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System updates? Points protection, reCaptcha, etc

Sandi Bo

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Just happened to notice Points protection is backed. Can't find any documentation on it, but looks like it's a standard $149, regardless of number of points (maybe I am wrong on that, but playing around a bit, always saw $149). I could add it when booking or to an existing reservation.

And... reCAPTCHA. Not my favorite thing, but perhaps a necessary evil. As a result, I don't seem to be able to use chrome at the moment (guessing it's the reCaptcha hanging somehow). I can login with Safari (and that's where I saw the reCAPTCHA on the login screen). Yeah, yeah, I know... clear my cache, etc. Will mess around more with chrome if I need to.

I also managed to lock up my account (you have a transaction in progress) - not something I do very often, so wondering if something has happened in that area as well. Since many pages in the transaction booking process don't have a delicate way to exit, this can be frustrating for me (I try to hit the right keys, so maybe just a bad choice, or maybe some additional functionality introduced that will cause more lockups, time will tell).

Still not seeing financial information or anything in the area of reporting (or transaction details) :-(

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Rolltydr

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$149? Ouch! It was $49 or $59 before, right? I purchased it quite a bit in the past. Probably not nearly as much at that price.
 

Richelle

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$149? Ouch! It was $49 or $59 before, right? I purchased it quite a bit in the past. Probably not nearly as much at that price.
I think that might be the point. At least when it comes to megarenters. Megarenters tying up prime inventory mean rooms go empty because they don't cancel them until the last minute. Now they have to be more choosey about what they insure. It's riskier to buy the points protection. You would only buy it if there is a chance it won't rent. Now it's $149, so they might be less willing to buy protection for it if they think it won't rent. Also, you do not have to buy it when you book. I bought it once, and that was on the absolute last day I could add it. There was a possibility we couldn't go, so we added it. Otherwise, it would be a waste of money. We did end up having to cancel so that $99 was worth it.
 

paxsarah

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I think under the old system the points protection was based on the number of points used for the reservation (I can't remember the tiers [edit: lol, CCdad just posted them below!], and I never used it). But here I agree, it looks like a flat $149 - whether the 400,000 point reservation I've got on the books, or a new 15,000 point reservation I just started to test this. I guess that will change the strategy on last-minute deeply discounted reservations.
 

CCdad

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$149? Ouch! It was $49 or $59 before, right? I purchased it quite a bit in the past. Probably not nearly as much at that price.

When you click on the Information icon next to the Total Cost text, it shows the old Points Protection pricing based upon the points used to book the reservation:

1 - 200,000 points $49
200,001 - 300,000 points $69
Over 300,000 points $99
 

Richelle

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When you click on the Information icon next to the Total Cost text, it shows the old Points Protection pricing based upon the points used to book the reservation:

1 - 200,000 points $49
200,001 - 300,000 points $69
Over 300,000 points $99
I saw that last night. I sent them an email about that. They may have post deployment activities going on right now.l, so I don’t expect an answer right away. I’ll post when I hear back, but I suspect it’s a flat rate.
 

dgalati

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I think that might be the point. At least when it comes to megarenters. Megarenters tying up prime inventory mean rooms go empty because they don't cancel them until the last minute. Now they have to be more choosey about what they insure. It's riskier to buy the points protection. You would only buy it if there is a chance it won't rent. Now it's $149, so they might be less willing to buy protection for it if they think it won't rent. Also, you do not have to buy it when you book. I bought it once, and that was on the absolute last day I could add it. There was a possibility we couldn't go, so we added it. Otherwise, it would be a waste of money. We did end up having to cancel so that $99 was worth it.
Another way to squeeze the mega renters. What will be next resale points being used with VIP discounts? LOL
 

dgalati

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I saw that last night. I sent them an email about that. They may have post deployment activities going on right now.l, so I don’t expect an answer right away. I’ll post when I hear back, but I suspect it’s a flat rate.
If a flat rate cost works for housekeeping why not on cancelation insurance? Makes cents to Wyndham.
 

Sandy VDH

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I had to clear my Chrome browser cache to get the recaptcha to come up, otherwise it just kept throwing up an error.
 

