Wyndham Privileges: new Wyndham VIP Levels starting late 2020 [Merged]

[HitchHiker71]

@SNA27 How can any of the last several pages help answer the Ops original question? Why has this thread gone so off topic? Its time to lock or shut this thread down or get back to OP's original question.

This thread was a merge of a few different threads all surrounding Privileges from many moons ago, so there isn’t one OP. IIRC one of my own own threads was one of the merges - which means I’m also one of the OPs. If I want to change the topic or respond to someone else’s post that takes the thread off topic - as an OP I would surmise that is an option I can choose to exercise - but I will of course defer to the moderators if I am mistaken.

I have several asks surrounding Privileges into my contacts at Wyndham and will share whatever feedback I receive when I receive it. A subset of those asks have come from recent inquires in this thread.


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[Jan M.]

With that said, I had asked one of the executives what the theme was, to the names of the tiers. Most loyalty or VIP programs have themes. Maybe colors, Metals, etc. There didn’t seem to be any theme. This was the answer I got.


“The original Privileges titles that rolled out were to align with Wyndham Rewards. That proved to be too confusing between Club Wyndham Points and Wyndham Rewards Points. The newest levels are trying to show levels of exclusivity and prestige. They are something to spend years to continue growing towards as an achievement.”


If that were the case, I would think legend would be above founders, but that’s just me. Also, I am not sure about the “achievement” part. Is it an “achievement” to spend six figures? Maybe the achievement is that you can (hopefully) afford to pay six figures. I don’t know.

At the owners meeting in Austin I was very disappointed to hear them announce that the names of the levels were one of the few things that had been decided upon and would not change. My first reaction upon seeing these, the second set of names, was that surely they were just another work in progress and they would come up with something better, something that made sense. The names certainly defy the common sense directive k.i.s.s., keep it simple stupid.

The explanation of how we will remember the names, the acronym A CALF, is insulting and offensive to all owners who spent enough to be any Privileges level. The strongest associations that come to mind when you think of calf is of calves being fattened up for veal or the fattened calf being killed in the biblical story of the prodigal son which many people have heard of even if they never set foot in a Church or Temple. Neither of which have positive associations. Apparently enough people in Wyndham thought it was a good idea to use anything that might project them as seeing us as the oh so sweet and innocent young calves being fattened up for the kill by salespeople.

Founders is the the name that makes the least sense and it's a stretch to use it in a context other than this.
NOUN
founders (plural noun)

1. a person who establishes an institution or settlement.
   "he was the founder of modern Costa Rica"

I have this picture in my head of the Howells from Gilligan's Island walking into a resort explaining to the check in people "Darling girl/boy, you must understand that we are THE Howells. We are Wyndham's founders and we absolutely must have your best unit!" For those of you who didn't grow up watching the show or aren't into watching reruns on the TV Land channel, the Howells, Mr. and Mrs. Thurston Howell III, were very old money as the saying goes and their family could have been founders of a number of companies.

 

[SNA27]

FOUNDER - Millionaires Mr. & Mrs. Howell
LEGEND - Movie Legend Ginger
AMBASSADOR - The Professor
CHAMPION - The Skipper
ADVANTAGE - Mary Ann and Gilligan

And they're all LOST on an UNCHARTED island! It fits! @Jan M., I think you're on to something!

 

[SNA27]

@Jan M.,
If Privileges is still an amorphous work-in-progress, then we're all As Clueless As to be out on the Left Field!

Didn't realize F stood for Fatted Calf! I can hear the Celebration coming!

We'll kill the fatted calf tonight, so stick around,
you're gonna hear electric music, solid walls of sound.

I think I would need Cliff notes to understand the lyrics of Elton John!

 

[Jan M.]

FOUNDER - Millionaires Mr. & Mrs. Howell
LEGEND - Movie Legend Ginger
AMBASSADOR - The Professor
CHAMPION - The Skipper
ADVANTAGE - Mary Ann and Gilligan

And they're all LOST on an UNCHARTED island! It fits! @Jan M., I think you're on to something!

Good play on my post.

Lost on an uncharted island, encouraging a sense of entitlement or the very unfortunate acronym A CALF that likens us to the "oh so sweet and innocent young calves being fattened up for the kill by salespeople", any way you look at it this is one swing that is a really big miss. The humiliating swing you make that lives on in your list of life's most embarrassing moments because it caused your team to lose the game, all your family and friends were there to witness it and the girl or boy you had a big crush on was there too.

I understand wanting to put your brand on something but renaming the VIP program Privileges is enough of reinventing the wheel. Using something that works and everyone understands like metals, gems, colors, numbers, etc., makes much more sense and doesn't come across as ridiculous, offensive or pretentious. In school most of us learned the acronym for the colors of the rainbow, ROYGBIV, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. So say I decide since I have a captive group of hundreds of thousands of people that I should force them to start calling those colors scarlet, carrot, canary, chartreuse, azure, reddish blue, purple and tell everyone to just remember SCCCARP. I'm sure everyone is just going to jump right on board with that until it catches on throughout the entire world and no one is going to call me an idiot or worse. Some things shouldn't be changed out of all recognition.

This is one time I'm really hoping that the people Wyndham has monitoring the threads sees both of our posts and take what they are hearing back to the people above them. Also that the PTB, Powers That Be, in Wyndham have the good sense to reconsider the names.

 

[SNA27]

Hmm, we went from High frequency to Low frequency, or bottom-up on the Rainbow, so VIBGYOR flowed out easier!

Emerald-Silver-Gold-Platinum-Diamond-Titanium mixing up gems with metals seemed klutzy too.

I guess, Aluminium-Silver-Gold-Platinum-Titanium didn't make the cut.

Haven't they heard of Focus Groups?

I would have gone with Bronze-Silver-Gold-Platinum-Platinum Honors or Platinum Plus.
Everybody can relate to Bronze being less than silver and Platinum Plus being more than Platinum.

 

[kaljor]

I'm not super concerned about the names, but I do have to side with Wyndham on their reason for changing them I can easily see people conflating the Gold, Silver, Platinum of the Wyndham system with the Wyndham Rewards system. It is better to keep them different.

 

[SNA27]

I'm not super concerned about the names, but I do have to side with Wyndham on their reason for changing them I can easily see people conflating the Gold, Silver, Platinum of the Wyndham system with the Wyndham Rewards system. It is better to keep them different.

WR Member Levels: BLUE-GOLD-PLATINUM-DIAMOND
Wyndham VIP Levels: SILVER-GOLD-PLATINUM

Confusion, if any, was already present or absent!

I agree with @Jan M. that this word jumble Advantage-Champion-Ambassador-Legend-Founder makes no sense at all and they seem to have tried very hard to be too clever by half!

 

[gwberg]

I just checked the Wyndham website and I am still listed as a Gold VIP. Without new names what does that make me? When will they show up on the website?


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[Rolltydr]

I just checked the Wyndham website and I am still listed as a Gold VIP. Without new names what does that make me? When will they show up on the website?


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Privileges, whatever it turns out to be, isn’t being implemented until late this year, at the earliest. Absolutely no changes have been made to the VIP program at this time.

 

[gwberg]

Thanks a lot.


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