[MERGED] Book Club Pass Online - A Message From Annie Roberts & Trina Miller

[Sandi Bo]

Club Pass is the ability to use Club Wyndham points to book Worldmark resorts. Its limited to developer purchased points- resale points cannot be used.

And here I am with some gentle reminders - of a benefit lost but forgotten... we used to be able to book Worldmark online. I guess that was pre-voyager?

Still will be nice to be able to see that inventory online (again) and be able to book it (again) and hopefully the deeply discounted fees will not be bad.

And hopefully not too painful of an upgrade (or whatever we are calling that).

 

[geist1223]

And it will take more than a year to resove the jungle of bugs this dual system upgrade/integration will unleash.

Assuming Wyndham uses it totally incompetent internal IS Staffs that has no understanding of the needs of the average Member.

 

[Sandi Bo]

No emails for this VIP Founder (hybrid account). I did receive emails from paymentus recently about my autopay being removed for my paid off contracts (inactive loans is what they called them). I don't think there ever were loans on any of our contracts. Even the original developer ones 15-20 years ago. I rarely get emails that matter. I get confirmations 75% of the time. And yes, did get the invalid ones a couple months about cancelled reservations, etc. Their incompetency with emails is what led me to setting up a completely separate email account for Wyndham emails. One place to look to see if I missed something. One place to look for something I expected, etc. Typically treated as a bit bucket.

 

[Sandi Bo]

@HitchHiker71 - are you able to confirm the VC's will be available and able to book, cancel, add gc's, etc? during the website outage. I take it as sort of implied, would be nice to have some confirmation, if possible. Thank you.

A little puzzling why only the customer facing website would be unavailable. I won't be planning on needing or doing anything.

 

[HitchHiker71]

And here I am with some gentle reminders - of a benefit lost but forgotten... we used to be able to book Worldmark online. I guess that was pre-voyager?

Still will be nice to be able to see that inventory online (again) and be able to book it (again) and hopefully the deeply discounted fees will not be bad.

And hopefully not too painful of an upgrade (or whatever we are calling that).

It's worth mentioning that we've had the ability to perform Worldmark Club Pass availability searches since the website updates last fall - it's just the online reservation ability that remains outstanding.

 

[HitchHiker71]

@HitchHiker71 - are you able to confirm the VC's will be available and able to book, cancel, add gc's, etc? during the website outage. I take it as sort of implied, would be nice to have some confirmation, if possible. Thank you.

A little puzzling why only the customer facing website would be unavailable. I won't be planning on needing or doing anything.

That's a good question - the verbiage in the announcement lists a toll free number for additional assistance - but it doesn't explicitly state whether VCs will be able to make reservations on behalf of owners during the outage window. I will see if I can get more explicit guidance - but given the scope of the outage window and the fact that it will likely involve both front and back end changes to both Worldmark and Club Wyndham systems - I would not be surprised at all if VCs cannot search resort availability or make reservations either.

 

[bnoble]

It's worth mentioning that we've had the ability to perform Worldmark Club Pass availability searches since the website updates last fall

I'm not able to do this in a hybrid account. (Membership is ineligible, even if I am searching with the Developer bucket.)

 

[Jan M.]

@HitchHiker71 - are you able to confirm the VC's will be available and able to book, cancel, add gc's, etc? during the website outage. I take it as sort of implied, would be nice to have some confirmation, if possible. Thank you.

A little puzzling why only the customer facing website would be unavailable. I won't be planning on needing or doing anything.

The last few times I talked to a VC they said they are using the same website/system we use. I find it hard to believe that not only will the VCs be able to make reservations but that the system will be down for 3 days and 12 hours. Especially that close to the start of the 15 day window before the 4th of July week! That's a busy time for owners wanting last minute reservations, wanting to add nights or needing to cancel. This is going to cause major inventory issues for the resorts which in turn will cause problems for owners who upgraded a reservation at the time of booking or later had an automatic upgrade.

Apparently the PTB in Wyndham learned nothing or remember nothing from the Voyager fiasco in May, 2017 before Memorial Day weekend and are deluded enough to think this will go smoothly with only a few owners experiencing minor issues. The resort monthly calendars still haven't been restored to working order!

The warning in the email, that many of us developer owners didn't get, should have read something like this. Ms. Dorothy, please be advised to locate Toto, Auntie Em and Uncle Henry and take shelter in the storm cellar.

Afaik only Owner Care can still use the old pre Voyager website/system. And wouldn't using it be the only way to make reservations while our current p.o.s. system is down for this upgrade?

 

[paxsarah]

And here I am with some gentle reminders - of a benefit lost but forgotten... we used to be able to book Worldmark online. I guess that was pre-voyager?

I think it would have been pre-Club Pass (which arrived in the 2013-14 timeframe), rather than pre-Voyager (2017).

 

[HitchHiker71]

I'm not able to do this in a hybrid account. (Membership is ineligible, even if I am searching with the Developer bucket.)

