Contracts now segregated by Developer and Resale

[HitchHiker71]

Oh gosh - focus groups alone? No wonder they got skewed data. Wonder if they would consider a focus group with people who value functionality over pretty and simple.

Now that the new DT team is in place that manages the entire cloud based website for both Wyndham and Worldmark - which has more mature feedback mechanisms and a good representation of activity tracking capabilities - the need for focus groups isn't as important. The focus groups that I'm aware of that still exist are targeted toward new feature evaluations. Richelle and I are sometimes asked to participate in mock up wireframe feature reviews for proposed new features for example. IME most of the people that value functionality are outliers from an overall ownership representation perspective (TUG is overly representative of this power owner base). We aren't going to see a return of more advanced functionalities that at the end of the day are geared more toward managing multi-million point accounts that often rent a fair portion of their points for example. That doesn't mean there aren't gaps that need to be addressed -that's why we're tracking most of the gaps in our sheet since the inception of the current website. Once the hub-bub from the recent points bucket changes calms down - we're looking to re-engage with our Wyndham contacts and take a fresh look at the enhancement requests that are still outstanding and see if we can get any commitments to product roadmaps for those items that remain outstanding.

 

[Eric B]

IME most of the people that value functionality are outliers from an overall ownership representation perspective (TUG is overly representative of this power owner base).

If that is really the case, perhaps Wyndham could give us two versions of the interface - one that works for those of us that are outliers and want to make reservations within the Wyndham policy using the points we pay for, and another that doesn't necessarily work properly but is pretty for folks that don't value functionality.

I don't think that's really how things shake out, though. There is probably a spectrum of people that runs from those that are happy paying extra to call in and ask a VC to make a reservation to those that are happier searching and booking their own vacations online. I suspect all of them value functionality, though - it's a problem if you can't book a stay at a resort you own during the period you are allowed to make a reservation by policy either by calling in or by doing it yourself. That type of lack of system functionality is an embodiment of a failure to hear the voice of the consumer that wants to get what they pay for.

 

[HitchHiker71]

If that is really the case, perhaps Wyndham could give us two versions of the interface - one that works for those of us that are outliers and want to make reservations within the Wyndham policy using the points we pay for, and another that doesn't necessarily work properly but is pretty for folks that don't value functionality.

I don't think that's really how things shake out, though. There is probably a spectrum of people that runs from those that are happy paying extra to call in and ask a VC to make a reservation to those that are happier searching and booking their own vacations online. I suspect all of them value functionality, though - it's a problem if you can't book a stay at a resort you own during the period you are allowed to make a reservation by policy either by calling in or by doing it yourself. That type of lack of system functionality is an embodiment of a failure to hear the voice of the consumer that wants to get what they pay for.

What changed when the new website rolled out was the elimination of what you're asking for here. The Voyager owner website was separate from the non-owner based website. When the current website was rolled out - it's a single website for both owners and non-owners. That's not going to change AFAIK. It was intentionally done for strategic reasons to the best of my understanding - which I think will become more apparent as the business model changes medium-long term. It's also bad business practice to spend significant time and resources (money) on outlier cases - especially if those outliers are requesting advanced features/functions that encourage behaviors (renting) that Wyndham wants to discourage. I think it's pretty obvious that the new website intentionally removed functions that appealed to less than 1% of the ownership base.

 

[Eric B]

It's also bad business practice to spend significant time and resources (money) on outlier cases - especially if those outliers are requesting advanced features/functions that encourage behaviors (renting) that Wyndham wants to discourage.

That's not what I'm asking for. What I'm asking for is the ability to actually make reservations for stays that are available using the points I pay for within the applicable policy dates. I think we're in agreement that we should be able to do that based on your validating that that functionality is currently lacking in the case of making resale reservation at a home resort within the ARP. That's how I define functionality - the interface should be able to do what it is supposed to do. There are others that like the pictures and stuff, I guess, because they put a lot of it on there - that's an aspect of the website being used as a marketing tool rather than a reservation system. Bottom line, though, is that Wyndham has chosen to incentivize owners to use the website to make reservations through the higher costs for making them over the phone (and the annoying pop up windows they just added) - if they are trying to drive people to use the web site to do something, they should equip the web site with the functionality to actually do it. That (making reservations on line) seems to be something Wyndham wants to encourage rather than discourage.

