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

[55plus]

i'm curious how owners have found availability and VIP upgrades since this change has been implemented? Are you able to get more frequent VIP upgrades now? (size and discount window)

Since the change I haven't had any problem getting VIP discounts or upgraded. We travel 5 to 6 months in Florida during the winter months. It's during off season so discounts and upgrades plentiful.

 

[bnoble]

Was it the stages of grief or the 12 steps we were supposed to go through? I had gotten as far as the apologizing one and don’t want to have to start over….

If you are painstaking about this phase of your development, you will be amazed before you are halfway through!

 

[Sandi Bo]

Some really good news to share resulting from the two outage windows this week - it does appear that the fixes were implemented for hybrid VIP owners to borrow developer points when performing a resale booking transaction in the SRP. I cannot test via ARP since I don't have like contracts in the ARP window - but SRP has been tested per the screenshots below and is working now at least for me.

I appreciate the work / effort. But, how many people did this effect? I struggle with prioritization. They managed to implement hybrid accounts, etc, and fix this. And yet here we are, 2 years with the covid version of the website, still viewing 3 reservations per page and with no transaction details / reporting history. No financial reporting. One might think this website is working as intended and there is not desire to improve certain areas?

 

[Sandi Bo]

i'm curious how owners have found availability and VIP upgrades since this change has been implemented? Are you able to get more frequent VIP upgrades now? (size and discount window)

If anything, less upgrades than ever. That surprises me (if owner priority were really a thing) it should be better.

Finding reservations, about the same as always. I booked Clearwater in the last few weeks for my birthday this month, 2 rooms. Very similar experience as last time I went 2 years ago. Needed 2 rooms, watched for cancellations and found them. No upgrades this year (shouldn't there be more not less) but happy with what I found. I did book my brother last month and got an auto upgrade. No, I don't credit owner priority for the rooms I was able to find. I credit myself for persistently checking for cancellations.

I noticed you could book a 2 bedroom at Ocean Walk for the Daytona 500. Came up at 15 days. As they always have. No owner priority at Ocean Walk anyways. So, meh, again, no credit where credit is not due. I'm watching for Bike Week for my brother and noticed the Daytona 500 (a bit of a decision - that or Clearwater ).

I still say Wyndham is doing something with rooms and we haven't figured it out (or people in the know aren't saying). 3 and 4 bedroom units were taken out of inventory at Bonnet Creek around October (through November of 2022, nothing on the owner website). I had a 1 bedroom I did an instant upgrade to a 2 bedroom. At checkin was given a 3 bedroom. Hmmmm, makes one take pause. (LOL, here take one of these 3 bedrooms that isn't showing available on the website).

Family still enjoying Bentley Brook in their usual fashion. Was able to book them Christmas week (as always). A couple rooms over NYE (one even booked on the 31st). Going for short stays during the week or catching some ski weekends last minute. It is harder to find this year, I was thinking because people want to be out and about and outside. Then heard there was a flood in one of the buildings over MLK weekend (sprinkler issue). That helps to explain things a bit more. You just never know what's going on and always an ah ha moment when you hear something (like a maintenance issue).

Wyndham knows what they are doing. We can guess all we want. I imagine Owner Priority is a good sales tool and good PR for owners that believe the BS. But actually doing something good for me, I think not. I'm also pretty much over it, just have to remember to check the list once on a while and be cognizant of the black out dates. And chuckle every time I see or hear 'Wyndham Cares'.

 

[paxsarah]

No upgrades this year (shouldn't there be more not less)

Should there be? If Wyndham’s goal was to reduce the number of units booked for rentals and increase the number of units booked for owners’ own use (and friends and family within the guest limitations), and if they were successful, I would posit we used to see more cancellations (and potential for upgradable units) when renters were more active, and that an owner booking for their own use would be more likely to hold and use a unit. You’ve also got more points in the system that are subject to resale points deposit deadlines (ie the first 3 months) rather than extended VIP deposit deadlines, also a disincentive to canceling after a certain point in the year. I could be wrong about the booking patterns here, but I’m not sure there was anything to suggest upgrades would become more plentiful.

 

[kanerf]

I stay frequently at Old Town Alexandria and I get upgraded virtually every time from the smallest one bedroom to a two bedroom usually. This happens with developer and resale stays.

