Got to LOVE those calls from guests when checking into my Fixed Deeded Week ... and..

rickandcindy23 · Jul 1, 2016

Wyndham has some nerve! I am glad you got it straightened out, Scott!

scootr5 · Jul 1, 2016

rickandcindy23 said:
Wyndham has some nerve! I am glad you got it straightened out, Scott!

Yes, it's just tough for the weekend reservations because the department that handles them goes home on Friday and doesn't come back until Monday. You have to really stay on top of them.

ronparise · Jul 1, 2016

scootr5 said:
It shouldn't be this hard.

I have a guest checking in at Avenue Plaza today, two units (one for four nights, and one for 3). I put the reservations in his name in April, I called the resort two weeks ago to verify they had him as an inbound guest. I was told they had his name and mine listed, and everything was good.

Guest arrives today, and they tell him the reservations are in my name, and I have to be there to check in. He puts the front desk on the phone, and they tell me I have to call Interval and get a guest certificate. :roll eyes: I point out the Interval has nothing to do with these, they are not points reservations, they are on the weeks side. They then tell me I have to call guest services and get guest certificates for them. I emailed the desk copies of the guest confirmations that my guest had in hand. I ended up having to call the weeks reservation department and get it straightened out.

Good thing it wasn't a Saturday, because they have no way to talk to them on the weekend.

Dont get me started on Avenue Plaza I have 16 guests there this weekend. Last years Essence Fest they overbooked and walked one of my guests, who had a one bedroom unit to a flea bag Wyndham hotel room with no kitchen. I was on the phone earlier this week to make sure they had my guests names straight this time. And I have an unrented room just to be sure that if they are over booked, it wont be my guest that walks. And yet and yet they screwed up one of my guests tonight

Ill be at the next HOA meeting

am1 · Jul 1, 2016

Par for the course. Maybe even a birdie when compared to other situations with Wyndham.

ronparise · Jul 1, 2016

am1 said:
Par for the course. Maybe even a birdie when compared to other situations with Wyndham.

The common thread here seems to be the resorts that have a mix of fixed weeks converted to points and fixed weeks

VegasBella · Jul 1, 2016

The first year of my ownership of a fixed week fixed unit had been set up by the previous owner to go into the rental program but that was not part of our sales contract and should not have happened. It was actually just a mistake (he put it in the rental program every year) by the seller but it should have been double checked by the resort management company. I was furious when I wasn't able to use my week. After many frustrating conversations with various staff members I finally sent this email below (edited for privacy) and it worked like a charm!

To whom it may concern:

We are owners of unit [number] week [number] at [resort]. Our week was fraudulently put into the rental program and is set to be rented out.

1. We have a signed sales contract that states our first year's usage is in [year]. That agreement was signed [date]. It is attached for your records.
2. The Grant Deed was signed [date].
3. The deed was recorded by the [county name] County Recorder's Office [date].

According to phone conversations with representatives from [resort management company] and [closing /title company], the following events are presumed to have occurred:
1. The rental contract was signed between the former owner and [resort management company] AFTER we became owners and AFTER the deed was recorded by the [county name] County Recorders Office.
2. The closing documents received by [title company] and [resort management company] did NOT state which year was our first use year; [rental company agent] stated that she received documents with missing data and she WRONGLY assumed first year's use was [year].

We seek to use our ownership this year, [year]. We have politely contacted various representatives from both companies and have not received any acknowledgement of wrong-doing, no apology, and no remedy. We have been more than fair. For example, we have sought compromises including usage of another week and unit at [resort] in [season, year], total financial compensation (the full rental value of the week), partial usage of week and other alternatives.

We now demand that you take corrective action immediately to rectify this situation.

I believe the tone of the letter and the impression that we would take legal action helped resolve this situation for us. They immediately gave us usage of a comparable unit and week as well as an apology. I shared this email here now as a sort of template for others who might find themselves in similar situations.

