With all the planning and organizing that goes into an event of that size it seems very strange that Wyndham wouldn't have a date and venue by now.
On Monday evening I called for help with a reservation that wasn't upgrading correctly online. I read the posts here on TUG and even though I shouldn't have been I was still surprised that it was a total waste of time. We've been traveling a lot lately and I haven't been on the Wyndham website hardly at all so got first hand experience of just how much more the upgrades are messed up and that the reps can do nothing. Normally as presidential reserve owners I'm offered the option of upgrading to a deluxe unit or a presidential reserve unit if one is available. Why in the world would a one bedroom deluxe only upgrade to a four bedroom presidential, not a presidential reserve unit mind you, when there was a two bedroom deluxe available? I could upgrade the one bedroom deluxe to the four bedroom presidential, again not presidential reserve, but if I wanted the two bedroom deluxe, which I did, I had to use the extra points to book it and couldn't get the upgrade from the one bedroom deluxe for it. How screwed up is that? Anyhow while I had them on the phone I told her I hadn't been on the website much for the past month and asked if I missed an announcement about the annual meeting. She said she hadn't seen anything but checked to make sure she hadn't missed something. Nope, nothing yet.
After seeing the Wyndham execs sweat when faced with a less than friendly crowd in the general meeting and sound incompetent in the question and answer sessions I'm sure they are all looking forward to being on the firing line this year. I wonder if the CEO will show up this year? Even if it was unavoidable that he missed his first annual owners meeting as CEO it still didn't look good. He only had maybe six months as CEO before last year's meeting but isn't the new guy still finding his feet by now. He is the person who ultimately gets held accountable for well, everything. But he still has a board of directors he answers to and who have the power to remove him if they don't like him pushing too hard to change things. Plus he is stuck working with the execs and likely some of the board too who come from sales background. Sales has been the driving force behind the decisions and they don't want to change anything that takes money or power away from sales. I wonder if the past year has taught them anything? That their much loved business model and practices of the past are likely to bring the company down if they don't wise up. Companies that cling to outmoded business models and practices generally don't fare well. Often the people in charge cannot think outside the box even when their ship is slowly sinking, sometimes irretrievably. When they finally bring in someone to fix things that new person has their hands full and on top of that usually has to fight the powers that be and the execs tooth and nail to get them to see past what they've always done. It still boggles my mind that the ONE AND ONLY carrot they have ever truly had to get people to buy developer is the VIP benefits. And what have they done every few years but whittle away more and more of those VIP benefits to curtail the mega renters. Btw those mega renters would never have existed in the first place if Wyndham had enforced their own rules. And that would have actually been extremely simple to do; so why didn't they?
If the CEO does show up at the annual owners meeting it will likely be very briefly and he will be well insulated by the other execs so he doesn't have to take the heat or be put on the spot. As CEO I'm sure he knows full well that failing to appear a second year is a further admission of Wyndham's failure. And hiding behind his subordinates leaving them to deal with the fallout will make him seem ineffective and cowardly to us but when he doesn't have the answers and/or dates by which certain things will be accomplished what is the point? Talk about a no win situation for him! Wouldn't it be wonderful if the delay in having the meeting is to buy time so he could stand up in front of us and honestly announce something more than we hear you, appreciate your patience and are working hard to fix things.