Call Day by Day: Wasting My Time??

[KathyRN137]

Here's the story:

I've been following DIS advice and calling MS day-by-day to check availability of a 2BR for my waitlist at VWL. I am on automatic waitlist.

So far, I have all but 2 nights (and of course, they are in the middle of the week!) Two of the nights I did get by calling each day, one night had already been "matched" to my day-by-day waitlist.

Naturally, since I have been calling MS every day for the past month, I have had the opportunity to speak with a variety of reservationists. My request is always the same:

"Hi. I have been calling day-by-day to switch my reservation from ____ to ____. I'm waitlisted for a 2BR on the nights of__ , __ , and___. I am wondering if you could please check on the availability of those nights."

Some reservationists answer immediately, "There is nothing available." Makes me wonder if they even had time to check.

Some get all befuddled and cannot seem to understand what I am asking them to do until I repeat myself twice more.

Some, like the one yesterday, are very pleasant and helpful. "Ohh! It looks like we got a match for one of your days! Let's switch that right now!"

Then others, like the one this morning, act as though I was calling them to make a ressie for a night at the Castle! I'm just wasting my time! They tell me that I do not need to call day by day, that the automatic waitlist will "automatically" change my reservation.

Now, this is confusing to me.

I have been on "automatic waitlist" all this time and twice, I got a night that I needed by calling. My ressie did not "automatically" change itself.

Yesterday, I "got a match" on my waitlist, but, the reservationist had to make the change at the time of my call. My ressie did not "automatically" change itself.

When I pointed this out to the reservationist this morning, she sounded rather annoyed and insisted that I do not need to call day by day and that I would have been notified eventually of my waitlist coming through.

"We have thousands of members on waitlists and it can take all day to call everyone; you would have received your call eventually."

Would I?

The reservationist yesterday did not say, "Oh, your waitlist came through for that night and your reservation has already been switched. Here is your confirmation number." No. I had to make the ressie switch right then on the phone.

My question is:

Who is right? Do I actually improve my chances of getting my day-by-day waitlist filled by calling MS each morning?

Or, as the reservationest this morning implied, am I just wasting my time?

Kathy

 

[Chuck S]

It is my understanding that waitlists process once a day, not all day long. So in theory, someone could jump in and snag a reservation away from someone that is waitlisted. For instance, you may have taken a room from someone that has waitlisted longer for a similar accomodation, that they would have gotten if the room was available when the waitlist processed.

In reality, I'm not sure any of us, know for sure how waitlists truly work.

 

[KathyRN137]

In reality, I'm not sure any of us, know for sure how waitlists truly work.

I'm starting to feel not too sure that the reservationists know, either.
You mentioned about the possibility of "taking" a night away from someone who has been waitlisted longer....

I have been on waitlists in the past and never got my requests, so when I read on these boards that a person could call day by day, I thought, "Aha!", that's one reason why I never was able to get my waitlist. All the DVC members that were "in the know" were calling day by day and getting what they needed that way. So, I gave it a try.

It's just so confusing, because of the way they process the WLs. If, as you say, they are done once daily and it's all a matter of timing...that a reservationist could inadvertantly "give away" someone else's rightfully waitlisted night, then why does their system allow that?

If, for example, I had received a "match" for one of my nights, and I had not called yesterday when I did, could I have "lost" that night to another member?? If that is so, then the entire waitlisting system is really just a waste of everyone's time; both members and Member Services'.

If I am on a truly "automatic" waitlist, and my turn comes up, shouldn't that night get "locked in" for my waitlist and my reservation confirmed?? I do not wish to unknowingly hijack anyone else's waitlist, but, I also do not want to sit around and wait like a good little do-bee as I have in previous years and let my waitlist nights get hijacked.

I wish this entire process was less complicated, and more equitable.

Kathy

 

[jns]

It's just so confusing, because of the way they process the WLs. If, as you say, they are done once daily and it's all a matter of timing....

Kathy

any one know what time of day this is done

 

[Chuck S]

any one know what time of day this is done

Just guessing, but most likely either after MS closes at night or before they open in the morning...based on the way most business do reports.

 

[KathyRN137]

any one know what time of day this is done

But,

That's not the point! Why are we told that our waitlist is "automatic", when in reality, it is not?

It should be either all or nothing...

