New Wyndham Website: feedback on pros/cons for formal submission to Wyndham

[MikeandLisaR]

Not that I am aware of. If Wyndham is right, Blue Green has 69 managed locations. Wyndham has 131. I am not sure if you have an IT background, but what you're asking is to search 131 resorts for all rooms available for that week. That's a huge net to cast and would be a very slow search. It's like you asking Chevy to tell you what model Equinox is available at every dealer on the east coast. The search BlueGreen has, wouldn't work for Wyndham.

I just searched Wyndham hotels .com for the week of July 12-19. Had to give a location so I put in "Florida" and it returned 165 locations in a couple seconds.

 

[HitchHiker71]

I am fairly new to Wyndham but not timesharing. Have owned Wyndham for almost 2 years and I also own Bluegreen going on 15 years.

Not sure if the Club Wyndham has ever had this option but on Bluegreen I can put in a specific week on the calendar and select All destinations (instead of a specific resort) and it will let me know EVERY Bluegreen resort and room types available for that week. Has Wyndham ever had that feature now or in the past. It’s very convenient if your not exactly sure which resort you want but know the week and have several options to pick from.

We do have this registered as an enhancement request for both regional and national resort availability searches. The primary limitation that prevented this function within Voyager was the miserable search performance. One of the biggest strengths of the new website is the search indexing, search results are returned very fast when compared to Voyager - even when selecting the “flexible on dates” option. This fact tells me that offering the ability to perform more broad based availability searches is actually feasible now.


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[Richelle]

I just searched Wyndham hotels .com for the week of July 12-19. Had to give a location so I put in "Florida" and it returned 165 locations in a couple seconds.

It pulled up locations. Not the availability for each resort. When you click on a resort, there is a button that says “search rooms”. You have to do that for each of the 165 resorts. A lot slower then the site. When you search the entire state of Florida on the Club Wyndham website, it list the rooms that are available at each resort. So one search pulls all the data. On Wyndham hotels .com, if you narrow it down by city, and click on a hotel, it will initiate the search for that hotel without clicking a the search rooms button. Again, you have to do it for each of the hotels. Orlando has 91. I clicked on Days Inn. Took about 10 seconds to list six room types and various prices for each. Imagine doing that 91 times.

 

[Eric B]

Not sure I would give the search features an "A" myself; I'd have trouble giving them a passing grade. I'm interested in trying out the Limetree Beach Resort, but it's pretty difficult to get to the availability there for some reason. They've improved things slightly using the search feature at the top of the site; it now populates the name of the resort as a suggestion when you type in "Lim..." but the search results don't include the page for the resort itself. The only way I've been able to get to the resort page is by searching availability at Margaritaville St Thomas for the March-April timeframe with a check for flexible dates, then looking at the alternative resorts with availability. Additionally, I couldn't access the actual dates I was looking at (3/27/2021-4/3/2021) directly because the only thing that showed up for that was an indication that there was one resort with availability on those dates; to get to those dates I had to offset my availability search and select the dates I was looking at as an alternative. I didn't actually book those dates because I'm waiting for a resale contract to close, but believe that they have some serious issues with that resort in particular (as well as a less than desirable ability to browse the availability calendar). I'm searching using Safari 11.1.2 on a Mac Pro (Early 2008).

 

[Sandi Bo]

We do have this registered as an enhancement request for both regional and national resort availability searches. The primary limitation that prevented this function within Voyager was the miserable search performance. One of the biggest strengths of the new website is the search indexing, search results are returned very fast when compared to Voyager - even when selecting the “flexible on dates” option. This fact tells me that offering the ability to perform more broad based availability searches is actually feasible now.


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We did have the ability to search for anything available prior to the release of Voyager in 2017. At one time, you could search for resorts available in a particular xx mile radius. That did cause degradation to the system and that feature was take away (that's my undestanding of why it was removed). But we could still search by region (show me anything for a given time frame in the Northeast, for example). That was very helpful, I know I miss that feature. Would be nice to see something like that come back.

 

[Richelle]

We did have the ability to search for anything available prior to the release of Voyager in 2017. At one time, you could search for resorts available in a particular xx mile radius. That did cause degradation to the system and that feature was take away (that's my undestanding of why it was removed). But we could still search by region (show me anything for a given time frame in the Northeast, for example). That was very helpful, I know I miss that feature. Would be nice to see something like that come back.

If you go to explorer resorts, you can zoom in and out if the map or move it and click “Search this area”. That way you’re not tied to their borders for regions. You can search whatever area you want.

