[ 2021 ] Major Change to Wyndham VIP Program in Email 7/19/2021 [MERGED]

[Eric B]

I am working off memory but I recall someone saying that either Worldmark or Shell had the technology to distinguish between retail and resale.

WorldMark distinguishes between retail and resale credits. There are significant differences in the implementation there that I haven't heard any thoughts of being implemented on the CWP side, though; in the WorldMark system, the credits you use are supposed to shuffle in the background so that the ones that expire first are used first without needing any action on your part. If Wyndham implements it so that you can substitute point usage when it's appropriate, it wouldn't be all bad.

 

[Eric B]

Not in the standard window. There are no benefits in the 10 month window.

That's not entirely true, though perhaps mostly true. I'm not sure who had posted it, but seem to recall it was @HitchHiker71, but CWA does include some Margaritaville points in Rio Mar that allow booking during the standard reservation window (and ARP) by non-VIPs as well as those that are VIPs before their period would otherwise open up.

 

[HitchHiker71]

That's not entirely true, though perhaps mostly true. I'm not sure who had posted it, but seem to recall it was @HitchHiker71, but CWA does include some Margaritaville points in Rio Mar that allow booking during the standard reservation window (and ARP) by non-VIPs as well as those that are VIPs before their period would otherwise open up.

This is correct - we've had multiple reports of owners - both VIP and non-VIP - that were able to book Rio Mar in both ARP and the standard window - using CWA points. We aren't sure if this is a function of some Rio May inventory held by CWA - or just an issue with the online reservation system allowing something it should not allow. I've got a spreadsheet that lists out what CWA owns based upon what's documented in the CWA POS - it's a bit dated now and needs to be updated with a more current rev of the CWA POS - but I do not have any actual Rio Mar inventory reflected in my sheet at this time, which makes me think it's more of a glitch as opposed to CWA actually holding any Rio Mar inventory. There was also a period of time after the major hurricanes when the Caribbean resorts opened up reservations to a larger swath of Wyndham ownership than under otherwise normal circumstances - which may also explain why owners were able to "see" more inventory at Rio Mar and the USVI resorts during certain time periods.

 

[raygo123]

I am working off memory but I recall someone saying that either Worldmark or Shell had the technology to distinguish between retail and resale.

As far as booking with a combination of both kinds of points,. That's easy. One only has to look at the old pay phones. A nickel was on tone, a quarter another and so on. In stead of tones, it is yes or no. If in the 10 month window all coins drop, or all points are good. so any point Will work. If ARP ONLY THE DEEDED POINTS OR CWA DEPENDING on use. If RARP only VIP and deposit forward points will drop.

Your resale points are now slugs, we used the metal punch out from electrical boxes to make phone calls. Using resale points was no more than cutting a hole in a quarter and attaching a wire.

Wyndham was not talking about the owner that uses the 50% discount window once or twice,. Wyndham went to the automatic upgrade to curb giving points away. This is merely an extension of reducing the number of points given to ALL VIP OWNERS. If Wyndham could have done everything they wanted to implement when the new website came out I believe this would have been one of them. Not only does it keep money in their pocket but a possible revenue stream, rentals, or additional VIP benefits.

Sent from my Lenovo TB-X103F using Tapatalk

That is a really good question now that I understand it, because I've always understood that CWA ARP inventory has been sequestered from deeded ARP inventory.

My original question, though, was can a VIP-eligible CWA contract and a non-VIP eligible CWA contract combine for VIP. According to the documentation, this would require booking with non-VIP points and borrowing VIP points - in that instance, will the system allow them to combine for ARP? Obviously they should, but will they?

Only in the ten month window. The only time periods Wyndham can touch is the 13 to 10 month window and the sixty day window. That goes back to the contract not the club. It seems that whole question is out of bounds. The two spheres your trying to combine do not intersect.a resale CWA or not will never combine for VIP BENEFITS.

CWA is a trust. You own at those resorts. The benefits used will always be from that trust.thats an ownership not a VIP ISSUE.

