Travel and Leisure

[Fido Chuckwagon]

I ramp up the profanity

I think that part is probably a bad idea. As others have indicated, you can always just walk away. You don't want to end up in a situation where they're potentially trying to kick you out of the hotel.

 

[HitchHiker71]

I don't know what the guy was trying to tell me on the phone. Something about some emails I should have got last year that I needed to take action on. Perhaps it had something to do with T&L, maybe not. I think we've heard everything possible, but I am sure something new will come along.

Sales always says this - FOMO in action - you missed some email or text or phone call or whatever - and therefore they can "solve your problem" now as a special exception, or one time offer, or whatever. It's all BS.

 

[HitchHiker71]

Checked in to OTA yesterday evening, the concierge desks line was that “priority” VIP owners like us have to register with T&L to receive annual credits against MFs to cut down on MFs every year. We should have received an email about it last month, did we? There’s that FOMO again.

I asked how exactly that works, no real answer other than you have to go to the meeting to do so. They aren’t a sales center any longer, it’s a T&L education center now. You get your gift up front and can leave whenever you want. Uh huh, thanks but no thanks. They stared at me like, you really don’t want to get your MF discount this year? Well, you will still be able to get it next year if you wait. Again, thanks but no thanks.


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[chapjim]

Wyndham salespersons deserve an A++ for creativity -- the seemingly endless reasons for attending a sales presentation.

 

[dioxide45]

Checked in to OTA yesterday evening, the concierge desks line was that “priority” VIP owners like us have to register with T&L to receive annual credits against MFs to cut down on MFs every year. We should have received an email about it last month, did we? There’s that FOMO again.

I asked how exactly that works, no real answer other than you have to go to the meeting to do so. They aren’t a sales center any longer, it’s a T&L education center now. You get your gift up front and can leave whenever you want. Uh huh, thanks but no thanks. They stared at me like, you really don’t want to get your MF discount this year? Well, you will still be able to get it next year if you wait. Again, thanks but no thanks.


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What is OTA?

 

[dioxide45]

Welp, they called us this morning in our room to ask us to attend a presentation with 15 minutes notice. They did say we had 10 minutes grace period. After may offers, they were still lackluster so I declined and finally just had to hang up. Low and behold they called back in about five minutes and gave us something that was worth the promised 60 minutes that really turned into about 75. I've heard the stories about how relentless Wyndham is to get you to attend, but never experienced anything like this. I'll deal with it though, as long as we get something worthy of our time. I wonder if they will ask us again when we get to Myrtle Beach.

To no surprise of mine, when we checked in to SeaWatch they presented us reasons why we needed to attend a presentation. This time it was something about how we were still on the old Club Wyndham system and they needed to move us over to Voyager. Isn't that something that happened years ago? Is it really all about tour flow for Club Wyndham? We just went on a presentation two days ago and they want me to go again?

I really need to just walk up to the "concierge" and say something along the lines of, I don't need any pleasantries because I know you don't really care where I live or where I am coming from. I also don't need any bogus reasons as to why I need to attend a presentation. You can get me to sign up if there is enough in it for me. So cut to the chase. What are you willing to offer? I'll tell you if it is enough. Perhaps get your manager over here or on the phone now because you will probably need approval to go as high as I am going to want. I'll proceed to tell you what the best offer I ever got was and hope you can match it. Perhaps we will meet in the middle but I am willing to walk away and you'll probably call me in my room tomorrow to grovel some more to get me to attend.

 

[WyndhamBarter]

What is OTA?

Old Town Alexandria. Delightful location near Washington DC.

 

[Floridaman76]

I chuckle every time I hear that "Priority Owner" nonsense. Sea Gardens has a big dry erase whiteboard that they put the names of all the "priority" owners checking in that day with cute little designs and stuff. It's kind of funny to the uneducated. I guess I have to give them a little credit to make you feel special vs some of the other resorts that use a deceitfully different set of tactics.

Like Nashville and Ocean Blvd, they are relentless. Don't know why anyone would ever buy at either of those places retail, plus the MF are horrid at both of those places.

 

[dioxide45]

I chuckle every time I hear that "Priority Owner" nonsense. Sea Gardens has a big dry erase whiteboard that they put the names of all the "priority" owners checking in that day with cute little designs and stuff. It's kind of funny to the uneducated. I guess I have to give them a little credit to make you feel special vs some of the other resorts that use a deceitfully different set of tactics.

