Experience with waitlist vs stalking - they both work.

[AulaniNutz]

I recently tried to get a VGF studio for two nights for early May, mid-week. As it turns out, I could get a Lake view for the first night and a standard view for the second night.

So I grabbed both, resigning myself that at worst case I'd have to switch. But, I thought I'd waitlist the missing rooms, standard for first, Lake view for second night, and see what hits.

In addition, I started stalking. I kept a web browser open and refreshed every so often... Lo and behold, a few days later, the lake view became available in my stalking browser for my second night! Yeah! I immediately snagged it.... and cancelled my Lake view waitlist.

I kept stalking for that standard view for the first night, also keeping my waitlist open. Lo and behold, two days later, I wake up California time and I can see from the booking tool it seems someone freed up a few days around my needed day, though my day wasn't available. My day wasn't available as the waitlist worked and I received an email my standard view room was booked! Yeah!

So, stalking works and waitlist works. YMMV. I can't understand why they can't make waitlist work 100%.

Of course then I had the dilemma of which one to keep, Lake view or Standard view... After a bit of thinking, I freed up the Lake view and kept the standard view and the extra points.

 

[CarolMN]

So, stalking works and waitlist works. YMMV. I can't understand why they can't make waitlist work 100%.

They can, but it's not a priority, and IMO, probably won't ever be one. DVC doesn't care who is in a particular villa, or that the waitlist system isn't "fair". The objective is to have all villas booked with least amount of cost. The current system meets the objective. They won't spend resources fixing it to be " fair".

I'd rather they work on making the booking engine more reliable and getting rid of all the "glitches" that are so frustrating to so many of us. Sadly, I don't think they are even doing that.

 

[Sandisw]

The one thing that has happened to me a few times now is that a room I waitlisted shows up as soon as I cancel it after picking up my second choice.

Its happened to often to be a coincidence. So I think sometimes there Is an actual match but we don’t know that because it hasn’t been processed the the website doesn’t indicate when that happens.

At least they could find a way to show that. But, absent of that and the fact that stalking can work, I will continue to do it,

One time I even gambled that maybe it was matched when I saw one of my two nights disappear that had been there for days. I waited 24 hours, dropped the waitlist, and it worked! The rooms showed up, booked it, so I really believe when I canceled my waitlist, it immediately released the room it had for me.

 

[gharter]

My experience is about an equal split. I have gotten lucky with stalking, but also looked and found that my waitlist came through and I had no clue.

 

[Shamus]

My understanding is waitlist is not a fully automatic process. When a waitlist is matched the system puts a hold on the room. A CM will then manually review the match to make sure everything is correct. The CM will then either allow the waitlist to go through or call the DVC member to clarify any discrepancies.

 

[IceSkatingPrincess]

I'm stalking constantly for the night of Sept 10 in a standard 1 bed at Riviera. I have it waitlisted as well, but I beat the waitlist on my other days.