Wyndham Bonnet Creek reservation canceled!

[inspectorgadget]

My late September reservation got cancelled today. I rented through Vacation Strategies for this trip and I received an email from them. I have stayed here many times and have rented through Vacation Strategies and also Vacation Upgrades and have never, ever had one issue. VS told me that Wyndham does this often at WBC. Since it's such a popular resort, Wyndham will cancel "Guest" reservations because they are focusing more on timeshare sales.

Fortunately, I was able to book Wyndham Reunion Resort through VS for the same days. I asked how I can be sure this one will not be cancelled as well. The guy at VS told me that Wyndham never cancels the Reunion reservations like they do the WBC reservations because it's not as popular. I certainly hope that's the case. We love WBC for the location so this is not ideal. Reunion is 20+ min away!

I am not happy about this! I made this reservation in April and my dates are not affected by the blockout dates. Sadly, I will never make a reservation at WBC again because I do not want this to repeat - I have learned my lesson. I hope this does not happen to anyone else.

 

[dioxide45]

There has to be more to this. According to the Club Wyndham website, the latest owner priority reservation periods end after Labor Day and don't start again until Thanksgiving.

https://clubwyndham.wyndhamdestinat...mit-usage-LNK&pid=000095040906&pin=4320723960

I suspect the owner they were working with got caught up in commercial activity and certified letters going to them.

 

[Tom_E_D]

There has to be more to this. According to the Club Wyndham website, the latest owner priority reservation periods end after Labor Day and don't start again until Thanksgiving.

https://clubwyndham.wyndhamdestinat...mit-usage-LNK&pid=000095040906&pin=4320723960

I suspect the owner they were working with got caught up in commercial activity and certified letters going to them.

What do you mean by "commercial activity" and "certified letters"? What is the rule that the owner may have broken?

 

[inspectorgadget]

There has to be more to this. According to the Club Wyndham website, the latest owner priority reservation periods end after Labor Day and don't start again until Thanksgiving.

https://clubwyndham.wyndhamdestinat...mit-usage-LNK&pid=000095040906&pin=4320723960

I suspect the owner they were working with got caught up in commercial activity and certified letters going to them.

Here is the email I received from VS. There wasn't any detail so that is why I called them. I did a quick Google search and I see this has happened to other people as well. I won't take this chance again.


Please be advised that Wyndham has unexpectedly canceled your upcoming reservation. We just received the notification and therefore are informing you.

Since your reservation is canceled, we will issue you a full refund so that you may book elsewhere. We will continue searching for your reservation and in the event, we are able to rebook your trip dates, we will notify you immediately.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you.

Sincerely,
Vacation Strategy Team

 

[dioxide45]

What do you mean by "commercial activity" and "certified letters"? What is the rule that the owner may have broken?

Certain owners that have been suspected of renting weeks in violation of the Club Wyndham rules have been sent certified letters indicating that reservations may be cancelled or that they need to cancel any reservations that are in violation of the letters. Owners are not allowed to partake in commercial activity with their ownership in Club Wyndham, regardless of the blackout dates. In the past, Wyndham didn't enforce this commercial activity rule but they have taken a much harder line in the past year or so.

 

[inspectorgadget]

Certain owners that have been suspected of renting weeks in violation of the Club Wyndham rules have been sent certified letters indicating that reservations may be cancelled or that they need to cancel any reservations that are in violation of the letters. Owners are not allowed to partake in commercial activity with their ownership in Club Wyndham, regardless of the blackout dates. In the past, Wyndham didn't enforce this commercial activity rule but they have taken a much harder line in the past year or so.

VS told me a block of reservations was canceled and that mine happened to be one of them. So if this is the case, Wyndham is going after a lot of them at one time.

 

[dioxide45]

VS told me a block of reservations was canceled and that mine happened to be one of them. So if this is the case, Wyndham is going after a lot of them at one time.

Hard to tell what really happened though. I wouldn't necessarily just go by what they told you. Late September is not high season in Orlando. It is also possible that one owner had a lot of reservations that were cancelled.

 

[inspectorgadget]

Hard to tell what really happened though. I wouldn't necessarily just go by what they told you. Late September is not high season in Orlando. It is also possible that one owner had a lot of reservations that were cancelled.

That is true, I guess it could be one owner. As to late September not being high season, that is exactly why we go then!

 

[Brian Noble]

VS told me that Wyndham does this often at WBC. Since it's such a popular resort, Wyndham will cancel "Guest" reservations because they are focusing more on timeshare sales.

