is the 2010 allotment for the April to March Use Year with an end date of March 31, 2010.  

As you can see below, as of August 3, 2009, there were 364,000 “regular” 2009 points with an end date of December 31, 2009 available. But what was most important to me was access to the 364,000 points with an expiration date of December 31, 2010.  Because those points became available on August 3, 2009, there was still an opportunity to take advantage of the feature known as Advanced Reservation Priority (ARP) for a booking with a check-in of July 25, 2010.

Illustration # 2 - Display of Points & Housekeeping Credits on August 3, 2009

Since I wanted ten nights in a beachfront unit at Wyndham Westwinds, North Myrtle Beach, SC checking-in on July 25, 2010 and checking-out on August 5, 2010, it was necessary to act quickly because the Advanced Reservation Priority (ARP) window for that check-in date opened June 25, 2009 which was the earliest date that a reservation could be booked for July 25, 2010 using ARP.  (ARP is available exactly 13 months prior to the check-in date)

Other Wyndham owners, who have Myrtle Beach as their home resort, and who wanted to check-in on July 25, 2010, had more than a month head start, because they could have made their reservation for July 25, 2010 as early as June 25, 2009.  Meanwhile, every other Wyndham owner, who did not have Myrtle Beach as their home resort, could get access to a July 25, 2010 check-in at Myrtle Beach at the ten month out mark (September 25, 2009) or after that date.   So, after setting up my account, my goal was to access my 2010 points as soon as possible and use ARP to get what I needed in the summer of 2010. That day came on August 3, 2009 and I jumped on ARP to get what is shown below that same day.

Illustration # 3 Example of How Confirmations Are Displayed At the Wyndham Website

TIP:  As previously pointed out in Article VIII, regardless of how you obtained your points (retail or re-sale) and regardless of how many points you own, each calendar year you will receive one complimentary Reservation Transaction for every 77,000 points that you own. If, however, you purchased enough points from the developer to reach VIP Gold (500,000) or VIP Platinum (one million points or more) you will receive unlimited complimentary Reservation Transactions. Assuming that you are not a buyer who purchased from the developer or if you did purchase from the developer that you did not purchase more than 499,000 points; paying attention to your Reservation Transactions should be important to you.  Each Reservation Transaction that you may have to purchase, will cost you $30 when booking a resort reservation online at www.wyndhamvacationresorts.com, or $59 when you find that you have used up your complimentary Reservation Transactions while making a reservation request by phone.

 
Because I was aware that my ownership of 469,000, points purchased re-sale, provided six complimentary Reservation Transactions, I chose to conserve those transactions which are granted only once per calendar year. The bookings were not considered the same transaction, because they involved the same resort for consecutive periods. The bookings were two distinct and separate transactions, which would have cost me two complimentary Reservation Transactions, had each been done on different business days.

The 7-night stay in a 2-BR Unit during “prime time” cost 175,000 points and 77 Housekeeping Credits.  The second reservation for 4-nights in “prime time” cost 21,000 points per night and an additional 77 Housekeeping Credits. In addition to paying attention to your Reservation Transactions, you should also pay attention to the Housekeeping Credits that you use up.

Note: The Housekeeping Credits to clean a 2-BR Unit for a 7-night stay and a 4-night stay are the same because the cleaning effort is the same! A maid has to come in and clean the 2-BR Unit whether your stay is 7-nights, 4-nights or 3-nights. Being aware of this fact is important to you if you take a lot of under 7-night vacations. Use up the “Maid” credits you are allotted and you will have to pay $2.25 per credit.  That cost goes up over time with the cost of labor. In 2006 the extra cost associated with the “Maid” credits was $1.50 per credit.  

After those internal Wyndham Reservation Transactions, 105,000 points were left in my 2010 January-December Use Year. There will be more about those 2010 leftover points later in this article. Meanwhile, I made a concerted effort to pay special attention to what we TUGGERS refer to as the TUG Sightings Forum.

TIP: The Sightings Forum is a private forum available with TUG Membership. At the Sightings Forum TUG members who are aware of how it works, will voluntarily post sightings of “bulk” deposits observed. Wyndham, Starwood and other resort developers periodically make “bulk” deposits with RCI and probably with II which are reported by observers at the TUG Sightings Forum. On September 11th a sighting of multiple deposits at various Wyndham resorts occurred. 

