The New Club Wyndham Website (General Discussion)

[happyhopian]

Intent and words like "ergo" do not change the fact that Wyndham did not do anything illegal. Aside from the fact that the new website sucks in general, the changes in the way reservations and upgrades are handled in no way changes the rules. It does not change what we were told. We were told that we could get upgrades and discounts in the 60 day window (platinum) We were told that the then current reservation system allowed you to gamble using the cancel rebook strategy. We were not promised it would always work, and indeed it did not always work, even with the help of a VC. The new booking engine makes it even harder to do a successful cancel rebook, but in no way changes the discounts and upgrades I am entitled to get. I don't like the new reality, but it does not rise to the level of fraud or theft. The new website, by denying owners there basic entitlements due to the many errors, now that might constitute theft. Freezing accounts for indefinite periods, but still requiring MF's, that might be fraud or theft. Changing the booking engine to diminish the ability to double up on discounts and upgrades, but not preventing those functions, not theft or fraud.

As one who practices their learnings I would ask you this. In your opinion is Wyndham in trouble IF they are registered as a trustee and they have a conflict in that they make money from the decisions they are making on behalf of the trust? Now ask yourself IF in fact their decision for the TRUST improves THEIR bottom line while diminishing value from others what is your answer? And finally, take the minority representation analysis - are they willing to put aside their own benefit for the benefit of the least? Regardless of what the sales contract provides for there are specific limitations on the actions of trustees.

As to the website failures. I don't think they are intentional in that they went looking to destroy it, but I do think they rushed to get something in place to meet some needs or goals we don't know about (insert Ron's speculation about his personal interaction here). BUT, this isn't our backyard tree fort - this is a billion dollar operation and if THIS is the level of management and professionalism then one has to start asking about their fiduciary duty.

Contracts are contracts but as lawyer you know that you cannot contact away your rights or any federal/state statues. Wyndham can make us sign anything they want but they cannot require less of themselves than the law requires. This is where my beef with them is and I've done a good bit of talking with the regulatory agencies in the last month about it. Don't know if anything comes of it, but I can assure you they are interested and they questions are being looked at but I'm curious your opinion as well.

 

[happyhopian]

And the upgrade cycle is also designed to NOT give out as many upgrades.

Cancellations do not get matched to waiting requests, they go into inventory first, allowing any other member to book them at full points, or allow a VIP member to get an upgrade (if a smaller unit is available if your lucky) or get that unit at a VIP discount ahead of the person waiting for the upgrade batch to run. Designed to give less upgrades or just poorly designed, I can't tell, but it doesn't work very well.

The upgrade batch job is in doubt if it is running at all, or at more than a once a night frequency, as there have been situations reported that for 3 days period inventory existed to upgrade into but NO upgrade was processed by the batch job.

In the last 5 days....
Is the upgrade batch job running?? Has anyone a REQUESTED UPGRADE been matched lately?? Has anyone else received notices to take away upgrades previously granted

My answers
I don't know if the batch is running, I have no proof one way or the other, hence my question.
I have my examples where inventory was available but my request did not get matched. Over the phone I was told 'BATCH RUNS OVERNIGHT'.
Last noticed I received about taking away an upgrade already provided was 5 days ago.

I had an esclated issue on triage and spoke with OC rep today who called me. Apparently some sort of specialist in OC on the website and told me that upgrades are realtime. I told her I didn't believe her - in a light hearted and laughing way and she said she didn't believe much of what she was being told either.

 

[happyhopian]

Fraud? Fiduciary duties? Please look up the legal definition of fraud and explain how it relates to cancel-rebook.

Do you really think VCs are fiduciaries?

he doesn't know. He just didn't like the fact that people used their points, as they were allowed to and got more for their ownership than others did. I appreciate that position just as I do the folks who waited in line overnight at bestbuy and bought all the xboxes I wanted to get for my kid a few years back.

 

[happyhopian]

I just love how you guys gang up on me.
It was happyhopian that stated these offenses were committed against the rest of the other owners.