 

[Sandy VDH]

Why does this have a 2022 date in the title. Isn't this mostly about changes from July of 2021.

Anyone?

 

[paxsarah]

Why does this have a 2022 date in the title. Isn't this mostly about changes from July of 2021.

Anyone?

I looked up the cached version and it looks like it was always a typo (that is, cached versions from prior to this latest bump also say 2022 in the title) - and you're the first person in 25 pages to notice it!

 

[Ty1on]

Yes, it was always written as 2022.

 

[HitchHiker71]

I appreciate the work / effort. But, how many people did this effect? I struggle with prioritization. They managed to implement hybrid accounts, etc, and fix this. And yet here we are, 2 years with the covid version of the website, still viewing 3 reservations per page and with no transaction details / reporting history. No financial reporting. One might think this website is working as intended and there is not desire to improve certain areas?

As has been discussed ad nauseum within this thread - the entire change affected less than 1% of owners - and considerably less than 1% of VIP owners - which is why we should not expect Wyndham (or any other business) to prioritize such an outlier percentage of their ownership/customer base. With that in mind, I think we can agree that we're not happy with the progress made on the current website - nor are we happy with the progress made on a number of our bugs/regressions/enhancements that we are tracking that remain outstanding for coming up on two years in May 2022. I'd also state that we're all better off for having at least some progress made that would otherwise likely not have been made at all without our efforts - so it's worthwhile what we are doing on some level. I think I've also said enough times now that there are certain features/functions that simply aren't going to happen for various reasons - because they have little to no impact on the vast majority of owners.

When you say financial reporting, what are you referring to exactly? The loans that owners take out against their timeshare purchase? I know that's still an item that remains outstanding. If you're referring to your financials for your timeshare MFs and program fees - that has been in place for many months now. I can see it under the My Ownership page. Is something missing on this page that we need to draw attention to? If so, please let me know.

 

[HitchHiker71]

I stay frequently at Old Town Alexandria and I get upgraded virtually every time from the smallest one bedroom to a two bedroom usually. This happens with developer and resale stays.

Resale stays should not be upgraded since VIP benefits do not apply - the upgrade option should not even display when making the reservation. Are you saying it does display? Or are you saying you find out when you get to the resort and check in that there's a two bedroom available?

 

[HitchHiker71]

Why does this have a 2022 date in the title. Isn't this mostly about changes from July of 2021.

Anyone?

Thanks for pointing this out - thread title edited to display the proper date.

 

[Ty1on]

I stay frequently at Old Town Alexandria and I get upgraded virtually every time from the smallest one bedroom to a two bedroom usually. This happens with developer and resale stays.

Have you received an upgrade on a stay booked with retail points after last July?

 

[HitchHiker71]

Have you received an upgrade on a stay booked with retail points after last July?

This is one of our most frequented resorts for weekend getaways. I've received either an instant upgrade (within 45 days as a VIPG owner) or a requested upgrade almost every time at OTA over the past two years during the pandemic - I'd say we've been to OTA six times over the past two years for weekend getaways (Fri-Mon). It's starting to get more difficult now though - as more owners are starting to vacation now that the pandemic is easing up a bit.

 

[kanerf]

Resale stays should not be upgraded since VIP benefits do not apply - the upgrade option should not even display when making the reservation. Are you saying it does display? Or are you saying you find out when you get to the resort and check in that there's a two bedroom available?

I made most of these reservations prior to the change and as far as upgrades are concerned, they have been getting upgraded 60 days or so out just like the developer reservations.

 

[kanerf]

Have you received an upgrade on a stay booked with retail points after last July?

Yes.

 

[kanerf]

Yes.

So looking at a stay that I booked on 7/10/21. It was resale booked for 03/07-03/11 and it has been upgraded from 1 Bdrm to 2 Bdrm Deluxe. At Old Town there are two categories of One Bedroom, standard and deluxe. This was booked into standard, which does not have a full kitchen.

 

[Ty1on]

So looking at a stay that I booked on 7/10/21. It was resale booked for 03/07-03/11 and it has been upgraded from 1 Bdrm to 2 Bdrm Deluxe. At Old Town there are two categories of One Bedroom, standard and deluxe. This was booked into standard, which does not have a full kitchen.