 

[HitchHiker71]

That's not what I'm asking for. What I'm asking for is the ability to actually make reservations for stays that are available using the points I pay for within the applicable policy dates. I think we're in agreement that we should be able to do that based on your validating that that functionality is currently lacking in the case of making resale reservation at a home resort within the ARP. That's how I define functionality - the interface should be able to do what it is supposed to do. There are others that like the pictures and stuff, I guess, because they put a lot of it on there - that's an aspect of the website being used as a marketing tool rather than a reservation system. Bottom line, though, is that Wyndham has chosen to incentivize owners to use the website to make reservations through the higher costs for making them over the phone (and the annoying pop up windows they just added) - if they are trying to drive people to use the web site to do something, they should equip the web site with the functionality to actually do it. That (making reservations on line) seems to be something Wyndham wants to encourage rather than discourage.

Yes - the recent changes have definitely been a "two steps forward one step back" type situation. We're now working to resolve regressions in other words. No disagreement there. With regard to the merged websites - we all know that whenever we take two disparate things and merge them together - there are inherent compromises that take place. So the more "markety" feeling to the current website is a compromise by definition since the same site facilitates both the non-owner and the owner based user experiences. IME there's two approaches - either a common/integrated approach - or a best of breed approach. Project Voyager was the latter, Project Holiday is the former. Using one common website to deliver different two different user experiences is going to result in compromises unfortunately. I'd estimate that the vast majority of bugs introduced due to the recent changes will be resolved by end of September timeframe. That's only 45 days out from the introduction of a major new featue release. That's far and away a much better story for Wyndham when compared to how long things took to get resolved for any previous website iterations - which often took months or even years to get resolved (and in several cases never resolved).

Assuming the newly introduced regressions and bugs are resolved within a 45 day timespan - I can say that personally - the website works just fine for my needs for the most part. But I only make perhaps 7-12 reservations for any one use year on average. For example, I currently only have a a total of 10 reservations in my Upcoming vacation area now - so the scrolling feature that is built into the website isn't a big deal to someone like me. I suspect the vast majority of owners are more like me in how they use the current website as opposed to a small subset of others overly represented here on TUG that are managing dozens of active reservations using millions of points. I agree the current website is more painful for those that fall into this subset - but the tracking mechanisms and feedback mechanisms inbuilt into the current website - aren't going to tell Wyndham to prioritize features for power owners any longer. In times past - without metrics to tell the story - it was much more feasible for a small minority of the ownership base to get serious attention paid to their requests - because these power owners were more knowledgeable, attended the annual owners meetings, and were likely more noisy about what wasn't working and what features would help them directly - while assuming that what they wanted helped the majority of owners (which is a false assumption at least to an extent). With the new activity tracking mechanisms and website feedback mechanisms in place now - that's not going to happen any longer - the true majority will win out. If we request features and Wyndham doesn't prioritize them - then we can confidently assume that what is being asked for does not align with what the vast majority of the owner base is requesting in comparison.

 

[VacayKat]

Yes - the recent changes have definitely been a "two steps forward one step back" type situation. We're now working to resolve regressions in other words. No disagreement there. With regard to the merged websites - we all know that whenever we take two disparate things and merge them together - there are inherent compromises that take place. So the more "markety" feeling to the current website is a compromise by definition since the same site facilitates both the non-owner and the owner based user experiences. IME there's two approaches - either a common/integrated approach - or a best of breed approach. Project Voyager was the latter, Project Holiday is the former. Using one common website to deliver different two different user experiences is going to result in compromises unfortunately. I'd estimate that the vast majority of bugs introduced due to the recent changes will be resolved by end of September timeframe. That's only 45 days out from the introduction of a major new featue release. That's far and away a much better story for Wyndham when compared to how long things took to get resolved for any previous website iterations - which often took months or even years to get resolved (and in several cases never resolved).