That day I contacted a Wyndham Vacation Counselor (VC) and asked her to get a RCI® Vacation Counselor (VC) on the phone that Wyndham recognizes as a RCI/Wyndham specialist for handling Wyndham point exchanges. Just prior to getting the RCI® specialist on the line, I asked the Wyndham (VC) to be prepared to deposit four 28,000 point increments from my 2009 January-December Use Year. I was specific regarding which Use Year because multiple Use Years were available in my Wyndham account for deposit and I wanted the points to come from my 2009 Use Year since I was not going to use those points for an internal exchange and because they were the first points in my account that would expire.

Notice that I chose to deposit 28,000 point increments as opposed to significantly higher increments because I believed that once they were deposited with RCI®, the points would have the strength to pull most Wyndham available weeks regardless of size or season, if those units were available at RCI® after a “bulk” deposit. Also, it seemed to me that since Wyndham owns RCI® there is a preference given to Wyndham owners who are making a Wyndham point exchange for weeks deposited into RCI® by Wyndham.  A preference may or may not be given to owners who own points at other RCI® point based resorts.  

1. 7 Nights in a 2-BR Deluxe at Wyndham Ocean Walk Nov 29- Dec 06, 2009  28K points
2. 7 Nights in a 2-BR Deluxe at Wyndham Ocean Walk Nov 12-Nov  19, 2010  28K points
3. 7 Nights in a 2-BR Deluxe at Wyndham Ocean Walk Mar  07-Mar 13, 2010   28K points
4. 7 Nights in a 2-BR Deluxe at DVC, Hilton Head, SC  Sep  05-Sep  12, 2010  28K points 

Can you get the same results?  It is possible; but there was a lot of luck and careful planning that went into my success. Your experiences and my experiences the next time around may vary. After using 112,000 of my 2009 points, there were 252,000 points left; but, I had already made the decision to wait until the first week of December, 2009 to do something with them in order to extend the term during which I could use them.

TIP:  The best time to deposit leftover points for a Use Year is the first week of the last month of the applicable Use Year. Any point increments deposited with RCI® during the last month of the Use Year extend the use of those points until the last day of the same month two years later. There is no reason to wait until the last week, or the last day of the Use Year to make your deposits because the credit given will extend for the same length of time whether the deposit is made at the beginning of the month, the middle, or the end.  In addition, waiting to contact Wyndham for a deposit with RCI® or II subjects a member to the risk that he or she might forget or that a computer malfunction may foul things up, or that any number of things might occur which would interfere with someone's ability to get on the phone. If the Use Year expires, and you haven't made the exchange or utilized the points by taking advantage of other options, you lose the points!  

TIP:  If you find that you are nearing the end of your Use Year, it would be a good idea to consider using your points in some way or they definitely will expire. As you saw above you have the option to deposit points with your designated exchange company up until the last day of your Use Year; but there are other options:

• At the Wyndham website, www.wyndhamvacationresorts.com you can find  a “last-minute” getaway during the Express Reservation period which is the 90 day window for reservations before a check-in. The flexibility of the Express Reservation window makes it possible to get a 2-night minimum stay, during any season of the year; except at some resorts that require a 7-night stay. (Check the individual resort point charts to determine if a 7-night stay may be required.)

• Meanwhile, Wyndham “sweetens the pot” sometimes as far out as six weeks prior to check-in when inventory that has not been booked is available at some resorts.  Your experience may vary; but periodically check the “Resort Specials” section of the Wyndham website for discounts which are available to all owners of Wyndham points regardless of how the points were obtained.  I have observed internal reservation discount possibilities as high as 40% at some resorts especially as the time frame before check-in gets closer. Of course, not all of the resorts offer discounts within six weeks of check-in; but some do, and you can identify which resorts are making such an offer on a rolling calendar basis beginning six weeks from check-in.

• You can contact a friend or family member and use the one free guest confirmation that you receive each calendar year. [VIP Members who purchased from the developer get extra Guest Confirmations ranging from five for a standard VIP to 15 Guest Certificates per million points if you are a Platinum VIP Member.] 
   
• If you do not have enough points to complete an internal reservation, you can rent additional points from Wyndham at a discount online during the Express Reservation Period (90 days before check-in). The points you may rent in any calendar year, during the Express Period, cannot exceed the total number of points that you own. Any Bonus Points or PIC that you acquired after a developer purchase cannot be counted toward the total number of points that you can rent during the Express Reservation Period.

