Pooling cancelled points

[sandkastle4966]

after 20 years of ownership, I am ready to pool points - one question left...

I have cancelled points in the use year I want to start pooling - can cancelled points be pooled?

(If this going to start an audit on my account !)

 

[ronparise]

I can tell you the way pooling should work. Bottom line there is no such thing as cancelled points anymore. When you cancel a reservation the points are supposed to come back as regular use year points i.e. To go back to where they came from. If the reservation was made with 2017 points, when that reservation is cancelled the points ought to go back as 2017 points. And if the reservation was made with pooled points when it's cancelled the points should go back to the pool

At present however it's not working the way it should. There were unintended consequences to the recent changes to the cancellation policy that affected pooling and their computer systems couldn't handle the change

I think Wyndham knows they made a mistake with their last change to the cancellation policy. and they are trying to figure out the unintended consequences of what they did and what they ought to do about it

 

[Sandy VDH]

Officially there is NO such thing as cancelled points anymore. However from Wyndham's computer system point of view, there is a glitch and SOME but not all cancelled points are not returned to an account appropriately in wyndham's system, and become essentially orphaned from their underlying contract. Problem is that NOT all cancellation transactions create this problem, I believe the problem is in cancelled reservations made with points that are already pooled. In these cases the points are going back into the wrong inventory bucket in the orphaned status. They are going back in as regular and not pooled.

In these cases an Audit may be required to let Wyndham figure out what it's computer system has done, and sort it out. Am audit does NOT mean a frozen account BTW.

 

[Sandi Bo]

In the last week or so I credit pooled our 2017 points. We are VIP Platinum. It was a 2 step process. It was fairly painless and took a few business days. Overall not nearly as painful as I thought it might be.

1) I had to request that our points be reviewed and have housekeeping credits assigned to them. I was told that while cancelled reservations return as regular use year points, the housekeeping credits do not. And although VIP platinum have unlimited housekeeping credits, they need to be attached to the regular use year points in order to credit pool the points. The VC said, if not the system tries to bill for them. Thus I first requested they fix my points so they had the proper housekeeping credits attached. This request (to "fix" the housekeeping credits) is sent to a special department. I requested this on a Wednesday. On the following Monday I received an email from 'MBX - Owner Services Confirmations <OwnerServicesConfirm@wyn.com>'. It stated 'We have received your request regarding your recent inquiry about your point status. Your account has now been updated. Housekeeping Credits have been corrected on your account. This change may take up to 24 hours to reflect online, but the points are now available to book.'

I did not make any reservations in my account between the request and the email stating my account was adjusted (so I could watch closely and make sure things looked ok to me). My points were not affected - only the housekeeping credits.

2) After receiving the email, I called and asked to credit pool my points. I was only able to credit pool as many points as we receive each year. This was done while I was on the phone and points were available immediately. It was very painless. They did miss one of my contracts and credit pooled slightly less than they should have. It wasn't worth my time to call and have that corrected. I got the feeling things are still very manual (thus the missed points).

I do have more points in my 2017 use year than I receive in a given year. I was only allowed to credit pool the number I receive in a given year. The reason I have more is because of the issue there has been when cancelling a reservation - reservations made from credit pooled points were returning as regular use year points. Again, it's just not worth my time at this time to pursue anything further. I'll use the points (my way of fixing things myself). I will watch more closely and call immediately if points don't return as they should moving forward.

If you want to credit pool - I think you are fine. My suggestion is get yourself to a place where you know exactly where you stand, cancel anything you think you might need to cancel. Take screen shots. And try not to have any activity between when you request the housekeeping creidt alignment and when you receive notification it's been done. And take more screen shots - when you get the email saying they've adjusted your housekeeping credits and then once again after you credit pool (next day beginning point status).

The point status page doesn't always refresh, but it usually does (except for Saturday nights). The Sunday point status page rarely reflects Saturday activity. So don't credit pool on a Saturday if you are trying to keep a close eye on your points. You can also watch your balance (real time) on the RCI -> Request RCI Deposit page. But it will not show you credit pooled points.

 

[Sandy VDH]

I do what ever bookings I do, and cancellations I do. It would be 4 or 5 booking/cancel transactions, depending who I am looking for something for. I update the points I expect to see in a spreadsheet, where I have a column for each expiration date bucket of points, either regular or pooled. I then wait the until the next day (its longer on the weekend as the batch job does NOT post, why who knows), I take a screen shot once my transactions are posted and the point status page has been updated. I verify this with what I have accounted for. I do this after EVERY book/cancel transaction. I compare what I expect with what Wyndham thinks I have. I don't trust Wyndham's computers to do it right.

If I notice a discrepancy I call owner services and have them look at the points.

Since I am VIP Platinum, at least I do not have to worry about Housekeeping and Transaction fees, but I keep an quick eye out for Housekeeping credit anomalies based on Sandy Bo's post.

 

[bnoble]

I, too, had some oddness in pooling my 2017 points---and I had made no reservations at all in the 2017 UY (at least, I don't think I did). I am also a "small-time" owner w/just 189K annually. But, my housekeeping credits still had to be re-stacked in order to pool; not sure why, and I did not get much in the way of details. I was able to do it all on one call, because I was also making a reservation that day. I have some pool credits expiring in 2018, and I wanted to draw from those rather than my regular 2017 points, so I was pooling 2017 to get them "out of the way." Luckily, the VC understood exactly what I was trying to do, and it took being put on hold a few times, but otherwise ran smoothly.

 

[markb53]

Last August I credit pooled all my 2017 and 2018 points before I made reservations for 3 week in Hawaii for summer 2017 that would take almost 3 years of points. I put them all in the credit pool first so that if plans changed and I had to cancel they wouldn't go back to regular points that I would have to use too soon. It is a good thing I did since plans did change and I have to move the Hawaii trip to summer 2018, so 3 days ago I canceled those three reservations in Hawaii and made a couple of new reservations of for summer 2017. And then I waited to see what happened to the other credit pooled points. I was ready this morning to have to call Wyndham since I have read on TUG that some have had points come back in the wrong place. But this morning all my points showed up in the credit pool expiring Aug 2019 just where they should be.

 

[Sandy VDH]

I found returning cancelled point into the proper points pools was glitchy, which is the problem. In many cases it returned properly, but NOT always. I think that is IT's problem, figuring out what situation is causing the glitch, and having pool point reservations which are then subsequently cancelled, NOT returned to the correct inventory buckets.