New Wyndham Fees Increase

[Maurie17]

Wyndham Guest Reservations/Major Price Increase effective 10/15

Wyndham has posted on the main page of the website today a major price increase for guest reservations of $99 online and $129 if we call in.

There are also some other price increases that owners need to review.

You will need to scroll down the page to find this. It isn't very noticeable!

Maurie

 

[Jerry in NJ]

Go to the Wyndham main homepage and scroll down after the sweepstakes information. It is not very noticable!

Important Change to your FairShare Plus Transaction Fees
Your FairShare Vacation Owners Association’s Board of Directors recently approved a new fee-for-service structure to ensure all program rules and fees are fair and equitable for all owners. These changes take effect on October 15, 2008. This approach assures that the costs incurred by a few owners will not be shared by the entire ownership. You may also take advantage of significant savings when you complete some of transactions that are available online.


For your convenience, we are pleased to provide you answers to the some of the anticipated questions you may have about the new fee structure.


Guest Confirmations to $129

Reservation Transactions to $59

Other fees also going up..

Jerry in NJ

 

[janej]

What is reservation transaction? Is that the now $30 transaction fee?

 

[Jya-Ning]

What is reservation transaction? Is that the now $30 transaction fee?

Only when you run out of free transaction and call VC.

Jya-Ning

 

[acesneights]

Good grief.

Guest Certificates went from $25 to $49 to $129 in just over a year.

Transactions from $25 to $30 to $59.

That should cut the use of alternate exchange companies.

So a weekend for your child might cost $100 for the points and $188 in fees.

I'm surprised housekeeping didn't go to $5 so they can get $500 in fees for each reservation.

Forget the flexibility of points, if you use a weeks worth of points for 3 reservation not for your own use and not at the same time, you could easily pay $700 in fees. $387 in GC, $118 for tranactions and $250 in HK.

Stan

 

[GregT]

How many free transactions do you get a year? It looks like Wyndham is nickel and diming on the fees, like an airline.....

Targeting specifically the less than 7 day trips?????????

 

[vacationhopeful]

Good grief.

Guest Certificates went from $25 to $49 to $129 in just over a year.

Transactions from $25 to $30 to $59.

Stan

Guess they are trying to eliminate the outside rental market to make their rental program profitable? This will remove the midweek 2-4 day rentals that the mega-points owners offer.

As they don't offer the RCI multi-year guest certificate, it will make family trips more expensive - as Wyndham has that computer sweep at the 14 day mark to remove multiple reservations in one name at the same resort.

Going to Star Island next week - should be interesting spin by the sales weasals as to this "new" improvement. Will post as SI has free inroom WIFI, only because Wyndham does NOT manage this resort.:ignore:

 

[pagosajim]

WIFI is up to the POA

Will post as SI has free inroom WIFI, only because Wyndham does NOT manage this resort.:ignore:

Not related to this topic, but the Wyndham's I'm associated with are not responsible for in-room WIFI. That's determined by the individual POA's to provide and whether for free or not.

 

[massvacationer]

Additional (above your allotment) transactions are still $30, when you make the reservation on-line.

Renting points from Wyndham during the 90 day express window is going up significantly: From $5 to $8.

 

[bnoble]

There seem to be two "changes" going on at once.

One: get people to use the web site, and stop calling VCs.

Two: increase the cost basis for the rental market.

It will be interesting to see what sort of impact this will have on the owner-to-owner point rental market. If that goes up substantially, it also will tend to make more resale deeds "viable". Last week, if a deed had MF/K ratio of $5.50 or so, no one would touch it with a 10-foot pole, because renting is cheaper. In two months, that deed might start to look pretty good.

should be interesting spin by the sales weasals as to this "new" improvement.

It should be easy for them---these increased costs are largely not borne by VIP members.

One more thought: this is one way to deal with the economically-induced drop in sales traffic/financing income.

 

[vacationhopeful]

Hope they have fixed the guest certificate problem where my Canadian friends can't have the post code correctly entered via the online reservation system.

System will accept Canadian codes in the state field but will NOT accept a 6 digit postal codo or one with letters in it .... makes you wonder if they do mail a guest certificate to Canada or Mexico. When I had to call a VC, they said they just put numbers in the zip field.

 

[vacationhopeful]

And what will the fee be to call a VC when the VIP's want their "automatic" free uograde???

The reservation system does not have that function, or I have not found it yet...

 

[Jya-Ning]

Hope they have fixed the guest certificate problem where my Canadian friends can't have the post code correctly entered via the online reservation system.