Either make it a true automatic waitlist reservation system, or

Not allow any "hijacking" by members calling day by day.

Having to resort to calling MS every day to circumvent other members from hijacking my supposedly automatic waitlist is ridiculous. No wonder there is always "an unusually high call volume".

If I sound a bit frustrated, it's because I am!

Kathy

 

[Starr W.]

But,

That's not the point! Why are we told that our waitlist is "automatic", when in reality, it is not?

It should be either all or nothing...

Either make it a true automatic waitlist reservation system, or

Not allow any "hijacking" by members calling day by day.

Having to resort to calling MS every day to circumvent other members from hijacking my supposedly automatic waitlist is ridiculous. No wonder there is always "an unusually high call volume".

If I sound a bit frustrated, it's because I am!

Kathy

Kathy, I did the automatic waitlist for VWL for the length of my trip(all dates or nothing). Gave MS the instructions to cancel at SSR(where I had the reservation) and take the extra points for the VWL reservation. Did this in mid december(for a May trip) and the waitlist came through at the end of January. From my guess, I had been checking my reservations and point activity on the website everyday. I checked on 1/27/07 a Saturday around 11:30-12(DH was taking DS to Kempo Martial Arts, he wasn't home to share my excitement) and the VWL reservation was showing. My guess is they may run/match cancellations vs the waitlist after MS closes for the day, so if you call during the day you maybe able to catch a cancellation before it gets matched up.

Now I did do day by day reservations at 11 months for Easter week at VB for a ded. 2br(only 18). I would have preferred not to, but from what I gathered from the "experts" here and from actually asking MS, they said that was the way to go. Got all my days and had no problem getting through to MS.

I already have a SSR reservation for MLK weekend, but I plan on trying to do the switch to either BWV or BCV. I'll call once and if no availability for all dates I will waitlist the whole trip, if it doesn't come through, I'll try agin next time.

Personally if I had to do a cancellation, I wouldn't call at 9am sharp(don't need to spend time on hold to cancel) I would call in the afternoon. Maybe try doing your calling then or right before MS closes.

 

[kaelarad]

I was also on an automatic wait list for our trip last October. MS told me that I would receive an updated confirmation paper. I didnot do any calling day by day. About a month after I went on the waitlist, it came through

 

[crisi]

My suspicion (IT Professional) is that rooms exist in two states for a given night "booked inventory" and "unbooked inventory" Cancelling a room changes its state from "booked inventory" to "unbooked inventory" The waitlist routine runs as a batch (probably after MS has closed) and matches waitlist requests with unbooked inventory.

In order to make the system "work as advertised" they need a third state "holding." Cancel a room and it moves into "holding" The waitlist would run against "unbooked inventory" and "holding" rooms - automatically move people around, and clear the holding flag to unbooked for any rooms left. So it would take overnight for a cancelled room to show up in available inventory.

(They could try something that happens real time, but if there are as many reservationists as reported, that would be tricky - inventory timing can be really difficult to pull off real time with in demand items.)

However, thats a programming change to the system. How expensive it would be to make that change or what the priority is for Disney is unknown, but if it were cheap and easy they'd probably have done it to keep members from calling every day to check waitlist status.

Why doesn't it work this way (if, indeed, it doesn't - and maybe it does, we don't really know) - probably wasn't well thought out when they developed the system so they are working around it.

(I've always gotten the impression that DVC systems are a step up from writing on stone tablets).

 

[KathyRN137]

Thanks! I guess until the system is improved, I'm not wasting my time!

Kathy

 

[abeyst]

I'm so glad I found this post. I was wondering the same thing about the waitlists, cause I always suspected that someone could "snatch" one of my waitlisted nights if they call at the right time after someone cancels their reservation. However, each time I ask a MS rep when I call they tell me that could not happen, that rooms automatically go through waitlits first. But according to your experiences, this is not the case. I'm definitely calling everyday now.

I did have MS call me for a waitlisted day about a month ago, and it was a saturday morning about 9:30.

 

[Pennyguy23]

HOLD ON, Are you saying to call EVERYDAY? Not just a day to day booking at a 11 or 7 month window. You call everyday? Nothing against you or anything but no wonder the phone lines are always busy. But since you got a extra night that you may or may not have gotten then it obviously is the right thing to do.