You guys need to look at your premises. If you do something illegal it was still illegal whether legal action is taken or not.
People commit fraud everyday. It's still fraud if no legal action is taken

You are just silly or truly braindead. Please point to me where the rules, today, yesterday or the initial set prohibit cancel rebook. CERTAINLY with all the talk about how bad Wyndham wanted to stop this PLEASE tell me they updated that position in the rules. yes? I understand some folks didn't like it but it was never prohibited and with all the talk about this being their reason for doing all this - don't ya think they would have included one simple mention about what isn't allowed? The fact is they don't care and the website change are about MUCH MUCH More.

Did you know that for the first time EVER all wyndham properties, booking, reservation, sales and everyone are all on the same system? I'm staying at a resort this weekend and I spent two hours with the general manager who told me what he knew. There is SO much more to all of this than some silly speculation that this is about cancel rebook

 

[comicbookman]

As one who practices their learnings I would ask you this. In your opinion is Wyndham in trouble IF they are registered as a trustee and they have a conflict in that they make money from the decisions they are making on behalf of the trust? Now ask yourself IF in fact their decision for the TRUST improves THEIR bottom line while diminishing value from others what is your answer? And finally, take the minority representation analysis - are they willing to put aside their own benefit for the benefit of the least? Regardless of what the sales contract provides for there are specific limitations on the actions of trustees.

As to the website failures. I don't think they are intentional in that they went looking to destroy it, but I do think they rushed to get something in place to meet some needs or goals we don't know about (insert Ron's speculation about his personal interaction here). BUT, this isn't our backyard tree fort - this is a billion dollar operation and if THIS is the level of management and professionalism then one has to start asking about their fiduciary duty.

Contracts are contracts but as lawyer you know that you cannot contact away your rights or any federal/state statues. Wyndham can make us sign anything they want but they cannot require less of themselves than the law requires. This is where my beef with them is and I've done a good bit of talking with the regulatory agencies in the last month about it. Don't know if anything comes of it, but I can assure you they are interested and they questions are being looked at but I'm curious your opinion as well.

If you can establish that they are profiting from the chaos, then yes they have probably violated their fiduciary responsibility. I think it would be a stretch to prove they are profiting due to the chaos. They operate the website under contract to the HOA's, not the trust. The rules are set to benefit the trust, and the rules are not the problem. Cancel rebook did not violate the contracted rules, but neither was it guaranteed by those contracts. The fact that the website sucks is more an issue for the HOA's, which represent regular owners (weeks) and the trust (CWP, and indirectly CWA since it owns deeds allocated to CWP). Any "wrong doing" on Wyndham's part is more likely to be found in relation to the suspensions and what they show about their inability to properly account for CWP points. From an IT perspective the mess of a reservation system/website is unlikely to be engineered on purpose. It is just a really bad design that was rushed out without proper testing. That of course is only my opinion.

 

[Braindead]

That might not be the way you understood it and you might not like the fact that VIPs with lots of point could book 3br units at half the cost of a 1br but that is EXACTLY what wyndham intended. In fact this is what the OC rep told me three years ago .

If that's exactly what Wyndham intended. Why are we all going through this mess with the new website ?

 

[ilya]

You are just silly or truly braindead. Please point to me where the rules, today, yesterday or the initial set prohibit cancel rebook. CERTAINLY with all the talk about how bad Wyndham wanted to stop this PLEASE tell me they updated that position in the rules. yes? I understand some folks didn't like it but it was never prohibited and with all the talk about this being their reason for doing all this - don't ya think they would have included one simple mention about what isn't allowed? The fact is they don't care and the website change are about MUCH MUCH More.

Did you know that for the first time EVER all wyndham properties, booking, reservation, sales and everyone are all on the same system? I'm staying at a resort this weekend and I spent two hours with the general manager who told me what he knew. There is SO much more to all of this than some silly speculation that this is about cancel rebook

I'd really like to know more about what the manager told you and what the website changes are about. I've thought about it for a while and believe it goes much deeper than meets the eye..

