WorldMark by Wyndham Resorts (Trendwest)

Wyndham Vacation Ownership is the world's largest vacation ownership company with over 140 resorts throughout North America, the Caribbean and the South Pacific; with over 18,000 condominium units and 750,000 members.

Local resorts throughout the USA and more exotic locations give access to a number of leisure activities including fishing, skiing, boating, swimming, shopping, golfing, hiking, horseback riding and gambling.

Wyndham Vacation Ownership operate vacation ownership under four different brands:

WorldMark by Wyndham Resorts

Trendwest was founded in 1989 and today, WorldMark by Wyndham Resorts as it is now known, have over 200,000 members with access to over 60 resorts in Arizona, British Columbia, California, Colorado, Fiji, Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Louisiana, Mexico, Missouri, Nevada, Oklahoma, Oregon, Utah and Washington.

WorldMark by Wyndham (Trendwest) have two resorts in Florida:

The condominiums range from studios to one, two, three or four bedrooms and come with full kitchens and a private balcony or terrace. The Florida condominiums are all one, two or three bedrooms. The three bedroom apartments will sleep up to 8 people.

WorldMark by Wyndham Membership

Trendwest were innovative when they started by being purely points based (similar to the way that the Disney Vacation Club operate today) rather than being based on fixed or floating weeks. A lot of the current timeshare organisations still require you to purchase a fixed or floating week at a particular resort and then convert them into points, but WorldMark by Wyndham is entirely points based; they are called Vacation Credits.

This gives you ultimate flexibility but it also means you may need to book up well in advance to secure the resort and time of year you want.

WorldMark by Wyndham operate two ownership schemes:

Both are transferable to family and friends.

If you have Premier Ownership, then you are entitled to Bonus Time which allows you to purchase additional vacation time (subject to availability) without dipping into your Vacation Credits. You can currently buy Bonus time at 4.2 cents per credit and rules apply regarding how much you can buy and how frequently.

The cost to join Worldmark by Trendwest varies depending on how many Vacation Credits you wish to purchase. The minimum is 8,000 credits which are currently priced at $1.60 per credit; i.e. $9,600 which will guarantee you a weeks vacation at most resorts. You can also purchase additional credits at a later date in blocks of 1,000.

Annual maintenance fees are based on the number of credits and currently work out at around $700 for 12,000 credits.

WorldMark by Wyndham Vacation Credits

You are allocated your vacation credits on the anniversary of your original purchase; equal to the original number purchased. You can always upgrade by purchasing additional credits and they are then renewed at the same time as the original credits.

Credits can be carried over (banked) to the next year and they then expire at the end of the second year if they are not used. If you are not planning to use them, you can also place them in the Resort Condominiums International (RCI) program. You can also borrow next years allowance to increase your available credits in the current year.

Another benefit of the points system is that you can stay one night, a week or even a month, it just depends on the time of year you wish to travel, how large a unit you require and how many points you want to spend. The number of credits required may vary by day of week.

Seasons are denoted as Red (high), White (mid) and Blue (low) and will vary by resorts and even year to year. Reservations are allowed up to 13 months in advance.

WorldMark by Wyndham Perks

If you join one of the exchange program companies such as Resort Condominiums International (RCI) then you can exchange your points for a vacation at one of RCIs resorts (first year's membership is free, fees apply).

You can also trade your points for stays at more than 6,400 franchised hotels in the Wyndham Hotel Group.