Note: If you rented points earlier in the calendar year deduct those points from the total you could have rented during the Express Period. The discount rate is $8 per thousand points on-line as opposed to the regular rate of $10 per thousand points during the Standard Reservation period (10 months to 91 days before check-in); but during the Standard Reservation period you could have only rented enough points to complete the last night’s stay of a vacation.
 

• During the 90 day Express Reservation Period, if you find that your current available Use Year points are not sufficient to get an internal reservation that you prefer, you also have the option to borrow points from your next Use Year.

 
Note:  If you elect to borrow points from your next Use Year during the 90 day Express Reservation Period and later have to cancel your reservation, using the points that you borrowed, those borrowed points will be returned to your “current” year account as Cancelled Reservation Points.  Put another way, borrowed points that are cancelled will not be returned to the Use Year they originally came from. 

As suggested in Article VIII  (The “Nuts and Bolts”), you, as an owner of Wyndham points should consider making your vacation plans 16 months to 13 months before your anticipated check-in dates. Through such planning you may discover that you cannot or will not use part or all of your points during your Use Year. When that awareness hits you, consider using the “Points Credit Pool” which is the subject of Article IX.

 
Note: You cannot use leftover points at the end of your Use Year by putting them in the “Points Credit Pool” or by using them to pay for maintenance fees. [Points can be converted into dollars that you can apply toward your Club Wyndham^SM Plus assessment fees; but making the conversion has to be done within the first three months of your Use Year.]

 
TIP: While, I personally feel that using any points to pay maintenance fees is not a good use of your point allocation, that option is there for you if you have taken my previous advice and planned your vacation more than nine months before your Use Year end date.

By planning early, you may realize before the beginning of the ninth month prior to your Use Year expiration date, that you will have leftover points.  You can then consider the option to convert those points to monetary credit toward your maintenance fees. The current conversion rate of exchange is .0021 per point. For example, 10,000 points could be turned into $21.00 and applied toward your assessment fees; but such a conversion has to have occurred before the beginning of the ninth month of your Use Year.  Keep in mind, however, that making such a conversion requires the use of a Reservation Transaction, so conserve your complimentary Reservation Transactions so they can be available as needed.  

 
Illustration # 4 - Display of Points & Housekeeping Credits on December 1, 2009

During the first week of December, 2009, I again contacted a Wyndham VC and made a request to place three separate deposits with RCI® - two 105,000 point deposits and one deposit of 28,000 points. By making the deposits with RCI®, the value of my points were extended, and they were available for exchange through RCI® for up to two years from the end of the month that they were deposited. For example:  A deposit on December 2, 2009 would have generated value through December 31, 2011, assuming I wanted to wait that long.

Note that I also did the Reservation Transactions the same day to avoid using more than the complimentary 2009 Reservation Transactions. This is again a good time to remind you, that when making what Wyndham considers a Reservation Transaction; a fee has to be paid if you no longer have a complimentary Reservation Transaction available. Using up complimentary Reservation Transactions can be avoided by doing multiple Reservation Transactions on the same business day.

In Illustration # 5 notice that the Housekeeping Credits available for 2009 went from 252 to just 14. When you deposit points with your exchange company Wyndham also takes the equivalent Housekeeping Credits. Since I deposited a total of 238,000 points, 238 credits (1 credit for each 1,000 points) were deducted from my 2009 available Housekeeping Credits.

Illustration # 5 - Display of Points & Housekeeping Credits on December 15, 2009

After making the early December transactions, I still had 14,000 points leftover from my 2009 January-December Use Year. In addition, I had points available in my overlapping April-March 2010 Use Year.  Therefore, I combined 14,000 points from the April-March 2010 Use Year with my leftover 2009 points on or about December 28, 2009 and deposited the combined total of 28,000 points with RCI®.  

Note:  In Illustration # 5 the 105,000 points with expiration date of March 31, 2010 were shown as part of my 2010 Total. But, “2010 Total” refers to the calendar year. Since my “2009 Total” with an expiration of December 31, 2009 ran from January 1 to December 31, 2009 and my “2010 Total” of 105,000 points ran from April 1, 2009 to March 31, 2010 the points overlapped and were available to be combined. Also, notice in Illustration # 6 the decrease in my 2010 points and my 2010 Housekeeping Credits that otherwise would have been available through March 31, 2010.

