How waitlists get filled.....

luckyman_apd · Sep 2, 2015

I've read different posts over the years here on how waitlists get filled.....and many have stated (and I've always assumed as well) that the waitlist requests are filled sometime in the hours member services are closed.....and that it's possible to snag an open room before a waitlist grabs it....which IS VERY possible and I'm sure I've done that. But I had a waitlist for 1 night that was just filled.....at it happened around noon today. Because I was looking for that room, and because I've had success finding an open date while having an open waitlist I checked the website around 9:30 am and there was NO availability for that night, and my waitlist WAS still active. Got an email around 12:30 pm that was the welcome...we can't wait email that confirms a reservation. In my experience I get those emails about a half hour after booking my logical guess is that my waitlist was filled around noon.

So....no one really knows how and when they fill waitlists. In the past I haven't always gotten an email notifying my when a waitlist was successful either.

DVC Mike · Sep 2, 2015

As mentioned in the Wait Listing a Resort thread, it has been reported that the waitlist is now checked in real-time; that is, when a reservation is cancelled, the waitlist is immediately checked to see if there are any matches.

disneynutz · Sep 2, 2015

luckyman_apd said:
I've read different posts over the years here on how waitlists get filled.....and many have stated (and I've always assumed as well) that the waitlist requests are filled sometime in the hours member services are closed.....and that it's possible to snag an open room before a waitlist grabs it....which IS VERY possible and I'm sure I've done that. But I had a waitlist for 1 night that was just filled.....at it happened around noon today. Because I was looking for that room, and because I've had success finding an open date while having an open waitlist I checked the website around 9:30 am and there was NO availability for that night, and my waitlist WAS still active. Got an email around 12:30 pm that was the welcome...we can't wait email that confirms a reservation. In my experience I get those emails about a half hour after booking my logical guess is that my waitlist was filled around noon.

So....no one really knows how and when they fill waitlists. In the past I haven't always gotten an email notifying my when a waitlist was successful either.

What I was told is that the matches were run at night and worked the following day by a live person. That means that the match happened last night, the reservation was modified today at 12:30. You didn't see availability this morning because the inventory was held last night.

:earsboy:

Bill

luckyman_apd · Sep 2, 2015

Bill I have no doubt that's how it used to run, but thanks DVC Mike. It appears that is what seems to have happened. This was very different than previous waitlist fullfillments. I know in the past I would find my waitlist filled by checking the dvcmember site, and then getting an email later on...or not at all. But today the waitlist was definitely not filled at 9 am and no inventory available, and then it filled later on during the day.

I would think real time waitlist run through is a little more fair to the members than overnight and leaving open inventory sitting for a "lucky" member to happen to stumble across. I've haven't been active on the Disboards in a couple months, so I missed the waitlist thread. I'll check it out.

nkosiek · Sep 2, 2015

I will say that I had a 1 night WL for 12/17 in a BWV pool/garden studio but not filled. Instead I looked for the same thing and found it last Thursday during the early evening. So who the heck knows.

kydisneyfans · Sep 3, 2015

I saw a waitlisted room appear as available around 4:00 on Sunday afternoon. I called and was on hold about 10 minutes. During that time the room disappeared. When I got through to the agent, he found that the room that disappeared actually was used for my waitlisted room. We finalized the transaction while I was on the phone. That leads me to believe it is real time now.

disneynutz · Sep 3, 2015

The match may be run during the day now, the inventory held but the reservation is still worked by a person. There are far to many variables for a automated system to find inventory, hold inventory, read your waitlist notes, know what points to use, modify your reservation, and send you an email.

:earsboy:

Bill

luckyman_apd · Sep 3, 2015

So basically, the best way to get a room you want is still to fill out a waitlist and stalk the member site haha

sndral · Sep 3, 2015

kydisneyfans said:
I saw a waitlisted room appear as available around 4:00 on Sunday afternoon. I called and was on hold about 10 minutes. During that time the room disappeared. When I got through to the agent, he found that the room that disappeared actually was used for my waitlisted room. We finalized the transaction while I was on the phone. That leads me to believe it is real time now.

I had a similar thing happen a couple of weeks ago. I had a 1 night wait list which I spotted on the RAT, I called and the villa had a hold which turned out to be for my WL.

tjkraz · Sep 3, 2015

disneynutz said:
The match may be run during the day now, the inventory held but the reservation is still worked by a person. There are far to many variables for a automated system to find inventory, hold inventory, read your waitlist notes, know what points to use, modify your reservation, and send you an email.

Bill

Matches are not "run" in any sort of batch process anymore. As other posters stated, when a cancellation occurs, the waitlist is immediately consulted. If there is any pending request for the date/resort/villa combination, the room is placed in a held status and removed from inventory.