 

[Rolltydr]

If you go to explorer resorts, you can zoom in and out if the map or move it and click “Search this area”. That way you’re not tied to their borders for regions. You can search whatever area you want.

Thanks, Richelle! I wasn’t aware of that feature. That is very helpful.

 

[Sandi Bo]

If you go to explorer resorts, you can zoom in and out if the map or move it and click “Search this area”. That way you’re not tied to their borders for regions. You can search whatever area you want.

I will play around with that when I have few minutes, thank you.

 

[Shawn p Johansen]

I see a lot of comments about the booking Calendar. It must me either me not seeing it or their sight is having issues because I can not fine the availability calendar anywhere the ONLY option I can do is give them the dates I want... Can anyone else see the calendar? if so what am I missing where is it?

 

[Richelle]

I see a lot of comments about the booking Calendar. It must me either me not seeing it or their sight is having issues because I can not fine the availability calendar anywhere the ONLY option I can do is give them the dates I want... Can anyone else see the calendar? if so what am I missing where is it?

That’s the issue with it. That’s why everyone is talking about it. It’s not there at all. It’s slated to come back this month though.

 

[HitchHiker71]

This isn’t aimed at you, you’re only the messenger trying to help us find information.

Wow! That is one horrible phone list. Does Wyndham IT know what a pdf is? I can google a resort and get the phone number faster than I can scroll, and scroll, and scroll through that list which appears to be >90% white space. Why would anyone design a list that way?

Sorry for the delay in response - I’ve been very distracted with a few major home improvement projects and work has been crazy - despite the Coronavirus economic impacts out there.

While I posted the link I didn’t actually look at it closely. I had originally thought that having a concatenated list of resort phone numbers like this would have served a useful purpose especially on a smartphone where the phone numbers are clickable. Guess what? The numbers are NOT clickable - which surprises me from a cloud first mobile first design perspective. I will be adding this to our content management section as well - ALL listed phone numbers should be clickable to facilitate easy phone calls from mobile devices.

EDIT: actually they ARE clickable via Safari - just not via the Tapatalk browser plug-in. Good news!


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[Sandi Bo]

I don't see a way to cancel out of a booking once you have initiated one. I am using a macbook pro with chrome. I only see an option to continue (through the booking process) or go back to the previous step (although I can't go back to the very beginning). Surely I'm missing something, I don't see this on the list of issues. Thanks for any help/suggestions.

 

[HitchHiker71]

I don't see a way to cancel out of a booking once you have initiated one. I am using a macbook pro with chrome. I only see an option to continue (through the booking process) or go back to the previous step (although I can't go back to the very beginning). Surely I'm missing something, I don't see this on the list of issues. Thanks for any help/suggestions.

It’s captured as regression item 4 on the list - this was one of the first items we came across.


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[MikeandLisaR]

This may have been talked about before. Every time I log in I have to accept cookies. Using a laptop with Edge. Not deleting cookies on exit.

 

[WhiskeyJack]

Not certain if this has been covered already. With the Explore Resorts search function you can choose to search for results by state for the dates you list. However the search results do not return availability for all resorts in that state. For example, if I type in Florida and choose Florida, USA for the location I get a list of resorts with available units for my dates. However it does not list all the resorts in Florida with available units for the dates i selected. I noticed that if I search for Pompano Beach, Fl using the same dates as my Florida, USA search it returns availability for the PB resorts however these resorts were not shown in the Florida, USA results using the same dates. Thus, at least for Florida, searching the whole state with one search does not work. I have noticed this for California as well.

 

[HitchHiker71]

The sprint release yesterday, June 10, included the following high level fixes and enhancements listed below. We expect another round of updates to our spreadsheet before end of week as well. Stay tuned for the sheet updates.

FIXES:

1. In Mobile, user is now provided possible travel dates through their entire ARP window (it was previously showing 2 less months than desktop)
2. The maximum length of stay for a reservation now equals TRIP (previously this was showing 1 day less – 13 instead of 14)
3. Selecting the Reservation Details link in the Points Transaction History no longer provides an error
4. Registration for secondary owners is fixed (this impacted secondary owners on contracts having ownership changes)
5. Performing a search from the Resort Details page with Travel Dates now sends users to search results based upon those dates selected
6. Modifications – Changing the traveler to an owner is fixed

ENHANCEMENTS:

