HGVC new reservation system?

[jscboston]

I have seen several references to a new HGVC reservation system, but cannot find any description of what those changes are. Is there someone willing to summarize it for me? I’ve owned for many years and have made and modified many reservations. And I always do this on their website, as I have found that the App is much more difficult to use. Thanks very much!

 

[HuskerATL]

No change on the user end, that you see, but much crappier on the backend. The properties that have been switched over have caused a lot of issues with changing reservations. You basically have to cancel a reservation and rebook....I have heard of Diamond folks that have commented that, that is how it works on their end... So hopefully it doesn't mean that will be a permanent feature for HGVC since HGVC is adopting the Diamond system.

 

[ernststarhemberg]

Wow, removing the ability to modify and only allowing cancel-and-rebook? Hopefully just a bug! What a horrible “update” if true!

 

[HuskerATL]

Wow, removing the ability to modify and only allowing cancel-and-rebook? Hopefully just a bug! What a horrible “update” if true!

I am hoping that will be fixed but so far, nothing. OO was switched over and have had to call them to modify the reservation for next summer. They are going property to property updating the system at each.

 

[GT75]

Wow, removing the ability to modify and only allowing cancel-and-rebook? Hopefully just a bug! What a horrible “update” if true!

If the HGVC resort inventory has been switched to the new inventory system ( such as Ocean Oak, Valdoro, Sunrise Lodge, Craig Lodge) then there are issues with changing reservations. The ONLY way to change a reservation will be if all days are available underneath the change. What I mean is that the change script doesn't give any credit for the days already available with the reservation. So, in general, if you are walking a reservation, the change feature will not work. The way that I have been changing reservations for "walking" is to cancel and rebook (since I am EP, I don't pay reservation fees, so that is the method that I am using). I have no idea if/when this software downgrade will be fixed.

 

[cd5]

Interesting. We at Embarc have always had to cancel and rebook if the change involves removing a day or days (ex. changing a booking from Friday to Friday, to Sunday to Sunday instead). It's done only by phone and doesn't need the same days to be available (they reuse your own days + the new ones). We are always told there is the risk of losing the booking if someone scoops it up while the change is being done (although that doesn't seem to happen from member reports). If you want to add a day or several days before or after, in the same type unit, that is done without any charges since it's not necessary to cancel/rebook. The cancel/rebook costs us $35 for the cancellation.

 

[HuskerATL]

Interesting. We at Embarc have always had to cancel and rebook if the change involves removing a day or days (ex. changing a booking from Friday to Friday, to Sunday to Sunday instead). It's done only by phone and doesn't need the same days to be available (they reuse your own days + the new ones). We are always told there is the risk of losing the booking if someone scoops it up while the change is being done (although that doesn't seem to happen from member reports). If you want to add a day or several days before or after, in the same type unit, that is done without any charges since it's not necessary to cancel/rebook. The cancel/rebook costs us $35 for the cancellation.

That sounds painful. In the prior HGVC system, we can change, at will, any club reservation outside 61 days from the stay. Homeweeks can't be modified after you book them though so those would need to be canceled and rebooked for a change.

If this is how the new system will work, it is a big down grade for HGVC.

 

[Jamlam2025]

Thats painful. Might want to sell my deed and get out if they don’t fix it

 

[HuskerATL]

If it continues, we all need to submit comments to HGV, via the portal contact page, telling this is a problem. What is the point of the ability to change, per the rules guide, if you need to cancel and rebook.

 

[Zenichiro]

If it continues, we all need to submit comments to HGV, via the portal contact page, telling this is a problem. What is the point of the ability to change, per the rules guide, if you need to cancel and rebook.

I’m good with this. And I’ll also add that the app has become almost unusable. When I joined about 5 years ago, you could see live availability, book, and cancel all in the app with basically no issues.

Definitely a total downgrade for the past few years.

 

[brial05]

That sounds painful. In the prior HGVC system, we can change, at will, any club reservation outside 61 days from the stay. Homeweeks can't be modified after you book them though so those would need to be canceled and rebooked for a change.

If this is how the new system will work, it is a big down grade for HGVC.

I made plenty of changes to my NYE reservations outside of 61 days, multiple units but I had to call because the system could not seem to handle to modifications that crossed the New Year. ( that is what several different reps told me )

The other thing I faced was that once I had booked a last minute unit, I had only a few hundred points for all of 2026, so when making changes still again outside of 61 days, the reps made very clear that it was a CANCEL first and then a new booking. BUT I ASSUME this was because I did not have enough points otherwise. Was this part of the changes being mentioned? i.e. It was never a true 'modify'? ( makes more sense then my assumption about not having enough free points to 'cover' ... and essentially create a 'new booking' and then a 'cancel' )

 

[HuskerATL]

I made plenty of changes to my NYE reservations outside of 61 days, multiple units but I had to call because the system could not seem to handle to modifications that crossed the New Year. ( that is what several different reps told me )

The other thing I faced was that once I had booked a last minute unit, I had only a few hundred points for all of 2026, so when making changes still again outside of 61 days, the reps made very clear that it was a CANCEL first and then a new booking. BUT I ASSUME this was because I did not have enough points otherwise. Was this part of the changes being mentioned? i.e. It was never a true 'modify'? ( makes more sense then my assumption about not having enough free points to 'cover' ... and essentially create a 'new booking' and then a 'cancel' )

Sounds like it is the same issue. When I modified my last one, the CSR made it clear that she was cancelling and going to rebook with a very a chance that we could lose the reservation. I told her to go for it and didn't lose it but it was OO for the summer so it could have been lost.

