[MERGED] Book Club Pass Online - A Message From Annie Roberts & Trina Miller

[weemoeway]

 

[Rolltydr]

I just received the following email about a system upgrade that will result in the ability to book Club Pass reservations online. The part that hit me is the outage required for the upgrade is from June 12-16! FIVE DAYS? I had a 38 year career in IT with a major insurance company. If we had requested a five day system outage, we would have been fired.

Here is the email.

 

[paxsarah]

That's funny because they don't send me things that, for instance, only apply to VIPs, but they sent me this even though I don't have access to Club Pass. They should work on their filters.

 

[Sandi Bo]

Wow! I wonder if it's a typo (the dates) or we'll be able to call in and the VCs can do stuff (since it's a Mon-Fri)? Agree - something like that would have unfortunately been done over Thanksgiving or an extended holiday weekend - back in my days in IT.

 

[Rolltydr]

Wow! I wonder if it's a typo (the dates) or we'll be able to call in and the VCs can do stuff (since it's a Mon-Fri)? Agree - something like that would have unfortunately been done over Thanksgiving or an extended holiday weekend - back in my days in IT.

Surely, an email like that, going out in the name of 2 SVPs, would be double, triple and quadruple checked for accuracy. But, it is interesting that it’s Monday-Friday. I wonder if it, by default, also includes the surrounding weekends, for a total of 9 days?

@HitchHiker71 or @Richelle, do you have any insight on this?

 

[cbyrne1174]

That's funny because they don't send me things that, for instance, only apply to VIPs, but they sent me this even though I don't have access to Club Pass. They should work on their filters.

Their system treats non vip the same as resale only when sending emails

 

[bnoble]

they sent me this even though I don't have access to Club Pass

You might want to know about the four day website outage...

 

[Sandy VDH]

that long of an outage is insane.

 

[HitchHiker71]

that long of an outage is insane.

It does seem rather significant at 84 hours total time. The length of this announced outage suggests to me that this isn’t just a feature upgrade - it’s a major system integration that requires significant changes to both the back end systems and the front end website systems - and potentially coordinated changes to the Worldmark systems.

Curious if any Worldmark owners receive an outage notification during this same window that would validate my assumptions. If it’s a smaller outage that is only a subset of the larger Wyndham outage, it may not be announced this far in advance though.


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[paxsarah]

You might want to know about the four day website outage...

Yes, but the rest of the email talks about how "you" will be able to use this new feature. They could send a version that doesn't tell me I can. When they introduced the change in hybrid VIP accounts they sent a message to hybrid VIPs explaining the separation of developer and resale contracts and a different message to everyone else simply introducing the new benefits summary. And the website obviously knows I'm not eligible for Club Pass resorts because it tells me so. So they could send out two messages if they wanted.

 

[HitchHiker71]

Surely, an email like that, going out in the name of 2 SVPs, would be double, triple and quadruple checked for accuracy. But, it is interesting that it’s Monday-Friday. I wonder if it, by default, also includes the surrounding weekends, for a total of 9 days?

@HitchHiker71 or @Richelle, do you have any insight on this?

We knew it was likely coming in June but could not say anything until it was publicly announced. There is a TON of work related to this change from the looks of it. We will try to get additional details in the coming days. The outage window is really more like 3.5 days as it is 84 hours total from 8:00 PM Monday to 8:00 AM Friday.

The outage is likely scheduled during normal business hours as the required resources across all teams are all online and available during the week since they are likely working their normal shifts in addition to extra shifts as necessary to support the system upgrades. At the company I work for, our customer facing system upgrades are scheduled weekly every Tuesday during normal business hours for the same reason - with a backup window on Thursdays again during normal business hours. We are a $1.5bb dollar software company just for comparison’s sake. In a cloud/SaaS world for non-critical systems, it’s not uncommon to schedule system changes during normal business hours. That said, our outages certainly don’t span across multiple business days like this one, so it’s a bit of an outlier for sure. Hopefully we can gather a bit more detail that we can share moving forward.


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[Jan M.]

I find it extremely hard to believe that there wasn't an error in the dates.

This isn't the first time upper management had an email go out in their name that was in error. We all remember the owner priority list email. This doesn't reflect well on them.

 

[Jan M.]

That's funny because they don't send me things that, for instance, only apply to VIPs, but they sent me this even though I don't have access to Club Pass. They should work on their filters.

We have a developer account, presidential reserve, and didn't get this email. Just one of a number of times we didn't get an email that actually had something important in it.

 

[paxsarah]

So they could send out two messages if they wanted.