Jan M. · Jul 16, 2016

Moved for fixed week owners at Sea Gardens

In the winter of 2010/2011 we spent 4 months at Palm-Aire and Sea Gardens. Our first two months were in the same unit at Palm-Aire. We were excited to be at Sea Gardens Ocean Palms and were in a one bedroom for our first week and a two bedroom for the next several weeks before we moving back to Palm-Aire for the remainder of our time. So on Friday morning of our first week they called and said they had a unit ready and would we mind moving that morning instead of the next morning as it would really help them out with a conflict. We're fine with that so we moved a day early. Later that same day they called us and said we couldn't stay in that unit as it belonged to a fixed week owner. Not happy, it's dinnertime, but we moved, again. Next morning at 8am the phone rings waking us up. They apologize and tell us we have to get out of this unit too, same reason. I said something to the effect of you'd better be kidding and hung up on them. We hadn't even had time to finish getting dressed when they show up knocking on our door and tell my husband that not only do we have to move again we absolutely have to be out of the unit by 10am! So we MOVED 3 TIMES IN 24 HOURS! Do you have any idea of how much stuff we had for a 4 month stay? We had done a major grocery shopping before Move Two because we were supposed to be in the same unit for the next couple of weeks of our stay. And at Move Three they didn't even have a unit ready that we could move into so we had to wait hours for one to be cleaned. By Saturday afternoon I was exhausted after packing, moving and unpacking all that stuff three times. My husband went down to speak to the resort manager to let him know how upset we were that they put us in those units when they should have been blocked out. We didn't even know about Owner Relations then but the resort manger arranged for us to get our points back for one of the weeks. We really like Sea Gardens and have stayed there many times and never had this happen before that or since.

VegasBella · Jul 17, 2016

I was talking to my spouse about this. If there are truly a number of FIXED week owners who are having difficulties checking in to their FIXED units then that's definitely cause for legal action. Wyndham needs to straighten this out before they piss off the wrong people.

happyhopian · Jul 17, 2016

Florida Small claims is $75 filing fee and you can sue for a maximum of $5,000. I would list the max and sure them - just for the giggles of making them spend $2,000 in legal fees and then remind them every time this happens that you are going to do the same thing.

happyhopian · Jul 17, 2016

Jan M. said:
In the winter of 2010/2011 we spent 4 months at Palm-Aire and Sea Gardens. Our first two months were in the same unit at Palm-Aire. We were excited to be at Sea Gardens Ocean Palms and were in a one bedroom for our first week and a two bedroom for the next several weeks before we moving back to Palm-Aire for the remainder of our time. So on Friday morning of our first week they called and said they had a unit ready and would we mind moving that morning instead of the next morning as it would really help them out with a conflict. We're fine with that so we moved a day early. Later that same day they called us and said we couldn't stay in that unit as it belonged to a fixed week owner. Not happy, it's dinnertime, but we moved, again. Next morning at 8am the phone rings waking us up. They apologize and tell us we have to get out of this unit too, same reason. I said something to the effect of you'd better be kidding and hung up on them. We hadn't even had time to finish getting dressed when they show up knocking on our door and tell my husband that not only do we have to move again we absolutely have to be out of the unit by 10am! So we MOVED 3 TIMES IN 24 HOURS! Do you have any idea of how much stuff we had for a 4 month stay? We had done a major grocery shopping before Move Two because we were supposed to be in the same unit for the next couple of weeks of our stay. And at Move Three they didn't even have a unit ready that we could move into so we had to wait hours for one to be cleaned. By Saturday afternoon I was exhausted after packing, moving and unpacking all that stuff three times. My husband went down to speak to the resort manager to let him know how upset we were that they put us in those units when they should have been blocked out. We didn't even know about Owner Relations then but the resort manger arranged for us to get our points back for one of the weeks. We really like Sea Gardens and have stayed there many times and never had this happen before that or since.

