Platinum turns to coal..

Yesterday I discussed my brilliant plan to purchase timeshares to a high enough level that I could actually recoup much of my annual maintenance fees --- and have enough ownership that upon my retirement I could travel more extensively with my ownership. After spending $$,$$$ to obtain Platinum status, I was able to spend 30 days a year vacationing for about $50 a day. Not too shabby!

... until the Platinum turned to coal!

The parent company for Fairfield Resorts was Cendant. In 2006, Cendant purchased the brand name Wyndham and spun off "Fairfield" as Wyndham Vacation Resorts. Now don't get confused with the upscale hotels named "Wyndham". Most of those reverted to high class management and NONE of them are actually owned by the company that now holds the name Wyndham. Talk about confusing!

So, this company called Wyndham, that owns nothing named Wyndham, decides to rename all of their resorts (formerly called Fairfield) to Wyndham. Wow! I wonder why the great charade of musical name changing? Perhaps it was because the name Fairfield shows up 36,300,000 times when you type it into Google. And, most of those entries are not very favorable for Fairfield's great name. For instance, if you add the word "fraud" to the search, there are 871,000 hits. If you add the word "scam", you'll get 381,000 hits.

Now, I obviously have some extra time on my hand, but I certainly can't look at these millions of entries to itemize the major complaints against this company, but they were certainly extensive. So, it is no wonder Cendant came up with the brilliant idea of confusing the hell out of everyone and making the public think that these timeshares are part of the luxury hotel brand - Wyndham. Let me repeat though - Wyndham does not own even ONE Wyndham hotel! Damn, this corporation is good! Now, if you go back to Google and type "Wyndham and fraud" you only get 174,000 hits - and with "scam" it's 111,000. So, in a year, just by buying a reputable name and dumping their tarnished name, they were able to go from 1,252,000 negative reports to only 285,000. That's 1/4 as much bad publicity overnight, with deniability of even being part of the bad seed - Fairfield.

In truth, the product was 1000 times better under the leadership of Fairfield, prior to Cendant's involvement. Even before they came up with the scam of changing names to Wyndham, they were killing the benefits of ownership of the Fairfield timeshares. The founder of Fairfield must be rolling over in his grave as he watches these heavy hitting corporate thugs destroy an innovative idea and perfect vacation ownership concept.

I don't even know where to begin to discuss how much this company has taken away from owners in the last few years. I guess one of the main problems is that the company decided to start renting out units themselves. If you think this hurts my ability to rent the handful of rentals I do each year, you are mistaken. I am still able to rent a few weeks and recover some of my maintenance fees, but I'm not really able to go on my own vacations anymore, because now the company is renting off the very weeks that I have been able to reserve previously. I questioned how they are able to do this. You won't even believe this if I told you, so I'll show you instead. Here is what the Trust Agreement for my timeshare ownership says:

11.08 Wyndham Use. In addition to the right of Wyndham, as a Member and owner of Points, to make reservations using those Points at any time, Wyndham, in its
capacity as the developer of resort communities and Vacation Plans, may
reserve available Accommodations up to 60 days in advance of the first day
of anticipated occupancy, for its own purposes, including renting to the public,
provided it pays or otherwise causes a third party to pay the occupancy related
expenses of such Accommodations for each night to be used. All such occupancy
related expenses shall be determined by the Trustee. As a result of Wyndham's
use there will be less space available for Member use; however, Wyndham may not
reserve the last 10% of available occupancy for a type of Accommodation until 30
days prior to the first day of intended use. In addition, to the extent more
points are available in the Plan than are allocated to Members other than
Wyndham, Wyndham may sell or lease Points on such terms as Wyndham and the
Trustee deem reasonable. The purchasers or lessees of such Points shall have
such Membership rights as Wyndham and the Trustee deem appropriate.

Sounds crazy, but it's true. They started this a few years ago in small batches, noticeable to some, but not too devastating to owners, who were still able to make reservations.

But, let's keep in mind what I discussed yesterday - this company sold thousands of owners on buying up to the Platinum level (which I already explained is more vacation time than any normal family can use) on the promise of booking inventory at a 50% discount at the 6o day window and renting out what you can not personally use. By the way, they call this inventory "distressed", because nobody has booked it yet. Most timeshare owners book months, sometimes years in advance. So, they offer this distressed inventory at a discount to Platinum owners because they would rather have "heads in beds" than an empty room. Remember, every warm body that walks through the doors is a prospective buyer, so they were quite happy to have Platinum owners use our excess inventory to rent out reservations within the 60 day window.

Until their business started getting a bit shaky. Of course the economy took a toll on the hospitality industry. So what, I don't own a hotel room - I own a condominium timeshare. Why should I care? Well, since the company was failing, they decided to step up their tempo of pulling out this free inventory and renting it. Lots of it ---- nearly all of it. They even worked some system loopholes so they could get it at 62-63 days before check-in, just to make sure no legitimate owner was able to book it before them.

No way! That would be theft. Nope, not when they wrote it in the Trust Agreement that they were able to have it without paying a dime back to the owners of the timeshare interests. So, 100% of the rental money goes in the greedy corporate executives bank accounts. Wow, why didn't I think of that?

Come to think of it, who did think of that? I checked my deed and ownership information and found out that I belong to the FairShare Vacation Owners Association (VOA), which is a non-profit corporation established in 1991 and based out of Arkansas. I don't even belong to anything called Wyndham. Oh, wait, just saw in that Trust Agreement for the VOA that Wyndham appointed themselves to run the VOA - FOREVER - and allowed themselves to make, change, modify, whatever to the terms and conditions of the Trust. In fact, it turns out that when I signed that I agreed with what was written in the Trust Agreement back in the 1990s, all I really signed was that I agree that they can do whatever the hell they want, whenever they want, and for whatever reason they want, without me or any other owner ever being able to stop them, challenge them, or even have their decisions justified.

Wow, my mother always told me to read the fine, fine print. I guess I should have listened better. But, it really was a great ownership until these greedy crooks decided to start robbing inventory from the owners and renting it on their own.

In fact, even after they started robbing this inventory, I was still able to go on vacations - I just had to plan it a bit better and pay more points than usual. Oh, or I always had the choice of going to the company's rental department, called "Extra Holidays" and renting from them some of the inventory that should have been available to me as an owner. In fact, they sold me to my current ownership level on the promise that this inventory would be there for me. They sort of didn't lie. It's still there, I just can't book it with my ownership anymore. Now, if I want to use the inventory that belongs to me (in the VOA that I belong to), all I have to do is pay them and rent it from them. Great deal, eh?

Sorry about the tangent. As I was saying, everything was still ok at this point. I'm tired again, so will have to wait until tomorrow to finish up about how Wyndham Vacation Resorts went even further than just stealing our inventory. In fact, I'll share with you how they knocked the owners to the ground, then stabbed each and every one of them right in the back.

Happy dreams to all.... Good-night.