BTW, they have also always told me that the waitlists always get changed automaticly as soon as they come available.

Thanks for sharing, Good info to know.

 

[abeyst]

OK, time for me to vent. I called MS right at 9am this morning, and I'm not too happy.

To give you a recap of my vacation planning so far:
Nov 30th: BCV 2br & Studio
Dec 1st: BCV 2br & Studio
Dec 2nd: OKW 2br & Waitlist for 1 BR

I called to book at OKW the night of Dec 3rd in a 2br and 1br (that was all that was available). Great, I was happy they had both the 2br and 1br and I didn't have to waitlist again for the 1br. the rep started booking my ressies then the rep asks me if I wanted the night of Dec 2nd in a 1br. I said "it's available?" He said yes. I said sure! Grab it now! Then through the course of booking my ressies someone snatches my 1br the night of the 3rd, so he proceeds to book my night of the 2nd and someone snatches that too! So now I'm without a 1br on the 2nd and the 3rd!!

But what I found odd is why did he tell me the night of the 2nd was available if I was on a waitlist? If the system does what MS always tells us, that available rooms automatically go to waitlist first, why was a room I was waitlisted for available in the system for anyone to book?

So I called back to ask MS again, and spoke to Elaine. I told her what had happened and she couldn't give me any explanation other than it was possibly a glitch in the system that rarely happens. I asked her if there was someone I could talk to to get a precise explanation of exactly how the waitlist works in the system, and she said if I tried I'd probably get the answer I'd heard 100x already. I explained to her that I'm all for the waitlist, but if I feel it's not working like it should I'm going to be one of many others who feel the same as me who call daily to check availability. She said that's fine, she'd gladly check the system. But I told her there are MANY other MS reps who will not check availability if they see you have a waitlist for the same night, they'll simply say "Yes your waitlist is still here and they'll call you when something's available". She said she will always check the system, but she can't speak for the other reps. I told her it would be nice if this waitlist system would work like MS explains it, so we won't have to call all the time about availability and tie up their phone lines.

I don't want to call everyday, but I guess I have to. It just would be nice if they could get the waitlist system working correctly.

 

[diznyfanatic]

My suspicion (IT Professional) is that rooms exist in two states for a given night "booked inventory" and "unbooked inventory" Cancelling a room changes its state from "booked inventory" to "unbooked inventory" The waitlist routine runs as a batch (probably after MS has closed) and matches waitlist requests with unbooked inventory.

In order to make the system "work as advertised" they need a third state "holding." Cancel a room and it moves into "holding" The waitlist would run against "unbooked inventory" and "holding" rooms - automatically move people around, and clear the holding flag to unbooked for any rooms left. So it would take overnight for a cancelled room to show up in available inventory.

(They could try something that happens real time, but if there are as many reservationists as reported, that would be tricky - inventory timing can be really difficult to pull off real time with in demand items.)

However, thats a programming change to the system. How expensive it would be to make that change or what the priority is for Disney is unknown, but if it were cheap and easy they'd probably have done it to keep members from calling every day to check waitlist status.

Why doesn't it work this way (if, indeed, it doesn't - and maybe it does, we don't really know) - probably wasn't well thought out when they developed the system so they are working around it.

(I've always gotten the impression that DVC systems are a step up from writing on stone tablets).

I'd say your speculations are accurate, especially regarding only currently having a Booked and Unbooked status. I have also stated that there is also a definitive need for an additional Pending status, although it came up for a different reason other than the Waitlist issue currently being discussed.

Someone posted a while back about MS accidentally cancelling one of their reservations. The mistake was identified immediately, but in the couple of minutes in took to try to correct it, someone else had booked that reservation and there was nothing else available, so the member was put on a Waitlist.

This leads me to believe that cancellations and reservations are processed in real time, while waitlists are processed in much less frequent scheduled daily batches. This pretty much makes the current Waitlisting process useless.

 

[Snookies]

I'd say your speculations are accurate, especially regarding only currently having a Booked and Unbooked status. I have also stated that there is also a definitive need for an additional Pending status, although it came up for a different reason other than the Waitlist issue currently being discussed.

Someone posted a while back about MS accidentally cancelling one of their reservations. The mistake was identified immediately, but in the couple of minutes in took to try to correct it, someone else had booked that reservation and there was nothing else available, so the member was put on a Waitlist.