Since I had not used up all of my complimentary 2009 Reservation Transactions, a complimentary Reservation Transaction was still available for the RCI® exchange transaction.   As a result of the overall effective use of my points “Maid Credits” and Reservation Transactions, not one of the 2009 points was wasted and I paid no unnecessary extra fees.

  Illustration # 6 - Display of Points & Housekeeping Credits on December 30, 2009

As you can see above, after removing the 14,000 points from the 2010 April to March Use Year, a balance of 91,000 points remained; but those points were due to expire on March 31, 2010.

Because there was no reason to act immediately, I decided to wait until the first week of March to consider additional deposits with RCI®.

TIP:  If all of your Wyndham points have the same Use Year or you are considering an initial purchase of points, consider getting at least one contract with a different Use Year.  A Use Year as defined by Wyndham is “…the 12-month period during which a Member may travel on vacation using their point allocation.” To expand on that, you could have a Use Year that runs from January-December, April-March, July-June, or October –September; depending on the re-sale contract that you purchase or when you purchase your points direct from the developer.

 
For Example: If all of your contracts have a Use Year that runs from April through March, the end date of that travel period is March 31.  In other words the 2011 April-March Use Year begins on April 1, 2010 and will end on March 31, 2011 and the 2012 allocation of points for travel in 2012 will be available on April 1, 2011 and that Use Year will end on March 31, 2012.
 

O. K. you are asking yourself what is the point?  If you have the same Use Year for all of your points you cannot do what I did above. You cannot combine points from different Use Years to make a deposit with your exchange company.  Source: www.wyndhamvacationresorts.com 

• You can rent the points for a RCI® deposit at the current discounted rate of $8 per thousand during the Express Reservation period if the transaction takes place online.
• You can “borrow the points” from the next Use Year to go with your left over points in the current year; then make an internal reservation for travel in the current Use Year and then follow that up  by canceling the same internal reservation. The result of that complicated process leaves the “cancelled points in your current Use Year and you can then combine the left over current Use Year “regular points” with the “cancelled points” and make a deposit of the combined points with your external exchange company.

Use of Points in 2010

After the year 2010 began, I stayed alert to possible sightings of resort bulk deposits at the TUG (Member Only) Sightings Forum. I also periodically checked the RCI® website by making spot searches while maintaining on-going searches using fixed week deposits that I had deposited with RCI® over a year before check-in. During the first quarter of 2010, by working with RCI® Vacation Counselors, I was able to confirm the following reservations using the points deposited. 

1. 7 Nights in a 2-BR @ Discovery Beach Resort in FL Dec 04-Dec11, 2010   105K points
2. 7 Nights in a 2-BR @ Discovery Beach Resort in FL Dec 11-Dec 18, 2010  105K points 
3. 7 Nights in a 2-BR @ Resort on Cocoa Beach  in FL Mar 13-Mar 20, 2011    28K points
4. 7 Nights in a 2-BR @ Wyndham Ocean Walk  in FL Nov 19-Nov 26, 2010    28K points

 
To Sum up:  I had purchased 469,000 points from my eBay® seller. Of those points 364,000 have a Use Year of January to December. In any given year, any of those points not used by the expiration date of the Use Year (December 31) will expire. Wyndham has flexibility and many guidelines to help you use your points before they expire; but you must plan ahead and use those guidelines effectively to avoid what I referred to in my first article as “nickel and dime” fees.

O. K.!  As of the first week of March, 2010, I had 91,000 points to dispose of before March 31, 2010 when my 2010 Use Year for those points was due to close. I had no need to use any of the 91,000 points to make an internal reservation before March 31, 2010, so my next step was to break up the 91,000 and make additional deposits with RCI® before the Use Year ended.  As my grandkids would say – “Are we having fun yet…” or was it “…are we there yet?”

During that first week of March, 2010, I contacted another Wyndham Vacation Counselor to ask her to make three separate deposits of 28,000 points with RCI®.  The deposits were made the same day to conserve my allocated 2010 calendar year complimentary Wyndham Reservation Transactions. For RCI purposes, because the deposits were made after March 1, 2010, I effectively extended my travel opportunities until March 31, 2012.   

