2023 to Present: Vistana On-Line Reservation Experiences (Good/Bad)

[DavidnRobin]

OK - since there are (and will be...) individual threads for experiences with making online reservations, I thought it would be worthwhile to have them in one location.
This will perhaps allow us to add fuel to the fire in dealing with Vistana/MVC Corporate if it unfortunately comes to it.

Recall that last year (Q1 2022) there were serious issues with reserving Maui (WKORV/N/Nanea), Kierland, and I believe Lagunamar due to supposed "IT Merge" Issues. I know for our WKORV (OFD) and WKV Plat+ weeks it was bad last year, when previous years it was relatively easy. I know others had this issue, as well as various reports this year here on TUG and FB groups.

So... I'll start.

Last Thursday at 9pm PST (exactly as always) I went through process to reserve our OFD WKORV as a test run for Jan 27 2024 - 12 month point. I choose both the studio and 1Bd side separately (not 2Bd as we rarely use it that way). The search results came up relatively quickly (~15 seconds) and both showed up in search results. I quickly chose the 1Bd side (as it is a harder reservation to get compared to the studio). The next page came up where it checks availability and took me to next page where it asks for guest name. I clicked on my name and checked terms and conditions, but the blue "Confirm Guest" box was not highlighted and I wasn't able to move forward with the reservation. I believe @Ken555 and others posted about this issue.

After about 5 minutes as the reservation hold clock was counting down. I gave up and refreshed the same search as above.
This time only the studio showed up. I went through same reservation process for studio and was able to get through all the steps - got activated "Confirm Guest" box (blue), and was able to go forward with the reservation. I cancelled at this point as this was only a test.

Anyway - please post your experiences whether successful or not.
This is for both Home Resort and StarOption reservations.

Confirm Guest not activated

 

[DavidnRobin]

Threads for online reservation experiences.

No availability at 12 months out

Great, good thing we "upgraded" our S/O's @ WLR to Westin Aventuras. I guess I need to just forget about that and be happy we were able to requalify 2 resales with that "upgrade". Yes, I think you need to forget and move on from that. Sadly, I don't find "upgrading" from a WLR week to...

tugbbs.com

Vistana reservations - can anyone book online today?

I've tried multiple browsers and it keeps failing. It shows the unit I want, but then won't let me confirm. The "confirm guest" button just doesn't work. Update: I was able to make the reservations on my iPhone.

tugbbs.com

Anyone working at Vistana

I've tried to go online to my owners account for a week now and while I am able to login to my account, each time I try to look at my dashboard in order to make a reservation I get the message that my account can't be accessed and to contact vistana's support group. When I call the phone...

tugbbs.com

VSE Web/app performance

Ever since Abound has gone live, I have noticed a marked degradation in the Vistana website/App Performance. For example, I timeout trying to search for a room no matter if I search from Safari, Chrome, or the App. "Sunny" (chatbot) is worthless, and I have been on hold for owner services for...

tugbbs.com

 

[cindylou]

Thank you @DavidnRobin. I have been preparing to do my own test in preparation for 2024 reservations in February and was very unclear on whether or not I could still reserve at 7 pm HT (midnight ET) or needed to wake up at 4 am HT for 9 am EST MVC opening hours.

Were you ever able to secure your actually desired Jan 27, 2024 one bedroom OFD?

Has anyone identified methods to make the system work as intended with confirmation boxes highlighted and clickable?

 

[DavidnRobin]

Thank you @DavidnRobin. I have been preparing to do my own test in preparation for 2024 reservations in February and was very unclear on whether or not I could still reserve at 7 pm HT (midnight ET) or needed to wake up at 4 am HT for 9 am EST MVC opening hours.

Were you ever able to secure your actually desired Jan 27, 2024 one bedroom OFD?

Has anyone identified methods to make the system work as intended with confirmation boxes highlighted and clickable?