1. Explore Resorts/Search Results (without travel dates entered) – the Map and List of results now default to a full list of our resorts instead of using geo-location for the user
2. Explore Resorts/Search Results (without travel dates entered) – the owners can zoom in/out of the map and move it around to adjust the list of resorts shown
3. Explore Resorts/Search Results – if you search by something like Australia or Paris, we now find the closest resorts to that location vs. just stating No results
4. Explore Resorts/Search Results – the order of search results now provides resorts in the same state of the initial search, then we also provide any resorts within a radius outside of the state, and finally the Club Pass resorts are listed in that order.
5. Explore Resorts/Search Results – if the owner is searching availability for a resort and there is no availability, the map pin is gray

 

[Richelle]

Not certain if this has been covered already. With the Explore Resorts search function you can choose to search for results by state for the dates you list. However the search results do not return availability for all resorts in that state. For example, if I type in Florida and choose Florida, USA for the location I get a list of resorts with available units for my dates. However it does not list all the resorts in Florida with available units for the dates i selected. I noticed that if I search for Pompano Beach, Fl using the same dates as my Florida, USA search it returns availability for the PB resorts however these resorts were not shown in the Florida, USA results using the same dates. Thus, at least for Florida, searching the whole state with one search does not work. I have noticed this for California as well.

I wonder if that’s because when you choose Florida, it chooses the middle of the state as the starting and expands the search for 250 miles from the center, as opposed to the entire state. We’ll have to add that to the list.

 

[HitchHiker71]

I wonder if that’s because when you choose Florida, it chooses the middle of the state as the starting and expands the search for 250 miles from the center, as opposed to the entire state. We’ll have to add that to the list.

This is already captured under Regression item #23 just FYI.

 

[HitchHiker71]

Chart updates to share:

REGRESSIONS:

BUGS:

ENHANCEMENTS:

CONTENT MANAGEMENT:

 

[BDMX2]

Has anyone run into the inability to complete a reservation? "Something unexpected just happened!" I get the same result on Chrome and Safari on a Mac, I also tried Android as well, and Edge on a PC. All the same result.

ETA: it resolved itself. I tried several times yesterday and this morning, clearing cookies, etc. Then right before 8am I tried again on Chrome with PC. I was about to call, but also had a meeting to hop onto for work...so I tried one more time hoping I wouldn't have to do any headset juggling, lo and behold it worked.

 

[HitchHiker71]

Has anyone run into the inability to complete a reservation? "Something unexpected just happened!" I get the same result on Chrome and Safari on a Mac, I also tried Android as well, and Edge on a PC. All the same result.

ETA: it resolved itself. I tried several times yesterday and this morning, clearing cookies, etc. Then right before 8am I tried again on Chrome with PC. I was about to call, but also had a meeting to hop onto for work...so I tried one more time hoping I wouldn't have to do any headset juggling, lo and behold it worked.

View attachment 22173

I've run into this twice now when attempting to take an instant room upgrade. In one instance I could not get it to move to step two. In another instance, clicking the Continue button more than once seemed to push through the error. It seems intermittent in nature.

 

[HitchHiker71]

Sharing a couple of screenshots from the new availability calendar view for those interested, which is scheduled for release on or around 6/24.

Originally we had an ask under enhancement #5 on our list for another checkbox for "My Duration Is Flexible" along side the current "My Dates Are Flexible" checkbox. Our question is, with the calendar view coming back, do we still see value in this enhancement as a standalone feature? Or would you simply default to using the calendar view?

 

[Cyrus24]

Duration Flexibility is important and would be an add over what we had before. Tough question for me to ask given the amount of time you have spent on this, but, will Wyndham be letting some of those adamant about bringing the calendar back actually test the calendar? No offense, but, you had little value in the calendar and are probably not the correct person to be testing it.

 

[paxsarah]

The way this calendar looks doesn't appear to have the functionality that people are missing from the previous availability calendar. This does look like it would be easy to plug in different spans of specific dates on one interface. What it doesn't appear to show (at least not in the screenshot) is that, for instance, I'm looking at June and seeing that the last full week and every Thursday night have no availability at all, so I know to try to book a 6-night stay starting on Friday in the early part of the month. This looks like you'd still have to ascertain that by trial and error.

 

[bobbyoc23]

I think I would mostly default to the calendar view (assuming the old calendar view functionality is restored). The only exception might be if I want to stay in an area that has multiple resorts (like Orlando). In this use case, searching by location with flexible dates and flexible duration would be useful. Any other case and I think I'd default to calendar view.