Or they simply could have replaced “you” with “owners” (or even “qualified owners”). Chalk this up to another example of my pet peeve where Wyndham communicating more effectively is free and yet they don’t do it.

 

[samara64]

We got same message on the Worldmark side.

 

[Rolltydr]

We knew it was likely coming in June but could not say anything until it was publicly announced. There is a TON of work related to this change from the looks of it. We will try to get additional details in the coming days. The outage window is really more like 3.5 days as it is 84 hours total from 8:00 PM Monday to 8:00 AM Friday.

The outage is likely scheduled during normal business hours as the required resources across all teams are all online and available during the week since they are likely working their normal shifts in addition to extra shifts as necessary to support the system upgrades. At the company I work for, our customer facing system upgrades are scheduled weekly every Tuesday during normal business hours for the same reason - with a backup window on Thursdays again during normal business hours. We are a $1.5bb dollar software company just for comparison’s sake. In a cloud/SaaS world for non-critical systems, it’s not uncommon to schedule system changes during normal business hours. That said, our outages certainly don’t span across multiple business days like this one, so it’s a bit of an outlier for sure. Hopefully we can gather a bit more detail that we can share moving forward.


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Thanks for the additional information. Unfortunately, if past performance is a predictor, the outage will be longer, not shorter, than advertised.

I retired from the largest insurer in North America ten years ago. They would barely tolerate a few hours outage beginning at midnight on Friday or Saturday night. And, it is understandable. Wrecks and weather events don’t care what day or time it is. If a claim occurs, the agent, adjuster, and/or policyholder needs to be able to access the system. Being unable to do so for more than a couple of hours is absolutely unacceptable. It causes the company to lose business. Unfortunately, Wyndham owners are sort of locked in and can’t necessarily take their business elsewhere. Perhaps, that’s why this kind of thing continues to happen? End of rant!

 

[HitchHiker71]

Thanks for the additional information. Unfortunately, if past performance is a predictor, the outage will be longer, not shorter, than advertised.

I retired from the largest insurer in North America ten years ago. They would barely tolerate a few hours outage beginning at midnight on Friday or Saturday night. And, it is understandable. Wrecks and weather events don’t care what day or time it is. If a claim occurs, the agent, adjuster, and/or policyholder needs to be able to access the system. Being unable to do so for more than a couple of hours is absolutely unacceptable. It causes the company to lose business. Unfortunately, Wyndham owners are sort of locked in and can’t necessarily take their business elsewhere. Perhaps, that’s why this kind of thing continues to happen? End of rant!

I would categorize an online insurance claims system as a critical system for various reasons. A vacation planning system is not mission critical in comparison - no matter how we slice it - and the owner can still call in and speak to a VC who can make any change on their behalf. Apples and oranges in other words. Not saying I like a 3.5 day outage, I don’t, but it’s not a hospital IT system where lives are on the line, or a 911 system for example.

 

[HitchHiker71]

We got same message on the Worldmark side.

Yes just saw this - so it’s a dual system outage and Worldmark is also making other changes:

A message from Trina Miller regarding New Website.

A message from Trina Miller regarding New Website.

New web enhancements are 30 days away. Last year, you learned how to search Club Pass availability. Now, you can take the next step and book. That’s right – in 30 days, a new slew of website enhancements will make planning and booking your vacations easier...

www.tugbbs.com

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[jvball21]

I got this email too. But I don't even know what "Club Pass" is, or whether I can even access it.

 

[jhoug]

We have a developer account, presidential reserve, and didn't get this email. Just one of a number of times we didn't get an email that actually had something important in it.

Same here. PR and never get these emails

 

[Sloane S]

I replied that it would be nice if they could get the website working correctly first, before rolling out further "enhancements".

 

[jwalk03]

I got this email too. But I don't even know what "Club Pass" is, or whether I can even access it.

Club Pass is the ability to use Club Wyndham points to book Worldmark resorts. Its limited to developer purchased points- resale points cannot be used.

 

[CO skier]

Thanks for the additional information. Unfortunately, if past performance is a predictor, the outage will be longer, not shorter, than advertised.

And it will take more than a year to resove the jungle of bugs this dual system upgrade/integration will unleash.

 

[Mary W]

Does anyone know what the “deeply discounted” Club Pass Exchange Fee will be?

 

[HitchHiker71]

Does anyone know what the “deeply discounted” Club Pass Exchange Fee will be?

Rough guess - 50% of the call-in fee. IIRC it's $99 today - so $49 is my guestimate. We shall see. Last I checked, the GC fee is an additional $49 on top of the Club Pass fee - it'd be nice to see this function online as part of this process - also with a lower fee.