It was just a test. I only reserve the studio for this time of year (rent to help cover $3700 MF!). I reserve the 1Bd OFD in September for use. I try and reserve the studio for mid-February, but was curious to what was happening currently with online reservations.

It will be telling (to me) what happens with Kierland for 2024 Spring Training. Last March it was a ClusterF**k.

I read that someone refreshed the page and the blue “Confirm Guest” became activated. I didn’t try this, but thought of it. I refreshed the search instead.


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[DeniseM]

You can still reserve at midnight eastern - assuming it's working.

 

[Denise L]

My experience was similar to @DavidnRobin when trying to book January 27 at the same time on Thursday night at exactly 9:00 PM. Except I was choosing the entire 2 bedroom WKORV OFD LO. Results came back quickly, but the Confirm Guest button was light blue, just like @Ken555. Started the search again, but the "hold" was likely tying up my ownership, so I could not see any availability since the system thought I had no Home Resort OFD to book. OV came up over an over (we own OV, too), but I had to wait the full 10 minute hold before I could see OFD again.

This wasn't a practice booking, so it was pretty frustrating considering that January 27 is not even a high demand week on Maui (I don't think it is).

I didn't try the refresh the page, but instead started the search over and over and over again until my hold was released. If anyone has any tips on getting the page to reset faster, let me know. My current timestamp is obviously not desirable. On the other hand, if it just gets worse, then canceling and moving it to another week could end in getting nothing at all.

 

[vacationtime1]

I reserved WKORV-OF on January 13 (1bd) and January 20 (studio). Each time I was online at the stroke of midnight.

The January 13 reservation was difficult. I had the same "Confirm Guest" issue described by @Ken555. I had to log out, log in, re-search, log out, log in, and re-search again until I was permitted to confirm that I was the guest. The process took 15-20 very frustrating minutes.

The January 20 reservation was easy. I had it within one or two minutes of midnight.

It will be interesting to see how this affects my room placement next year.

 

[pchung6]

I will be reserving WKORVN-OF this week or next week at 12 months. I will report back. I will also try to use SOs to reserve WKORV(N) for 2024 soon. We should also test the SOs reservation when available as well

 

[SteelerGal]

Need to reserve SDO this weekend. Wish me luck.

 

[sjlola]

Although we were nervous given all the posts here detailing problems, shockingly we were able to reserve three consecutive weeks of our WKORV-N OF 2 br lockoff units beginning January 12, 2024. We actually made six reservations, splitting the 1 br and studio units as we frequently have friends travel with us but can then cancel any studio weeks without having to rebook the 1 br. All reservations were make at 12 am eastern time on the dot using a notebook. We also had the Vistana site open on our phone for comparison, and the phone wasn’t working as well trying to make a reservation as the notebook. I’m angry that so many owners continue to have problems both making a reservation and the site not showing their ownership properly, leading to protracted calls with owner services. Clearly, the integration has been a hot mess, but this leads me to believe that this is more of an IT problem than an issue of Marriott cherry-picking prime weeks for Abound reservations. I’ll be interested in reading the other posts in this thread today. We’ve been at WKORV-N since 1/13 in one of the best upper floor units in Bldg. 8. Other than 5 straight days of pouring rain from last Thursday through Monday, the weather has been perfecto. Aloha!

 

[grgs]

It will be telling (to me) what happens with Kierland for 2024 Spring Training. Last March it was a ClusterF**k.

I, too, will be waiting to see what happens when I try to reserve WKV & SDO in March. I wish us both good luck!

 

[m61376]

Not a Vistana but a long time Marriott owner. The consensus from experience over the past 12 years since the inception of the DC is that Marriott doesn't seem to cherry pick weeks (Marriott owners had similar concerns at the onset as well) and are taking their proportional share of each week and reservation day (meaning according to percentage ownership in the Trust and weeks traded into the exchange/anticipated will be traded for points in any given year.
The website has been a huge issue for Marriott owners as well, beginning last summer. Sign in/refresh times were taking 20 seconds and when making a summer reservation the site froze on 2 different computers, and thankfully we got through quickly on the phone. And then called back a few times later in the day together our preferred check in day. On a positive note, it appears that over the past few days things have been working as they should, at least for Marriott owners, and my test runs loaded quickly and people I know reserved online this past week without issue. So maybe (hopefully) they finally have gotten their act together. On the Marriott forum there must be close to a 20 page thread on the IT issues since last Spring/Summer.