7/10 was before the change. I'm curious whether anyone has booked retail after the change and received an upgrade.

 

[HitchHiker71]

7/10 was before the change. I'm curious whether anyone has booked retail after the change and received an upgrade.

Yes I have. We stayed in OTA the weekend of 1/7/2022 - 1/10/2022. I booked this reservation on 11/10/2021 via developer points and requested an automatic upgrade (since I was outside of the 45 day VIPG instant upgrade period). I received an automatic upgrade to a two bedroom deluxe on this reservation via the automatic upgrade process later in November 2021.

 

[Ty1on]

Yes I have. We stayed in OTA the weekend of 1/7/2022 - 1/10/2022. I booked this reservation on 11/10/2021 via developer points and requested an automatic upgrade (since I was outside of the 45 day VIPG instant upgrade period). I received an automatic upgrade to a two bedroom deluxe on this reservation via the automatic upgrade process later in November 2021.

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Im sorry, I meant resale points, though I am glad to hear that dev points are working as designed.

 

[HitchHiker71]

Im sorry, I meant resale points, though I am glad to hear that dev points are working as designed.

Gotcha - I'm not even seeing the option when making resale reservations - so if this happens - it's definitely not by design LOL.

 

[Sandi Bo]

As has been discussed ad nauseum within this thread - the entire change affected less than 1% of owners - and considerably less than 1% of VIP owners - which is why we should not expect Wyndham (or any other business) to prioritize such an outlier percentage of their ownership/customer base. With that in mind, I think we can agree that we're not happy with the progress made on the current website - nor are we happy with the progress made on a number of our bugs/regressions/enhancements that we are tracking that remain outstanding for coming up on two years in May 2022. I'd also state that we're all better off for having at least some progress made that would otherwise likely not have been made at all without our efforts - so it's worthwhile what we are doing on some level. I think I've also said enough times now that there are certain features/functions that simply aren't going to happen for various reasons - because they have little to no impact on the vast majority of owners.
When you say financial reporting, what are you referring to exactly? The loans that owners take out against their timeshare purchase? I know that's still an item that remains outstanding. If you're referring to your financials for your timeshare MFs and program fees - that has been in place for many months now. I can see it under the My Ownership page. Is something missing on this page that we need to draw attention to? If so, please let me know.

I don't think we're on the same page, and I apologize if I offended you. My thought was, and still is, I can't imagine too many people have hybrid accounts, I can't imagine it being a priority at all. In my head, if they never fixed booking both in the same reservation, then once a year (maybe) if I needed to mix resale and developer points, I'd just do 2 transactions. If that is what you are saying was discussed ad nauseum, it sure wasn't me. If it was people asking for transaction details, which is what I meant to imply I would have prioritized, I respectfully disagree that effects less than 1% of owners.

Financials? I am doing better myself at tracking the information I need. I don't have a loan but have read some interesting comments from people that do. I am thankful I don't have to deal with that in any way shape or form. As far as assessments due, today I needed my balance and to know recent payments. It was not a simple call and I could hear them pounding on their calculator because the information was not available on a screen. In the past I made special requests for detailed ledgers for some previous years. A week or two later in the mail, I received hard copies of the annual assessment (honestly don't remember if it was the beginning of the year or end of the year, which btw is different if you buy or sell any contracts ). I don't think it's unreasonable to be able to view details of transactions, whether it's points or money. Neither is possible. I won't mention it again, I'm tracking what I need myself. Thank goodness for excel.

I don't think the system provides what it should to owners but I'll try to quit saying so (and we can all act surprised again when something like the issue of getting logged out countless times is mentioned again). I've learned to work around the things most painful for me and am able to get done what I can. People have definitely stopped complaining and I'll do my best to as well.

I appreciate your time and effort and getting done what you have with Wyndham and will keep my opinions to myself (at least publicly on TUG).

 

[paxsarah]

If you're referring to your financials for your timeshare MFs and program fees - that has been in place for many months now. I can see it under the My Ownership page. Is something missing on this page that we need to draw attention to? If so, please let me know.

