New Vistana IT Issue

[iowaguy09]

Here is one I have not seen in any of the recent threads. I thought there might be a problem, but I waited until Jan 1 to see if it resolved on its own. We have two ownerships, a Westin Flex and Sheraton Flex. When I login to Vistana I can see that we are Select level (meaning our Benefit Level based on the point total of both ownerships is recognized), and I can see both ownerships, both contract numbers, and both ownership future points on the Account Balances page. However, when I go to “What I Own”, only the Westin Flex ownership is visible. This was our first ownership when I created the Vistana account; the Sheraton Flex ownership was added at a later time. Also, when looking at the Maintenance Fee and Billing section, only the Westin Flex ownership is visible. I also tried as an experiment to book a SO 8-month dummy reservation trying to use our total SO, and sure enough only the SO from the Westin Flex ownership are recognized.

I called Vistana CS, and after a few minutes a very helpful CSR confirmed there are no issues with our contracts (name, address, phone number, and Bonvoy number all match). CSR confirmed that this is a known IT issue in the system, and it is preventing both of our contracts from showing up in our single Vistana online account. I was told it may take 2-3 months to fix this. The short term workaround would be to create a new Vistana account with the Sheraton Flex contract, and do any bookings from the separate accounts. Right now, we are not intending to make any reservations until later in 2024, so I am going to just wait for now and see if it does get worked out.

Certainly an odd issue that seems like it could be easily fixed. Just curious if anyone else has had anything similar occur?

 

[CPNY]

Here is one I have not seen in any of the recent threads. I thought there might be a problem, but I waited until Jan 1 to see if it resolved on its own. We have two ownerships, a Westin Flex and Sheraton Flex. When I login to Vistana I can see that we are Select level (meaning our Benefit Level based on the point total of both ownerships is recognized), and I can see both ownerships, both contract numbers, and both ownership future points on the Account Balances page. However, when I go to “What I Own”, only the Westin Flex ownership is visible. This was our first ownership when I created the Vistana account; the Sheraton Flex ownership was added at a later time. Also, when looking at the Maintenance Fee and Billing section, only the Westin Flex ownership is visible. I also tried as an experiment to book a SO 8-month dummy reservation trying to use our total SO, and sure enough only the SO from the Westin Flex ownership are recognized.

I called Vistana CS, and after a few minutes a very helpful CSR confirmed there are no issues with our contracts (name, address, phone number, and Bonvoy number all match). CSR confirmed that this is a known IT issue in the system, and it is preventing both of our contracts from showing up in our single Vistana online account. I was told it may take 2-3 months to fix this. The short term workaround would be to create a new Vistana account with the Sheraton Flex contract, and do any bookings from the separate accounts. Right now, we are not intending to make any reservations until later in 2024, so I am going to just wait for now and see if it does get worked out.

Certainly an odd issue that seems like it could be easily fixed. Just curious if anyone else has had anything similar occur?

I had a similar issue and I had to call multiple times. Finally a very detailed email to resolution services did the trick.

 

[iowaguy09]

I had a similar issue and I had to call multiple times. Finally a very detailed email to resolution services did the trick.

Thank you CPNY. A not so detailed email I sent a couple of weeks ago to the general email address has been ignored so far. I'll probably try the more detailed email route in a few weeks if nothing changes. Like I said originally, this seems like one of the silliest issues that should occur. Two ownerships, both bought from the developer, with supposedly all contract information correct and equivalent, and their lame IT system doesn't automatically combine them into one profile?

 

[CPNY]

Thank you CPNY. A not so detailed email I sent a couple of weeks ago to the general email address has been ignored so far. I'll probably try the more detailed email route in a few weeks if nothing changes. Like I said originally, this seems like one of the silliest issues that should occur. Two ownerships, both bought from the developer, with supposedly all contract information correct and equivalent, and their lame IT system doesn't automatically combine them into one profile?

It’s terrible, not to mention they will probably charge you multiple club dues

 

[tamu_bu]

I just rented my WKV and the online "Change Guest Name" wasn't working this weekend or today. That would seem to be so simple to not screw up. So I had to call Vistana to arrange the change. I feel sorry for the phone representatives having to deal with all the Abound changes and IT collateral damage.

 

[CPNY]

I just rented my WKV and the online "Change Guest Name" wasn't working this weekend or today. That would seem to be so simple to not screw up. So I had to call Vistana to arrange the change. I feel sorry for the phone representatives having to deal with all the Abound changes and IT collateral damage.

You change it on the bonvoy website now. It’s easier and there won’t be any communication issues with multiple systems talking to each other.

 

[timsi]

Anybody else having problems finding online the Abound reservations? It seems that section has disappeared, at least through the VSN watered down Abound website.

 

[echino]

You change it on the bonvoy website now. It’s easier and there won’t be any communication issues with multiple systems talking to each other.

It's not working for me. I am getting an error message that the name does not match the Bonvoy number.

 

[dioxide45]

Anybody else having problems finding online the Abound reservations? It seems that section has disappeared, at least through the VSN watered down Abound website.

