I have an even worse situation - in reverse - and it is turning into a nightmare. I am sharing here to see if anyone else is experiencing same.
I am a 20+year owner at WKOVR, (2 - 2Bd/2Ba OF Deluxe units) and over 15 year owner also in Lagunamar (2 - 2/2 there also plus one EOY), have been Elite 5* for 15 years now. Needless to say I am very familiar with how the reservation and cancellation systems work, even the new system showing reservations on Vistana and Marriott/Bonvoy.
On January 17th 2025 I cancelled a WKOVR 2025 OF Deluxe studio unit reservation that was to start on 3/29.
Well ahead of the 61 day cutoff to return the unit to my 2025 home resort inventory.
I received a cancellation confirmation in my email same day from the Marriott system, showing both the reservation number of the unit I cancelled and a separate cancellation confirmation number as well. (Two different numbers.). Thinking all was well, I waited a few weeks to decide when to reserve later in the year, knowing I still had time to reserve in my home resort owner period as long as my new booking went in ahead of the 8 month cutoff for non-owners to access inventory.
On Feb 7th I logged into Vistana to add the studio to the other 2 one bedrooms I already had booked for November 1.
The system rejected me, displaying a message that I did not have an eligible unit or some such.
Looking on the Balances page, I discovered no studio unit had been "returned" to my 2025 WKOVR ownership totals.
Yet I had the cancellation notification in hand?
Never having had such a problem ever before and having cancelled and rebooked home owner reservations in the past, I called customer service.
At that point, I gave all the info to the rep and she began looking into it, finally coming back and admitting there was some sort of systems glitch as while the Marriott cancellation confirmation supported my description of events, somehow there was no record or date showing of the same on the Vistana system. Now my studio unit is completely missing. The rep then went away and came back and said something to the effect that yes they could see there was an issue on the back end and they would "make a one-time accommodation" and "allow me to reserve the studio in November using my home resort owner period and not restrict me going forward". She then attempted to make the reservation for me -- and could not. Now we both know we really have a problem.
So now the rep has to open up a trouble ticket for tech support, gives me a "case number" and apologizes as she says "this may take a few days ...possibly up to 2 weeks"??.(!)...ie., Feb 21st." Keep in mind that my home resort reservation window for Nov 1 will close on -- March 1st.
So I call back on Feb 17th to check, just in case and again, nothing is fixed. At that point I say I will check back again on 2/24 as previously promised.
On February 24th, she can see they are working on it but asking for "9-10 more business days". I then ask for a manager and escalate.
I go through all the info with him and suggest that now time is short -- it is now coming up on 4 weeks with no progress and no resolution.
The manager looks into it and says "oh I see, yes they don't have it fixed." Not that they were working on it, but it isn't fixed.
He then proceeds to tell me that I did not cancel the reservation according to the rules and my unit has been turned back into inventory and that this is really my fault. What? I must admit, finally I lost patience and let my irritation show. I have never been so insulted. He tells me that he has worked on the program for 8 years etc etc and he knows all the rules and I just don't have it right....at which point I noted that I have the cancellation confirmation that shows I did, that I have owned and reserved units for over 20 years myself - paying them a lot $$ annually - and frankly I did not appreciate being treated as if I did not know exactly what I was doing.
He then acknowledged that any solution in the next 24 hours was unlikely but the one thing he could do - and promised over and over - was that he would at least call me back *the next day*. Well, you can imagine - that never happened either.
My next call to customer service March 2 was just to get a status update, since my home resort reservation window had come and gone, and now I'm just trying to get my unit back *at all* to reserve. Home resort or not, I want to use the unit in 2025. The inventory I want is still showing available online but - again - we are all still waiting for tech support. Finally I ask her - can they just at least *hold* a unit for me while we get the other resolved. It would seem to me that should be doable. Again she tried - I spent over an hour and a half waiting politely on hold and waiting for help - but in the end, no one could do *anything* to "resolve". I will simply have to wait for March 11th to see if someone managed this - again.
Meanwhile, it actually gets worse. I went online tonight (March 6 2025) to reserve one of my 2 bd 2 bath units for *2026*. Adding insult to injury, the automated system is restricting me from making a home resort reservation *in 2026* -- as if I had never cancelled the 2025 unit at all. Now the impact has spread from 2025 into all 4 of my units for 2026. Absolutely unacceptable.
If anyone out there has experienced something like this, please post and make sure everyone knows what is going on.
It is much more damaging than a simple systems mixup or clerical error when thousands of dollars in fees are at risk.
Thanks to those of you who posted your other experiences here.
I felt pretty alone until I saw your other experiences (and explanations) of what is happening "behind the scenes".
I will post again if there is a resolution or not by 3/11....