Richelle

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I had to clear my Chrome browser cache to get the recaptcha to come up, otherwise it just kept throwing up an error.

I had that problem last night but this morning it worked fine. I didn’t need to clear anything. I had the issue in Chrome, Safari, and Edge. The only thing that worked was Firefox. This morning, they all work fine. Could have been I was trying to log in to soon after the change.


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Richelle

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If a flat rate cost works for housekeeping why not on cancelation insurance? Makes cents to Wyndham.

Maybe if they want to make more money, they can raise their booking fees to what their competitors charge, and take away the free ones. Their major competitors don’t give free bookings. Maybe they can also charge to cancel a booking like some of their competitors do. Seems like they would make a lot more profit that way and no one could blame them for keeping up with the competition.


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Sandi Bo

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I had to clear my Chrome browser cache to get the recaptcha to come up, otherwise it just kept throwing up an error.
My Chrome browser is working without having to clear it. Call me stubborn. I do have to pick all those annoying pictures when using Safari, I only have to click the checkbox in chrome.

And.. how good is reCAPTCHA for stopping bots if it's only on the login page? I almost hate to say that, I really don't want it when booking. However, I really don't want bots either. I don't see this being terribly effective, only annoying to anyone logging in, and perhaps giving some a false sense of security.
 

dgalati

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Maybe if they want to make more money, they can raise their booking fees to what their competitors charge, and take away the free ones. Their major competitors don’t give free bookings. Maybe they can also charge to cancel a booking like some of their competitors do. Seems like they would make a lot more profit that way and no one could blame them for keeping up with the competition.


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Don't give them any Ideas! I hear the sales are auditing accounts and monitoring social media now. Be careful what you wish for.
 

paxsarah

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Always in the name of "simplifying" things...
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Sandi Bo

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Maybe if they want to make more money, they can raise their booking fees to what their competitors charge, and take away the free ones. Their major competitors don’t give free bookings. Maybe they can also charge to cancel a booking like some of their competitors do. Seems like they would make a lot more profit that way and no one could blame them for keeping up with the competition.


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They need to be careful, they keep making resale more and more appealing, why will anyone buy VIP?

As a VIP it is a bit disheartening to see the discounts now available. I understand Wyndham is trying to fill the rooms, but doesn't it devalue VIP when you offer some pretty nice discounts (that would only benefit a resale owner)?

While I'm voicing my opinion, I don't care much about the points protection. Nice that it is available (for someone truly in a situation where they aren't sure and need the option). I've always seen as one more way for Wyndham to make cancellations returning to inventory less predictable. As far as picking up last minute cancellations, the 15 day rule is my friend. I think it's a shame they allow cancellations up to midnight the day of checkin, allows for empty rooms. Who makes money then?
 

Sandi Bo

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Another way to squeeze the mega renters. What will be next resale points being used with VIP discounts? LOL
I can probably count on one hand the number of times I purchased points protection. I can tell you it gave me a tremendous amount of joy to tell the people offering me $200 a week for a prime week at Bonnet Creek, no thanks. They knows the rules and think they have you over a barrel. That is my very most favorite part about points protection.
 

Richelle

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Don't give them any Ideas! I hear the sales are auditing accounts and monitoring social media now. Be careful what you wish for.
I'm not giving them any ideas they haven't already had. Also, they've been monitoring social media and TUG for years. You know that.
 

Richelle

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They need to be careful, they keep making resale more and more appealing, why will anyone buy VIP?

As a VIP it is a bit disheartening to see the discounts now available. I understand Wyndham is trying to fill the rooms, but doesn't it devalue VIP when you offer some pretty nice discounts (that would only benefit a resale owner)?