Live agents will then periodically review potential waitlist matches (held rooms) and complete the reservations. If the agent discovers that a held room is not a 100% match for a pending waitlist, only then will they release it to inventory.

It's been like this for 3-4 months now.

"Stalking" the website is no longer necessary if a waitlist request is active. Cancellations will be held for the waitlist before they every appear as open rooms on the website. But members now need to be very careful about cancellations. In the past, it was typically possible to cancel a room and re-book it a few minutes later (as long as nobody else grabbed the room.) Now, cancellations go into that held status if there's a waitlist. You may never see the room again if someone else has a pending request.

nkosiek · Sep 3, 2015

Tim, see post 5 above. For whatever reason, it didn't run live as I was able to find the room when randomly checking the website. Perhaps it is suppose to (it darn well should when you think about how much downtime they've had over the past 12 months for "maintenance") but it didn't in my instance.

supersnoop · Sep 3, 2015

nkosiek said:
Tim, see post 5 above. For whatever reason, it didn't run live as I was able to find the room when randomly checking the website. Perhaps it is suppose to (it darn well should when you think about how much downtime they've had over the past 12 months for "maintenance") but it didn't in my instance.

But were you able to book the room online? There have been recent reports of "phantom" Availability showing up. It could be that the room shows up but isn't bookable online.

tjkraz · Sep 3, 2015

nkosiek said:
Tim, see post 5 above. For whatever reason, it didn't run live as I was able to find the room when randomly checking the website. Perhaps it is suppose to (it darn well should when you think about how much downtime they've had over the past 12 months for "maintenance") but it didn't in my instance.

Could be a glitch. Could be that 2 rooms were cancelled about the same time--one held for waitlist and the other released (unlikely but possible.)

Whatever the case, the process did change a few months back and there's now a realtime element to waitlist matches.

nkosiek · Sep 3, 2015

supersnoop said:
But were you able to book the room online? There have been recent reports of "phantom" Availability showing up. It could be that the room shows up but isn't bookable online.

Yes. In fact, I just got off the phone with MS about merging the two reservations into one. Done and done. I've had good luck with both stalking and waitlisting, so I'm not complaining it wasn't done, I'm just trying to give myself the best possible chance to get the reservation I want.

Granny · Sep 3, 2015

tjkraz said:
Matches are not "run" in any sort of batch process anymore. As other posters stated, when a cancellation occurs, the waitlist is immediately consulted. If there is any pending request for the date/resort/villa combination, the room is placed in a held status and removed from inventory.

It sounds like this could make more likely the scenario where people end up with no reservation when cancelling the 11 month booking to make a reservation at the 7 month non-home resort. If it is real time, then it sounds like when you cancel the original reservation (to free up the points) you have a reduced chance of re-booking it if the new reservation doesn't come through.

gkrykewy · Sep 3, 2015

Granny said:
If it is real time, then it sounds like when you cancel the original reservation (to free up the points) you have a reduced chance of re-booking it if the new reservation doesn't come through.

You can be logged into two different browsers and cancel the old reservation in one while completing the new reservation in the other.

luckyman_apd · Sep 4, 2015

tjkraz said:
"Stalking" the website is no longer necessary if a waitlist request is active. Cancellations will be held for the waitlist before they every appear as open rooms on the website. But members now need to be very careful about cancellations. In the past, it was typically possible to cancel a room and re-book it a few minutes later (as long as nobody else grabbed the room.) Now, cancellations go into that held status if there's a waitlist. You may never see the room again if someone else has a pending request.

I'm glad to hear this. It was time consuming to check 3-4 times a day to try get that 1 night you want.........but it did work for us. I did feel a bit bad if someone else had a waitlist and I had essentially "taken" it from them.....but you know....only a little bad I felt :teeth:

. Real time waitlist matching is definitely the best way to go for fairness and I'm happy to hear that this is how it works now.

luckyman_apd · Sep 4, 2015

gkrykewy said:
You can be logged into two different browsers and cancel the old reservation in one while completing the new reservation in the other.

Now that's news to me. I've tried separate browsers in the past, and as soon as I logged into the 2nd browser, the first was always locked out as I had been disconnected.

supersnoop · Sep 5, 2015

luckyman_apd said:
Now that's news to me. I've tried separate browsers in the past, and as soon as I logged into the 2nd browser, the first was always locked out as I had been disconnected.

It has to actually be a second browser, not just a second instance of the same browser program. Searching inventory will invalidate the second session.

gkrykewy · Sep 5, 2015

supersnoop said:
It has to actually be a second browser, not just a second instance of the same browser program. Searching inventory will invalidate the second session.

That's right - separate browser software; for example, chrome versus safari, etc.

How waitlists get filled.....

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