are Members aware that the Waitlist may have a major glitch?

[disneyberry]

UPDATE: before you read through this thread, please read the last post by me. thanks.


DISCLAIMER: i do not work for Disney, and have no solid evidence of this. but, based on the reports on this board, and my experience as an IT professional, this is my understanding of the situation.
my apologies for not including this disclaimer before.
***


well, we know that some fellow DISers have been chosen to participate in a focus group to provide feedback to DVD.
some of us have already voiced our concerns in another thread ( click here )
for me, one of the biggest concerns i have is that the Waitlist system seems to have a major glitch.

here is what i believe happens:

***
Mary Jane wants to book a BWV studio for NYE.
she calls MS to check availability, and MS says NYE is sold out.
MS offers to put Mary Jane on the waitlist for a BWV studio on NYE.

John Doe currently holds a reservation in a BWV studio for NYE.
he was smart and booked that night 11mos out.

after waiting for several months, Mary Jane has finally moved up to #1 on the waitlist for a BWV studio on NYE.

it turns out John Doe had a sickness in the family, so he decided to cancel his New Year's trip.
he calls MS at 10am the morning of Friday, May 16th, and cancels his reservation.

now, you would think, this is great news for Mary Jane.
she's next on the waitlist, so as soon as John Doe cancelled his reservation, that room should automatically get assigned to Mary Jane.

well, this is not the case.
that room goes back into MS's inventory.

Lucky Bob decides he wants to book a last minute NYE trip, and he wants to stay at BWV in a studio.
at Noon on Friday, May 16th, he calls MS to check availability.
the MS agent checks, and what do you know, there IS a studio available.
Lucky Bob happily books that room.

then, some time in the afternoon, maybe around 3pm.
MS runs their "Waitlist system".
this Waitlist system goes through inventory and tries to match available rooms w/ people's Waitlist request.
the system cannot find any BWV studios available on NYE.
so, Mary Jane is still stuck waiting on the Waitlist.
***

so, what i wanted to know is: are DVC Members even aware that this may be how the current Waitlist system works?
and, if you are aware of the glitch, do you care?
do you feel this is something that MS needs to fix?

 

[Mrs. Snowgod]

On the one hand, it seems like the waitlist typically comes through for people. There is another thread going that seems to indicate this as a consensus. That's also been my personal experience.

OTOH, this is a major flaw and ultimately renders the waitlist system a bit more like a crap-shoot. And the more people become aware of this glitch, the more (I would expect) people will call MS more frequently to double check on availability.

So it would certainly be more fair to members using the waitlist system to fix this, and it would also ease call volume for the DVC CMs for this to be a more seamless process.

Thanks for bringing this up.

 

[CarolMN]

Before I could choose an option, I would need to know how much it will cost to fix the problem and who would pay for the fix. I assume that if it was an easy/inexpensive fix, it would no longer be an issue.

I expect DVC will do a rigorous cost/benefit analysis before it takes on anything that will impact members/cost a lot of $$.

FWIW, I think this problem affects a very minute percentage of members as I do not believe that the "Lucky Bob"/ "Poor Mary Jane" scenario occurs often enough to warrant an expensive software rewrite (whether it be our dues or Disney's money that pays for it). Think of all the transactions that MS processes every day relative to the number of "unfair" waitlist situations that actually happen. How much would you be willing to pay to correct it? For me, the answer is not very much at all. I think there are many more worthy ways to spend development money on - for example, online access to points and reservations.

If/When DVC proceeds with some type of online access, it might make sense to fix this type of glitch at that same time.

JMHO. YMMV.

 

[Nette]

I can tell you that this SHOULD be a VERY simple problem to fix. You would simply need the waitlist program to run as a background process continually (IOW as a daemon). I'm surprised and SHOCKED that this is not the case.

However, if there code is a klugee as some of the garbage I'm working on at work, I can understand why the waitlist program is not running in real time.