CWA and deeded has been linked for quite awhile. It is called RARP. Your resale points did work with it but as mentioned will no longer. My concern is with every level of VIP have a RARP, a deeded owner at eleven months no longer has exclusive rights to a unit he bought and paid. That is a breach of a trust, literally!.

Sent from my Lenovo TB-X103F using Tapatalk

 

[am1]

People who maximized ownerships should be celebrated instead of demonized. When did the tide change on it? A lot of haters on this thread who want to blame others for succeeding instead of accepting their own failures. I am not against the timeshare trust imploding.

 

[paxsarah]

Only in the ten month window. The only time periods Wyndham can touch is the 13 to 10 month window and the sixty day window. That goes back to the contract not the club. It seems that whole question is out of bounds. The two spheres your trying to combine do not intersect.a resale CWA or not will never combine for VIP BENEFITS.

CWA is a trust. You own at those resorts. The benefits used will always be from that trust.thats an ownership not a VIP ISSUE.

CWA and deeded has been linked for quite awhile. It is called RARP. Your resale points did work with it but as mentioned will no longer. My concern is with every level of VIP have a RARP, a deeded owner at eleven months no longer has exclusive rights to a unit he bought and paid. That is a breach of a trust, literally!.

Sent from my Lenovo TB-X103F using Tapatalk

So are you saying that under the upcoming system, a VIP who owns a CWA retail contract and a CWA resale contract cannot and should not be able to combine them in the ARP window? Unlike now, when they can combine in the ARP window (which doesn't require the use of any VIP benefits)?

 

[raygo123]

So are you saying that under the upcoming system, a VIP who owns a CWA retail contract and a CWA resale contract cannot and should not be able to combine them in the ARP window? Unlike now, when they can combine in the ARP window (which doesn't require the use of any VIP benefits)?

No. Just the opposite, they never cannot be. Never.

Sent from my Lenovo TB-X103F using Tapatalk

 

[HitchHiker71]

That is a really good question now that I understand it, because I've always understood that CWA ARP inventory has been sequestered from deeded ARP inventory.

Not so much sequestered as owned by the trust. CWA is a trust that holds CWS deeds within the trust. Therefore - any inventory that CWA holds in the trust for a specific resort - can be booked by a UDI CWA Owner within the ARP window - and only that CWA inventory can be booked in the ARP window. All CWS deeded inventory not held by the CWA trust is never available to a CWA only owner when booking in the ARP window. The question that we have seen from prospective owners as well as existing owners is - should I own CWA and/or CWS if I want to book using ARP at a specific resort. Here's an excerpt from the sheet that I maintain based upon the CWA POS for a few of the Florida resorts:

From this excerpt - we can get a good sense of the percentage of deeds that CWA holds for a particular resort, provided the CWA POS provides the complete dataset - which is doesn't always do - in which case you'll see "NA" instead - such as for Orlando International Resort Club. So if an owner were to ask the question - I want to book into WBC in the ARP window and book larger 3/4 bedroom units - what ownership should I consider? My answer would be to find a CWS deeded ownership as opposed to CWA - given CWA only holds roughly a quarter of WBC deeds within the trust. Want the best of both worlds? Become a hybrid owner and hold both a CWS WBC deeded ownership along with a CWA trust ownership - but recognize you can never cross the streams so to speak - meaning you cannot combine CWA and CWS points when booking in the ARP window - so if the owner wants to book larger units - they would need to hold enough points with both CWS and CWA contracts to book the units and time windows they would desire. If booking in the ARP window isn't important - then it really doesn't matter what contract you own - since points are points within the standard booking window - unless something else changes with respect to resale contract ownerships resulting from the recent Wyndham announcements.

 

[VacayKat]

I am working off memory but I recall someone saying that either Worldmark or Shell had the technology to distinguish between retail and resale.

