Mid August update (downtime *early* Wednesday night)

[Sandy VDH]

Now I have to figure out a method of booking, and cancelling and rebooking from developer to resale buckets.

I guess holiday weeks with little chance of cancelling and rebooking inventory, with a high expectation of travel could use Resale right of the bat. Just eat the RT right away.

But if there is not as good of a chance of the ultimate trip happening OR there is a good to better chance of ERP inventory being available then maybe starting off Developer is the way to go. If if you are being more speculative use Developer.

Now it comes down to certainly just paying reservation fees, which I know will annoy me, because I have never had to consider that. But will run out of my 2 freebies on my 1 resale contract. Guess I have to develop some new MOs and some spidey sense.


Another thing to add to the list of not working is the filters on transaction records. I don't think that is working as intended.

 

[Cyrus24]

I've been on the road today and am just now seeing all the changes. I'm sure this has already been discussed, but the big issue I see is that for 2021 (and 2022) they randomly assigned certain reservations to be resale and certain reservations to be developer. The Resale reservation points are double what I own for the year in 2021. Example. Over 400k points on reservations listed as resale between now and the end of the year while I only own 168k resale points. I have no clue as to why they chose some to be resale and some to be developer with the exception of one reservation that I did not ask for an upgrade on. If I choose to cancel a resale reservation before taking the resale reservation that I want to be counted as resale, the wrong buckets could be populated.

Maybe it's already been addressed, are we supposed to call to straighten this out? Are they planning on doing an infamous 'fix' to put reservations that have upgrade requests as developer and leave those without an upgrade request as resale.

My account looks good other than the arbitrary resale/developer assignments. Any advise on when or who to call. Not an emergency, but I would like to hear if there is an arbiter available to fix the system assigned retail/developer assignments. Thanks.

 

[Eric B]

ok, my points got shifted this afternoon. My resale points are now gone, and all the remaining points are now developer points. So that call that dropped maybe did result in a shift of points.

Is there anyway to tell what reservations are using resale point? If I filter current year by resale, I only get 1 cancellation and NO other bookings. I too have a bunch of 0 point transactions, what is up with that? I am basically guessing that the history of bookings is a bit screwed up.

Strange.

Mine were changed this afternoon as well. All my resale points were allocated and all I have left are developer points for this year and next. Housekeeping changed as well.

My point allocations were changed for existing reservations this afternoon as well. This effects a couple of reservations I'm very likely to cancel for this year due to travel conditions, resulting in a net of about 110K that will no longer return as developer points, but instead as resale points. This might all come out in the wash depending on how they allocate the complimentary VIP-eligible points for next use year, but it's fairly predictable that the folks they are doing this to are the types of folks that will check this things when they first get the chance to. I'm not planning on doing anything to the reservations I've got until things sort themselves out and will reserve judgement until the complimentary points show up, but must admit that I'm a bit annoyed with them right now. Given the functionality (or lack thereof) of the site, I don't believe I can get accurate information from it anyway since the transaction details in the benefits summary page do not match the transaction details in the points summary page - that would be another item for feedback, @HitchHiker71, those numbers should match if they are really drawing from the same underlying back end databases. It's a bit more annoying because I did what I could to figure out where things stood when the site came up initially, and the information on the two pages matched, but the latest changes have resulted in them not matching. It's not that I don't fundamentally trust them ( ), but this whole bunch of shenanigans with the system and the poor communications on what the rules really are have resulted in serious straining of what little trust I had left. I still don't think it will change my usage in any major way in the long run, but they do give the impression that they really need to get their collective act together.

 

[VacayKat]

My point allocations were changed for existing reservations this afternoon as well.

Let me join the chorus....
all my resale points used, all resale transactions used, all resale HK used... but all GC intact? Likely this all will change again as they mislabeled some contracts resale... but for now, here is where we are at.

Going reservation by reservation now is so frustrating. especially since if you truncate the loading of vacations when you go back to the page you have to reload it. stupid dynamic loading of websites.
reservation 1: mostly VIP points, some resale [would have selected this one to be all resale and over and done with it if I had been given a choice}
reservation 2: resale
reservation 3: VIP
reservation 4: VIP
reservation 5: resale (will need a GC)
reservation 6: mostly resale part VIP (will need a GC)
reservation 7: VIP
reservation 8: VIP
reservation 9: resale (has a GC, not charged)
reservation 10: VIP (has GC, charged from VIP pool)
reservation 11: VIP
reservation 12: VIP
reservation 13: about 1/2 resale 1/2 VIP (will need a GC)
reservation 14: (presidential reserve reservation at home resort) RESALE (anyone want to guess if we will get our presidential perks on this one???)
reservation 15: (non presidential reserve but requested@ presidential home resort) VIP (will need GC)
reservation 16: resale
reservation 17: VIP

so 8 reservations with some sort of resale on it when it could have been just 2 of the higher point reservations. (and if they coded my contracts properly, 2/3 of the first vacation on the account in the use year and it would be one and done. I am going to have to buy a GC if this remains like this, and if anything needs to be changed will need to pay for RT.