While I'm voicing my opinion, I don't care much about the points protection. Nice that it is available (for someone truly in a situation where they aren't sure and need the option). I've always seen as one more way for Wyndham to make cancellations returning to inventory less predictable. As far as picking up last minute cancellations, the 15 day rule is my friend. I think it's a shame they allow cancellations up to midnight the day of checkin, allows for empty rooms. Who makes money then?
I can understand your feelings about them giving discounts to non-VIP. The way I see it, they are discounting those locations because they are trying to get people to go to those locations, which means that that location is not popular during that promotional period. If VIP wanted the discount, they could get it easily. Our discounts are not limited to whatever Wyndham decides to put on sale. They are not limited to certain conditions like room types, travel dates, days of the week, etc. If someone is very flexible, sure, they can get a lot of places at a great point discount with those sales. However, even if they are flexible, it doesn't mean they will want to visit the places on sale. They might not like the location or the location during that time of year. We did pay to get discounts, but we also paid to get discounts on any room we want. Resale owners are tied to whatever Wyndham puts on sale and whatever limitations they put. It's also a tool that makes their product look more desirable. If the sales guy shows a potential new owner that they can get discounts without VIP, they might get all excited and buy-in. They won't look at the fine print.

I agree, I like the 15-day rule. It's helped me get some hard-to-get reservations last minute. I don't think you'll see a huge change in that. The people trying to rent are either trying to make their maintenance fee money back or make a profit. Spending $149 on every reservation they hold won't help them accomplish either goal. So if they do use it for rental purposes, it won't be as many as it would be if the insurance were only $50.
 

Richelle

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I can probably count on one hand the number of times I purchased points protection. I can tell you it gave me a tremendous amount of joy to tell the people offering me $200 a week for a prime week at Bonnet Creek, no thanks. They knows the rules and think they have you over a barrel. That is my very most favorite part about points protection.
I used it once and it came in handy. Even then, I waited until the absolute last day I could buy.
 

bnoble

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As a VIP it is a bit disheartening to see the discounts now available. I understand Wyndham is trying to fill the rooms, but doesn't it devalue VIP when you offer some pretty nice discounts (that would only benefit a resale owner)?
I can imagine it is disappointing, but it is also very likely to be a transient. My guess is that there are an awful lot of unused points that are going to end up being saved forward into future years, potentially leading to an inventory crunch. This is a way to get some of those points off the table.
 

chapjim

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They need to be careful, they keep making resale more and more appealing, why will anyone buy VIP?

As a VIP it is a bit disheartening to see the discounts now available. I understand Wyndham is trying to fill the rooms, but doesn't it devalue VIP when you offer some pretty nice discounts (that would only benefit a resale owner)?

While I'm voicing my opinion, I don't care much about the points protection. Nice that it is available (for someone truly in a situation where they aren't sure and need the option). I've always seen as one more way for Wyndham to make cancellations returning to inventory less predictable. As far as picking up last minute cancellations, the 15 day rule is my friend. I think it's a shame they allow cancellations up to midnight the day of checkin, allows for empty rooms. Who makes money then?

It's part of Wyndham's "Eat The Rich" program.

Wyndham should make a concerted effort to enhance the value of ownership instead of picking away at benefits.

A perfect example is prohibiting renting RCI exchanges. If I knew (well, maybe not me) I could rent an exchange, I would be more likely to acquire more points, knowing that if I didn't use them all, I could bank them with RCI and rent whatever I came up with. Make a couple of bucks and OFFSET MAINTENANCE FEES (for real!).

Another example just came up tonight. STOP ANNOYING PEOPLE WITH STUPID STUFF ON THE WEBSITE!! I got stuck in a "take a survey" loop, Five or six times the pop-up asked if I wanted to take a survey. I kept saying no until I gave up and took the stupid survey. Ten seconds later, I get the pop-up again. I said yes and it said I'd already taken the survey. Click it off. Ten seconds later, the pop-up again! I logged out and logged back in. Ten seconds -- would you like to take a survey? ENOUGH!

On the plus side, I had a 3BR Deluxe unit at Bonnet Creek upgraded to a 4BR Presidential.
 

chapjim

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I can imagine it is disappointing, but it is also very likely to be a transient. My guess is that there are an awful lot of unused points that are going to end up being saved forward into future years, potentially leading to an inventory crunch. This is a way to get some of those points off the table.

While I'm in the mood, here's another annoyance. When a discount ended in May 2020, isn't it time to take it down from the website?
 

Richelle

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Another way to squeeze the mega renters. What will be next resale points being used with VIP discounts? LOL
Just a suggestion. Instead of typing out the same parroted line over and over, put it in the signature. That way, literally every single post will have that same parroted line. It would be a real timesaver.

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