J.
There are 10 kinds of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don't.

 

[MikeJ]

There are 10 kinds of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don't. [/B]

ROTF. I had to read that twice before I got it. And welcome to the boards.

- Mike

 

[Lexxiefern]

How did you find out this occurs? I just got on a waitlist last week and I was assured that when a member cancels, those dates are offered to the waitlist first, then go back into inventory

Thanks

 

[KNWVIKING]

I'm not doubting your word, I'm just curious to know how you know that the waitlist file is run around 3 pm ? It just seems very odd that a problem this obvious has been allowed to exist for so long.

 

[DVC Nut]

Before this gets heated and everyone gets upset I can confirm that Disneyberry received some sort of misinformation.

I am 100%, from first hand experience with the MS computer system, certain that if a member cancels this is what happens....

1. The room does go back into DVC inventory for a whole two seconds or so. (This means if an advisor is quick enough to get the room at the correct time, it will not cycle through the waitlist.)

2. The room the automatically is pulled from inventory and scrolled through the waitlist to search for anyone requesting that day/resort/and room type.

3. If a match is found it is basically attached to that membership until someone reviews the waitlists. (this could possibly happen around 3pm I suppose) When someone reviews the waitlists they will either call the member if they have requested to be called before booking of book the reservation if it is an auto waitlist.

4. If no waitlist exists for the room that just scrolled though the waitlist, the room will return to DVC inventory. (This takes about 2-5 minutes)

Hope this helps...no need for a poll....have a great day!

 

[disneyberry]

Lexxiefern, i only believe that this happens based on the many reports on these boards of people who were in the situation of "Lucky Bob" in my example.
i myself may have even lucked out once in the past when i rented points from a Member before i bought DVC myself.

the multiple reports on these boards over the years about waitlists makes it seems very likely that this is the way the Waitlist actually works, glitch and all. (not to mention the fact that i am 100% sure there are other glitches in MS's computer system regarding transferring points, but that's a whole other story)

it really is very unfair to the "Mary Jane"s out there, and really does not allow me to have any confidence in the Waitlist system.

i also have an IT background, and agree with Nette that, in theory, for MS to replace the batch-job system with an active background process shouldn't be that difficult to do.
of course, there is the possibility that MS's system was extremely poorly designed and coded to begin with... in which case, it would be quite costly, but also very necessary in the long run for them to fix these and other system problems ASAP.

(btw, the 3pm time is just a random time i chose for my example story.
i guessed it from past reports, where people seemed to get called in the late afternoon whenever their waitlist matched. i got called at around 4pm twice, when 2 of my day-by-day waitlists matched. who knows when MS actually runs their batch-job. )

 

[disneyberry]

Originally posted by DVC Nut
1. The room does go back into DVC inventory for a whole two seconds or so. (This means if an advisor is quick enough to get the room at the correct time, it will not cycle through the waitlist.)

hmm... but the point is that this room should NOT go back into the general inventory at all. whether it's 2 seconds, or 2 hours, it's still a glitch.
that room should automatically be allocated towards the waitlist.

 

[disneyberry]

btw, here is an example of a discussion in the past about the possible Waitlist glitch:

scolded by ms

 

[nuthut]

I don't believe you have the correct information. I have requested a reservation date and had the CM at DVC tell me that it might be available and then tell me they had to check the waitlist first before confirming the ressie for me. After checking the waitlist they told me they would be unable to confirm the time for me because others were waitlisted. However I do believe it to be possible that a CM could confirm a ressie in which there was a waitlist if the CM did not follow their guidelines and check the waitlist first. By the way if you want the BWV studio for NYE I can rent you one.