Seems to still work for me when I click through from the Vistana dashboard. If you click away from the search tool, you can get back to it by clicking on the Marriott Vacation Club logo in the upper left.

 

[CPNY]

It's not working for me. I am getting an error message that the name does not match the Bonvoy number.

I had no issues, I even saw the new guests name under trips in my bonvoy account. I had the renter call the resort and put their bonvoy number on the reservation.

 

[dioxide45]

You change it on the bonvoy website now. It’s easier and there won’t be any communication issues with multiple systems talking to each other.

I think the actual process is to change it on Vistana.com and that should update Marriott.com. Updating it directly on Marriott.com can work as a workaround, but I don't think they really want that to be the official process.

 

[echino]

I had no issues, I even saw the new guests name under trips in my bonvoy account. I had the renter call the resort and put their bonvoy number on the reservation.

I just tried again, same issue:

All my Marriott and Vistana reservations have my Bonvoy number automatically attached, and those reservations appear under "My Trips" in my Bonvoy account. My Bonvoy number appears hard coded without a possibility to edit or remove it on the Bonvoy website. When I attempt changing the name on any reservation, it doesn't work, and I am getting that error message. If I change the name on the Vistana website, then it automatically changes on the Bonvoy website, but it takes a day or two, not instant.

 

[CPNY]

I just tried again, same issue:

View attachment 71239

All my Marriott and Vistana reservations have my Bonvoy number automatically attached, and those reservations appear under "My Trips" in my Bonvoy account. My Bonvoy number appears hard coded without a possibility to edit or remove it on the Bonvoy website. When I attempt changing the name on any reservation, it doesn't work, and I am getting that error message. If I change the name on the Vistana website, then it automatically changes on the Bonvoy website, but it takes a day or two, not instant.

I guess they updated it. Back when I did the change the systems weren’t working together. This was when they transitioned all vistana reservations to the Marriott system.

 

[timsi]

Seems to still work for me when I click through from the Vistana dashboard. If you click away from the search tool, you can get back to it by clicking on the Marriott Vacation Club logo in the upper left.

You may have a different interface, maybe because you own Marriott as well as Vistana? The link was there few weeks ago, just nowhere to be found now. It seems like they are patching one area and two other problems show up.

 

[dioxide45]

I don't see why my Vistana.com dashboard would be any different because I also own Marriott. This is what I see on the dashboard.

 

[timsi]

I don't see why my Vistana.com dashboard would be any different because I also own Marriott. This is what I see on the dashboard.
View attachment 71259

I was not referring to this part, which I have, but to the section in Abound where you can see the reservations made. That was earlier today, now it is worse, when I click on "make a reservation" it brings me to an MVC home page that I am not logged in. It seems @daviator has the same problem:

Can Vistana owners who are in Abound transfer Club Points?

Apologies if this is covered elsewhere; I've seen it discussed without any clear answers. Can Vistana owners with VOIs enrolled in Abound (and no ownership in MVC) transfer Club Points? More precisely, can Vistana owners with ownerships enrolled in Abound receive transferred club points from...

tugbbs.com

 

[daviator]

I was not referring to this part, which I have, but to the section in Abound where you can see the reservations made. That was earlier today, now it is worse, when I click on "make a reservation" it brings me to an MVC home page that I am not logged in. It seems @daviator has the same problem:

Can Vistana owners who are in Abound transfer Club Points?

Apologies if this is covered elsewhere; I've seen it discussed without any clear answers. Can Vistana owners with VOIs enrolled in Abound (and no ownership in MVC) transfer Club Points? More precisely, can Vistana owners with ownerships enrolled in Abound receive transferred club points from...

tugbbs.com

Yes, today I can't do ANYTHING having to do with Abound. I can't see how many CP I have, I can't make reservations, I can't see existing reservations, I can't explore point values. It's infuriating.

 

[buzglyd]

Same issue for me. I elected my 2025 Abound points but I just get directed to the MVC login home page.

 

[timsi]

Maybe they should give up managing timeshares and try something they may be better at: farming, mining or whatever they can do successfully.

I would like to see their customer satisfaction polls, hopefully they are done scientifically and divide the job done by the corporate office (IT, customer service, billing, title transfers etc) and the job done by the resorts. I assume people are generally happy with the latter, in no small part because MVC has to obey the license agreement with Marriott International while anything at the corporate level is where they can do whatever they want almost without constraints.

 

[iowaguy09]

Here is one I have not seen in any of the recent threads. I thought there might be a problem, but I waited until Jan 1 to see if it resolved on its own. We have two ownerships, a Westin Flex and Sheraton Flex. When I login to Vistana I can see that we are Select level (meaning our Benefit Level based on the point total of both ownerships is recognized), and I can see both ownerships, both contract numbers, and both ownership future points on the Account Balances page. However, when I go to “What I Own”, only the Westin Flex ownership is visible. This was our first ownership when I created the Vistana account; the Sheraton Flex ownership was added at a later time. Also, when looking at the Maintenance Fee and Billing section, only the Westin Flex ownership is visible. I also tried as an experiment to book a SO 8-month dummy reservation trying to use our total SO, and sure enough only the SO from the Westin Flex ownership are recognized.