 

[Braindead]

I'm not picking on you here. I think your report from the update is great and it shows how they are spinning this - but I see NO reason they have provided for an owner to buy developer points to upgrade and get VIP status. I'm waiting to hear that pitch from someone.

Now I see =two important points here.

If half of the inventory is tied up in c/r then where is it when the transaction goes through? In other words we should see the other half coming back on line when the complete the c/r process but as someone who watched the screens every day, at BC the largest target of megas - inventory rarely came back. The key is that after 60 days it goes to Wyndham's extra holidays so if there was any extra it went there and THAT is what most smart people are asking about. It's not that this in violation of their contract with us but as a designated trustee in a regulated business, with a publicly traded company - there could be legal trust issue in their role as a trustee (which is to make decisions in the best interest of the owners independent of how that will impact your own interest and in fact some would argue that they should have no vested interest in the trust but I think that is too much to ask.

The second point is where they said there is not cancel rebook. That is not true. I've done it and others are figuring out how. It will be less ,but it is and will happen.

Comicbookman had it right in a post above. They haven't changed the rules. They just changed how things are working.

Think about that for a minute. They didn't change the rules (and Lord knows they could have added that in with all the recent rule changes).

Here we are all guessing what they intended and wanted, so ask yourself this. If their intention was to stop cancel rebook, why not make is crystal clear and add a rule saying that this is not allowed in addition to their system changes. That makes ya go hmmmmm doesn't it.

Ya know why they didn't put it in there, because it can still be done. You have to closely manage the 60 days, and how many units on hold, have more than one person on the account and such. I'm not saying this can be done as a for profit business but it can and has been done since the conversion. Trust me I got a dozen bookings thus far.

Now Wyndham with all our speculation hasn't specifically said you cannot do this so how can anyone with a straight face said this is or was not allowed.

Your not picking on me. I simply posted the current spin.
I didn't say I agreed or it was factual.
The shocker to me is how they didn't even push sales. They are evidently beat up that bad. I didnt see anyone signing contract papers

 

[Braindead]

Did you know that for the first time EVER all wyndham properties, booking, reservation, sales and everyone are all on the same system?

Everybody keeps saying that.
But last week I called in about an expiration date under my VIP status and OC said they couldn't see it.
I made sure they were looking at the same page on my account. They stated it wasn't showing on their end. They were either lying or it simply wasn't there on their screen but it was on mine with both of us looking at the same time. So off to triage to see if they see it

 

[ilya]

Your not picking on me. I simply posted the current spin.
I didn't say I agreed or it was factual.
The shocker to me is how they didn't even push sales. They are evidently beat up that bad. I didnt see anyone signing contract papers

I just heard someone bought at Ocean walk last week. They were told you can still do the cancel/upgrade with in 60 days . Was given 300 ,000 bonus points and maintenance fee was $52/month. Loan payment $200/month.. There must be a spin with the maintenance fee and loan payment.

 

[WalnutBaron]

As one who practices their learnings I would ask you this. In your opinion is Wyndham in trouble IF they are registered as a trustee and they have a conflict in that they make money from the decisions they are making on behalf of the trust? Now ask yourself IF in fact their decision for the TRUST improves THEIR bottom line while diminishing value from others what is your answer? And finally, take the minority representation analysis - are they willing to put aside their own benefit for the benefit of the least? Regardless of what the sales contract provides for there are specific limitations on the actions of trustees.

As to the website failures. I don't think they are intentional in that they went looking to destroy it, but I do think they rushed to get something in place to meet some needs or goals we don't know about (insert Ron's speculation about his personal interaction here). BUT, this isn't our backyard tree fort - this is a billion dollar operation and if THIS is the level of management and professionalism then one has to start asking about their fiduciary duty.