 

[timsi]

Not a Vistana but a long time Marriott owner. The consensus from experience over the past 12 years since the inception of the DC is that Marriott doesn't seem to cherry pick weeks (Marriott owners had similar concerns at the onset as well) and are taking their proportional share of each week and reservation day (meaning according to percentage ownership in the Trust and weeks traded into the exchange/anticipated will be traded for points in any given year.
The website has been a huge issue for Marriott owners as well, beginning last summer. Sign in/refresh times were taking 20 seconds and when making a summer reservation the site froze on 2 different computers, and thankfully we got through quickly on the phone. And then called back a few times later in the day together our preferred check in day. On a positive note, it appears that over the past few days things have been working as they should, at least for Marriott owners, and my test runs loaded quickly and people I know reserved online this past week without issue. So maybe (hopefully) they finally have gotten their act together. On the Marriott forum there must be close to a 20 page thread on the IT issues since last Spring/Summer.

People rarely have a consensus about things they can see and touch let alone things they can't verify. The Marriott inventory is a black box so how can you have "consensus" about something you have no access to the real numbers?
If Marriott owned 10% of a resort and retained 30% of a prime week, how could you tell? You would only see that there is some inventory when the booking window opens, nothing more. 20% of the owners might not be able to book what they were entitled to, but you would still have all the others who will post that they were able to book. The social media is full of reports that hard to explain so not sure how you have come to the conclusion that there is a consensus.

 

[DavidnRobin]

Not a Vistana but a long time Marriott owner. The consensus from experience over the past 12 years since the inception of the DC is that Marriott doesn't seem to cherry pick weeks (Marriott owners had similar concerns at the onset as well) and are taking their proportional share of each week and reservation day (meaning according to percentage ownership in the Trust and weeks traded into the exchange/anticipated will be traded for points in any given year.
The website has been a huge issue for Marriott owners as well, beginning last summer. Sign in/refresh times were taking 20 seconds and when making a summer reservation the site froze on 2 different computers, and thankfully we got through quickly on the phone. And then called back a few times later in the day together our preferred check in day. On a positive note, it appears that over the past few days things have been working as they should, at least for Marriott owners, and my test runs loaded quickly and people I know reserved online this past week without issue. So maybe (hopefully) they finally have gotten their act together. On the Marriott forum there must be close to a 20 page thread on the IT issues since last Spring/Summer.

This thread is intended to gather real-life experiences for Vistana on-line reservation experiences for HomeResort and StarOptions/FlexOptions - versus speculation.

For us - if it becomes hard/impossible to reserve resort/villa types that were once relatively simple. That would lean to MVC/Vistana holding prime weeks.

As example - OF WKORV was never brought into Flex - so that only leaves deeds that are owned by Owners and Vistana. Conversion to Abound (or StarOptions) is unlikely - especially the Deluxe (corner) layout (what we own) due to disproportionally high MFs.

Since online (2013?) reservations - our OFD villa has been available during peak weeks (eg. Prez Day, Spring Break, July 4…) at exactly 12 months out - until last year.

If that suddenly changes (like Q1 2022), then that means a change in inventory availability that would be likely explained by inventory held by Vistana/MVC.

The same for Kierland (WKV) during Spring Training - always available at 12 months - until last year. Curious to see what happens this year.

Thus… this thread to gather instances of real life successes and failures.


