Complaint Review: Wyndham Vacation Resorts - North Myrtle Beach South Carolina

I strongly urge anyone who is on vacation to beware of this scam from Wyndham Vacation Resorts. Up front, the discounts that are offered by just "taking a tour" of a newly remodeled Wyndham resort are amazing. We ended up receiving $185 of attractions for $20, which was amazing. However, the papers that we initialed and signed stated that we would be given free buffet breakfast, take a 120-minute tour of a newly remodeled Wyndham Resort, and then you will receive the 2nd half of your coupons. We also signed that if we did not stay through the 120-minute presentation/tour we would not receive our 2nd half of our coupons and we would be charged the full amount of it all instead of the $20. 

First problem...the first office took our credit card information and told us that we were being charged the $20 in that office. When we finished with the tour, they asked for our card to charge it there for $20 and told us that it would not be charged by the other office. 

Second problem is that the breakfast was horrible! When our 4 year old, who absolutely loves any kind of breakfast food asks you "how do they make these eggs because they are really bad"...you know you have a problem. However, I would have settled for this if everything else wasn't so bad. 

Third problem...the box that we initialed clearly stated 120-minutes. That's it. 2 hours. That's it. We were practically held hostage for 4.5 hours! That is more than double the time! Let me explain why this was unacceptable. First off, they told us if we didn't let them run my wife's credit we would not be able to participate and we would have to pay the full price of the discounted package we received. There was nothing in there that said we had to sign up for anything or run our credit. It said a 120-minute presentation/tour! After this, we sat through a 30 minute presentation that glorified the Wyndham resorts. They explained that at $147 a night, for 14 nights a year, for 25 years, at 8% inflation, we would be paying roughly $188K over a lifetime. This is simply just spending money on a hotel. I work at a hotel management company and I get to stay at Hilton, Marriott, and IHG hotels for $29 a night. This would roughly be $29K for 25 years of vacationing. So right there we knew this was not worth it for us.

When we finally got out of the presentation we had been there for an hour already. So we were expecting to be there for only another hour. Our sales rep showed us the breakdown of the fees. For a 400,000 point plan, which I have heard doesn't get you very much, it costs $1200 a month! You will be paying $100,000 plus interest to be able to take limited vacations. Oh, and after you pay this entire $100K you are still not done paying as there are maintenance fees each year for the duration of the time you own your vacation. So not only am I paying over $100K to own this, but then I have to pay at least $550 a year in maintenance fees for the rest of my life! 

After this was offered to us we kindly explained that we are able to stay at Hilton, Marriott, and IHG hotels for $29 a night, we are in the process of buying a home, we just got married and are on our honeymoon and we are not going to be able to sign up for this nor do we have an interest in doing so. Our sales rep then brought over his sales manager to talk with us. She offered us 200,000 points for $600 a month. We declined for all the same reasons. She said ok that it was totally understandable and that her sales rep needed to quickly get us out of there as we were on our honeymoon. It had now been 2.5 hours! 

Our sales rep came back and told us that we needed to take a tour and then he could get us on our way. He took myself, my wife, and our 4 year old to tour 2 resorts. This took another 30 minutes as there were a ton of people and we were waiting for elevators for at least 5 minutes each time. We were under the assumption, due to the fact that he said after the tour we will get you going, that we were done. Nope! When we got back to the corporate office we sat down with him again and he had his sales manager come over again and offer us 87,000 points for $150 a month. We again, declined because of all the same reasons and I finally stated that we did not want another offer given to us, that we had been there for over 3 hours now and we would like to take our child to the beach with the little sunlight that was left in the day. She said ok and they brought over the hospitality rep. 

This hospitality rep asked us a few questions and then proceeded to give us yet another offer. He offered us 2 years to try it out for $3500 at $140 a month and then either we commit and that money goes to our down payment, or we don't and we lose that money. Again I explained that we were not going to buy anything as this is not something that is beneficial to us and we had made that clear. I also said that we had been sitting there for 4 hours when we were only told 2 hours and that we had a vacation to get back to. After 30 more minutes of sitting there waiting we were finished. 

When we went to go turn in our paperwork and get our $75 gift card to a restaurant on the boardwalk we were among other couples who were told what they had originally offered us was actually different than what we were getting. The lady tried to give us a $50 gift card. I said that I did not just sit through a 4.5 hour pressure sale for $50 when I was told $75! We got our $75, I filled out a survey and we left. 

Here is what I don't understand, other than the fact that this company is raping their owners of money and time, if vacations are so important to you, and memories are so important to you, then why in the world would you say we are going to be there for 2 hours and you keep us for 4.5 hours?! This was half of our vacation day! I understand that we received $165 of savings, but I would have rather paid that then have lost my 4.5 hours of vacation time with my family. 4.5 hours of a high pressure sale, insulting comments about people who stay in hotels and don't own Wyndhams, and stories about how people who have money from retired military and basketball careers are able to afford this when clearly we are none of those people is something I would have paid more than $165 to avoid. 

Do not be fooled by this! Spend your money instead of saving it with these so called tours! I sure wish I would have.