Contracts are contracts but as lawyer you know that you cannot contact away your rights or any federal/state statues. Wyndham can make us sign anything they want but they cannot require less of themselves than the law requires. This is where my beef with them is and I've done a good bit of talking with the regulatory agencies in the last month about it. Don't know if anything comes of it, but I can assure you they are interested and they questions are being looked at but I'm curious your opinion as well.

If you look back at Post 1274 in this discussion thread, I believe Cayman got closest to the real reason this whole mess happened: the very integrity of the Wyndham trust was at stake because of years of mismanagement allowing VIP's to upgrade without having sufficient inventory in the system to satisfy all of the members' confirmed demand. The new website was supposed to help trust management take control over the situation in an orderly, seamless manner over time once it was released with WYN management exercising more forceful control over existing rules that had not been enforced and which WYN's VC's had even been encouraged to violate in the past for VIP owners.

The problem was that the new website was not going to be ready nearly in time, because the trust was in danger of imminent collapse--and then there would be massive grounds for lawsuits. WYN management had a terrible decision to make: do we wait for the website to go through complete testing, which could take months, or do we rush this thing out there to put a finger in the dike before the whole thing comes down? And the answer, of course, is that the website would be both the fall guy and the straw man. It would focus owners' anger on the website while--like the Wizard Of Oz--asking owners to "pay no attention to the man behind the curtain".

Management could handle wrath. It could handle charges of incompetence. It could not handle the massive lawsuits. It could not wait for the dike to break, and it could not survive the collapse of the trust. There was a run on the bank, even though the depositors didn't know it. They couldn't close the doors or create undue panic, so they threw out Great New Rates For Our Best Customers!!! as the straw man to keep owners from focusing on the real mess.

 

[Braindead]

The second point is where they said there is not cancel rebook. That is not true. I've done it and others are figuring out how. It will be less ,but it is and will happen.

Comicbookman had it right in a post above. They haven't changed the rules. They just changed how things are working.

Think about that for a minute. They didn't change the rules (and Lord knows they could have added that in with all the recent rule changes).

Here we are all guessing what they intended and wanted, so ask yourself this. If their intention was to stop cancel rebook, why not make is crystal clear and add a rule saying that this is not allowed in addition to their system changes.

In the future the cancel rebook should only work on the smallest units at high demand times.
The main reason you can still do it today is the auto upgrade isn't working in real time.
If the auto upgrade doesn't work in real time. They didn't change anything. Cancel-rebook-cancel-upgrade will be exactly as in the past if it's not real time.
You cancel anything but the smallest unit it should be someone elses upgrade.
If you try to cancel-rebook. Then cancel a larger unit. You won't get the upgrade because you lost your place in line for the upgrade.

 

[55plus]

I just heard someone bought at Ocean walk last week. They were told you can still do the cancel/upgrade with in 60 days . Was given 300 ,000 bonus points and maintenance fee was $52/month. Loan payment $200/month.. There must be a spin with the maintenance fee and loan payment.

Nothing will change - sales weasels will continue to lie, twist the facts and tell half truths. That's their job: lie and say anything to make a sale. They are free to say whatever they have to to make a sale because buried in the contract the new owner (the mark) signs releases the sales weasels and Wyndham from the lies told upon the purchase, in so many words. If statements made during the sale process were to be held as fact timeshare sales would drop off considerably.

 

[lost patience]

In the last 5 days...Is the upgrade batch job running?? Has anyone a REQUESTED UPGRADE been matched lately?? Has anyone else received notices to take away upgrades previously granted?

Here are my experiences:
- NO requested upgrades have been matched. Yet - I HAVE booked the exact same dates with instant upgrade
- I have NOT received upgrade revoke notice (I did receive revoke notice last week, but not in the last 5 days)
- I had one reservation that showed upgraded in my owner list, but the resort did NOT honor the upgrade.
- I have had several reservations that would not cancel.
--- Wyndham did provide refund of the points for 1 reservation. They are listed as "goodwill award".
--- One reservation just disappeared. It does not show on my cancelled reservation list. There are not any points adjustments. I DO have a screen show showing it. (Time to call again....)
- Items I cancel typically do NOT show up again. As auto upgrade does not seem to be working, I started watching carefully, but only on a rare occasion do I see the cancelled unit reappear. This applies to 1br as well as larger units.
- VC told me that they only worked overtime the week after the new system went online.