You are a better person than me as I swear they would have called the police when I refused to move after the first time.

vacationhopeful · Jul 17, 2016

The problem occur with Jan M. because FIXED WEEKs and the Points systems DO NOT OVERLAP. Two separate and on very different platforms. This mouse usage verse using the arrows to move between cells and columns. And with different operating systems... just to confuse the young people working the front desk.

The points system does not allow the inventory fixed week owners to be booked. It shows as being "unreserved" at the Front Desk and EAGER clerks ASSUME the unit is EMPTY. Poorly trained and denser than steel.

As I have very POLITELY SCREAMED ... Do you really think ANY UNIT during the snowbird season in Pompano is UNBOOKED? And then I add, YOU are on the WRONG system ... get on the Fixed Week system .. out of points. Find or called other front desk staff member ... I have a deed and if I get down there and someone else is sitting in my deed unit .... I will be calling the police first.

And with the staff being thinned ... to transfer over to the "universe agent" concept of "no hang tag staff" .. just helpful front desk clerks who want YOU to "sign up for a Owners' Update.... but YOU don't have a reservation, why are you here?"

Yes, I have YELLED over the phone ... as they keep repeating, "I cannot find any reservation in your name". And I kept saying "It is a fixed week. I don't need any reservation. I own it and NO ONE SHOULD BE SLEEPING IN MY BED".

VegasBella · Jul 17, 2016

vacationhopeful said:
The problem occur with Jan M. because FIXED WEEKs and the Points systems DO NOT OVERLAP. Two separate and on very different platforms.

If indeed this is the issue then it's easily solved by smart and thoughtful software developers who actually test their product before shipping. Someone cut corners.

Even if the databases cannot be linked there's an easy fix - create an alert for any inventory that may appear "available" and make the alert say something like "please check the other database - this unit may not be available."

vacationhopeful · Jul 17, 2016

VegasBella said:
If indeed this is the issue then it's easily solved by smart and thoughtful software developers who actually test their product before shipping. Someone cut corners.

Even if the databases cannot be linked there's an easy fix - create an alert for any inventory that may appear "available" and make the alert say something like "please check the other database - this unit may not be available."

Corporate Wyndham truly wanted the Fixed Week owners to GO AWAY. One of the goals of CWA was to absorb lots of undesirable OLDER FIXED weeks ... actually, ANY FIXED week the HOAs could get their hands on. What has happened is the JUNK seasons got dumped into CWA .. and the PRIME fixed weeks, are still sold and held onto by smarter owners (like me).

My PRIME fixed weeks do not pay the Club Wyndham fee (55 cents per 1K of points) ... $77 per 140K ($85 for a 154K weeks). Prime reservations are not fought over nor pay the $99 guest certificate fee. I have no HKs or RTs to worry about. When I was buying (back in the dark ages before CWA) ... I knew the views and buildings to be picky in my buying. Yes, I have a great late Feb week on the 9th floor of the Ocean Palms facing DUE east over the resort.... ocean for miles. Plus, I can watch the blimp heading out to sea over my balcony. And several other nice views with lots of sun. And far from parking lots. And I have an oceanfront beach condo for Week 52 & Week 1... you know, the ones you can fall asleep to the waves hitting the beach...catching the ocean breezes, too.

bogey21 · Jul 18, 2016

For over 15years I owned six Fixed Week/Fixed Units at HOA controlled Independent Resorts. Never once did I have an issue with either myself of my guest getting into my specific Unit.

George

Got to LOVE those calls from guests when checking into my Fixed Deeded Week ... and..

rickandcindy23

TUG Review Crew: Elite

scootr5

TUG Review Crew: Veteran

ronparise

am1

ronparise

VegasBella

Jan M.

VegasBella

happyhopian

happyhopian

vacationhopeful

TUG Review Crew: Rookie

VegasBella

vacationhopeful

TUG Review Crew: Rookie

bogey21