Major Change to Wyndham VIP Program in Email 7/19/2021 [MERGED]

[troy12n]

Regarding "account adjustments", I would like to hope they take into account that some people have use years which start October 1. So any "adjustments" they make in the use year, I would hope they would allow for those to carry over to the new UY which starts in October, and not give the owner roughly a month and a half to use these "adjustments"... I'm a October-September UY account, but all my points are retail, so this doesn't affect me either way.

 

[HitchHiker71]

Regarding "account adjustments", I would like to hope they take into account that some people have use years which start October 1. So any "adjustments" they make in the use year, I would hope they would allow for those to carry over to the new UY which starts in October, and not give the owner roughly a month and a half to use these "adjustments"... I'm a October-September UY account, but all my points are retail, so this doesn't affect me either way.

Per the announcement - the complimentary points will be deposited into your next use year, not the current use year, so in your case - any complimentary points would be deposited into your 2022 use year beginning 10/1/2021.


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[paxsarah]

I may book a high demand week/resort at 10 months strictly for the purpose of renting

I had to chuckle at this. There have been some who insist that (mega)renters have been booking massive numbers of ARP and 10-month reservations as soon as they're available, and while I'm not sure that was based on anything other than a gut feeling, here goes Wyndham making the best course of action be to book 10-month high-demand reservations for the purpose of renting. It certainly does seem like a smart thing to do with all of those outstanding resale points!

 

[Eric B]

Wyndham hasn't undercharged for the reservations. They backfill the discounted points with developer owned points.

Backfilling the discounted points with developer-owned points means that the corporation that is the developer paid for maintenance fees on the points that weren't charged to the member that used them. That is fundamentally money out of the corporate accounts that their rules said they shouldn't have spent, which is what I was getting at - if I were a shareholder I would be unhappy with observing this and learning that for perhaps decades the company has been asleep at the wheel and giving discounts when the shouldn't have, which could be interpreted as undercharging, though, too be fair to the folks in that position they weren't given the option to pay full price and might have made different decisions on the transactions otherwise. There's the potential for this to be a problem for the company with its shareholders is what I'm getting at.

 

[troy12n]

Backfilling the discounted points with developer-owned points means that the corporation that is the developer paid for maintenance fees on the points that weren't charged to the member that used them. That is fundamentally money out of the corporate accounts that their rules said they shouldn't have spent, which is what I was getting at - if I were a shareholder I would be unhappy with observing this and learning that for perhaps decades the company has been asleep at the wheel and giving discounts when the shouldn't have, which could be interpreted as undercharging, though, too be fair to the folks in that position they weren't given the option to pay full price and might have made different decisions on the transactions otherwise. There's the potential for this to be a problem for the company with its shareholders is what I'm getting at.

Along those same lines, Wyndham corporate just shelled out a lot of money for the "Travel and Leisure" brand... That money had to come from somewhere, and maybe someone in corporate decided that they could no longer "look the other way" as all this money was going out the door either directly (as you referenced) or indirectly (pseudo wanna-be landlord renters) and they want all of it. Can't say I blame them... I don't know of any other industry that allows these sorts of shenanigans.

Edit also: I don't see how that money they spent on T&L could ever make sense, but i'm not a Harvard Blue Blood MBA... so I digress

 

[VacayKat]

If you don't typically look at your Tx history - go back and look at it again after running through it initially. I saw some odd behavior back a couple weeks ago when I went looking for some older transactions. When initially loading the Tx history - it was completely jacked up. I went back in like 30 minutes later and looked at my transaction history again - and it was fine at that point. From what I could tell - the data from the back end doesn't populate in entirety right away - and the browser therefore may only show a subset of the data on initial load. The problem resolved itself within 30 minutes IME.

I wish- I look at transition history probably every other day. It's never resolved itself. I'm just trusting that the running total on the top is right at this point. I have 2 use years that literally have no transactions in them at this point and a third that sort of has some (hence the large amount in the hole) I micromanaged the previous years points so I know even without seeing transactions there isn't a problem. This year's transactions are a little more problematic as we've had a lot of reserved vacations be cancelled and rebooked because family seems to think that changing their mind is a fun activity.
But what I was getting at is the timing of the transaction problems seem to line up with when it was likely that IT had to start implementing some of the intended changes on their end. My hope is that things will improve once they actually launch the changes, but not holding my breath.