Assuming the newly introduced regressions and bugs are resolved within a 45 day timespan - I can say that personally - the website works just fine for my needs for the most part. But I only make perhaps 7-12 reservations for any one use year on average. For example, I currently only have a a total of 10 reservations in my Upcoming vacation area now - so the scrolling feature that is built into the website isn't a big deal to someone like me. I suspect the vast majority of owners are more like me in how they use the current website as opposed to a small subset of others overly represented here on TUG that are managing dozens of active reservations using millions of points. I agree the current website is more painful for those that fall into this subset - but the tracking mechanisms and feedback mechanisms inbuilt into the current website - aren't going to tell Wyndham to prioritize features for power owners any longer. In times past - without metrics to tell the story - it was much more feasible for a small minority of the ownership base to get serious attention paid to their requests - because these power owners were more knowledgeable, attended the annual owners meetings, and were likely more noisy about what wasn't working and what features would help them directly - while assuming that what they wanted helped the majority of owners (which is a false assumption at least to an extent). With the new activity tracking mechanisms and website feedback mechanisms in place now - that's not going to happen any longer - the true majority will win out. If we request features and Wyndham doesn't prioritize them - then we can confidently assume that what is being asked for does not align with what the vast majority of the owner base is requesting in comparison.

I just don’t get the ‘if you have more points than most people’ the website won’t be great for you argument. If Wyndham just wants to cater to people who have an average number of points they should not sell above that number. I mean, for current use year I have made 18 reservations and have ~200,000 points still left. They all aren’t week long or greater. Given my points are not significantly higher than the highest VIP tier, I do not get why I would be punished because I am an outlier. The dynamic loading of vacations sometimes works as intended, sometimes doesn’t. I have made multiple calls to CS simply to confirm reservations still exist in their system as they don’t load for me. Functional means the website works as intended at all times. It shouldn’t be that hard. And forgive my bluntness here, but if you introduce updates that break the functionality, it should absolutely not take you 45 days to fix it. You should have a dedicated team working solely on those fixes and it should be a very short turn around. And you shouldn’t make sweeping changes that might introduce many bugs if you do not have the peoplepower to fix them fast. Bluntly, it’s unprofessional and bad business practice.

 

[Eric B]

Yes - the recent changes have definitely been a "two steps forward one step back" type situation.

The two steps forward perspective really depends on where you are with relation to the recent changes. They didn't really add any functionality that had the purpose of improving my experience with the interface - that is to say that it hasn't been made faster, better, more reliable or less expensive for me. I don't think that was ever the intent here and instead believe it was to actually reduce the Wyndham expenses for me and other hybrid owners as collateral damage to the folks actually being targeted by the changes. Granted the amount of collateral damage is somewhat minor, but the net result for me, and to the best of my knowledge anyone that owns a resale contract that has its own ARP (i.e., all of the CWS deeds) has been just the one step back because the functionality doesn't include being able to use the ARP. There are a few other steps back that we're already aware of (e.g., no borrowing from developer), but this kind of change that isn't really intended to improve the customer experience in anyway (despite the hype about being able to choose the benefit I use) really should have had the minimal functionality check of seeing that the limited number of combinations that are contractual rights would work.

I am extremely grateful that you're working on getting the regressions fixed and for all you do to get the feedback to Wyndham's IT folks so that they can make progress. And I'm happy to help out by reporting the problems I find and trying to validate what the problems other folks are running across where I can at no cost other than my time. I'm just not onboard with there having been any actual attempts to improve the way I am able to interact with the system and plan my vacations. The one positive thing that there is attached with this is the promised deposit of future use year points in what I would interpret as being a form of compensation for the changes limiting my functionality; they have been tight lipped about providing sufficient information to the folks these were promised to sufficiently to support planning for their use and seem to be holding back on providing them until the end of the promised period of performance to avoid giving them out during the time they could support the free RT period for resale points, which they haven't been able to provide the functionality to combine them with.

Bottom line is that I'd give them a D or a D- on this implementation despite it being head and shoulders above their last one. They didn't deliver what they promised.

 

[Cyrus24]

Bottom line is that I'd give them a D or a D- on this implementation despite it being head and shoulders above their last one. They didn't deliver what they promised.

I give this one a D+. Yes, they screwed up the bucketing process on reservations for those of us with Hybrid accounts and have caused many of us to look for work arounds but at least they did not eliminate one of the most loved search features, the availability calendar. The outrage was swift over that and it was fixed, real fast, thankfully.

 

[Eric B]

I give this one a D+. Yes, they screwed up the bucketing process on reservations for those of us with Hybrid accounts and have caused many of us to look for work arounds but at least they did not eliminate one of the most loved search features, the availability calendar. The outrage was swift over that and it was fixed, real fast, thankfully.