As far as booking with a combination of both kinds of points,. That's easy. One only has to look at the old pay phones. A nickel was on tone, a quarter another and so on. In stead of tones, it is yes or no. If in the 10 month window all coins drop, or all points are good. so any point Will work. If ARP ONLY THE DEEDED POINTS OR CWA DEPENDING on use. If RARP only VIP and deposit forward points will drop.

Your resale points are now slugs, we used the metal punch out from electrical boxes to make phone calls. Using resale points was no more than cutting a hole in a quarter and attaching a wire.

Wyndham was not talking about the owner that uses the 50% discount window once or twice,. Wyndham went to the automatic upgrade to curb giving points away. This is merely an extension of reducing the number of points given to ALL VIP OWNERS. If Wyndham could have done everything they wanted to implement when the new website came out I believe this would have been one of them. Not only does it keep money in their pocket but a possible revenue stream, rentals, or additional VIP benefits.

Sent from my Lenovo TB-X103F using Tapatalk

All of the companies can differentiate between resale and developer. Most [edited to add that most is my interpretation] just don't care and call it all one big lump sum for VIP since you paid a shitload of money to get there.
But the reason the question is coming up is not whether it is easy to determine from a logical perspective, because that is indeed an easy answer. The decision on HOW Wyndham will approach it is neither easy nor likely logical, which is why the question exists and why it won't really be answered until we get the new website implementations and find out what decisions Wyndham made.
I don't quite understand your last paragraph - can you explain how it connects to the topic of the first paragraph?

 

[Eric B]

Unlike now, when they can combine in the ARP window (which doesn't require the use of any VIP benefits)?

My read of the information they've provided is that the developer and resale CWA points could be combined in the ARP window, but there is an involvement of VIP benefits in the form of reservation transactions and housekeeping credits. If they are combined, the reservation would be treated as a non-VIP eligible transaction and would use a non-VIP reservation transaction and housekeeping credit. It wouldn't be eligible for unlimited transactions or housekeeping or the extra ones VIPs are allowed, whichever they have.

 

[Ty1on]

Not so much sequestered as owned by the trust. CWA is a trust that holds CWS deeds within the trust. Therefore - any inventory that CWA holds in the trust for a specific resort - can be booked by a UDI CWA Owner within the ARP window - and only that CWA inventory can be booked in the ARP window. All CWS deeded inventory not held by the CWA trust is never available to a CWA only owner. The question that we have seen from prospective owners as well as existing owners is - should I own CWA and/or CWS if I want to book using ARP at a specific resort. Here's an excerpt from the sheet that I maintain based upon the CWA POS for a few of the Florida resorts:

View attachment 37817

From this excerpt - we can get a good sense of the percentage of deeds that CWA holds for a particular resort, provided the CWA POS provides the complete dataset - which is doesn't always do - in which case you'll see "NA" instead - such as for Orlando International Resort Club. So if an owner were to ask the question - I want to book into WBC in the ARP window and book larger 3/4 bedroom units - what ownership should I consider? My answer would be to find a CWS deeded ownership as opposed to CWA - given CWA only holds roughly a quarter of WBC deeds within the trust. Want the best of both worlds? Become a hybrid owner and hold both a CWS WBC deeded ownership along with a CWA trust ownership - but recognize you can never cross the streams so to speak - meaning you cannot combine CWA and CWS points when booking in the ARP window - so if the owner wants to book larger units - they would need to hold enough points with both CWS and CWA contracts to book the units and time windows they would desire. If booking in the ARP window isn't important - then it really doesn't matter what contract you own - since points are points within the standard booking window - unless something else changes with respect to resale contract ownerships resulting from the recent Wyndham announcements.

You've described what I meant by "sequestered."CWA contract can't see non-CWA inventory at ARP and vice versa.

 

[HitchHiker71]

No. Just the opposite, they never cannot be. Never.

Sent from my Lenovo TB-X103F using Tapatalk

* Deleted - nevermind - too many double negatives in your sentence to read it clearly. We are saying the same thing.

 

[Eric B]

All CWS deeded inventory not held by the CWA trust is never available to a CWA only owner.

