WorldMark^® Words

Do you want to know more about booking WorldMark reservations and about the TravelShare program? There is a new Quick Start Guide available on the WorldMark web site. It contains information about WorldMark credit and Bonus Time reservations which are available to all owners. It also has information about TravelShare Fun Time and RCI exchanges for TravelShare members. There is a list of contacts for additional information or answers to questions you may have. I didn't see anything earth shattering in the guide, but it could be a handy reference at times.

The link to the Quick Start Guide is on the WorldMark web site home page. You may have to scroll down a little to find it. Click on the link and it will open the guide as a PDF document. You can view the document online or save it to your computer so you always have it handy.

The nominees for the WorldMark Board of Directors election have been announced. There are 14 candidates for 2 director positions. You can find the candidate announcement and the candidate statements on the WorldMark web site. The election link is currently the 4th item down on the home page but that could change as new material is added. In answer to a question some have asked, and as you can confirm by looking at the announcement, I am not a candidate in the election.

This year an official election web site is being set up for comments concerning the election and the candidates. The details and a form which can be used to submit your comments are on the WorldMark web site. You can also submit comments via mail. Either way your comments need to be received at the WorldMark offices by August 6.

The election period ends at the annual owners meeting on October 21, 2010. I'm sure we will be hearing more about the election as we get closer to that date. I normally don't post much about the election and will probably follow that tradition again this year. I prefer to emphasize the many good things about WorldMark and much of the election chatter you hear stresses the negative. I could always change my mind though, you never know.

The WorldMark Pinetop resort is nestled in the woods in the White Mountains of Arizona. We have visited there quite a few times, the most recently being last month when we stopped for 3 days on our way home from Las Vegas. At an altitude of 7100 feet, Pinetop is a lot cooler than Las Vegas. It was 104 the day we left Las Vegas and Phoenix hit 112. The highest temperature in Pinetop during the three days we were there was 84.

You can be as active as you desire at Pinetop. There are many hiking trails in the area and we saw a number of people at the resort who had brought their mountain bikes with them. If you are into antiques it seems like there is an antique shop on every other corner. And if you want casino activities you can get that too, at the Hon-Dah Resort and Casino just a few miles up the road past the WorldMark resort.

Or if you just want to kick back and relax, you can enjoy the views of the woods from your deck as seen in the picture below. It wouldn't surprise me to see a deer come walking by, although all we saw were some birds and very busy squirrels.

In case you are not familiar with the 48 hour rule, it states that for WorldMark reservations made within 48 hours of your arrival time certain booking guidelines do not apply. Specifically excluded under the 48 hour rule are the length of stay requirement, the number of credit reservations requirement, and the single Bonus Time reservation at a time rule.

The first exemption refers to the rule that states that you cannot book only one day of a weekend (Friday or Saturday) if both nights are available. If it is within 48 hours of checkin you can book a single day. For example, on Wednesday you can book Friday night as a single day, even if Saturday night is also available.

The number of credit reservations exemption refers to the rule that states that you may have only 1 weekend only reservation per quarter for each block of 5,000 credits that you own. You can book a weekend reservation that would put you over that limit if your arrival date is within 48 hours of the time you make the reservation.

The Bonus Time exemption refers to the rule that you may have only one Bonus Time reservation at a time. It means that even if you already have an existing Bonus Time reservation you may book a second one for checkin within the next two days. Also covered under this exemption is the restriction concerning the number of Bonus Time weekend only reservations you may have.

Note that it is not really 48 hours, it is two days. You can book a 48 hour exemption reservation at 6:00 in the morning two days before your check in date, even though check in time is officially not until 4:00 in the afternoon.

You can book 48 hour rule reservations online at the start of the 48 hour period, or two days in advance of checkin. I recently did that, booking one night at Santa Fe on Bonus Time while we were staying at Pinetop on Bonus Time. If you wait another day you will need to call the Vacation Planning Center. It is only during the first day of the 48 hour period that you can book these reservations online. For both the day before arrival and the day of arrival you will need to make the reservation by phone.

