Koala warns Wyndham is cancelling reservations based on Wyndham's "updated policy" Anyone know what's up?

[Sandy VDH]

I assume they just finally got a batch to run that searches and deletes any duplicates. I had 1 that I had not realized was a duplicate, but that ok, it really was a duplicate. It was one I was trying to jury rig an update on.

Now WYNDHAM can you fix the upgrade batch to run and work successfully?

 

[HitchHiker71]

Oh, yes, all of those evil people who rent should be punished by Corporate Wyndham for doing what they have always done and were encouraged to do by salespeople.

It is really about overlapping reservations with the same name on them. Add names if you have rentals that comply with Wyndham's new rules against renting on weekends, etc. Whatever the dates and rules are. I have not a clue.

Whether we agree or not - the current ELT at Wyndham is clearly not going to honor old undocumented sales tradecraft used to sell points.


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[HitchHiker71]

Such nastiness, a huge reason I've not been posting so much. But here goes...

Overlapping reservations hasn't been allowed for a really long time. So comments about finally getting caught, looking for free rides, are really out of line (and make you look ugly).

There used to be warnings/alerts so people were aware of an overlapping reservation. That functionality was lost a few years back. Wyndham was warning if you had more than 2 overlapping reservations. I assumed due to them either on purpose allowin 2 or to compensate for the lost alerts, they were allowing 2 before even warning (and I would assume cancelling - all along folks - again, this is not a new policy).

My guess is someone tweaked the algorithm back to 1. A shame that people likely found out the hard way not to overlap at all.

And again, the reporting fuctionality super sucks. Since we got the lovely 3 per page transaction view, it is no longer visible on the coming reservations page who the owner or guest on the reservation is.

I've identified 2 system issues that made owners vulnerable to what's going on. If people got caught with their pants down, it's cause Wyndham pulled em down. Were owners set up?



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Based upon my assessment since becoming an owner and interacting with several Wyndham IT personnel that have all since departed - I don’t think there’s anyone left in IT that could even represent the way things used to be. Not saying ignorance is acceptable - but it does appear to be the reality with regard to the “good old days.”


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[HitchHiker71]

Wyndham's website is so much harder to use than it used to be. Now they messed up WorldMark's website. It was so nice before.

My distant hope is that they are moving from a “best of breed” approach to an integrated approach to system design - meaning if at the end of all of this we have one online system that can be used to manage ownership across all of Wyndham’s brands - well that might be worthwhile - especially to Wyndham as they would move from multiple disparate inventory management systems to a single integrated system. This may or may not benefit owners across those disparate systems though. That said, if at the end of this I could somehow see inventory online across Shell, Worldmark, Wyndham, etc., well at least that would give me something I can’t do today. I’m suspect this is the end goal though.


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[HitchHiker71]

@HitchHiker71

When you say "from what we have gathered" - is the "we" your Wyndham contacts? Or, some other group?

I've only seen FB posts where reservations with name duplicates were cancelled. Have you seen other cases? Ones that support further targeting of commercial activity? I'm also curious as to how owners were "legally" notified? I saw posts of owners who were sent letters. I suppose the sending of letters is legal, your choice of words sounded like it was something more official than that.
I'm asking as we have a large account that we share with our family and extended family, as well as some rentals. (yep, as suggested by the lovely sales team).

We are modifying how we use our Wyndham membership. Our family is now trying to go on fewer longer trips with our extended family so that an owner is present. Long term, we might add our extended family to one of our smaller contracts. Frustrating that we are having to even consider doing this.

Yes I have the observed both to answer your question. More of the former to be sure. And no it’s not from my Wyndham contacts unfortunately as most of my IT contacts have exited Wyndham over the past several months. I’m in the midst of rebuilding relations at present. Wyndham hired a new CIO late last year and either that person is cleaning house or people are leaving for better opportunities due to the great resignation - likely a bit of both.

Bottom line is if you haven’t received a cease and desist letter - your account is safe at least for the time being - I would not alter your usage unless and until you see good reason to do so.


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[Sandy VDH]

With so many cancellations happening at roughly the same time, it might finally be a time to see how long it really takes for cancellations to return or if they are deliberately random.