This leads me to believe that cancellations and reservations are processed in real time, while waitlists are processed in much less frequent scheduled daily batches. This pretty much makes the current Waitlisting process useless.

With respect to your last sentence, I agree. Or at least it appears ad hoc, leading to unpredictable results.

 

[Epcot Mom]

We were waitlisted for bcv the week of thanksgiving, moving from vwl. We have received three waitlist matches so far. (Wed before Thanksgiving at vwl and bcv and Friday after at bcv.) Two I was informed of when I called to check or book other nights of the trip (calling day by day to try to move). I was told that the system was holding my waitlist requested room until I could be called and that they just hadn't had a chance to call me yet. (My wait list had been set up to call me prior to booking.) The last one to come through was the wed prior to Thanksgiving bcv. It had been set up to auto confirm. I was just checking the website throughout the day instead of calling. Had checked the site around 2:00, no change. By 5:30, the match had been made and the reservation was confirmed. Still waiting on Thanksgiving night at bcv, set to auto confirm. After reading this, maybe I will call during the day some to try be sure. Kind of scary if there really are these flaws. It seems dvc could save some $ (personnel answering phones) if they set up a tighter system and communicated how it works to members.

We have always been lucky and received our wait list requests, but we don't do it very often. Maybe we've just been lucky.

 

[Epcot Mom]

An update: I called ms today after reading the above. No availability and no match for Thanksgiving bcv. The ms agent told me there was no need to check for availability if I have a wait list. He said the rooms that are cancelled do not go back into inventory automatically. He said the computer checks it against the wait list and only returns it to inventory if there is no match. He said it may take a few days for them to "work" the wait list if they are really busy but that there is no way a room is available for booking if we have an active wait list. If the cancelled room matches a wait list request, it is not returned to inventory until all the wait lists are cancelled. He said the sometimes lag between match and getting worked is the explanation for the match being there when we may call in and are told we have a match. That has been their explanation every time it's happened to me frankly. This guy sounded like he knew what he was talking about. I'm inclined to believe him and not call each day to check. I am just watching the website as I am set up for autoconfirm.

He did say to check back regularly if you are waiting for a cash reservation or a member discount for cash. He said no wait list and that changes all the time. He mentioned the discount in particular was very random and he could offer no explanation for why it is there, not there, there again, etc.

Hope that calms some nerves. I'm taking a deep breath and letting the computer do the work. We're only waiting on the one night and have it for cash as a back up so at least we don't have to move.

Good luck to all!

Epcot Mom

 

[dbriggsq]

I 've just been on to MS to try and change my reservation for a studio at OKW from 1-5 Oct to either BCV or BWV - did'nt think they would have anything available so was prepared to be waitlisted. The lady told me that the system has just been changed and instead of calling when your request comes through they will change it automatically if a match becomes available.
BTW I wonder what the chances are of the waitlist coming through? And after reading all this should I keep calling on the off chance?

 

[snyderla]

I'm waitlisted for a studio at BCV for 7/31-8/04, but booked at OKW. For our trip last August we waitlisted for a studio at BWV, but made our ressie at SSR in case BWV didn't come through. Well, it came through and they automatically changed it for us. I don't think I could just change it day by day. I'd be too nervous about having to move in the middle of the trip, then move back again.

I'm just going to wait and see if MS changes it for me and if not we will just stay were we are.

Lori

 

[happypooh]

I so understand everyone's pain...this week I've been calling MS almost every day and last week too. Managed to get 3nights at OKW and needed another 3 in a studio..well, was put on a wait list but was never called til last friday after I'd already called earlier that day and was able to get the other 3 nights added! So at least this next trip is ok...but our trip in december we decided to settle for OKW again and be put on a wait list for 5 nights at either BCV or BW - although MS said I should call day by day and add days...it was getting so messy...I'd have the first 2 days and then not the next 2 days and then a day would show up in a 1 bedroom instead of a studio...meanwhile, I was trying to keep ressies at both BCV and BW not knowing which one I'd be able to get! It was totally crazy and I'd spend an hour a day trying to get just one night added! So this time I said I'll just wait for them to let me know if they have all nights available at either resort and just book it automatically! Life is too short for me to spend this much time on the phone with MS - bad enough with trying to plan dining!