I had this issue booking last year what I did was wait list the entire stay and 2 days later I had the reservation. It was freed up when the walkers cancelled days
I think that is the real issue I have with walking. It creates temporary availability issues, that then make it difficult for other people to get the reservation. Although with the (rumored) improvement to the wait list process, I think it isn't as big a deal as it was where you could get gaps in those hard to get rooms that would get grabbed out from under you when released by walkers and grabbed by website stalkers. Its still a biggish deal though, because someone is spending a few days with a gappy reservation and a waitlist - which is unnecessary stress for a lot of us.