How about just settling at a D, then?

 

[HitchHiker71]

I just don’t get the ‘if you have more points than most people’ the website won’t be great for you argument. If Wyndham just wants to cater to people who have an average number of points they should not sell above that number. I mean, for current use year I have made 18 reservations and have ~200,000 points still left. They all aren’t week long or greater. Given my points are not significantly higher than the highest VIP tier, I do not get why I would be punished because I am an outlier. The dynamic loading of vacations sometimes works as intended, sometimes doesn’t. I have made multiple calls to CS simply to confirm reservations still exist in their system as they don’t load for me. Functional means the website works as intended at all times. It shouldn’t be that hard. And forgive my bluntness here, but if you introduce updates that break the functionality, it should absolutely not take you 45 days to fix it. You should have a dedicated team working solely on those fixes and it should be a very short turn around. And you shouldn’t make sweeping changes that might introduce many bugs if you do not have the peoplepower to fix them fast. Bluntly, it’s unprofessional and bad business practice.

I'm not singling anyone out - yourself included. I wouldn't expect that any account subject only to personal use regardless of the size of the account should experience issues such as those you have outlined above. I don't believe you have a multi-million point account managing dozens or even hundreds of reservations. I think you are attempting to lump yourself into the subset of power owners that I'm referring to when you shouldn't be attempting to do so. Nothing in this life works as intended 100% of the time especially given the accelerated change rates in play today in the business world. I'm not making any excuses for Wyndham's trials and current failures with regard to providing a better website experience. These issues are real. But I am saying that we are seeing improvements in the timeliness of fixes coming from Wyndham because they hired an entirely new DT team to manage the website experience over the past 2-3 years. 45 days is three sprint releases - that's not many agile sprints. Yes it would be great if their QA processes were more robust - no argument here - but I work with what I've got to work with in the real world. I reject idealism - I'm a pragmatist at heart. The entire DT team is currently focused on the fixes - that's already the case. Things could always be better - that's always true - and Wyndham is far from the best IT organization I've worked with - but they are good people doing the best they can to implement the directives coming down from the top. I will do what I can to help them succeed.

 

[VacayKat]

I'm not singling anyone out - yourself included. I wouldn't expect that any account subject only to personal use regardless of the size of the account should experience issues such as those you have outlined above. I don't believe you have a multi-million point account managing dozens or even hundreds of reservations. I think you are attempting to lump yourself into the subset of power owners that I'm referring to when you shouldn't be attempting to do so. Nothing in this life works as intended 100% of the time especially given the accelerated change rates in play today in the business world. I'm not making any excuses for Wyndham's trials and current failures with regard to providing a better website experience. These issues are real. But I am saying that we are seeing improvements in the timeliness of fixes coming from Wyndham because they hired an entirely new DT team to manage the website experience over the past 2-3 years. 45 days is three sprint releases - that's not many agile sprints. Yes it would be great if their QA processes were more robust - no argument here - but I work with what I've got to work with in the real world. I reject idealism - I'm a pragmatist at heart. The entire DT team is currently focused on the fixes - that's already the case. Things could always be better - that's always true - and Wyndham is far from the best IT organization I've worked with - but they are good people doing the best they can to implement the directives coming down from the top. I will do what I can to help them succeed.

I know you weren't - just was saying with the size of my account, it actually puts me into the category that is affected by the poor functionality of the website. Which speaks to the need for Wyndham to recognize they are negatively impacting people they shouldn't be.

And I get that the current website experience is an improved experience. IMO that doesn't make it a good experience just because it's not as bad as it used to be. And I'm not faulting your position. I don't doubt that the folks there are doing the best they can with what they have.

I guess what I'm getting at is, instead of doing things in big swaths, breaking a lot of things and then fixing slowly, Wyndham should do things incrementally, and do them well (and if need be, fix quickly because you didn't break everything). I'm not asking for ideal - I'm asking for functional. It would be ideal if I could find anything on the website without having to know the exact language to search, but I'd be happy with being able to book all the resorts my account allows. It would be ideal if I could download all the transaction data and vacation data, but I'll settle for being able to see all my vacations on one page without having to wait for it to dynamically load because it looks pretty and sometimes that dynamic loading not actually loading all the vacations reserved.

