There was a time when loyalty meant something.
The local butcher knew your preferred cut, the publican remembered your usual, and the family holiday spot welcomed you back each summer without demanding a password, six security questions and proof that you had spent enough money to remain “Platinum”.
Today, loyalty is more commonly measured in points, tiers and brightly coloured apps. Australians dutifully scan, tap and spend, only to discover that the reward they were chasing has moved farther down the road.
Little wonder, then, that paid loyalty programs are beginning to look increasingly attractive. Consumers appear more willing to pay for membership when the value is clear, the benefits feel worthwhile, and the relationship delivers something more memorable than a discounted toaster.
In travel, that “something” is often deeply personal. It is the annual family escape, the resort the children remember, the balcony where grandparents watched the sun go down, or the holiday tradition that survived busy careers, school calendars and the occasional airport meltdown.
Vacation ownership has been quietly trading on those emotions for decades.
Loyalty with a suitcase and a soul
The 2026 For Love or Money report, the 14th edition of Australian loyalty research from The Point of Loyalty, examines the changing relationship between consumers, brands and loyalty programs.
Travel + Leisure Co. believes the growing appeal of paid loyalty closely reflects the principles on which vacation ownership was built: commitment, access, recurring experiences and a sense of belonging.
It is an interesting comparison.
A conventional loyalty scheme asks customers to spend first, accumulate points and hope the promised reward remains within reach. By contrast, points-based vacation ownership begins with an upfront purchase. Members receive an allocation of holiday points each year, providing booking currency within the relevant resort portfolio.
One arrangement dangles the carrot. The other hands you the holiday calendar and suggests that you start planning.
Programs such as Club Wyndham South Pacific and Accor Vacation Club are designed around this longer relationship. Depending on the membership, club rules and associated benefits, points may be used for resort accommodation and other travel opportunities.
Some members may also gain access to holiday exchanges, cruises, tours, hotel loyalty conversions, and bespoke travel packages. The proposition is not merely to collect points, but to turn them into stories worth retelling around the family table.
“Vacation ownership was already building genuine member loyalty long before the term ‘subscription economy’ became popular,” said Barry Robinson, President and Managing Director of International Operations at Travel + Leisure Co.
“We don’t ask members to take time accumulating points before they see value; their membership level depends on how many points they purchase up front—and that fundamentally changes the relationship.
“Vacation ownership has always been built around long-term relationships through experiences, family traditions and future holidays and that is exactly where loyalty is heading now.”
There is the emotional heart of the argument. Loyalty is not simply a commercial equation scratched onto a spreadsheet. At its best, it becomes anticipation: knowing another holiday is waiting, another destination to explore, and another family chapter left to write.
Members voting with their holiday points
Travel + Leisure Co.’s figures suggest many owners are doing more than merely staying aboard.
The company says 53 per cent of Club Wyndham South Pacific members have upgraded their ownership. It reports that 22 per cent have upgraded twice, while 13 per cent have upgraded three times.
The highest available level, the 100 Club, accounts for 4.3 per cent of the Club Wyndham South Pacific membership base. Travel + Leisure Co. also says members of Club Wyndham South Pacific and Accor Vacation Club use more than 90 per cent of points issued annually for accommodation or other benefits.
The company supplied those figures, and this article has not independently audited them. Even so, they suggest more than casual participation. People do not generally increase a long-term holiday commitment three times because they enjoy collecting membership cards.
They do it because travel has become part of how they see their lives.
The appeal is easy enough to understand. Work expands, household expenses multiply, and the supposedly sacred family holiday can be quietly pushed into next year. Then next year becomes the year after that. By establishing an annual allocation of vacation points, ownership can place travel back on the family agenda before everyday life elbows it aside.
From one generation to the next
Here the story takes on a significance far beyond room nights and redemption charts.
The terms of Club Wyndham South Pacific and Accor Vacation Club extend to 2080. Subject to the applicable rules, ownership may be transferred to relatives or friends, potentially allowing another generation to enjoy the same membership status and benefits.
That makes vacation ownership an unusual proposition. It is not simply about where people stayed last year. It is about who might travel with those memories tomorrow.
Club Wyndham South Pacific owner and 100 Club member Ian Mackie joined with his family in 2008.
“We joined Club Wyndham South Pacific in 2008 to prioritise our holidays and we’ve enjoyed countless holidays, both through the club and using the ever-expanding range of benefits that unlock the power of ownership,” Mackie said.
“In the next few years, we’ll scale down our travel, and we’re looking forward to seeing our children and their children get value from our ownership.
“They are excited about it because they know that they will be the same status within the club as we are and will have access to all the same benefits without having to meet a changing set of conditions, year after year.”
Behind those words sits a familiar and quietly moving truth: every traveller eventually reaches the day when the suitcase is packed less often.