 

[Sandy VDH]

In the last 5 days...Is the upgrade batch job running?? Has anyone a REQUESTED UPGRADE been matched lately??

Here are my experiences:
- NO requested upgrades have been matched. Yet - I HAVE booked the exact same dates with instant upgrade

Thanks,

I am still seeking proof that the upgrade batch is working, so NOT yet any positive reports to show that it has, yet plenty of proof to show it is not.

 

[ecwinch]

As I stated previously, why eliminate some features and degrade search functions on a new website unless it was by design? Does anyone have a legitimate answer? Perhaps to benefit Wyndham and Extra Holidays. . .?

Was it by design? Certainly.

But anyone who has spent time in the software development field knows this is exactly what you get when you throw a bunch of requirements over the fence to programmers, and said programmers make a bunch of assumptions of what people "want" and how people use what they have. Typical ivory tower programming with programmers who dont understand the system they are replacing.

But nothing malicious here. Just poorly articulated requirements and a flawed software development process. I have seen this so many times with software projects. Incompetence - yes. Fraud - no.

 

[happyhopian]

If that's exactly what Wyndham intended. Why are we all going through this mess with the new website ?

There are lots of reasons - waitlisting, reduce rental competition for Wyndham, put all resorts on the same booking reservation as call centers. Remember this isn't just a website change. Any IT person here (for which there seems to be a lot) will tell you the front end is the least of their issues right now. It's the database that is causing the corruption. The front end can do anything they want, they just have to allow it. I think we are all being WAY to simplistic to think this is just about c/r. That gets folks like you and COSkier and others all ginned up and probably allows them cover for all the screwups to say things will be so much better now but you've got some serious experience like Ron and Comicbookman telling you that they've been here before and they've watched people adapt and make way. Again - if they wanted to stop c/r they would have simply added that in the last amendment - even a whiff - it's not there because they don't care IMHO.

I called yesterday on my way back from my resort stay. Held for just over 90 minutes to get owner care making my weekly call to resolve the negative points/lost points/wrongly returning to wrong use year points issues that they are trying to fix for thousands of owners. On that call I specifically asked if they could cancel and rebook a unit for me and they guy said sure and then went on to tell me that I might need to book the other unit first, cancel, then cancel and rebook...he went through and entire scenario before saying (like they always have) now you realize you could lose this unit if we cancel it. At which point I said eh, let's not do that. My point being. They have no problems but the downside ricks has increased significantly because of the new upgrade system.

The upgrade system is what has caused all this stir - and the interpreted killing or wounding of c/r. Let's think about that. Was that really an attempt to kill c/r or was it an attempt to beat the bots that were snagging every unit hour by hour before any human could do so. There have been two rumors for years about voyager. Wait listing for reservations (something RCI - a Wyndham company already offers) and wait listing for upgrades. My opinion (and I guessing here like all of you) they were implementing features owners have previously asked for along with some trust management issues which have been problematic like the push forward credit pool Ron has spoken in great detail about.

C/R is not dead. It won't be as prevalent and the Mega's will not be able to use the bots and the reloads to catch inventory as they use to but I promise you it is not dead AND it is not prohibited any more than the guy who goes to walmart on black friday and buys his limits of xboxes with the full intention of going to sell them on ebay to people who didn't feel like getting up at 1am.

When Wyndham inserts a rule that says 'a member may not cancel a unit previously reserved and rebook the same style unit for the purposes of gaining a discount during the discount period" then I will agree that this is prohibited by Wyndham. Enforceable or not, that would make things clear. It would shut down employees talking about it and doing it. With all the changes Wyndham made to the rules that one was a bit obvious to have been left out IF that was their intentions. I don't think it was. I don't think they care to that level and with the screw ups they are dealing with right now and the dozen of folks I've talked to in the last month - I guarantee you it's not on their radar today.