TIP:  Remember you only get one complimentary Reservation Transaction for each 77,000 points that you own in a calendar year. To avoid having to pay for Reservation Transactions later in any given calendar year conserve your Reservation Transactions by doing as many as you can on the same business day. Those of you who are Gold or Platinum VIP you paid handsomely for the privilege of getting unlimited FREE Reservation Transactions; but regular VIP  (who also paid a great deal for their points) and those of us who bought re-sell are only getting one Reservation Transaction for each 77,000 points in EACH calendar year so conserve them.

Illustration #7 - Display of Points & Housekeeping Credits on March 15, 2010

Rather than wait two years to make my exchanges with RCI®, I decided to again look for a bulk deposit by a developer into RCI®.  On March 24, 2010 a Starwood bulk deposit was spotted at the private, for TUG Members, Sightings Forum. An RCI® Vacation Counselor was contacted and the following exchanges were made using the above mentioned three 28,000 point deposits: 
 

1. 7 Nights in a 2-BR Vistana Beach Club, Jensen Beach, FL Mar 06-Mar 13, 2011     28K points
2. 7 Nights in a 2-BR Vistana Beach Club, Jensen Beach, FL Mar 20-Mar 27, 2011     28K points
3. 7 Nights in a 2-BR Vistana Beach Club, Jensen Beach, FL Mar 27-Apr 03,  2011    28K points

By looking closely at Illustration # 7 above, you can see that, once again I found myself with points about to expire, but with not enough points to make a reservation. Notice, that the 7,000 points leftover were 2010 points that were due to expire March, 2010 and that I still had 105,000 points available for use in my 2010 January-December Use Year.  Because, all the points involved were 2010 Use Year points, the overlapping made it possible for me to combine the April-March, 2010 leftover 7,000 points with 21,000 of the 2010 leftover 105,000 points remaining in the 2010 Use Year with an end date of December 31, 2010.

Once again, I contacted a Wyndham Vacation Counselor (VC) and asked her to help me combine the remaining 7,000 points with 21,000 points that she could take from the 105,000 that I still had available. The Wyndham VC did as I asked and that created a 28,000 point deposit that she immediately, at my request, deposited with RCI®. As you can see in Illustration # 8 below, I still had 84,000 points in my 2010 January-December Use Year.

Illustration #8 - Display of Points & Housekeeping Credits on June 1, 2010

Not one point of the 105,000 April 1, 2009 – March 31, 2010 allotment of points was wasted!

By the way, that 28,000 point deposit did not sit at RCI® very long. On May 3, 2010 I used it to confirm a 2-BR Unit at Wyndham Ocean Ridge, Edisto Island, SC for 8/29/210 – 9/5/2010. 

The remaining 84,000 points left over from my 2010 January-December Use Year will be taken care of during the first week of December, 2010 when the points will be split into three 28,000 increments and deposited with RCI®.  By waiting until after December 1 the deposits will be good for an RCI® exchange for up to two years ending on December 31, 2012.

At the start of this series of articles you were warned that the Wyndham point system was complex; and that there is a lot of what I referred to as “nickel and dime” costs; but now you have this and the other articles in this series as reference tools. 

Yes, the description about how my points were used during my first year was detailed; but at times the nuggets you are looking for are found in the details. Once you realize how flexible the system is you can “work the system.” Make a mental note that these articles exist and re-read them again from time to time when you are looking for an explanation for how the system works.  

For those of you who really get into the proactive management of your point portfolio, drop by the TUG forums some time and share your experiences. To just about everyone else reading these articles, you will use your points differently than I have this past year and no doubt, I will use my points differently year to year; but flexibility is the primary attraction of points.

Good Luck with your purchase and trades and drop by sometime to say howdy on TUG.

Dave

Final Notes:

As stated at the close to the Introduction.  The ten articles in this series were written for purely altruistic reasons and the articles are for your personal use. The information herein was provided freely in the hopes that it will be helpful to you.  However, if you desire to publish or use any of the articles on your website or distribute any part or all of the series to others please ask for permission. I can be reached through the TUG Forums by Personal Message to Goofyhobbie.   

Footnote:

If, you have any inquiries regarding how to use Wyndham’s product features or benefits consult Wyndham’s written documents and materials including the resort directory for additional information about how to use the product.

Wyndham Forums on TUG