 

[msdis]

I don't think this is happening. Don't forget there needs to be a perfect match unless you are waitlisted for 1 day at a time which lots of people don't do for obvious reasons. Also, there is NO POSSIBLE WAY, for anyone to know what the pecking order is and to know if someone else got the wait list before someone ahead of them. Once again, all someone may have to do is release 1 night to give someone a perfect match while someone else is waiting for another night of the same time period and you don't know how many waitlist requests someone has. We are currently waitlisted for 4 different resorts for the same 5 night period. We have even in the past waitlisted for a studio or 1br at more than 1 resort. There are a lot of combinations that can happen. I have heard people say that cm's told them things like you're next or you should get it, etc. Those may be CM's who want to keep the magic alive, they have no idea. Without all the facts I would have to say I need a WHOLE LOT more proof before I would accuse MS of doing a poor job.

 

[InstImpres]

I have two thoughts -

first, I don't think this is happening as I have been told when trying to do a points reallocation (for a soldout time), that they had to get some special approval.override for if they cancelled and tried to rebook it would have immeditately gone to waitlist.

second, I'm not sure I agree with this:

Originally posted by nuthut
I don't believe you have the correct information. I have requested a reservation date and had the CM at DVC tell me that it might be available and then tell me they had to check the waitlist first before confirming the ressie for me. After checking the waitlist they told me they would be unable to confirm the time for me because others were waitlisted.

Every MS person I have spoken with and every post I have ever seen, says the wailist is not a real object. It is in the computer and has many variables (i.e. day by day requests, full weeks, etc.) so therefor, they can not tell you were on the list you are. That being said, how or better yet why would a CM be manually checking a list?

JMHO
Sandy

 

[JudithM]

Disneyberry, who did you speak to in Member Services to verify the facts you presented on this thread?

 

[ClarabelleCow]

I just re-read this thread, is it my understanding, that this is all speculation by Disneyberry and not fact??? Is there any proof that this is how it works? I'm new to all this, and not sure I am fully understanding whether there is a problem or not?

 

[dcfromva]

I don't think I have this wait list thing totally figured out, yet.

I do know I was a little bit late in making my ressie for NYE (I think I called up in late Feb or early Mar) I ended up getting a 2BR lock off for all the days except for NYE itself at the BCV....I asked to be autowait listed for NYE.

A couple weeks later after I made my ressie, someone posted on this board that there was still availability for 1BR units at BCV on NYE--they were able to make a ressie....

So, I called Member Services and asked to make a ressie for a 1BR unit for NYE and to continue to be autowaitlisted for the 2BR unit. Well, they said they didn't have any availabilty. So, I asked to be autowaitlisted for a 1 BR AND a 2BR unit (I figured we had to move the way the ressie was with no NYE, I might as well move into another DVC room.) The person at MS really didn't want to waitlist the 1BR, too. But, reluctantly went along with it. Then, it couldn't have been two days later, I received a confirmation in the mail for a 2BR lockoff unit---1ressie for the entire stay.

I thought it was really strange.

-DC

 

[Regina]

I wish you had listed another option: "I don't think that this problem exists." That's exactly how I feel.

DVC NUT, thanks for sharing the facts as to how the system works.

 

[DVC Nut]

Just to clarify, when a MS CM says they are checking the wailtlist, it is not a paper waitlist.

The way the waitlist works...

You basically submit a request to the computer that Member A is looking for this date/dates, this resort, and this size room...

The computer basically puts a time stamp on when the request was submitted.

This is how there is a pecking order (it is very similar to the way a resort can determine seniority of a reservation down to the minute).

And a minor rant.....

I know that I am still fairly new to these boards and I try to contribute information whenever I can help. There are a few people out there who always seem to question what I say. I have first hand, on the job experience, at both OKW and MS. Posting here can even get me in trouble with my employers (this is why you do not see many MS advisors posting here). It makes me angry when I post fact (not an opinion) and still get questioned.

Thanks for listening! Have a good one!

 

[InstImpres]

DVC Nut -

Sorry, I guess I was the one who questioned you about the "list" as your post wasn't as clear as your new post and MS has always told me there was no list to check. I wasn't trying to be disrepectful, just to know the facts as if there truly is a way to check, that would affect future conversation I may have with MS.

Again, sorry if I upset you
Sandy