System will accept Canadian codes in the state field but will NOT accept a 6 digit postal codo or one with letters in it .... makes you wonder if they do mail a guest certificate to Canada or Mexico. When I had to call a VC, they said they just put numbers in the zip field.

Put your own address, then send them through eMail or fax.

Jya-Ning

 

[Jya-Ning]

How many free transactions do you get a year?

Get 1 every 77k points. That are good for all the activities done in the same day (not sure if after 10/15/08, it still will hold or not)

Jya-Ning

 

[Jya-Ning]

see this thread also

http://www.tugbbs.com/forums/showthread.php?t=82998

Jya-Ning

 

[bnoble]

And what will the fee be to call a VC when the VIP's want their "automatic" free uograde???

The reservation system does not have that function, or I have not found it yet...

No, it doesn't. But, Gold and Plat have free transactions.

 

[BocaBum99]

Here is a chart of the new charges:

 

[Sandy VDH]

I nearly fell off my chair when I saw the increase in Guest Certificates from $25 to $129. That is highway robbery. Especially for us that already had "unlimited" as VIP level before, that was now taken away. I would be very upset it I had to pay that amount. Thankfully I have lots of Guest Certificates to burn up in a year.

I thought it was going to be $49. How did it jump all the way to $129 (or $99 online)?

 

[BocaBum99]

I nearly fell off my chair when I saw the increase in Guest Certificates from $25 to $129. That is highway robbery. Especially for us that already had "unlimited". I would be very upset it I had to pay that amount.

I thought it was going to be $49. How did it jump all the way to $129 (or $99 online)?

I was SHOCKED. They are clearly targeted the mega renters. If the owner does it online, there is NO extra work by Wyndham. Not one thing. My guess is that there will be a lawsuit on this fee.

I can see setting it at $64. But, $129? If Wyndham gets away with this, there is nothing that will stop them from making it something like $499. This is eggregious profiteering that should be challenged by someone. We'll see how it goes.

 

[rickandcindy23]

Wow, can you believe this huge increase. Fairfield is greedy! Too bad those fees aren't going directly to the resorts, so they won't impose assessments. I would be okay with that.

 

[Fitzriley]

I just received an email from Wyndham wIth the changes. I am already in fees this year because I did several 2-3 day stays this summer. So I used up my reservation credits as well as housekeeping, but I stil lhave lots of points left. So I will pay even more trying to use these up. They say points are great because of using them for more frequent but shorter stays, but the fees really start adding up.
I get 2 reservation credits each year and 1 guest certificate based on points, 164,500. Also 165 housekeeping credits, which you can borrow from next year. So with 120,000 points leftover, I need to do all my transactions remaining on the same day to only pay the $30 fee and borrow next years hk credits. What a scam............

 

[Fitzriley]

So, I am thinking that instead of waiting until December to deposit my leftover points with RCI, I need to do this by Oct. 15th to save the money. I am looking to use them for next summer Williamsburg, so I could deposit both 70k and 28k and use the 70k to get a week at Patriots Place in August and stillhave a week left at RCI for an off-season studio. I can use a guest certificate at RCI cheaper than Wyndham now, right?

 

[bnoble]

They are clearly targeted the mega renters. If the owner does it online, there is NO extra work by Wyndham. Not one thing.

That's my take too. The explanatory verbiage talks about guests using facilities owners pay for, but that's what the points and FSP fee were supposed to cover, no? There's no justifiable reason for it other than to go after the renters.

I suspect the real reason for this and the short-term rental fee increase to $8/K is to try to reduce competition for Wyndham's own rental program.

My guess is that there will be a lawsuit on this fee.

On what basis? I agree that it is ridiculously high, but it's not clear what you could sue for. Perhaps I'm just not sufficiently clever.

 

[Aussiedog]

How much lower can the resale price go??

If the mega-renters try and dump their large contracts by the end of the year (there are some on eBay now), this could impact the price of points the same way that the unwinding of some hedge funds has added to the pain in the stock market.

And if points are already priced well below a penny a point......:annoyed:

Ann

 

[lprstn]

Well I am a bit shocked, but as I have VIP Gold hopefully I will still be getting these things for free.

However, when I didn't have VIP, I was very thrifty, I made my reservations all at one time and didn't change them. So I worked with the system I had, as many other TS owners do.

Also, if you compare what you can get in the amount of Wyndham points and other places that you purchase for 1 week, you still come out on top.

Just as people worked this system before...they will find a way to work it again.