You mean in the ARP window, right?

but recognize you can never cross the streams so to speak

You should never cross the streams - that may lead to total positronic reversal!!!

 

[Ty1on]

You mean in the ARP window, right?



You should never cross the streams - that may lead to total positronic reversal!!!

I didn't see HitchHiker's original post your quoted, but I don't believe that to be the case if he truly means "never". In the standard window, excepting Margaritaville, points are points are points.

 

[HitchHiker71]

You mean in the ARP window, right?



You should never cross the streams - that may lead to total positronic reversal!!!

Correct - All CWS inventory not held by the CWS trust is never available to a CWA only owner when booking in the ARP window.

 

[raygo123]

Correct - All CWS inventory not held by the CWS trust is never available to a CWA only owner when booking in the ARP window.

At 11 months it is. Now that should not be. If CWA owner owns, in trust 70 plus resorts how booking a resort you do not own permit them to book at 11 months at resort in their trust that are deeded select resorts?

Sent from my Lenovo TB-X103F using Tapatalk

 

[Ty1on]

At 11 months it is. Now that should not be. If CWA owner owns, in trust 70 plus resorts how booking a resort you do not own permit them to book at 11 months at resort in their trust that are deeded select resorts?

Sent from my Lenovo TB-X103F using Tapatalk

I don't believe you understand correctly, or I don't understand your explanation correctly.

Say I own a CWA contract and I want to book a resort 11 months out. Say at Bonnet Creek.

The reservation dates I can see are limited to inventory that belongs in the CWA trust. Period. I won't see anything else. I can't see a deeded resort "Select" inventory because it isn't available to me outside standard reservation period.

Now say Joe owns at Bonnet Creek. He wants to make a reservation at 11 months out. He can see any inventory at Bonnet Creek that is not deeded to the CWA trust. He won't see any inventory that IS deeded to CWA Trust.

The reason for this is that if I own in CWA and CWA is a trust of deeds, I don't have ARP rights to anything but what is in my trust, just like Joe has no ARP rights to anything but his deeded inventory pool. That's how ARP works, you get a jump in reservations on the pool in which you own. Exceptions would be like Myrtle Beach where several reports pool together for ARP. If it wasn't set up this way, CWA owners would bully a lot of owners at smaller high demand resorts that bought into those resorts specifically for the ARP to be able to get the times they wanted. Imagine owning and paying high maintenance fees at South Shore to get a good shot at a ski week ARP, just to be overrun by a Black Friday mob of CWA owners on the morning of 13 months out....

At ten months, I and Joe will both see all available inventory at Bonnet Creek, because now it is beyond ARP protection so all inventory is openly available.

 

[HitchHiker71]

I don't believe you understand correctly, or I don't understand your explanation correctly.

Say I own a CWA contract and I want to book a resort 11 months out. Say at Bonnet Creek.

The reservation dates I can see are limited to inventory that belongs in the CWA trust. Period. I won't see anything else. I can't see a deeded resort "Select" inventory because it isn't available to me outside standard reservation period.

Now say Joe owns at Bonnet Creek. He wants to make a reservation at 11 months out. He can see any inventory at Bonnet Creek that is not deeded to the CWA trust. He won't see any inventory that IS deeded to CWA Trust.

The reason for this is that if I own in CWA and CWA is a trust of deeds, I don't have ARP rights to anything but what is in my trust, just like Joe has no ARP rights to anything but his deeded inventory pool. That's how ARP works, you get a jump in reservations on the pool in which you own. Exceptions would be like Myrtle Beach where several reports pool together for ARP. If it wasn't set up this way, CWA owners would bully a lot of owners at smaller high demand resorts that bought into those resorts specifically for the ARP to be able to get the times they wanted. Imagine owning and paying high maintenance fees at South Shore to get a good shot at a ski week ARP, just to be overrun by a Black Friday mob of CWA owners on the morning of 13 months out....