 

[HitchHiker71]

Along those same lines, Wyndham corporate just shelled out a lot of money for the "Travel and Leisure" brand... That money had to come from somewhere, and maybe someone in corporate decided that they could no longer "look the other way" as all this money was going out the door either directly (as you referenced) or indirectly (pseudo wanna-be landlord renters) and they want all of it. Can't say I blame them... I don't know of any other industry that allows these sorts of shenanigans.

Edit also: I don't see how that money they spent on T&L could ever make sense, but i'm not a Harvard Blue Blood MBA... so I digress

The T&L brand also has a well known discount subscription travel service with a roughly 50k member roll. Note those important words that apply to most modern day transactions: a subscription travel service - paid monthly as opposed to the aging model of paying large sums of money in advance, coupled with large monthly outlays for MFs. I believe this purchase was strategic in nature in moving more toward travel subscription models as opposed to the legacy timeshare models that exist today.

 

[VacayKat]

Regarding "account adjustments", I would like to hope they take into account that some people have use years which start October 1. So any "adjustments" they make in the use year, I would hope they would allow for those to carry over to the new UY which starts in October, and not give the owner roughly a month and a half to use these "adjustments"... I'm a October-September UY account, but all my points are retail, so this doesn't affect me either way.

This worries me as well. Like I've mentioned before the proportion of points we have resale is small, but due to banking of points from 2 previous use years to this one, we have slightly less than double our points for this year. *If* Wyndham decides that all of those banked points are VIP points (which we have more than enough in each use year to make that a reasonable expectation) and *If* Wyndham decides that all the points we have used to book current reservations are with VIP from this year, we still have left over VIP points along with our bucket of resale points. Our use year is better than yours since it just moved over in July and if Wyndham makes the assumptions I made then it should be ok, but if they go back to the two previous use years and try to determine which points we banked it's going to be a PITA.
On the other hand, if all the points being banked to the future go with the certain account they were banked from, I might finally have a case for using more than my yearly allowed points at outrigger properties since their argument had been that they had no idea what points I banked or where they came from, so no way you could use more than your yearly allotment. [yes I know this last one is wishful thinking and my head is fully submerged in the sands of denial}

 

[Ty1on]

The T&L brand also has a well known discount subscription travel service with a roughly 50k member roll. Note those important words that apply to most modern day transactions: a subscription travel service - paid monthly as opposed to the aging model of paying large sums of money in advance, coupled with large monthly outlays for MFs. I believe this purchase was strategic in nature in moving more toward travel subscription models as opposed to the legacy timeshare models that exist today.

This was the target. Note that upon purchase, they immediately leased publishing operations back.

 

[dgalati]

This worries me as well. Like I've mentioned before the proportion of points we have resale is small, but due to banking of points from 2 previous use years to this one, we have slightly less than double our points for this year. *If* Wyndham decides that all of those banked points are VIP points (which we have more than enough in each use year to make that a reasonable expectation) and *If* Wyndham decides that all the points we have used to book current reservations are with VIP from this year, we still have left over VIP points along with our bucket of resale points. Our use year is better than yours since it just moved over in July and if Wyndham makes the assumptions I made then it should be ok, but if they go back to the two previous use years and try to determine which points we banked it's going to be a PITA.
On the other hand, if all the points being banked to the future go with the certain account they were banked from, I might finally have a case for using more than my yearly allowed points at outrigger properties since their argument had been that they had no idea what points I banked or where they came from, so no way you could use more than your yearly allotment. [yes I know this last one is wishful thinking and my head is fully submerged in the sands of denial}

No worries. Trust that Wyndham cares and will make it all balance out!

 

[kaljor]

Agreed. I try my best not to stir the pot - and I try to practice using the Ignore function With respect to my own account, I'm not exactly sure how I'm going to adapt, but here's how my ownership breaks down right now:

Well for someone who isn't sure, I'd say your plan hits the nail right on the head. Anyone else who has a mixed account should read Hitchiker's post above for a smart approach to take.

I've always been resale only so I've learned those same things. If I were a VIP/Resale owner, my general rule would be to try to use my resale points earlier in the use year when possible, and by all means try not to use them for stays of less than a week or maybe six days. HK's are really the only concern. The new system calls for 1 HK per stay, so 1 day or 14 days is the same cost. A studio and a 4 bedroom are now the same cost. Obviously you should try to use resale points for those two categories.

I would try to use my resales earlier in the use year to preserve my VIP flexibility for later in the year.