Spacebanking with RCI underwent a change when the new RCI search and booking interface was added to the WorldMark web site. In case you are not familiar with the term, spacebanking, or deposit first, means depositing some of your WorldMark credits into your RCI account without making an immediate exchange. It is most commonly talked about as a way to extend the life of soon to expire credits. Spacebanked credits can be used for an RCI exchange up to 2 years after they are deposited. It does not matter what the expiration date of the credits you deposited are, you have two additional years to make an exchange using them.

Prior to the recent change, when you spacebanked credits a specific week at a specific WorldMark resort was deposited in your RCI account. If you deposited 4,000 credits a Blue season studio unit was deposited. If you deposited 10,000 credits a Red season 2 bedroom unit was deposited. You did not choose which resort the deposit came from or which specific week it was. The exchange department handled that. After the week was deposited you could log into your account on the RCI web site (or call RCI on the phone) and search for an exchange you wanted. You were searching with that specific unit, not with all of WorldMark as you did with Confirm First.

With the new system that changed. Now when you spacebank you do not have a specific unit deposited, you have credits deposited. The credits go into your WorldMark RCI account and are displayed when you log into RCI through the new WorldMark link. When you look at your account on the RCI page you see two entries. One shows the number of credits that are in your WorldMark account and the second entry shows the number of credits you have spacebanked with RCI.

If you find an exchange you want credits are deducted from your account, with the spacebanked credits used first and your normal WorldMark credits second. For example, if you have 6,000 WorldMark credits spacebanked and book a 10,000 credit exchange, the 6,000 spacebanked credits and 4,000 normal credits will be deducted from your account. Under the same scenario, if you book a 4,000 credit exchange only spacedbanked credits will be used, leaving you with a balance of 2,000 spacebanked credits in your account.

This is a big improvement for most WorldMark owners. No longer will you have to worry about what week you will get for a deposit and whether or not that week will produce a good exchange. Now you will always be searching with all of WorldMark, whether you are using current credits or spacebanked credits. The only disadvantage is for those few owners who spacebank a small deposit (4,000 or 5,000 credits) with the intent of trying to get an exchange which would require more credits. That option is no longer available. All exchanges will require the same number of credits as shown in the RCI exchange tables, it makes no difference if the exchange is completed using regular credits or spacebanked credits.

It is important to note that this new spacebanking of credits applies only to deposits made since the new system went into effect. If you had spacebanked credits before the change the fixed week you received is still in your RCI account. You access any such weeks through the RCI website, not the WorldMark web site. Similarly, any new deposits are accessible only through the WorldMark website RCI link, they will not be visible if you log into the your RCI account directly on the RCI website.

Here's one of those services that very few if any should make use of. According to an announcement on the WorldMark web site you can now make one time payments on your WorldMark account (dues or loan payments) via the Western Union web site. Fast, easy, convenient and available most any time. Just log into your WorldMark account online and follow the links to this service.

What's the catch? (There's always a catch.) It's right there in the announcement. "A convenience fee applies to each transaction." Here's a link to the announcement if you want to see all the details.

Why would you pay a fee to do something online that you could do free with a simple phone call? Unless something has changed, you can call WorldMark on the phone and make your payments via credit card for no charge. You can only call during normal business hours but I doubt if a payment made online at night would be posted any faster than one made the next morning via a phone call. Unless there is something I'm missing I'll put this one in the same category as the charge the baseball team ticketing agency wants to impose for printing my tickets at home. Thanks but no thanks.

When does a reservation end? That may seem like a strange question but it is one that came up on our most recent trip. We were headed to Las Vegas and I booked 1 night at St George on Bonus Time as a stop along the way. We were planning on coming home through Pinetop a week later and I wanted to make that reservation on Bonus Time also. You can't have two Bonus Time reservations at the same time so I couldn't book Pinetop until the St George reservation was complete.

After we arrived at St George and were checked in I went online and looked at Pinetop availability. There was a unit available for the three nights I wanted to book. I looked at our existing reservations and it showed the St George reservation in the reservations history section, not in the current reservations part. If the St George reservation was history even though we were still there, did that mean I could book Pinetop on Bonus Time? Nope, the online system would only let me use credits or FAX time for the reservation.