@HitchHiker71
1. can you please add to the list: looking at current use year only includes transactions from June of this year, not all transactions for this use year - have to select all use years to be able to find them. and then you have to scroll through like 10 pages to find anything. Worse now with all the 0 transactions.
2. not sure if there is a way to throw this in the convo with your contacts, but with how my account was affected, there is a good chance I'll just let vacations sit unused and rebook with VIP points instead of paying for transaction fees. With the ongoing changes seems like less goodwill is being created and a lot more headache. I mean super seriously if they are going to give me make up points in 2021-2022, pretty good chances I'll just reserve a second room and leave the first unoccupied if it means a transaction fee to cancel it, or a fee to buy a GC.

my mood today:

 

[paxsarah]

if it means a transaction fee to cancel it

Reservation transactions are not required for cancellations, just for booking (and depositing to RCI).

 

[HitchHiker71]

Mine were changed this afternoon as well. All my resale points were allocated and all I have left are developer points for this year and next. Housekeeping changed as well.

It’s likely that the series of back office processes running to make the bucket changes must run serially and weren’t entirely complete at the end of the outage window this morning. So rather than postpone bringing the website back online they may have just let the back office processes continue after going live with the website changes. Pure speculation on my part but certainly feasible.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[T-Dot-Traveller]

It’s likely that the series of back office processes running to make the bucket changes must run serially and weren’t entirely complete at the end of the outage window this morning. So rather than postpone bringing the website back online they may have just let the back office processes continue after going live with the website changes. Pure speculation on my part but certainly feasible.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Is this a polite way of saying :
Garbage in / garbage out ......

 

[VacayKat]

It’s likely that the series of back office processes running to make the bucket changes must run serially and weren’t entirely complete at the end of the outage window this morning. So rather than postpone bringing the website back online they may have just let the back office processes continue after going live with the website changes. Pure speculation on my part but certainly feasible.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Hah - or restarted with different rules when people started complaining? My resale points are on completely different reservations now than they were this am.

 

[HitchHiker71]

Hah - or restarted with different rules when people started complaining? My resale points are on completely different reservations now than they were this am.

Either way - I think it would be prudent to take a step back and let things settle out over the next couple of days and then see how our accounts look. I just checked my account again after taking a close look this morning and see quite a few changes since then as well. Things still aren’t quite right though - so I still expect more changes to the datasets over the next few business days. In the meantime we will start putting our list of bugs and enhancements together for submission.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[wjappraise]

Either way - I think it would be prudent to take a step back and let things settle out over the next couple of days and then see how our accounts look. I just checked my account again after taking a close look this morning and see quite a few changes since then as well. Things still aren’t quite right though - so I still expect more changes to the datasets over the next few business days. In the meantime we will start putting our list of bugs and enhancements together for submission.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Thanks CJ.

We appreciate the enhanced communication you provide to us. And your patience with our collective frustration. And, of course, your assistance with some of the fixes for the programming bugs. My faith in Wyndham IT has never been ironclad, but I have been pleasantly surprised with this roll out (although this would have been so much better at year end) that I’ve actually been able to make a reservation after a major change. Typically I’m dead in the water with my account for a few days while Wyndham finds the bugs they should have with proper beta testing. Ah … a man can dream can’t he? So for Wyndham IT this rollout truly is the cream of the crap. Typo intended.

Thanks for your work. And Richelle’s too.

Wes.

 

[HitchHiker71]

Thanks CJ.

We appreciate the enhanced communication you provide to us. And your patience with our collective frustration. And, of course, your assistance with some of the fixes for the programming bugs. My faith in Wyndham IT has never been ironclad, but I have been pleasantly surprised with this roll out (although this would have been so much better at year end) that I’ve actually been able to make a reservation after a major change. Typically I’m dead in the water with my account for a few days while Wyndham finds the bugs they should have with proper beta testing. Ah … a man can dream can’t he? So for Wyndham IT this rollout truly is the cream of the crap. Typo intended.

Thanks for your work. And Richelle’s too.

Wes.

Thanks for the kind words Wes. I actually just made a net new reservation today without any issues now that you mention it. Rio Mar for the first week of Feb 2022 for my wife’s 50th birthday. Flights are free as well since we have flight credits with Southwest to burn.

We will get through these changes together - that’s what we do here on TUG!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[VacayKat]

One other thing that makes me nuts is I now have to search twice for availability if I am not sure which points I want to use. Presumably looking with developer will show all availability for resale as well but would like some confirmation that is the case.

 

[wjappraise]

One other thing that makes me nuts is I now have to search twice for availability if I am not sure which points I want to use. Presumably looking with developer will show all availability for resale as well but would like some confirmation that is the case.

That’s been my experience thus far. It’s going to be a journey, but so much better start then when Voyager was first introduced.
Wes.

 

[wjappraise]

Thanks for the kind words Wes. I actually just made a net new reservation today without any issues now that you mention it. Rio Mar for the first week of Feb 2022 for my wife’s 50th birthday. Flights are free as well since we have flight credits with Southwest to burn.

