What happens when "owner 2 " goes in to book it after "owner 1" cancels ?'
Do they get a discount ?
The problem is that the unit might not be there. There will very soon be an automatic upgrade waitlist. So, if there is any other eligible VIP owner with a 1BR booked who asked for an automatic upgrade, they get it before Owner 2. The only way Owner 2 could get it "cheaply" is if they also had a 1BR booked, and had asked for an automatic upgrade. But, again---there is no way to make sure that Owner 2 will be first in line, so someone else could get it instead, resulting in a complete loss of the rental unit.
VIP owners can still reliably cancel-rebook the smallest units (in WBC's case, Standard 1BRs) because there is nothing to upgrade from. But, that's it. And, if Wyndham down the road institutes a regular waitlist (and they might) rather than an upgrade waitlist, even this ability will go away.
In the end, there will be a way for the PlatVIP owners to continue what they are doing.
I'm not so sure about that. Most of the mega-renters/brokers on TUG are pretty sure that the upgrade waitlist has killed cancel-rebook for all but the smallest units at a particular resort, and cancel-rebook-upgrade is almost certainly gone for high-demand resorts/times. And, most of them understand that this was inevitable once the Trust learned what people were doing. The VIP upgrades/discounts were only intended for the leftovers, not high-demand time/resorts.
Most discussion has been here:
http://tugbbs.com/forums/index.php?...-club-wyndham-plus-program-guidelines.254676/
There's a lot of other stuff going on in that thread, but you'll get the idea.
I think in Bonnet's case, there might still be some leftovers. Now, there are a bunch of people who speculatively book things hoping to cancel-rebook-upgrade later. Some of that will go away, reducing early booking pressure on the resort in lower-demand times.