In answer to THAT "how did a fixed week unit get hi-jack'ed". The fixed week computer system is older than most laptops. The 'correction' to the points system is to "BLACK OUT" the fixed week in the separate points reservation system. So a person with access LOOKING for a particular date & a resort will see if without a assigned guest/owner (and hence a NO reservation number) ... but not a REASON as to WHY it is unbooked. I am sure with a 'override', the points supervisor (in the points system) or a front desk resort clerk, can allocate it to a points owner as the inbound guest.
I had a BIG discussion several years ago with the Santa Barbara (new) front desk supervisor who KEPT TELLING me she could not manually enter my guest as inbound to my fixed week ownership ... I had go onto the points reservation system and PAY for a GC. I finally convinced her to look up the unit in her inventory (a week 10 - March on South Florida ... to see if she could find it and who had reserved it).... this being 2 or 3 weeks before check. She told me it was not reserved ... and I asked, "REALLY, you have empty March weeks not booked on the points system?" Told her to FIND the fixed week system for my ownership ... which would NEVER be on the points system. Took her several hours to get "learned".
And I have had FRONT DESK staff move a complaining guest into my FIXED WEEK units ... be cause it was NOT RESERVED yet in the points system.
Linda,
You are SO right about FW units and many of the resorts have a nearly manual system in place to manage them. When we use our FW units, or I send renters, we have to literally re-language the check-in process for the front desk staff so they can find the reservations at check-in. They are so used to only looking for point reservations.
In my posting above, I think the fixed week Overlap by the OC that called me informing me of the points reservation cancellation was a crap excuse but its the best explanation she could come up with, presuming it was on the fly. I didn't actually believe her because, like you, we have multiple FW units at a combo Legacy location and have years of experience dealing with the nuances of FW units.
After grilling the OC I could tell she was just parroting whatever she had been told by her superiors. It wasn't worth more energy beating her up. She was a pawn in the process. Our FW units NEVER make it to the points reservation system.
Which is why I immediately called the resort and talked to more experienced, long term staff that we work closely with all year long, to find out what were the ACTUAL problems they were encountering. It wasn't about FW units at all. It was about WYN not getting their inventory accounting right related to Week 53 this year. Our FW resort still has a LOT of week 53 FW owners.
This isn't the first or last time WYN will screw this up. Extra Holidays will throw reservations at the resorts for inventory that doesn't exist and resort staff has to scramble to figure out how to make it work. Have had many discussions with resort staff that handle rentals that come to them via EH and it's frustrating for them because EH brings a hammer to the game while at the same time the resort still has to satisfy long-time owners that just want to get into their annual FW units.
We have had SO many people beg us to convert our FW to points and it's just NOT going to happen as long as we own. There are still a lot of advantages to having FW units in the WYN system as much as CWA has tried to chew up the FW contracts.
Still, another example of how WYN is struggling to manage inventories accurately and the crap excuses they come up with when they cannot.
-- Caite
Wyndham cancels those regularly.