Interesting, I'm a hybrid VIP owner and I can see the MAC on Worldmark resorts - screenshot below for reference. Can you post screenshots of what's happening for your reported issue? Wondering if it might be order of operations or a resort specific issue.

 

[troy12n]

For what its worth, i'm a 100% retail only account, at least for a couple more months, and the website does that to me sometimes as well.

Try it a few minutes later and it works, no rhyme or reason. Doesn't seem to be completely site/resort dependent either. Occasionally it will work with one resort, and not another, for instance I was checking a couple resorts in Texas and Marble Springs worked, but New Braunfels didn't, logged out and logged back in and both worked.

 

[Rolltydr]

The last few times I talked to a VC they said they are using the same website/system we use. I find it hard to believe that not only will the VCs be able to make reservations but that the system be down for 3 days and 12 hours. Especially that close to the start of the 4th of July week! That's a busy time for owners wanting last minute reservations, wanting to add nights or needing to cancel. This is going to cause major inventory issues for the resorts which in turn will cause problems for owners who upgraded a reservation at the time of booking or later had an automatic upgrade.

Apparently the PTB in Wyndham learned or remember nothing from the Voyager fiasco in May, 2017 before Memorial Day weekend and are deluded enough to think this will go smoothly with only a few owners experiencing minor issues. The resort monthly calendars still haven't been restored to working order!

The warning in the email, that many of us developer owners didn't get, should have read something like this. Ms. Dorothy, please be advised to locate Toto, Auntie Em and Uncle Henry and take shelter in the storm cellar.

Afaik only Owner Care can still use the old pre Voyager website/system. And wouldn't using it be the only way to make reservations while our current p.o.s. system is down for this upgrade?

While I nay not state it quite as emphatically as @Jan M. did, I am in complete agreement with her sentiment!

 

[bnoble]

I reliably cannot even check the calendar. Sending screenshots via PM.

 

[Sandi Bo]

I think it would have been pre-Club Pass (which arrived in the 2013-14 timeframe), rather than pre-Voyager (2017).

I bet you are right. Somehow they put a spin on it that it would be in our favor. I forget what that was. And here we are... 10 years later? LOL

 

[1Melanie]

I got the following message from Wyndham:

Last year, you learned how to search Club Pass availability. Now, you can take the next step and book.

That’s right – in 30 days, a new website enhancement will let you make Club Pass reservations on ClubWyndham.com. And when you book online instead of calling in to the Vacation Planning Center, you’ll take advantage of a deeply discounted Club Pass Exchange Fee. Don’t forget that you already have enhanced waitlist features that let you view and delete active requests at any time.

 

[Jan M.]

Do they mean the waitlist that owners aren't able to set up online like they're supposed to be able to do and have to call in to have a VC do it for them? Yeah, this is going to go well. Not!

 

[paxsarah]

@HitchHiker71 Do we know if they're fixing anything else during this outage, or is it 100% Club Pass? You know, I wouldn't begrudge them if they wanted to take down the site for 4 days if it meant they made a serious effort at fixing the data integrity issues that underpin so many errors, and/or fixed some of the regressions of things that used to work. But I suspect very little of that is getting touched upon.

 

[HitchHiker71]

@HitchHiker71 Do we know if they're fixing anything else during this outage, or is it 100% Club Pass? You know, I wouldn't begrudge them if they wanted to take down the site for 4 days if it meant they made a serious effort at fixing the data integrity issues that underpin so many errors, and/or fixed some of the regressions of things that used to work. But I suspect very little of that is getting touched upon.

Agile best practice is never to combine bug fix sprints with feature enhancement sprints. To the best of my understanding, Wyndham adheres to this best practice based upon repeated past interactions. This will be a significant feature enhancement implementation across both the Worldmark and Club Wyndham back and front end systems during the same outage window. I would therefore not expect any bug fixes to be implemented during a feature enhancement sprint like this.

My software company adheres to the same best practice - otherwise it becomes more difficult to troubleshoot the root cause for any downstream bugs that are reported after the feature changes are implemented (because the bug fixes mixed in can then be causal which makes the process of elimination more difficult to manage when attempting to perform RCA). At best, if we want to implement both bug fixes and feature enhancements in the same week - we will roll out feature enhancements on Tuesdays and bug fixes on Thursdays (or vice versa), but again, we try to avoid this as having the two sprints so close together invites a level of release management complexity that we prefer to avoid).

 

[paxsarah]

Agile best practice is never to combine bug fix sprints with feature enhancement sprints. To the best of my understanding, Wyndham adheres to this best practice based upon repeated past interactions. This will be a significant feature enhancement implementation across both the Worldmark and Club Wyndham back and front end systems during the same outage window. I would therefore not expect any bug fixes to be implemented during a feature enhancement sprint like this.

My software company adheres to the same best practice - otherwise it becomes more difficult to troubleshoot the root cause for any downstream bugs that are reported after the feature changes are implemented (because the bug fixes mixed in can then be causal which makes the process of elimination more difficult to manage when attempting to perform RCA). At best, if we want to implement both bug fixes and feature enhancements in the same week - we will roll out feature enhancements on Tuesdays and bug fixes on Thursdays (or vice versa), but again, we try to avoid this as having the two sprints so close together invites a level of release management complexity that we prefer to avoid).