Yeah, as @dioxide45 mentions, that's hogwash, because (a) guests sign up for timeshare tours and buy just like current owners do and (b) this is not an owner priority period. VS is telling you this because either they don't know why the owner's reservation was cancelled (including whether or not the owner cancelled it themselves), or they can't really say out loud what the real reason is.

I suspect the owner they were working with got caught up in commercial activity and certified letters going to them.

Much more likely. And, it is entirely possible that this owner cancelled any rentals they had outstanding in response to that letter, rather than Wyndham cancelling them.

VS told me a block of reservations was canceled and that mine happened to be one of them. So if this is the case, Wyndham is going after a lot of them at one time.

There has been a lot of discussion on TUG (the Timeshare User's Group) about this, and a number of owners who rent have reported getting that letter.

 

[inspectorgadget]

I wish there was some way to avoid this from happening again in the future. It seems as if there is a lot happening on the back end between Wyndham and owners, and that affected my reservation. I always thought that once reservations are made, you're safe. Not really though.

 

[katallo]

I thought so too. It is unfortunate they are not giving renters more notice about cancelled reservations. It is making us rethinking choosing WBC.

 

[dioxide45]

I wish there was some way to avoid this from happening again in the future. It seems as if there is a lot happening on the back end between Wyndham and owners, and that affected my reservation. I always thought that once reservations are made, you're safe. Not really though.

The only way to really protect your reservations would be to buy into Club Wyndham and make reservations as an owner. I know a few have done that here. If you plan to go every year, it is a viable alternative. You can buy in pretty cheap through the resale market. No need to pay big bucks to Wyndham. You just have the commitment of ongoing maintenance fees.

 

[Brian Noble]

Even if you don’t plan to go to Bonnet every year, owning Wyndham can make sense for a lot of folks. We spent a week in a 3BR Presidential at Smugglers Notch VT this summer. Next year we have a week in a 2BR at Oceanside, CA for my son’s spring break; a week in a 2BR Presidential at Shearwater on Kauai as part of a longer trip to Hawaii with extended family; and I’m doing a long weekend in a 1BR at Bonnet for the runDisney Springtime Surprise challenge.

 

[AnnaKristoff2013]

Even if you don’t plan to go to Bonnet every year, owning Wyndham can make sense for a lot of folks. We spent a week in a 3BR Presidential at Smugglers Notch VT this summer. Next year we have a week in a 2BR at Oceanside, CA for my son’s spring break; a week in a 2BR Presidential at Shearwater on Kauai as part of a longer trip to Hawaii with extended family; and I’m doing a long weekend in a 1BR at Bonnet for the runDisney Springtime Surprise challenge.

Any place that has an easy explainer on how Club Wyndham Bonnet Creek timeshares work? I own DVC resale and was thinking about picking up Bonnett Creek resale, but I can’t understand the booking system, the dues system, etc. It seems ridiculously more complicated than DVC.

 

[Lisa P.]

Visit the Timeshare Users Group forums and browse the Club Wyndham forum. Lots of info there.

If you intend to regularly visit Bonnet Creek over major holidays (Christmas/Easter) and you anticipate sometimes needing a unit larger than 2BR, then you'd benefit from the Advance Reservation Priority booking window at your home resort (13 months out). If that's not you, then look for a deed with any home resort that has lower maintenance fees and reserve up to 10 months out at any Club Wyndham.

There are annual, every-other-year, and every-third-year contracts out there. The annual contracts are easiest to use.
There are UDI (pure points) contracts which allow ARP bookings at your home resort any time of the year. There are fixed weeks converted to points contracts which allow ARP booking only for the underlying week on the contract at your home resort. Lastly, there are CWA contracts with limited inventory at a large range of resorts and these allow ARP booking at any of those "home resorts" within that designated inventory, which changes and grows.

Standard bookings (at 10 months out) may be for any CW resort at any time of year using any kind of contract points. (ex., we have contracts for converted, fixed weeks at two different home resorts, which have lower than average maintenance fees and we use all of our points for stays throughout the CW system and also, via RCI for full week exchanges.)

For every 70,000 points you own, you will get one "free" check-in housekeeping credit (ex., we have 308,000 points so we get 4 HKC/year). If you have more check-ins reserved during a year than housekeeping credits, then there's a fee for each additional HKC needed, currently $159. This discourages multiple, very short stays in off-season.