My cancelation happened sometime between 1 am and 730 am CDT when I noticed it. So the clock is started? When does stuff start to show up again?

 

[Sandi Bo]

Whether we agree or not - the current ELT at Wyndham is clearly not going to honor old undocumented sales tradecraft used to sell points.


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Nor do they seem interested in improving their reputation. Same oh Same oh...

 

[rickandcindy23]

With so many cancellations happening at roughly the same time, it might finally be a time to see how long it really takes for cancellations to return or if they are deliberately random.

My cancelation happened sometime between 1 am and 730 am CDT when I noticed it. So the clock is started? When does stuff start to show up again?

It's random.

 

[HitchHiker71]

With so many cancellations happening at roughly the same time, it might finally be a time to see how long it really takes for cancellations to return or if they are deliberately random.

My cancelation happened sometime between 1 am and 730 am CDT when I noticed it. So the clock is started? When does stuff start to show up again?

From what I’ve seen from FB group posts over 12,000 reservations were canceled due to this change. Now the website is offline until tomorrow morning. Coincidence? I don’t believe in coincidence.

We have asks into our Wyndham contacts for more info on what changed and why - and what can we tell to those owners who were negatively impacted as well as remaining owners who also have overlapping reservations under different names that are justifiably nervous based upon what occurred today.

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[Sandi Bo]

It was announced, in the banner, about 2 days ago that there was scheduled maintenance tonight.

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[HitchHiker71]

It was announced, in the banner, about 2 days ago that there was scheduled maintenance tonight.

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I haven’t logged into the site over the past couple of days so in this case I guess it was indeed coincidence. Still, I would hope that Wyndham would use this outage to restore reservations that were cancelled that should not have been. We have had some reliable reports of overlapping reservations that were cancelled even when those reservations were already using different names on the accounts in question. Not good.


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[Sandi Bo]

Oh boy. And I was just hoping they'd fix the accessible indicator.

The level of incompetence with this system seems to be trending in the wrong direction. What timing.



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[Sandi Bo]

I volunteer Troy's account for testing the fix.

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[WManning]

I’m getting a little tired of the “we’ve always done it” defense. That doesn’t fly. Even if you did it for years and got away with it, you have been warned for at least the last couple of years, and really, going back to 2017, that it’s over. If I broke the speed limit for 10 years and didn’t get caught, that doesn’t mean the police are giving me permission to keep doing it. If they catch me, they will write me a ticket and if I tell the judge I’ve been speeding for 10 years and getting away with it so they can’t fine me now, the judge will laugh me out of court. If you are running a commercial enterprise with your Wyndham timeshare, you are breaking the terms of the contract THAT YOU SIGNED! Does your signature mean nothing?

The elimination of rentals seems to be Wyndhams priority now. Wyndham gave away free rides for years and it might take years to correct their past mistakes. All of the new and enforcement of existing rules is a big win for owners looking to book for personal use. The owners crying the loudest seem to be the largest abusers of system.

 

[comicbookman]

The elimination of rentals seems to be Wyndhams priority now. Wyndham gave away free rides for years and it might take years to correct their past mistakes. All of the new and enforcement of existing rules is a big win for owners looking to book for personal use. The owners crying the loudest seem to be the largest abusers of system.

I disagree on that this is a big win for owners. It helps some, hurts some ("regular" owners not "mega-renters") and some see no difference. The problem is they keep using sledge hammers instead of fly swatters. I have no issue with enforcing existing rules. I do have an issue when that is the excuse for degraded service, reduced benefits that i paid for (think the reduction in free GC's) and clueless VC's, who as often as not, give out miss-information rather than help. As an IT professional for almost 30 years, I find the continued struggles of a multi billion dollar company on that front inexcusable. I think in addition to the 2 reasons Hitchiker mentions for IT staff leaving, i would expect embarrassment to be associated with this train wreck to be a strong possibility for the mass exit as well. I have been a Fairfield/Wyndham owner for almost as long as I have been in IT, and my family and I have made great use of what we own. It just takes a lot more effort these days.

 

[Eric B]

The owners crying the loudest seem to be the largest abusers of system.