Although the annual assessment amounts are on the ownership page, there's no payment history. For instance, I recently received a balance due notice in the mail for several months of 2021 maintenance fees for a resale contract that hit my account at the end of December (the tangent being that apparently Wyndham will transfer a contract with a balance due, and I was just too weary from the fight to get the points actually deposited to call and question it). I was able to pay it online, but nowhere in my account online is there a record of that one-time payment (separate from the monthly autopay), nor is there a record of past monthly payments that could show me when my payment amount changed. Obviously, I could check my credit card statements, but it's Wyndham I'm making payments to.

While I don't find this to be a terribly major personal inconvenience as I have a pretty simple ownership, it is sort of a glaring omission when compared with most other companies that do business online.

 

[HitchHiker71]

I don't think we're on the same page, and I apologize if I offended you. My thought was, and still is, I can't imagine too many people have hybrid accounts, I can't imagine it being a priority at all. In my head, if they never fixed booking both in the same reservation, then once a year (maybe) if I needed to mix resale and developer points, I'd just do 2 transactions. If that is what you are saying was discussed ad nauseum, it sure wasn't me. If it was people asking for transaction details, which is what I meant to imply I would have prioritized, I respectfully disagree that effects less than 1% of owners.

No offense taken I assure you. I'm a hard person to offend - I've been called a "Mr. Spock" type of person on multiple occasions as I don't get emotional about much really. You're correct that VIP hybrid accounts are less than 1% of overall ownership. Resale ownership only stood at about 5% of overall ownership a year ago. We've shared the numbers here previously so I won't rehash them again. The scope of this thread is for hybrid owners. Trust me I've heard a LOT of chatter about not being able to combine retail/resale points in the SRP from many hybrid owners. I'm glad you don't count yourself among them - but they have been a noisy bunch.

Transaction details is a whole other ball of wax that impacts all of us quite frankly. I don't go looking in my Tx history much - but I went looking for something recently and that's when I realized that they made changes somewhere along the line to limit the columnar search capabilities. Earlier on you could choose more selection criteria - not sure why this was deprecated - but I'll go chase this item and add it to our list as a regression.

Financials? I am doing better myself at tracking the information I need. I don't have a loan but have read some interesting comments from people that do. I am thankful I don't have to deal with that in any way shape or form. As far as assessments due, today I needed my balance and to know recent payments. It was not a simple call and I could hear them pounding on their calculator because the information was not available on a screen. In the past I made special requests for detailed ledgers for some previous years. A week or two later in the mail, I received hard copies of the annual assessment (honestly don't remember if it was the beginning of the year or end of the year, which btw is different if you buy or sell any contracts ). I don't think it's unreasonable to be able to view details of transactions, whether it's points or money. Neither is possible. I won't mention it again, I'm tracking what I need myself. Thank goodness for excel.

Agreed - the current assessment doesn't list any billing activities. It would be nice if this was included in our Tx history as a category that we could sort against I think. These are billing transactions after all right? Sure it'd be nice if it showed up under the Assessment area as well. I'll add this to our enhancement list.

The loans topic is supposedly coming later this year from what I understand - but I've never had any loans for timeshares - so this won't help me nor will I be able to test this new functionality whenever it arrives.

I don't think the system provides what it should to owners but I'll try to quit saying so (and we can all act surprised again when something like the issue of getting logged out countless times is mentioned again). I've learned to work around the things most painful for me and am able to get done what I can. People have definitely stopped complaining and I'll do my best to as well.

I appreciate your time and effort and getting done what you have with Wyndham and will keep my opinions to myself (at least publicly on TUG).

I agree we've got a long way to go. Let's keep up the efforts - we've made enough noise at certain times to get things fixed and to get some functions back in place that really mattered (like the monthly availability calendar for example). I need to update and republish our current tracking sheet - and make it a sticky here in the Wyndham forum - that way it's always on so to speak - and we can point anyone who wants to log new issues to that thread on an ongoing basis. And please don't view it as complaining - it's not complaining - it's pointing out what is and is not working. Sometimes it might seem as though I'm pushing back - but what I'm often doing is relaying information in response based on conversations or feedback we've received during our travels. Take it for what you will - I figure it's worthwhile sharing the perspectives and generating debate and conversation on what's best for us as owners from a feature request perspective. Please keep the feedback coming in other words.

 

[Don40]

Do you think Wyndham will go back to booking a single nite stay, that is one feature I am most upset that they took away from us.