I called Vistana CS, and after a few minutes a very helpful CSR confirmed there are no issues with our contracts (name, address, phone number, and Bonvoy number all match). CSR confirmed that this is a known IT issue in the system, and it is preventing both of our contracts from showing up in our single Vistana online account. I was told it may take 2-3 months to fix this. The short term workaround would be to create a new Vistana account with the Sheraton Flex contract, and do any bookings from the separate accounts. Right now, we are not intending to make any reservations until later in 2024, so I am going to just wait for now and see if it does get worked out.

Certainly an odd issue that seems like it could be easily fixed. Just curious if anyone else has had anything similar occur?

Some follow-up to the OP. I emailed my issue to MVW Customer Advocacy (customer.advocacy@mvwc.com) and got this as part of the response: "Thank you for contacting Marriott Vacations Worldwide Customer Advocacy. Please contact our Owner Services office at 888-786-9637 or via email at ownerres@vacationclub.com and one of our helpful Vacation Ownership Advisor will gladly assist you." I emailed Owner Services (ownerres@vacationclub.com) and got this as part of the response from communication@mvwc.com: "Upon review of your ownership account, your Sheraton Flex ownership and your Westin Flex ownership have different membership numbers. Due to ongoing system updates, we are unable to merge both ownerships under the same membership number at this time. To access the Sheraton Flex features you are not able to access on your online account, I recommend creating a separate online account in the meantime."

Some questions, mostly rhetorical. What is a membership number, and where do I even find that? I can see the 6-digit "contract numbers", is that also the "membership number"? If the membership information is the same on both ownerships, how can it possibly be so hard to merge them into one membership number? We traded in a Westin Flex EOYO for the Sheraton Flex annual (another story for another thread maybe someday), and previously saw both Westin Flex ownerships together with no issues. Ugh.

 

[dioxide45]

Some follow-up to the OP. I emailed my issue to MVW Customer Advocacy (customer.advocacy@mvwc.com) and got this as part of the response: "Thank you for contacting Marriott Vacations Worldwide Customer Advocacy. Please contact our Owner Services office at 888-786-9637 or via email at ownerres@vacationclub.com and one of our helpful Vacation Ownership Advisor will gladly assist you." I emailed Owner Services (ownerres@vacationclub.com) and got this as part of the response from communication@mvwc.com: "Upon review of your ownership account, your Sheraton Flex ownership and your Westin Flex ownership have different membership numbers. Due to ongoing system updates, we are unable to merge both ownerships under the same membership number at this time. To access the Sheraton Flex features you are not able to access on your online account, I recommend creating a separate online account in the meantime."

Some questions, mostly rhetorical. What is a membership number, and where do I even find that? I can see the 6-digit "contract numbers", is that also the "membership number"? If the membership information is the same on both ownerships, how can it possibly be so hard to merge them into one membership number? We traded in a Westin Flex EOYO for the Sheraton Flex annual (another story for another thread maybe someday), and previously saw both Westin Flex ownerships together with no issues. Ugh.

From my experience buying mandatory resales, there is a behind the scenes membership number. This may not be exactly how it worked, but this is how I understood it. I always referred to the membership number as a VSN Membership Number, but they may not call it that. What would usually happen if one owned a VOI is that you would have a membership number, then if you bought another VOI, Vistana would automatically create a new membership number for this VOI (or just leave the old owner's membership number on it). This would result in some dreaded message online about having multiple memberships and you would have to call to make reservations.

In the past we were able to call Vistana title department and ask them to update the membership number so it matched our existing one and voila, it would show up online in our account along with our existing VOIs. In order for all of the VOIs to show up and be able to be combined for bookings, all the VOIs had to have the same membership number. This is what many here refer to as "merging accounts".

It now seems that Vistana either isn't able to or doesn't want to update the membership number on the newly acquired VOIs. This results in the inability to make a single reservation using HomeOptions or StarOptions from multiple VOIs. If the VOIs are mandatory, it may also result in multiple VSN fees being charged.

 

[echino]

I received that response too. They are refusing to merge accounts.

I don't think it's any kind of a system limitation. Looks like it was a business decision to no longer allow merging accounts, in order to bill additional membership fees.

 

[dioxide45]

I received that response too. They are refusing to merge accounts.

I don't think it's any kind of a system limitation. Looks like it was a business decision to no longer allow merging accounts, in order to bill additional membership fees.

and leave people with orphaned points or make more money on banking transactions...

 

[sponger76]

and leave people with orphaned points or make more money on banking transactions...

I'm starting to wonder if at some point they'll use it as a sales angle: buy more from us retail to requalify your resales and we'll be able to merge your accounts into one.

 

[iowaguy09]

I'm starting to wonder if at some point they'll use it as a sales angle: buy more from us retail to requalify your resales and we'll be able to merge your accounts into one.

I see no wonder in that at all; if not already spoken I think those words will be heard for sure!