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Conflict of interest: Wyndham/RCI? (by Jackie P.):

Wyndham DOES NOT own RCI. It is a lie that their sales reps often tell. Wyndham and RCI are owned by Cendant Corp that owns MANY corporations.

jamess524 wrote:

Until I stayed at a wyndham resort over the weekend, I didn't know that they owned RCI. My experience, though, makes me wonder if there is some kind of illegal conflict of interest in the relationship.

After cheking in at the Kingsgate reort near Williamsburg, VA this weeknd, we accpeted $75 in gift cards to attend a 21-question "Wyndham evaluation." I knew enough to expect that the “evaluation” was going to be more than 21 questions, but what actually happened really turned me off to Wyndham. For a half hour or so, we chatted with the sales rep about our current property and how we use it, building up to his pitch on Wyndham’s point system. Then he said “I’m going to pull up you RCI account to see if it’s configured correctly.” I told him I was not comfortable with that and he replied “Since Wyndham now owns RCI, I can do it whether you give me permission or not.” That, to me, is totally unfair (information is power in negotiation), so I called an end to the meeting and walked out. My wife stayed behind long enough to find out that we needed to do an evaluation of the session to avoid being charged for the cards we received. We did, and when the second rep doing the evaluation asked, I told him why I was unhappy and that it made me wary of doing any business with Wyndham. He then replied “Since Wyndham now owns RCI and the most properties in the business, you don’t have much choice.” Maybe that kind of arrogance works for some customers (maybe it’s how they get people to pay full price for properties that can be had a resale for a fraction of their price), but it was a total turn-off to me.