Can you tell if waitlist matches?

[wdw4rfam]

It’s been a long time since I’ve had a waitlist match. It used to disappear from the dashboard when it matched- then you knew it matched, even though it wasn’t booked yet. Does this still happen? Or do you not know until it’s booked?

 

[kristenrice]

I usually figure it out when I get the “your reservation has been cancelled” e-mail

 

[Sandisw]

It doesn’t disappear early. If it’s set to replace a different trip, you will get a trip cancellation notice before the new one showing it booked.

 

[SkampyOne]

And if it was a regular waitlist not replacing another reservation, you'll get the usual We can't wait to Welcome You Home email, which is usually my cue to squeal. Recently had 3 waitlists come through and it was better than any Christmas present I've possibly ever received!

 

[KAT4DISNEY]

I wish it still did disappear since sometimes it can take quite awhile for a CM to finalize the match. Where DVC failed was in never noting that would or did happen so I imagine people thought it had just vanished and got upset. Or what they could do is have the waitlist display change to note it matched. If it could disappear that shouldn't be a big programming change.

 

[DanCali]

It’s been a long time since I’ve had a waitlist match. It used to disappear from the dashboard when it matched- then you knew it matched, even though it wasn’t booked yet. Does this still happen? Or do you not know until it’s booked?

I had this happen to me as recently as 2-3 weeks ago. It was around the 7-month mark (waitlist request was placed ~10+ months out for one night to extend an existing 2-night stay) and I was randomly logging to check for cancellations myself.

When I logged in, I noticed the waitlist had disappeared which clued me in on the fact it may have matched. When I checked availability manually I saw one night available adjacent to what I had requested which made me suspect someone cancelled 2 nights and my request matched one of them. Sure enough, I later got a cancellation email (for my backup one-night stay) and then a confirmation email for what I needed.

The thing I was most surprised about is that the final confirmation came for the full 3-nights, so someone was just assumed (correctly in this case) that the waitlist was intended to extend a stay and did all the following on their own:

(1) Cancel 1-night backup stay - received cancellation email
(2) Use those points to book 1-night waitlisted stay (new reservation number but confirmation never received because of next step).
(3) Cancel 1-night waitlisted stay - separate cancellation email sent
(4) Modify existing 2-night stay to a 3-night stay while keeping same reservation number and room request - received new confirmation email within 1 hour.

 

[WDWkristin]

They like to give you a heart attack by telling you with a cancellation email.