Wyndham timeshare offer: 3 nights + 30K points for $199

A Wyndham Rewards timeshare offer came in via email today that sounds pedestrian enough: get 3 nights plus 30,000 Wyndham Rewards points for $199 plus tax when you agree to attend a 120-minute timeshare presentation. Destinations include places like Las Vegas, Orlando, San Antonio or even the Smoky Mountains. I’ve bolded that last one because I had an excellent 4-night stay there at my first Vacasa vacation rental booked via Wyndham Rewards. As my cabin would have been north of $400 per night with cleaning fees, getting enough points to book a night for $199 sounds pretty tempting even before you consider the 3 night stay that comes with the package. But looking at the accommodation options made me wonder: will I also earn Marriott points and elite nights for booking the Fairfield Inn or Springhill Suites with this offer?

The Deal

• Club Wyndham is offering a timeshare presentation incentive of 3 nights in select destinations (subject to blackout dates) plus 30,000 Wyndham Rewards points for $199 in exchange for attending a 120-minute timeshare presentation
• Offer expires April 3, 2023 and stay must be completed
  within 12 months of purchase.

Direct link to this deal

Key Terms

• Vacation Package Details: Attendance to a 120-minute timeshare sales presentation is required in order to participate.
• Offer expires April 3, 2023 and stay must be completed
  within 12 months of purchase.
• This offer is valid in all US states except for residents of: HI, MT, ND, SD, UT, WV, and WI.
• This promotional offer is available to individuals meeting financial eligibility requirements who are 28 or older with full-time employment or 60+ and fully retired.  Minimum annual household income may be required where financial eligibility requirements are not met.
• Guests who are showing signs of intoxication that may impair their decision making may not attend the presentation.
• Must bring a valid photo ID and a major credit card to check-in at your accommodations and presentation
• There is a maximum of four presentations per household per year
• Link to full terms

Quick Thoughts

This deal isn’t as strong as the one they ran previously that also included a $100 coupon for a future hotel stay (and at that time, at least one reader called and was offered an even better deal of 30K points and a $175 coupon).

The only reason this deal initially caught my eye was because I was just in the Smoky Mountains using Wyndham points last Fall. Of course, I was staying at a Vacasa vacation rental. I didn’t expect Wyndham would be putting guests up in one of those, but while I was there in Pigeon Forge I passed the “Club Wyndham” timeshare resort a couple of times (and also a Wyndham “welcome center” of sorts in the middle of Pigeon Forge at “The Island”). I even thought about wandering in to one of those locations to ask if they had any timeshare presentation deals, but I didn’t expect they’d let us bring the kids and I wouldn’t have left them with anyone.

So when I saw the email today and saw that they were advertising the Smoky Mountains, I clicked through. I input some dates in the fall to check availability. I checked that time of year because we thought that the fall foliage must be beautiful there and I had previously looked through Vacasa and all of the fall weekends were pricing in the $600’s and up for rentals that were ordinarily less than $350 (and thus ordinarily available with Wyndham points, but surely blacked out every weekend). I wondered what availability would be like for Club Wyndham.

I expected that Wyndham would put you up at the timeshare property they are trying to sell. However, when I clicked through the email to search, I was surprised to see that it says “Stay at a local area hotel which can sleep up to 2 adults and 2 children” (bold is mine).

I got a chuckle out of the fact that despite it saying the room would sleep up to 2 adults and 2 children, the search tool allowed for 1 child maximum.

But that chuckle quickly morphed into a full-on belly laugh when I saw that the first search result to book this Wyndham timeshare offer is at 2 different Marriott properties (Fairfield Inn and Springhill Suites) or a Holiday Inn (which belongs to IHG).

Lest you think that is some glitch that would error out at the next step, I assure you that Wyndham will gladly sell you a room at the Fairfield Inn at $250.09 with tax.

I looked up the Fairfield for the same dates through Marriott.com. The best flexible rate for a room for the same dates came to $589.32.

That said, it’s worth noting a few things:

1. I assume that you will not earn Marriott points or elite credit on a booking made through Club Wyndham.
2. While the Club Wyndham package notes free cancellation, you have to click for details to find out that you must request that cancellation within 7 days of purchase via mail. In other words, good luck cancelling. You can reschedule dates once for free, but after that or within 5 days of arrival greater penalties apply.

I suppose a more fair comparison then is to the prepaid / nonrefundable Marriott rate, which would be about $459 for the same dates. The timeshare package is still a deal considering that it would cost less than $250 for the room and the 15,000 points.

If you value the room at all, this can be a pretty good deal. Wyndham ordinarily only allows a member to buy up to 45,000 points per year. Since the points here are an additional incentive, I assume they do not count toward the purchase cap. If you’ve already bought 45K points this year, this may therefore be a way of getting a combination of a cheap room and reasonably priced points beyond that cap (depending on how you value each side).

If you think you might book this, I would certainly recommend calling and seeing if you can get a better deal. Stephen reported a few years ago on a better deal he got in person in Myrtle Beach (I’ve tried a couple of times to replicate it but haven’t been able to do so). You should also be ready to say “no” a lot (do yourself a favor and read Stephen’s post). The fine print notes that timeshare prices range from $11,800 to $92,700. I’ll let you guess at which end to expect the pitch to begin.

In all honesty, maybe this practice of putting guests up in hotels from other chains is more common than I realize as I don’t make a habit of attending timeshare presentations. However, I’m certainly not opposed to the idea of listening to the pitch for a decent incentive — though the salesperson would certainly have their work cut out for them in convincing me why I need to spend tens of thousands on a timeshare when I have the Wyndham Earner Business card for 8x at gas stations.

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