But holidays leave fingerprints on a family. Children remember the swimming pool, the unfamiliar breakfast buffet, the first glimpse of the ocean and the year Dad forgot the passports. Parents remember something else—the precious, fleeting period when everyone was together.
Jules Baumann, another 100 Club member, joined in 2002 and is also looking towards the next generation.
“Our children will inherit our ownership and are already familiar with how to get value from it, having used it alongside us for many years,” Baumann said.
“We are confident that the standard and quantity of holidays we have enjoyed, both as a couple and an extended family with children and grandchildren, would not have been achievable without club ownership.”
That is loyalty in its most persuasive form. Not a plastic card gathering dust in a kitchen drawer, but a tradition passed from one generation to another.
A growing Asia-Pacific portfolio
Travel + Leisure Co. has developed Club Wyndham South Pacific since 2000. In March 2024, it acquired Accor Vacation Club, adding 24 resorts and nearly 30,000 members.
The transaction also provided rights to develop new Accor-branded vacation ownership products across Asia-Pacific and several other international markets.
Travel + Leisure Co. now develops and operates four vacation clubs in the region: Club Wyndham South Pacific, Club Wyndham Asia, Accor Vacation Club and the recently launched Accor Vacation Club Asia Pacific.
The company says the four clubs collectively serve more than 100,000 members. Its Asia-Pacific network includes more than 100 properties, including 58 in Australia, with options ranging from beachfront resorts and mountain retreats to city accommodation and tropical escapes.
For travel advisers and the wider hospitality industry, this growth is worth watching. Vacation ownership can encourage repeat travel, longer-term brand engagement and a more dependable stream of holiday demand. It also gives operators something increasingly difficult to secure: a customer relationship that may last for decades.
Romance must still meet arithmetic
There is, however, a sensible line between embracing the dream and becoming intoxicated by the brochure.
Vacation ownership is not a free loyalty scheme with better bathrobes. It can involve a significant upfront purchase, annual levies and a lengthy financial commitment.
In Australia, timeshare schemes are generally regulated as managed investment schemes and treated as financial products. Prospective members should consult the relevant Product Disclosure Statement and understand every cost, obligation and limitation before signing.
Club Wyndham South Pacific’s 2026 supplementary disclosure statement lists annual levies beginning at $869.60 for ownership of between 6,000 and 7,500 vacation credits. Larger holdings attract higher levies, while other charges may apply in certain circumstances.
Travellers should consider booking availability, financing costs, annual fee increases, transfer arrangements and whether the membership will continue to suit their circumstances. Holidays may be priceless in the family album, but the contract most certainly has a price.
The Australian Government’s Moneysmart guidance on timeshares recommends comparing the full cost with independently booking similar holidays. Consumers should also understand their cooling-off rights and consider independent financial or legal advice.
For families who travel regularly, understand the program and use their points well, vacation ownership may deliver substantial lifestyle value. For those whose finances, health or holiday habits are uncertain, a decades-long commitment may prove less comfortable than the resort photographs suggest.
Where loyalty may be heading
“With today’s consumers demanding more value, flexibility and memorable experiences from loyalty programs, vacation ownership offers a different approach that aligns with changing expectations,” Robinson said.
“This industry has always been about belonging, access and long-term lifestyle value, which is exactly where loyalty trends are heading.”
He has a point.
Consumers have grown weary of loyalty programs that move the goalposts, dilute the rewards or treat long-standing members like strangers arriving without a reservation.
Paid loyalty succeeds when it replaces vague promises with something tangible. Vacation ownership takes that principle a step further by tying membership to travel’s most emotional purchase: time away with the people who matter.
It will not suit everyone. No holiday product ever does, not even the cruise buffet, despite heroic claims to the contrary.
Yet the success of vacation ownership demonstrates that travellers will make a long-term commitment when they believe the experiences will justify it. The industry did not invent the human desire to belong, return and remember. It simply built a points system around it.
The newest trend in loyalty may therefore be an old truth dressed in modern clothes: people remain faithful to the brands that help them live well, travel often and bring home stories worth keeping.
By: Maysa Punchanit – © 2026.
Read Time: 6 minutes.
Author Bio:
Maysa Punchanit has never waited for life to become easy. She’s far too practical for that. Instead, she’s built her path the way many strong women do, step by step, job by job, learning something useful everywhere she’s been.
Her working life has taken her through hospitality, sales, beauty therapy and the fast-moving world of social media, where she partnered with some of Thailand’s best-known companies. Along the way, she discovered a steady voice for blogging, warm, direct and grounded in real experience rather than marketing spin.
Being a single mother sharpened her resolve rather than slowing her stride. If anything, it gave her purpose.
Now with Destination Thailand News and Global Travel Media, Maysa arrives not as a newcomer, but as someone quietly battle-tested, resilient, capable and ready for the next chapter.