 

[Roger830]

Was it by design? Certainly.
But nothing malicious here. Just poorly articulated requirements and a flawed software development process. I have seen this so many times with software projects. Incompetence - yes. Fraud - no.

This seems the most likely scenario.

When I supported a small manufacturing company IT, except for minor requests, it was often difficult to determine what was really needed to fulfill a requirement. Not a whole lot of thought was put into what was actually required. I would usually develop a project in steps working with the users to feel out what was needed.

It seems that with Wyndham, the users were ignored until after implementation.

 

[happyhopian]

I'd really like to know more about what the manager told you and what the website changes are about. I've thought about it for a while and believe it goes much deeper than meets the eye..

Ya know that's a funny question. I've talked to him for years about getting things done and taking care of my people (and my family) but I've just never had a reason to ask about procedures and such. I do now and he was more than willing to talk. We had coffee for two hours and he vented while I vented.

Get this - he had never seen the owner's website. He had no idea what the front end looked like or how it operated. Now remember the resorts are not in reservations. Their system is totally different and he showed me. Theirs is more of a search engine, look up records interface. They have many reports on usage, checkin/out, fees, they have some management reporting tools but no ability to make a reservation. I will say that their ability to look at inventory and check availability is MUCH more broad than ours. He pulled up a screen that showed the count of availability per room type for each week and you could drill down into that week to see the details. So this makes me think the front end functionality is of course on their radar but I doubt they are rolling out anything new until they fix the current issues - which are NOT front end (website) issues.

The biggest benefit to them is real time data. According to him, in the past there was a scheduled download and merge of data from the call centers to the resorts. This is why we could call a couple of weeks out and they had no idea who was staying in a unit and/or guest confirmations got messed up. Now it is all real time. He could see my reservations and my confirmations out for months at his resort. He could see my room assignment and make changes to shift inventory. For the resorts he said this is a total game changer in room management and guest service.

The more I learn about this the more I am convinced that Wyndham was stupid (if not worse) for trying to roll out something SO big and so complicated with such short notice and right at the beginning of summer. BUT I am also realizing that they had several limitations none of us know about. What are these resort systems? Are they old mainframe, oracle, IBM are the data terminals or do they have jave/html5 cloud functionality to do all of this in a WAN as opposed to a lan system? I am seeing more limitations in what they had to build to get everyone on the same page, with the expectations that from there they could begin broadening the abilities -- that is, until it blew up and corrupted in the transfer which it what has been confirmed by many. Now they are writing code on a live database trying to find the issues which is still causing corruption. My credit pool is the perfect example. I had 1 million credit pool points at transfer. As those points have been used and cancelled they are going back to the most random use years. Where they started in a may 2017-2020 use pot they are ending up in 2019-2020 2016-2017 and yes some are going back to 2017-2020 but at a reduced rate than what was credited back EVEN THOUGH my transaction history shows the correct points being returned. Wyndham is aware of this problem and it is affecting tens of thousands I have been told.

Had they done this in pieces over a year they would have had great success and we would all be happier, though some would still be unhappy and that's expected. This however by the measure of everyone including the resort manager I spoke with - has been a total failure and the ramifications have been HUGE.

Look when the girl at the parking pass desk is nodding her head in shame when I ask if she's seen the wyndham facebook page - it's bad.

 

[happyhopian]

with WYN management exercising more forceful control over existing rules that had not been enforced and which WYN's VC's had even been encouraged to violate in the past for VIP owners.


Management could handle wrath. It could handle charges of incompetence. It could not handle the massive lawsuits. It could not wait for the dike to break, and it could not survive the collapse of the trust.