That's a bit of a generalization that is probably the result of being on one side of the issue. I've seen quite a bit of schadenfreude that I would characterize as "crying" by the other side.

I'm also not sure I would characterize anyone that ever rents out a timeshare that they own and have paid for the use of as an "abuser". It's a property, after all.

 

[Eric B]

I disagree on that this is a big win for owners. It helps some, hurts some ("regular" owners not "mega-renters") and some see no difference.

What he said.

It also helps Wyndham's side business of renting out extra vacations and is intertwined with these efforts being to enforce unwritten rules for where "commercial use" starts.

 

[Sandi Bo]

The net result of all of this, seems to me, is more guest certificate revenue. Period. We've been reduced from unlimited GCs (cha ching), then changed the algorithm that determines how many so it truncates instead of rolling up (cha ching), now, perhaps tweaked the overlapping reservation algorithm so that reservations are cancelled and oops maybe cancelled some we shouldn't have (cha ching). All along the way, encouraging all of us to add those GC's just as soon as we possibly can (cha ching). Don't forget we used to have until 15 days before checkin before we had to be concerned about overlapping reservations, no worries just be sure to add that GC just as early as you can, ideally at booking (cha ching).

Wyndham can still point the finger at those boogey man mega renter's. I look today and there is nothing to book at Bonnet Creek pretty much until mid June. Why? I can only guess Wyndham is taking rooms offline while they try to fix (reinstate) reservations they accidentally cancelled. How is that a win for owners?

At what point are companies like Koala, VRBO, etc - going to decide renting Wyndham reservations isn't worth the risk/their reputation? What then - more business for extra holidays! Wyndham wants all the monies! None of this does anything for an individual owners availability.

And yet owners are cheering. Thank you Wyndham. Drink some more kool-aid, and buy some more GC's.

 

[emeryjre]

Koala will keep up with all of the issues concerning Wyndham and adapt. VRBO is clueless about any timeshare issues and the problems and requirements of timeshare owners.

 

[HitchHiker71]

Response from Wyndham as of this morning on the reported issue:

Here is our current messaging the call center should be sharing when owners are calling in:

Please be advised a system update was deployed last night (April 12, 2022) that is impacting Overlapping Reservations and has caused reservations to be cancelled. We are working with our IT partners to triage the issue and will provide additional updates as we receive them.

We are reinstating all reservations and that should be completed in the next couple of days. We are prioritizing them by check in date. The first group reinstated are all for this weekend.

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[WManning]

What he said.

It also helps Wyndham's side business of renting out extra vacations and is intertwined with these efforts being to enforce unwritten rules for where "commercial use" starts.

The unwritten rule is intentional. This way Wyndham can move goal posts (or rules) when they feel its necessary.

 

[Sandi Bo]

Response from Wyndham as of this morning on the reported issue:




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Hard to unring a bell! Scary to have this in the competent, cough cough, hands of Wyndham IT.

I would be most worried right now if I had booked a reservation in the last day or two (since the issue was introduced) and was checking in in the next 2 weeks, especially next few days. And no matter if you are an owner or guest or renter, not if Wyndham is going to try to take back what they accidentally gave away. Of course it would also super suck to have had a reservation cancelled.

Anyone hear of extra holidays reservations being cancelled? I would guess not. Wonder if there is a special flag in the system for reservations turned over to EH's, a whatever you do, don't mess with this reservation flag. No conflict of interest, of course.

Happy Easter (nice timing, Wyndham)!

 

[Eric B]

cough cough

Hope you're ok! Best go out and get tested....

 

[Rolltydr]

“THE SKY IS FALLING! THE SKY IS FALLING!”

Oh, it only affects those with overlapping reservations? And those reservations are being restored? Oh, Never mind.

 

[tschwa2]

“THE SKY IS FALLING! THE SKY IS FALLING!”

Oh, it only affects those with overlapping reservations? And those reservations are being restored? Oh, Never mind.

There are reposts from 3 or 4 people on facebook that they had overlapping reservations in different owners names and they also had one or more reservations cancelled. It isn't a large number but it still happened. Not everyone is getting reservations restored.