Like Nashville and Ocean Blvd, they are relentless. Don't know why anyone would ever buy at either of those places retail, plus the MF are horrid at both of those places.

I saw a little board like that in Panama City.

 

[HitchHiker71]

What is OTA?

Old Town Alexandria


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[chapjim]

I saw a little board like that in Panama City.

They had one when we checked in March 8. We weren't on it. I got over it pretty quickly.

 

[Sandi Bo]

Back in the day -- when you went on presentation/tour, you would wear a VIP name tag with your name on it. I don't think we've seen that for a while.

 

[dioxide45]

We went to a Wyndham presentation and came home with this;

 

[paxsarah]

Like Nashville and Ocean Blvd, they are relentless. Don't know why anyone would ever buy at either of those places retail, plus the MF are horrid at both of those places

Nashville is ridiculously high and you couldn't pay me to take it.

Ocean Boulevard has 4 HOAs and each has a different MF rate. OB III is $6.23 per k, only $.19 more than Grand Desert which is frequently mentioned as a solid below-average maintenance fee choice. Obviously TotG is the best MF rate for the regional Myrtle Beach ARP, but it's tougher to find resale contracts for sale. OB III is probably worth it if someone wants the ARP. There's a reason it's the only MB contract I still have (after getting rid of the Cottages and OB I, which were much higher).

 

[Cyrus24]

We Had been on the ‘no gift’ list for almost 4 years but started getting hassled earlier this year.

Second son got hit first. It was midnight, he was exhausted and did not feel like fighting. He paid the deposit. He then just did not go. Interestingly enough, the CC charge was reversed some weeks later.

I got hit next. We were on a late arrival so the concierge gave us the spiel over the phone. I was able to graciously decline.

First son got hit up over the last few days. First stop on their trip, he sent our DIL to the desk and she was able to say no after listening to garbage. She’s good at saying no. On the second stop, he got hit, again. Below is a summary of the conversation via text. Sound familiar? Yep, it sure does.

All of our adult kids are on our account. No guests, actual owners. We all laugh about Wyndham BS when we get together.

 

[dioxide45]

Vacation Sidekick. I've heard some whoppers about this so called benefit of Club Wyndham ownership. One salesperson claimed to have saved $500 when checking out at Target. Then later said the discount was about 2%. So they spent $25,000? Most reps claim you would save about $2500 a year but in general the discounts are like $10 off a $100 purchase or some small discount. How much do you have to spend in a year to save $2500? It sounds like something to get you to spend more money and whoever administers the sidekick program is keeping referral revenue.

 

[Eric B]

Vacation Sidekick. I've heard some whoppers about this so called benefit of Club Wyndham ownership. One salesperson claimed to have saved $500 when checking out at Target. Then later said the discount was about 2%. So they spent $25,000? Most reps claim you would save about $2500 a year but in general the discounts are like $10 off a $100 purchase or some small discount. How much do you have to spend in a year to save $2500? It sounds like something to get you to spend more money and whoever administers the sidekick program is keeping referral revenue.

I actually downloaded the app for Vacation Sidekick once years ago when it had a different name. The discounts that were available through it were readily available to anyone that knows how to use the internet or is willing to just ask for a discount without any reference at all to Club Wyndham or anything in particular. Given that as a baseline, there's actually a cost to using Vacation Sidekick because it causes you to waste time looking for discounts through it and using the app wastes memory space on your phone. It's on the order of the travel discounts available through TravelUp! that match about what you can find on line by using Google Flights. They're only discounts to people that don't know how to use the internet.

 

[dioxide45]

I actually downloaded the app for Vacation Sidekick once years ago when it had a different name. The discounts that were available through it were readily available to anyone that knows how to use the internet or is willing to just ask for a discount without any reference at all to Club Wyndham or anything in particular. Given that as a baseline, there's actually a cost to using Vacation Sidekick because it causes you to waste time looking for discounts through it and using the app wastes memory space on your phone. It's on the order of the travel discounts available through TravelUp! that match about what you can find on line by using Google Flights. They're only discounts to people that don't know how to use the internet.

Isn't there also a fee to sign up for Vacation Sidekick for anyone who is Silver VIP or below?

 

[Eric B]

Isn't there also a fee to sign up for Vacation Sidekick for anyone who is Silver VIP or below?

There might be - we're VIPG and I haven't looked at it in years. Not really something Wyndham seems to put any money into (surprise, surprise) so I don't expect it will ever actually be worth anything.