As to the trust yes, but as Ron has endlessly pointed out - this was about credit pooling -though he will tell you it shouldn't impact the trust as the points are being paid for. When you push 2-3 years worth of points into one year, at the level of MILLIONS and as high as tens of millions, two things are going to happen. Inventory is going to dissappear and if they're are no failsafes, you're going to end up with a points management/inventory problem. THIS is where the trust was having issues - not cancel rebook which is simply usable inventory being used (fairly or unfairly) there is no impact on the trust at 60 days usage AFTER wyndham takes their cut for 60 days. The crisis IMHO was the growing number of people figuring out what Ron had been taught. AND let us not forget that something went wrong in the old system too. Remember for the last year folks were getting credited back double and triple points on cancellations. We don't know what we don't know but damn we are all enjoying speculating

AS to the more forcefully enforcing existing rules, will you please send me the page cite where cancel/rebook it not allowed or even referenced in the fairfield, wyndham past or newly revised rule sets. This is the 'rumor' that keeps festering animosity among people. Cancel / Rebook is no different than the guys waiting in line all night at walmart to buy out the xbox so he can sell them on ebay. Walmart instilled a limit on how many you can buy. So now he takes his wife. Wyndham implemented changes that will create limits too - 48hr guest cert and such. These will limit the megas who were booking like drunk sailors in hopes they could rent out, and in many cases would just expire the units if they didn't book. That in my opinion was more hurtful to owners than if they had been returned (and there are several on here that can explain to you why they didn't care if they lost the points because they had historical results that they were more likely to rent in the last 14 days than actually lose the points but it did happen).

I stand by my opinion from all the calls I've had that the upgrade feature is a results of the waitlisting requests that have been circulating for years because again - if they were attempting to outlaw something wouldn't you create a rule ESPECIALLY if you are already rewriting the rules at the same time, yet not a single mention.

 

[happyhopian]

You cancel anything but the smallest unit it should be someone elses upgrade.
If you try to cancel-rebook. Then cancel a larger unit. You won't get the upgrade because you lost your place in line for the upgrade.

This is the exact question of analysis for those who want to use c/r. Your assumption is very basic and misses a few points which you would need to consider.

1. When is this c/r taking place?
At 60-46 days you are only competing against platinum owners. Silver and likely gold will NEVER have the chance to make this happen but platinum will seeing that less than 10% of ownership is platinum and how much of that is booking at the same resort, in the same windows?

2. What is the number of offerings in the system?
If there are lots of different views, room sizes, handicap, hearing and such each one of those are going to be in different 'upgrade' paths.

3. What window did you book rebook? There is an argument to be made that you can book multiple bookings, pay the guest fee (or use multiple owners - you'd darn sure add a name for $299 than pay $100 multiple times). With multiple rooms you stand a better change in the upgrade process. Same actions as before.

4. What is the pattern of the upgrade system? Is it immediate, 12 hours, 4 hours, 1 hour? These are database questions. As of now units are not returning immediately to inventory as confirmed by a few people here. Also upgrades are NOT happening as they have units inline to upgrade AND they are seeing the inventory return. AND points are not returning immediately, (though it can be, it can also be 10min-1 hour according to wyndham rep I spoke with). No idea if this is temporary or a problem with running backside inventory checks before running the scripts which might be creating duplicated inventory issues.

These are only a few of the issues some of us have been discussing in private chats and in open posts. And know this - if us middle schoolers are talking about this stuff don't you think the folks with 35 - 100 million points in management pools are talking about it with some paid help!!!

 

[happyhopian]

But nothing malicious here. Just poorly articulated requirements and a flawed software development process. I have seen this so many times with software projects. Incompetence - yes. Fraud - no.

Agreed to this extent - are they working to protect THEIR assets more than the owners? Are they still getting their inventory for extra holidays even though owners cannot book? Fraud doesn't generally start with fraud. It's the coverup that convicts. I do not think anyone is this stupid to walk into a fan blade as they have done, but I do think they are stupid enough to try and fix the problems affecting them to the demise of the ownership knowing that no one has the money, time or interest to go after them to undo it.