And that doesn't surprise me at all and sounds like a good practice. I guess I'm just lamenting that it seems Wyndham will put a Herculean effort and unprecedented downtime toward a major new feature, while not doing the same (at a completely different time) for equally major underlying issues that undermine everyone's experience - owners, frontline staff, owner care, everyone. I'm not kidding when I say I'd be happier with a similar amount of downtime if they could actually make significant progress on some of those chronic issues. Because the way it's been going with the bug fix sprints, it really feels like one step forward, two steps back.

 

[geist1223]

In what Business would folks not get fired for shutting down its primary system that interacts with the World/primary Members for 4 days?

 

[cbyrne1174]

I wonder how much the Club Pass online booking fee is going to be because it has the possibility of making a PIC Plus 105,000 purchase worth it when you compare it to Worldmarks maintenance fees and resale value. As long as you don't need 13 month access to the WM resorts, it could be feasible with some of the low MF PICs. Massanutten has a 3 bedroom for $784. If you get 2 of them, that's $2933 for 613,000 points, or $4.78 per thousand.

784x2+89*+105x7.22 + 0.70*613 = $2933
PIC MF/Enrollment Fee/CWA MF/Program Fee


I always thought Worldmark access was the dumbest "benefit" because of the $99 fee. They should just combine the two products flawlessly and cost free for those who made a retail purchase. Disney has it so I can't book Riviera with my resale points and it costs the retail owners NOTHING to book it. In a lot of ways it will undo the damage that was done with getting rid of unlimited HK. I think getting rid of the $99 WM fee completely is the direction they should take for enticing people to buy direct. I'd consider it if it was like $15,000-$17,000 all in.

 

[altiste1]

In what Business would folks not get fired for shutting down its primary system that interacts with the World/primary Members for 4 days?

Unfortunately the system they are “upgrading” is not the core system of the company. That system would be sales. And I am sure they are not shutting that system down for three days. On that point, I am certain if someone suggested shutting down Wyndham’s sales operations for three straight days, they would be fired.

 

[CO skier]

And here I am with some gentle reminders - of a benefit lost but forgotten... we used to be able to book Worldmark online. I guess that was pre-voyager?

This was available pre-Club Pass for only a few units at only a few, associate WorldMark resorts. This new integration will be the first time the entire WorldMark system will be available to book using Wyndham points.

 

[CO skier]

I wonder how much the Club Pass online booking fee is going to be because it has the possibility of making a PIC Plus 105,000 purchase worth it when you compare it to Worldmarks maintenance fees and resale value. As long as you don't need 13 month access to the WM resorts, it could be feasible with some of the low MF PICs. Massanutten has a 3 bedroom for $784. If you get 2 of them, that's $2933 for 613,000 points, or $4.78 per thousand.

784x2+89*+105x7.22 + 0.70*613 = $2933
PIC MF/Enrollment Fee/CWA MF/Program Fee

Your calculation does not include any amortized costs for the 105,000 points purchase ($20,000+?) to PIC the Massanutten contracts.

My last two eBay purchases of WorldMark, the sellers essentially paid me ($3,000 in one case) to take over their memberships, when factoring in the pre-paid and available credits at $0.09/credit (which seems to be the going rate for renting One-Time-Use WorldMark credits).

Here is the rest of the story:

613,000 Club Wyndham points is roughly equivalent to 37,000 WorldMark credits when booking through Club Pass. The mf on 37,000 WorldMark credits is $3,300 ($0.089/credit). How long to the break-even point PIC-ing 613,000 Club Wyndham points at a cost savings of $367/year?

Then there is the actual booking through Club Pass. $2,933/613,000 = $0.004785/point. Booking a 1 bedroom in one of the lower cost WorldMark resorts using Club Pass, Seaside on the Oregon coast for example: 133,000 points x $0.004785/point = $636 for a week. Using a WorldMark membership with all its booking advantages over Club Pass: 8,000 x $0.089 = $713. So, a cost savings of $77/week for the PIC through Club Wyndham.

As I calculate it through the entire process, $20,000/$77 = 259 Club Pass reservations to the break-even point. 613,000 annual points/133,000 points per reservation = 4 Club Pass reservations (rounded to the whole number) per year. 259/4 = 64 years to the break-even point PIC-ing through Club Wyndham versus buying a WorldMark membership for next to nothing or less on eBay.

 

[CO skier]

In what Business would folks not get fired for shutting down its primary system that interacts with the World/primary Members for 4 days?

It is not the first time for a multi-day shutdown of Club Wyndham booking during prime time.

This is a taste of what we may expect following the 4-day shutdown

The New Club Wyndham Website (General Discussion)

Well, I got in. Here's what I think, and it's just that, simply my opinion. While I know there'll be bugs to work out, this thing is going to work. Not like we might want it to work, or how we are used to it working, but it will work. And it will do the things they said it would do. Not...

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