For every 77,000 points you own, you will get one "free" transaction per year (ex., again, we have 4). A transaction is the process of making a reservation or depositing points to RCI, etc. If you make more transactions than you have available in a year, there's a fee for each additional transaction, currently $19 online or $39 by phone. This discourages multiple changes to your schedule.

FWIW, we very rarely have paid any extra fees, normally none for years at a time. Like with DVC, early planning provides for best availability. You may see more info on the Club Wyndham website. But more details and more personal experiences are on the TUG forums (linked above).

 

[AnnaKristoff2013]

Visit the Timeshare Users Group forums and browse the Club Wyndham forum. Lots of info there.

If you intend to regularly visit Bonnet Creek over major holidays (Christmas/Easter) and you anticipate sometimes needing a unit larger than 2BR, then you'd benefit from the Advance Reservation Priority booking window at your home resort (13 months out). If that's not you, then look for a deed with any home resort that has lower maintenance fees and reserve up to 10 months out at any Club Wyndham.

There are annual, every-other-year, and every-third-year contracts out there. The annual contracts are easiest to use.
There are UDI (pure points) contracts which allow ARP bookings at your home resort any time of the year. There are fixed weeks converted to points contracts which allow ARP booking only for the underlying week on the contract at your home resort. Lastly, there are CWA contracts with limited inventory are large range of resorts and these allow ARP booking at any of those "home resorts" within that designated inventory, which changes and grows.

Standard bookings (at 10 months out) may be for any CW resort at any time of year using any kind of contract points. (ex., we have contracts for converted, fixed weeks at two different home resorts, which have lower than average maintenance fees and we use all of our points for stays throughout the CW system and via RCI.)

For every 70,000 points you own, you will get one "free" check-in housekeeping credit (ex., we have 308,000 points so we get 4 HKC/year). If you have more check-ins than housekeeping credits than check-ins during a year, there's a fee for each HKC, currently $159. This discourages multiple, very short stays in off-season.

For every 77,000 points you own, you will get one "free" transaction per year (ex., again, we have 4). A transaction is the process of making a reservation or depositing points to RCI, etc. If you make more transactions than you have available in a year, there's a fee for each additional transaction, currently $19 online or $39 by phone. This discourages multiple changes to your schedule.

FWIW, we very rarely have paid any extra fees, normally none for years at a time. Like with DVC, early planning provides for best availability. You may see more info on the Club Wyndham website. But more details and personal experiences on the TUG forums (linked above).

This is great, thank you so much.

 

[Brian Noble]

The other place to learn about Wyndham is the directory. In particular, I'd focus on Ownership Types (pages 300-301) plus Your Benefits and Use Year (pages 314-321). That's "Wyndham 101"

https://cbadb35588.site.internapcdn.net/http/0749-2020-cw-directory/index.html

 

[Scott S]

There are annual, every-other-year, and every-third-year contracts out there. The annual contracts are easiest to use.

While there are some timeshares that have triennial (every 3rd year) deeds, Wyndham does not.

 

[Lisa P.]

At one time, Coconut Malorie at Ocean City was a part of the Fairfield (now Club Wyndham) system. That resort had been sold out of floating and fixed weeks (some converted to Fairfield Plus points - now CW points) prior to CW taking over management of the resort. Some of those contracts were biennial or triennial. As you mention it though, I don't recall hearing of other triennial contracts... perhaps at one of the other pre-existing resorts that have been taken over by CW over the years. So a resale purchaser may come across a triennial converted, fixed week for sale. But you're absolutely correct, CW does not sell triennial developer (i.e., "new") contracts.

 

[MICKIMINI]

We picked up a Wyndham this year to supplement our DVC contracts. Our travel time is typically October/November. We bought about 2 weeks in a 1 BR for stays during F & W. Our MF's will be about $1200/yr. We paid $1400 for the contract, closing and transfer fees with a net cost of about $200 (included 2022 points). Not bad for being *two doors down* from RIV. We had dinner at Topolino's in May and watched a rainbow land on WBC!

It took me several months of research to figure out Wyndham and what a good price would be. Closing and getting points took about 4 excruciating months, but for $200 vs buying an additional 500 DVC points it was well worth it. I used a similar strategy to buying DVC in looking for the lowest asking price and negotiating from there. I bid on at least 10 contracts. Most resale contracts prices are ridiculous so expect a long search.

We are also using II through DVC to stay at Marriott's Grande Vista for $450 for a week in a 2 BR. Between DVC, Wyndham, II through DVC and SOG we will be able to achieve our 4-6 week plan. Good luck!