It is crazy that they need to cancel and rebook to change a reservation. I do think some properties haven't "upgraded" yet so the reservation changes work like they are supposed to.

 

[ernststarhemberg]

Is this even real?

It feels like we’re in the pioneering dot com days of the 90s or something.

Back end IT integration is one of the fundamental building blocks that makes consolidation and economies of scale make sense at all.

Get on it, folks! This is a timeshare booking platform, it’s not rocket surgery! Once upon a time, a task of this complexity would be completed with minimal public hiccups over a holiday weekend.

 

[Zenichiro]

Is this even real?

It feels like we’re in the 90s or something.

Back end IT integration is one of the fundamental building blocks that makes consolidation and economies of scale make sense at all.

Get on it, folks! This is a timeshare booking platform, it’s not rocket surgery!

Maybe they need a ChatGPT for business subscription to help write code. They’d probably save a ton of money in IT overhead unless they don’t have IT which would explain the issue.

 

[Sapper]

Maybe they need a ChatGPT for business subscription to help write code. They’d probably save a ton of money in IT overhead unless they don’t have IT which would explain the issue.

You need someone who is good at QA if you are vibe coding because sometimes unusual things happen. Based on what we are seeing with the scheduling system or the app, either they are already doing this without the QA, or they don’t have anyone in IT competent to begin with.

 

[ernststarhemberg]

Maybe they need a ChatGPT for business subscription to help write code. They’d probably save a ton of money in IT overhead unless they don’t have IT which would explain the issue.

I wasn’t going to go there, but I suspect this is a microcosm of a broader competency crisis in the programming arena. Unfortunately, reliance on AI to write base code is only going to make this problem worse.

It’s how I know I’m getting old — this HGV headache is a microcosm of a global observation. I have programming experience from the days when code had to be written from scratch and there often weren’t templates on how to build it. Further, processing power was constrained by hardware available at the time, requiring programs to be efficient.

Fast forward to present: we have available to us virtually unlimited hardware resources capable of running the most elaborate systems we could only dream of a quarter century ago.

Yet, paradoxically, I’m seeing the current generation hamstrung by the very freedom we yearned for.

Good coders became clunky coders as hardware became cheap and permitted inefficiency. And clunky coders became bad coders as programming was commoditized, globalized, and is now being replaced by AI which, at least now, is a horrible coder, bearing all the hallmarks of the clunky code era, being scrubbed by bad coders attempting to make good code.

It doesn’t work!

So now we are reverting to the days of rigid phone-in reservation systems. We’ve come full circle!

 

[Zenichiro]

You need someone who is good at QA if you are vibe coding because sometimes unusual things happen. Based on what we are seeing with the scheduling system or the app, either they are already doing this without the QA, or they don’t have anyone in IT competent to begin with.

Definitely agree. Seems to be zero QA test going on.

 

[HuskerATL]

they don’t have anyone in IT competent to begin with

I am leaning toward this......they have always struggled with the IT side. The app has always been crap and the website has struggled....

 

[allsun365]

If the HGVC resort inventory has been switched to the new inventory system ( such as Ocean Oak, Valdoro, Sunrise Lodge, Craig Lodge) then there are issues with changing reservations. The ONLY way to change a reservation will be if all days are available underneath the change. What I mean is that the change script doesn't give any credit for the days already available with the reservation. So, in general, if you are walking a reservation, the change feature will not work. The way that I have been changing reservations for "walking" is to cancel and rebook (since I am EP, I don't pay reservation fees, so that is the method that I am using). I have no idea if/when this software downgrade will be fixed.

Thank you for the detailed description. First time trying to modify a reservation by adding a day at Carlsbad Seapointe. My existing days were grayed out so didn’t know how to do it. Nice to know it’s not me. Will wait or call CS. Thanks!

 

[GT75]

If it continues, we all need to submit comments to HGV, via the portal contact page, telling this is a problem.

The last time I did this, I got an email back from HGV asking me to call CSR.

 

[HuskerATL]

The last time I did this, I got an email back from HGV asking me to call CSR.

time to fire up the Mark email again....

 

[jp10558]

What I don't get is why they'd scrap the working more flexible system to migrate to the less good one, rather than go the other way round?

 

[ljmiii]

What I don't get is why they'd scrap the working more flexible system to migrate to the less good one, rather than go the other way round?

I obviously don't know for certain, but there are far fewer HGVC resorts than HVC resorts. Since they apparently are doing the migration one resort at a time rather than systemwide I'm sure migrating the HGVC resorts is cheaper.

 

[sponger76]

time to fire up the Mark email again....

Who is Mark?

 

[HuskerATL]

Who is Mark?

Mark Wang, CEO of HGV. He and I have swapped emails in the past.

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