We will get through these changes together - that’s what we do here on TUG!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Wow. I reserved the same week months ago. My wife’s sister lives in PR and what better time to visit than February. But I love not staying with them when we visit. Someday I’ll bore you with the story about why we bought TS 25 years ago - Fairfield at the time. It has to do with staying in Florida at my other SIL house with her six cats …. I’ll buy you a Margarita or beer - if you remind me. I’m older than you (unless you robbed the cradle).

Wes.

 

[Free2Roam]

I actually just made a net new reservation today without any issues now that you mention it.

I made a new reservation a few hours ago. And even though it showed that I was out of reservation transactions, it did not charge me for one. I was actually surprised to see the confirmation screen without a request for payment. Can't wait to see how that turns out. Will they let it slide? Will the reservation disappear? Or maybe they'll add the charge to my account and never tell me about it... and it'll just sit there for years until something happens and I request financial history? (yes, I had that happen years ago... can't remember what the charge was for.)

 

[9969hi]

It seems Wyndham treated me quite well for 2021 as all my points were indicated to be developer purchased points even tough I own 660,000 resale points. I had a huge point balance starting out 2021 due to cancellations and points moved forward in previous years. I have 25 guest certificates left , if you move a million points forward do the 15 guest certificates travel with that deposit? I am having trouble finding renters to use up this years points.

 

[wjappraise]

I made a new reservation a few hours ago. And even though it showed that I was out of reservation transactions, it did not charge me for one. I was actually surprised to see the confirmation screen without a request for payment. Can't wait to see how that turns out. Will they let it slide? Will the reservation disappear? Or maybe they'll add the charge to my account and never tell me about it... and it'll just sit there for years until something happens and I request financial history? (yes, I had that happen years ago... can't remember what the charge was for.)

I believe Wyndham is waiving reservation transaction fees for the rest of august.

Wes.

 

[wjappraise]

It seems Wyndham treated me quite well for 2021 as all my points were indicated to be developer purchased points even tough I own 660,000 resale points. I had a huge point balance starting out 2021 due to cancellations and points moved forward in previous years. I have 25 guest certificates left , if you move a million points forward do the 15 guest certificates travel with that deposit? I am having trouble finding renters to use up this years points.

Unfortunately GCs do not travel with the points during a points deposit. It’s use them or lose them in the calendar year assigned.

And stay tuned for how your points are designated. They’ve changed already today. Early in the day most of us had some developer and some resale. And mid afternoon it appears they all switched to developer points. Mine are now half and half as I canceled three reservations that were apparently designated as resale points booked.

It’s going to be a bumpy ride for a while. At least this time we have some input from CJ and Richelle to keep us informed. I still can’t get my head around the fact that a Fortune 500 company has to use volunteers to fix their website issues … and provide the most informative dialog ever given me as an “owner.” But we are thankful for our insiders.

Wes.

 

[Eric B]

On an amusing note, I have one reservation coming up this year that cost 130,000 points. The system has it allocated as being 2,802 developer points and 120,373 resale points. I can't wait to see what happens if I cancel it. Makes me wonder what logic they used to divide up the transactions between developer and resale. Maybe they're trying to make up for all the extra points they dumped in @am1 's account over the years....

Also, the system updated to document usage of a housekeeping credit for a resale reservation I have in my next use year - that's as it should be, so they can do simple math like 1 = 1.

 

[dgalati]

Thanks for the kind words Wes. I actually just made a net new reservation today without any issues now that you mention it. Rio Mar for the first week of Feb 2022 for my wife’s 50th birthday. Flights are free as well since we have flight credits with Southwest to burn.

We will get through these changes together - that’s what we do here on TUG!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Nice to see someone else is getting a free ride on Southwest. I have a companion pass and booked all flights with points over the last several years.

 

[Sandi Bo]

Agreed - I think that's an enhancement request we need to submit - filter out the buckets that don't need to display specific to the owner account.

Those type of requests scare me. I'd rather see things I don't need to, rather not see things I need to see. And history shows some things are best left alone.

 

[Sandi Bo]

Yup - as our FAQ answer indicates - it's a once and done deal. This also applies to new reservations - the initial choice made between resale/developer is final and cannot be altered after the fact.

I can understand moving forward, when we book reservations there are no adjustments (although really, shouldn't there always be some allowance for corrections)? But, really, not acceptable to me that they won't fix things they improperly converted. Once again, Wyndham bullying some of their best customers.

 

[Sandi Bo]

Nice to see someone else is getting a free ride on Southwest. I have a companion pass and booked all flights with points over the last several years.

If Southwest weren't so flexible, I wouldn't have so many changes/challenges for my family reunions. (We love Southwest).

 

[Sandi Bo]

One other thing that makes me nuts is I now have to search twice for availability if I am not sure which points I want to use. Presumably looking with developer will show all availability for resale as well but would like some confirmation that is the case.

That's my impression at this point. Wondering maybe if you were looking for something 13 months out at your home resort, something like that, if that would make a difference (but haven't played with that at all).
Pretty sure I want to see what is there before deciding to use developer or resale. But at least it's a quick switch from one to the other, after the search and before you select to book.

 

[Sandi Bo]

At least they got this right -- calling it the Crp Migration