 

[cayman01]

This is the exact question of analysis for those who want to use c/r. Your assumption is very basic and misses a few points which you would need to consider.

1. When is this c/r taking place?
At 60-46 days you are only competing against platinum owners. Silver and likely gold will NEVER have the chance to make this happen but platinum will seeing that less than 10% of ownership is platinum and how much of that is booking at the same resort, in the same windows?

2. What is the number of offerings in the system?
If there are lots of different views, room sizes, handicap, hearing and such each one of those are going to be in different 'upgrade' paths.

3. What window did you book rebook? There is an argument to be made that you can book multiple bookings, pay the guest fee (or use multiple owners - you'd darn sure add a name for $299 than pay $100 multiple times). With multiple rooms you stand a better change in the upgrade process. Same actions as before.

4. What is the pattern of the upgrade system? Is it immediate, 12 hours, 4 hours, 1 hour? These are database questions. As of now units are not returning immediately to inventory as confirmed by a few people here. Also upgrades are NOT happening as they have units inline to upgrade AND they are seeing the inventory return. AND points are not returning immediately, (though it can be, it can also be 10min-1 hour according to wyndham rep I spoke with). No idea if this is temporary or a problem with running backside inventory checks before running the scripts which might be creating duplicated inventory issues.

These are only a few of the issues some of us have been discussing in private chats and in open posts. And know this - if us middle schoolers are talking about this stuff don't you think the folks with 35 - 100 million points in management pools are talking about it with some paid help!!!

I think we can all agree that this is the end of cancel/rebook as it has been known. The rules have changed and that is that. You will STILL be able to cancel/rebook, but you're not going to have the easy success that used to be available. As has been stated, it is not illegal, there is no rule against it and Wyndham is not going to get rid of it. It's just going to be a lot harder to do successfully.

I think Wyndham did this for two reasons. I don't think they care as much about Megarenters as they care about 4BR PRunits being rented, for a profit, for less than $1000 a week . Level the playing field there for Wyndham. The other reason is I believe Wyndham was tired of all the complaints about all the units being scooped up on the first day of availability. The irony is, with the new rules they will almost certainly go faster, but more people will get them.

There is nothing wrong with these rule changes. The problem is the implementation has been a complete disaster. The new website is what we are truly all fired up about. If the new website had gone off without a hitch I think we ALL would be in agreement that we could live with it and the rule changes and we would be hard at work on workarounds. But that didn't happen.

I think C&R is going to become R&C. Find a nicer unit at 60 days, book it at half points and cancel the original. Upgrades will happen for Platinum and on a much smaller level Gold and Silver but only when the databases get fixed and that might not be til next year. With tens of thousands of errors as has been reported it is going to take that long to fix I believe. Don't look for the automatic upgrade working properly any time soon. You might get one, but odds are it will get cancelled.

 

[Baby Jane]

he doesn't know. He just didn't like the fact that people used their points, as they were allowed to and got more for their ownership than others did. I appreciate that position just as I do the folks who waited in line overnight at bestbuy and bought all the xboxes I wanted to get for my kid a few years back.

Not sure why he's mad we used our points to get more out of them. Besides the high maintenance those who bought a million or more points also for the most part paid a small fortune. Shouldn't someone who spend $100000 be getting more than someone who spent $13000 to $25000. We live in a world where everyone thinks everything should be equal. Maybe he would feel better if we all donated our

Thanks,

I am still seeking proof that the upgrade batch is working, so NOT yet any positive reports to show that it has, yet plenty of proof to show it is not.

If upgrade is available when booking it works fine but none of my other bookings are in upgrade window

 

[Sandy VDH]

Yes more examples of WTF... somehow between the reservation summary and the next trip info it shifted the stay forward by a day. Now my dates didn't change but my guess is that somewhere there are using different timezones that is perhaps shifting the display by a day. Don't know what else would shift it, without actually changing it.