If you're successful in this, you'll probably have enough HK's starting the year that you would never need to buy any more. And at $159 per pop, that's the goal.

I wouldn't worry about RT's. In fact I don't worry about them now. At the end of most years I've usually had to buy 2 or 3 (or 5) , but at $19 (online) I don't care, if it allows me to get what I want. I tend to make speculative bookings at 10 months out, and as the time approaches, I often find a reservation I want more, so I just cancel and rebook.

 

[Ty1on]

It just came to mind, mixed owners, that late "points pool" deposit of your resale points will also be disabled.

 

[Cyrus24]

Question, if you book a reservation with resale points, and then cancel, do you get the HK token/charge back? I’m not concerned about the RT’s at $19, but the HK hit is enough to notice.

 

[Ty1on]

Question, if you book a reservation with resale points, and then cancel, do you get the HK token/charge back? I’m not concerned about the RT’s at $19, but the HK hit is enough to notice.

Yes.

 

[kaljor]

But you don't get the RT back. Just so you know.

 

[Ty1on]

But you don't get the RT back. Just so you know.

Correct. The reservation transaction has happened, the cleaning has not.

 

[VacayKat]

It just came to mind, mixed owners, that late "points pool" deposit of your resale points will also be disabled.

Gah. That was a huge perk of VIP - not having to think about when I had to deposit points by. Super glad you thought of that, I don't know I would have.
Recommend everyone put a reminder on their calendar for a few days before the deadline for both sets of points as soon as things go live. You don't want to miss those deadlines.

 

[dgalati]

Gah. That was a huge perk of VIP - not having to think about when I had to deposit points by. Super glad you thought of that, I don't know I would have.
Recommend everyone put a reminder on their calendar for a few days before the deadline for both sets of points as soon as things go live. You don't want to miss those deadlines.

Any and all VIP benefits along with PR units will not be able to be used with resale points. Deposit feature along with free HK'S, VIP discounts, VIP free upgrades, Presidential Reserve suites and the VIP check in line also will not be available when using resale points.

 

[HitchHiker71]

It just came to mind, mixed owners, that late "points pool" deposit of your resale points will also be disabled.

Yep, for resale points - it’ll be the same three month window that all resale owners have. This is a good reason to burn up resale points on the larger ARP or 10 month reservations for larger units. Less concern about having leftover resale points later in the year to use up or move to RCI.


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[dgalati]

Regarding "account adjustments", I would like to hope they take into account that some people have use years which start October 1. So any "adjustments" they make in the use year, I would hope they would allow for those to carry over to the new UY which starts in October, and not give the owner roughly a month and a half to use these "adjustments"... I'm a October-September UY account, but all my points are retail, so this doesn't affect me either way.

It will be interesting if they prorate the points on these account adjustments. I hope shareholders don't take it on the chin again and they give away points for free like they did with resale points being used with VIP benefits.

 

[troy12n]

Something I didn't think about until right now, and I wonder if it would matter, but I would like to hope that any VIP points moved to a future use year don't get stripped of their VIP benefits. That would be beyond nit picky...

 

[HitchHiker71]

Something I didn't think about until right now, and I wonder if it would matter, but I would like to hope that any VIP points moved to a future use year don't get stripped of their VIP benefits. That would be beyond nit picky...

If you are referring to points deposits, this is covered by the webpage, 7th bullet point in the graphic attached for reference.

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[Sandy VDH]

On your My Ownership page on the current version of the website, do those who own Resale contracts see any indication that a contract is flagged as resale now? There is more info here than there used to be, but just curious if it is showing flagged as resale anywhere yet.

 

[VacayKat]

On your My Ownership page on the current version of the website, do those who own Resale contracts see any indication that a contract is flagged as resale now? There is more info here than there used to be, but just curious if it is showing flagged as resale anywhere yet.

No. And there is pretty much no info about my contracts. Newest info on there are the financials and that isnt all that new.

As I mentioned earlier - the certified exit folks don’t even seem to see that as default. If you don’t know the details of each contract they either can’t or are unwilling to dig in to help you. Might be different if you hound them.

 

[Rolltydr]

On your My Ownership page on the current version of the website, do those who own Resale contracts see any indication that a contract is flagged as resale now? There is more info here than there used to be, but just curious if it is showing flagged as resale anywhere yet.

I’m not seeing anything different on mine so far. I have 2 resale contracts plus a 450k CWA contract purchased from Wyndham. All the information on all 3 contracts is the same as it has always been.