At ten months, I and Joe will both see all available inventory at Bonnet Creek, because now it is beyond ARP protection so all inventory is openly available.

The only way a CWA owner could book any/all inventory at 11 months is as a VIP owner utilizing RARP, since RARP behaves as though what you see is as if you were looking at inventory via the standard reservation window. Outside of using RARP, even if the online system allows you to "see" CWS inventory when searching for availability, if it's actually CWS owned inventory, and you attempt to actually book the CWS unit - you'd receive an error along the line of "your membership type doesn't allow you to book this inventory" or something similar. I've seen two different types of errors over time when attempting to book in the ARP window myself - either a "you don't have enough ARP points for this reservation" or "your membership type doesn't allow you to book this unit". I'm paraphrasing the errors, as I don't recall the exact verbiage - but I've seen both at various times, though admittedly I haven't seen the latter error recently - so Wyndham may have made enhancements to the availability searches to actually not display inventory that isn't reservable based upon your ownership. Either way, you cannot book CWS inventory in the ARP window if you are a CWA only owner unless you are a VIP owner using RARP.

 

[HitchHiker71]

I just received the broader email that was sent to, best estimate, all owners, screenshots below for reference. Not really any new info, other than the fact that Wyndham is giving away free RTs for all reservations during August.

 

[paxsarah]

I just received the broader email that was sent to, best estimate, all owners, screenshots below for reference. Not really any new info, other than the fact that Wyndham is giving away free RTs for all reservations during August.

As a note, the link goes to a much pared-down version of the online benefits webpage - not the same page with all the VIP information.

 

[Eric B]

I just received the broader email that was sent to, best estimate, all owners, screenshots below for reference. Not really any new info, other than the fact that Wyndham is giving away free RTs for all reservations during August.

View attachment 37842
View attachment 37843

Interesting contrast in the signature block - from the first email:

Sincerely,

Your Club Wyndham Management Team

At least they're giving us complimentary points next use year, even if we don't warrant communication from Geoff. No free points for those of you without an account with hybrid vigor!

 

[VacayKat]

I just received the broader email that was sent to, best estimate, all owners, screenshots below for reference. Not really any new info, other than the fact that Wyndham is giving away free RTs for all reservations during August.

View attachment 37842
View attachment 37843

Was going to comment that it appears non VIP resale don’t seem to be getting the same heads up as VIP did. Implies that there will be no difference to non-VIP owners who have both types. Vacations from multiple buckets may be an ongoing question.
the online benefits summary link is not as extensive as the VIP owners received.https://clubwyndham.wyndhamdestinations.com/us/en/resorts/resort-news/new-feature-coming-soon

 

[VacayKat]

Interesting contrast in the signature block - from the first email:

Sincerely,

Your Club Wyndham Management Team

At least they're giving us complimentary points next use year, even if we don't warrant communication from Geoff. No free points for those of you without an account with hybrid vigor!

Hah- they don’t want a single person as a scapegoat.

 

[HitchHiker71]

EH - oh, that's possible, considering that my guess is Wyndham will be more strongly pushing people to rent via that avenue moving forward.

What I originally assumed that was is that we're limited to renting extra points from Wyndham (at $12/k) up to our total number of points owned (not counting PIC or bonus points), so I thought that was maybe a tally of our remaining allowed rental allotment from Wyndham. Which if that's what it is probably doesn't need to be that prominent because I hope nobody's spending up to their entire points allotment at $12/k (and if they are, they don't need it justified and codified by being that prominent on the dashboard!).

BTW, I confirmed with Wyndham contacts late yesterday - the "Rental Points" bucket in the graphic and video is for your use case - it's a bucket that signifies the maximum amount of points your account can rent from Wyndham (at $12/1000 points currently).

 

[Ty1on]

BTW, I confirmed with Wyndham contacts late yesterday - the "Rental Points" bucket in the graphic and video is for your use case - it's a bucket that signifies the maximum amount of points your account can rent from Wyndham (at $12/1000 points currently).

What an amazing bargain!