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[maph]

Trying to book my WKORV OFC week for Feb 3, 2024 check in, doesn't work. When I try to book I get through the 'checking eligibility' spinning wheel to the 'Reserve Now' button, then I get 'Your villa is no longer available. Please modify search and try again'. Keeps failing with the same message. If I wait for the 10 minute hold to expire and search again, I get a new Result ID, again get to the 'Reserve Now' button, again fails with villa no longer available. Pretty frustrating!

 

[Denise L]

Trying to book my WKORV OFC week for Feb 3, 2024 check in, doesn't work. When I try to book I get through the 'checking eligibility' spinning wheel to the 'Reserve Now' button, then I get 'Your villa is no longer available. Please modify search and try again'. Keeps failing with the same message. If I wait for the 10 minute hold to expire and search again, I get a new Result ID, again get to the 'Reserve Now' button, again fails with villa no longer available. Pretty frustrating!

Did you keep trying? It took me 90 minutes in 2022 to reserve my OFD week, although I got the Timeout and Retry messages back then. But I kept trying even though the system told me there was no availability.

 

[maph]

Did you keep trying? It took me 90 minutes in 2022 to reserve my OFD week, although I got the Timeout and Retry messages back then. But I keep trying even though the system told me there was no availability.

Yes, I kept trying but after the initial couple of times where the search found what I wanted I wasn't able to see anything, no studios, 1 bedrooms or 2 bedrooms. I don't know if this problem is specific to me and others were able to grab all the available units or it's not working for everyone. I thought that once you have a Result Id # then you have a lock on a unit. I've never seen this before - calling owner services tomorrow.

 

[Ken555]

Yes, I kept trying but after the initial couple of times where the search found what I wanted I wasn't able to see anything, no studios, 1 bedrooms or 2 bedrooms. I don't know if this problem is specific to me and others were able to grab all the available units or it's not working for everyone. I thought that once you have a Result Id # then you have a lock on a unit. I've never seen this before - calling owner services tomorrow.

I and others had this exact experience a year or so ago, and there was a discussion about it then. I don’t think there was any resolution other than the belief the availability wasn’t there but the system thought there was until it went to hold a unit.


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[maph]

I and others had this exact experience a year or so ago, and there was a discussion about it then. I don’t think there was any resolution other than the belief the availability wasn’t there but the system thought there was until it went to hold a unit.


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Owner services is telling me that nothing has changed, that when you select an available unit after a search you don't actually have a unit assigned to you. It's only after you press the 'Reserve Now' button that the timer starts and you have a unit. During the time that the 'Checking eligibility' step is happening, if other people finish this step ahead of you, then they can grab a unit even if they started the process after you. For me this step is now taking a very long time to complete which looks to be giving others an advantage over me. Their bottom line - you're screwed, keep trying. I've never had this happen before in the 12 years that I've had these units.

 

[rickandcindy23]

I am getting worried about my reservations for next year. I will be trying for 2/17 and 2/24 for our deeded view. I have never done this before.

 

[m61376]

People rarely have a consensus about things they can see and touch let alone things they can't verify. The Marriott inventory is a black box so how can you have "consensus" about something you have no access to the real numbers?
If Marriott owned 10% of a resort and retained 30% of a prime week, how could you tell? You would only see that there is some inventory when the booking window opens, nothing more. 20% of the owners might not be able to book what they were entitled to, but you would still have all the others who will post that they were able to book. The social media is full of reports that hard to explain so not sure how you have come to the conclusion that there is a consensus.