I called the Vacation Planning Center to see if it was only an online problem. Maybe I could book it by phone. Nope, couldn't do that either. I was told that the current reservation did not end until the last day of the reservation and I couldn't make another Bonus Time reservation until then. That's the way I thought it worked. I also asked if I needed to wait until we checked out on the next day before making the new reservation. The answer to that question was no, I could make the reservation as soon at the VPC opened. I was told I would have to call, the online system would not allow me to make the reservation that next morning.

The next morning I called in and booked Pinetop using Bonus Time. I had checked online first to see if there was still availability. I also tried making the reservation online, but the system would not let me use Bonus Time. I don't know if I could have made the reservation online later in the day, after the noon checkout time. That is a question I did not ask. I was happy to get the Bonus Time reservation I wanted an did not pursue it any further.

If you are a WorldMark owner and if you have an RCI account linked to your WorldMark account you can now do an online search and booking of Confirm First RCI exchanges. You no longer need to deposit any of your WorldMark credits in advance to use the online search function. The long awaited upgrade has arrived.

There was no big announcement, the new link was added to the WorldMark home page with no fanfare. I hadn't noticed the new link, but Saturday morning one of my regular readers called it to my attention. Thanks Mike.

I checked out the new capability through the link on the left side menu of the WorldMark home page. The first thing I discovered is that you need to be logged in to your WorldMark account to access the RCI pages. No big surprise there.

Once you are logged in you can access the RCI Confirm First search page. The search format is not the same as the one used on the RCI web site. You specify an area and sub area (Florida and Orlando area for example) and the start date to be used for the search. You can specify two different areas and sub areas. Or you can specify specific resorts using the RCI resort numbers found in the RCI directory.

I haven't done much experimenting with the new search function but it does work. It found and displayed available units for the searches I specified. Since I have an RCI Weeks account it only displayed full week exchanges. I don't know if it will search for shorter exchanges if you have an RCI Points account.

I'll know more after using the system more. I suspect that as with any new software, some bugs will crop up. That's to be expected with a new application but hopefully they will be minor issues that do not cause any significant problems. This is a big new addition for WorldMark owners, especially those of us who do use exchanges, and is most welcome.

WorldMark (and Wyndham) talk about their Go Green campaign. Energy savings, recycling, and other environment friendly approaches. For example, at the St George resort they have separate bins for trash, paper, plastic, and other recyclables. St George would get high marks for their Go Green efforts.

On the other hand, the Las Vegas Boulevard resort would get low marks. If there is any recycling done it is not apparent. There are no separate recycling containers; everything ends up in the big dumpsters that that are regularly picked up by one of the local trash hauling companies. It is possible that the trash company does the recycling but there is no indication of that.

Inside the Las Vegas Boulevard unit we recently occupied, all of the lights were incandescents, no CFL bulbs to be seen. I know Spencer Street uses the lower energy bulbs but that trend has not spread to the larger Boulevard resort. Maybe it's on the to do list, but in the meantime the Las Vegas Boulevard resort is not very high on the Go Green list.

When we checked in to St George on a recent visit, the check in papers included a note about the refurbishment that is under way at the resort. According to the provided description, the project will include new paint, carpet, and tile. The work is taking place at the three original resort buildings, the rec center, and the office. It is scheduled to be complete by September 15.

We were only there one night and I did not see any of the work crews or materials, They were probably working on the far side of the resort from where we were. We were in one of the newer buildings and even though the building was not listed in the refurb announcement, it was obvious that the unit had been recently tended to. There was a slight odor of fresh paint the unit and the walls were sporting the new earth tone colors that seem to be the latest standard. I think the living room and dining room furniture was new, but I'm not positive about that.

One of the more noticeable changes was the TV set. The old 25 inch tube model was gone, replaced by a wall mounted flat panel set. I didn't have a ruler with me but my guesstimate is that it was a 37 inch model. There was a smaller flat panel TV in the bedroom. I'm sure more and more resorts will be going to the flat panel displays, out of necessity if nothing else. I don't think you will find many (if any) CRT televisions sold any more. Whatever the reason for the change it is a nice improvement that most owners will appreciate.