I really don't know that I'm asking for much, and I've told Wyndham as much - I just want the website to be reliable and functional. Seems like for the prices they're charging, and the experience they're selling, it would be a reasonable expectation.

 

[Family_travel]

Question: do you have any information on your Benefits Summary tab in your account? I’m curious whether it’s an all resale-only thing or more isolated (mine is blank).

Sorry for the late reply, but mine is blank as well

 

[regatta333]

If you are making a reservation using resale points and are short a few thousand points, can you use developer points to complete the reservation?

 

[Zekes]

Made some 2022 reservations from Availability Calendar. Everything within 10 month window worked.

 

[vv813]

If you are making a reservation using resale points and are short a few thousand points, can you use developer points to complete the reservation?

Have you actually been able to do this. couple days ago was not able to and lady in special number said no it was not possible.

 

[regatta333]

Have you actually been able to do this. couple days ago was not able to and lady in special number said no it was not possible.

I have not tried yet.

 

[regatta333]

I was able to successfully book a 2022 reservation using resale points last night.

 

[HitchHiker71]

If you are making a reservation using resale points and are short a few thousand points, can you use developer points to complete the reservation?

We are supposed to be able to do this but the functionality doesn't appear to exist on the website yet. What we don't know for sure is if this policy only applies to Express window reservations or not. The T&Cs for the changes do not indicate it's limited only to ERP reservations - but I have zero CUY resale points so I cannot test either way. If a hybrid VIP retail/resale owner who has CUY resale points could test an ERP reservation and let us know if the option to borrow from your CUY/FUY Developer bucket appears as an option alongside and report back with results - it would help to narrow down what does and does not work at present.

 

[gregb61]

I tried to make a reservation for next March and it would not let me use both resale and developer points. It was going to force me to rent the points needed.

 

[gregb61]

Greg, if it's not in your Tx history - I'm going to say this wasn't the complimentary points grant that you think it is. I would contact the dedicated support line to validate - but we also have to remember that we've seen changes to our buckets almost daily since this all started, and that there was a large outage window last night during which more account level changes were processed due to all of the reported issues since the retroactive transaction changes were implemented last week. For example, I also saw bucket changes to my account overnight to my future use year - but that doesn't necessarily equate to the complimentary points grant itself. Based upon what I'm seeing - I don't think the changes I saw are related to the complimentary points grants - as my understanding is that these points grants will be reflected in our Tx history once granted. I would therefore not make the assumption and advertise this as related to the complimentary points such until and unless Wyndham has actually validated this assertion, as doing so is going to promote confusion. I'll follow up with my Wyndham IT contacts now to validate whether any complimentary points grants have been processed as well.

So, I guess they were my complimentary points. I didn't receive any other points besides those.

 

[HitchHiker71]

So, I guess they were my complimentary points. I didn't receive any other points besides those.

If it was - then it should be reflected in your Tx history as I originally indicated and subsequently posted via screenshots in the other thread. They show up as Goodwill points in your Tx history clearly. You had indicated that you didn't see any corresponding transaction in your Tx history originally.

 

[Cyrus24]

We are supposed to be able to do this but the functionality doesn't appear to exist on the website yet. What we don't know for sure is if this policy only applies to Express window reservations or not. The T&Cs for the changes do not indicate it's limited only to ERP reservations - but I have zero CUY resale points so I cannot test either way. If a hybrid VIP retail/resale owner who has CUY resale points could test an ERP reservation and let us know if the option to borrow from your CUY/FUY Developer bucket appears as an option alongside and report back with results - it would help to narrow down what does and does not work at present.

I check the use developer points button and then added the 29300 from CUY developer points. I took the reservation to step 4 but did not submit. Is this the test you were wanting to see?

 

[Eric B]

Could you try it for something in the SRP window (>90 days)?

 

[Eric B]

Interesting that it will let you add resale points to a developer points booking, which the FAQs indicated was forbidden. Could you start with resale points and see if it lets you add developer points, which was supposed to be allowed?

 

[Eric B]

@HitchHiker71, IMHO they set it up diametrically opposed to the way they said they would. It seems more hosed up than a soup sandwich if we can add resale points to a developer point booking. I wonder if the result could get an upgrade. Don’t have any CUY points to check, but I might check in SRP later tonight to see what happens using FUY developer points. Not too impressive.