Sorry- not trying to start anything here. What I meant is that after the DC was announced in 2010 Marriott owners had the same fears, and largely it appears that they're being good to their word about what portion of the weeks they secure. Obviously it's impossible to know for sure, but owners were afraid that they'd grab large proportions of the prime weeks or all the Saturday preferred arrival days, for example, and since people are still securing these reservations it doesn't appear to be the case. Trust me, I'm not a Marriott apologist, just repeating patterns I saw reported over the years.
I think some of the issues are more due to their horrible IT. My experience reserving a summer 3BR weeks at the SC this past summer reflected those issues. I was signed onto two devices and refreshed. Grabbed my first arrival day and tried to click through and it froze. Same thing on my second device. Luckily was also trying to get through on the phone since I knew about the issues, and got through quickly. Only Monday was left so I reluctantly reserved it. Called an hour later and Sunday wasn't available. A few hours later it was, and I switched. I didn't want it but Saturday was available in the evening or the next day (for some reason the system let me see availability although booked). Others have reported similar changes in availability so some of the issues may not be due to Marriott taking things they shouldn't but due to the reservation system itself. For years the online system was fast and responsive, and I had a confirmation before an agent either picked up or accessed my account, but since last Spring everyone has been having issues.

 

[Denise L]

I am getting worried about my reservations for next year. I will be trying for 2/17 and 2/24 for our deeded view. I have never done this before.

Presidents' Week has always been one of the most difficult weeks to book. We have owned WKORV OV since the beginning, and that has been the only floating week that we had to worry about getting. The system would always crash, time out, hang, etc. Competition for OFC and OFD is always fierce, from what I have read on TUG, but OV has been gobbled up within seconds, too. And all of the other owners at other resorts who are looking to travel during the popular vacation week will just add to the heavy load. It would be good to set realistic expectations, and to have a backup plan if you can only travel that week, just in case. I hope that you get your weeks!

 

[DavidnRobin]

Proportionally - their are the same number of Owners (both Vistana/MVC and non) for every view level.
Some of the VOIs for Prez Day are fixed event week.
I have always been successful of getting our OFD studio for Prez Day (for years) - including the debacle last year.

Forgot to try a test reservation last evening - need to set an alarm.


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[Denise L]

Proportionally - their are the same number of Owners (both Vistana/MVC and non) for every view level.
Some of the VOIs for Prez Day are fixed event week.
I have always been successful of getting our OFD studio for Prez Day (for years) - including the debacle last year.

Forgot to try a test reservation last evening - need to set an alarm.


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You are right about the proportion of owners for view levels. What I meant to say was that a lot more Vistana owners in general will be vying for that vacation week throughout the whole network, which just causes the system to crash. I hope that they have fixed the system to handle the load, but if it is already timing out for the less popular weeks, who knows what will happen in two weeks. Hoping that you get your week like you always do!

 

[timsi]

Sorry- not trying to start anything here. What I meant is that after the DC was announced in 2010 Marriott owners had the same fears, and largely it appears that they're being good to their word about what portion of the weeks they secure. Obviously it's impossible to know for sure, but owners were afraid that they'd grab large proportions of the prime weeks or all the Saturday preferred arrival days, for example, and since people are still securing these reservations it doesn't appear to be the case. Trust me, I'm not a Marriott apologist, just repeating patterns I saw reported over the years.
I think some of the issues are more due to their horrible IT. My experience reserving a summer 3BR weeks at the SC this past summer reflected those issues. I was signed onto two devices and refreshed. Grabbed my first arrival day and tried to click through and it froze. Same thing on my second device. Luckily was also trying to get through on the phone since I knew about the issues, and got through quickly. Only Monday was left so I reluctantly reserved it. Called an hour later and Sunday wasn't available. A few hours later it was, and I switched. I didn't want it but Saturday was available in the evening or the next day (for some reason the system let me see availability although booked). Others have reported similar changes in availability so some of the issues may not be due to Marriott taking things they shouldn't but due to the reservation system itself. For years the online system was fast and responsive, and I had a confirmation before an agent either picked up or accessed my account, but since last Spring everyone has been having issues.

They are not completely stupid to keep for themselves all units of a prime week . What should give pause to anyone defending the idea that they book proportional to their ownership is the fact that Marriott has resisted all calls to make public the rules used to book their own units. Why a secret if they have acted fairly for 13 years? They have hundreds of millions of dollars of rental revenue and the individual owners don't know how and when they book a single unit.