Jumping a Wait List

[BrerNashville]

A consistently popular topic around here is how the waitlist works -- are available nights applied to waitlists immediately, or are they allowed to sit there for a period of time, available to anyone, before a "batch run" is done to match available nights.

Here's one more data point.

I'm walking a reservation right now -- just called to cancel 12/25, 12/26 and 12/27 to complete my desired stay beginning on 12/28. Before I called, I checked availability online of my room type and all of those nights were filled. I modified my reservation, and the freed up points have appeared in my account. Just out of curiosity, I checked the availability of the nights I cancelled right after I cancelled, and they are still showing as booked.

Woops: now, they are showing as free (About 10 minutes after I cancelled.

So (new conclusions from when I started this): either (i) no one had waitlisted 12/25 to 12/28 as of now, or (ii) there is such a lag.

It's a BLT 1BR Theme Park view by the way, that is still showing as available, if anyone is on the waitlist or thinking about getting on one.

 

[irishgolf]

Okay, call me naive, but if everyone "walked a reservation" as you did, those of us who wanted to arrive between xmas and new years eve could be potentially blocked out AT the 11 month window. I was just able to book a two bdm at BCV for a week (at 8:00am) starting Dec 28th (the day I wish to arrive) and I am starting to feel rather lucky, as I did not know this was so commonplace! I think I am glad I was ignorant, less to stress about!

 

[Deb & Bill]

A consistently popular topic around here is how the waitlist works -- are available nights applied to waitlists immediately, or are they allowed to sit there for a period of time, available to anyone, before a "batch run" is done to match available nights.

Here's one more data point.

I'm walking a reservation right now -- just called to cancel 12/25, 12/26 and 12/27 to complete my desired stay beginning on 12/28. Before I called, I checked availability online of my room type and all of those nights were filled. I modified my reservation, and the freed up points have appeared in my account. Just out of curiosity, I checked the availability of the nights I cancelled right after I cancelled, and they are still showing as booked.

Woops: now, they are showing as free (About 10 minutes after I cancelled.

So (new conclusions from when I started this): either (i) no one had waitlisted 12/25 to 12/28 as of now, or (ii) there is such a lag.

It's a BLT 1BR Theme Park view by the way, that is still showing as available, if anyone is on the waitlist or thinking about getting on one.

If the waitlisted member had waitlisted a stay longer than your nights, they wouldn't get your returned nights either.

 

[wink13]

I was waitlisted for 1 night at BCV for presidents day weekend. I check availablity one day and it was available so I called MS and was able to cancel my BWV and book the BCV then I cancelled my waitlist. There must be some lag time.

 

[BrerNashville]

If the waitlisted member had waitlisted a stay longer than your nights, they wouldn't get your returned nights either.

True, but since I'm up against the 11 month window on the back end of my vacation, that would apply only to people who waitlisted an earlier arrival. Anyone who waitlisted beginning on or after 12/25 (actually, the 24th was available as well) should have had their waitlist filled when I cancelled, no matter how long their stay would be for.

I noticed about an hour after I cancelled that the 28th was then booked, while the 24th to the 27th were still open. I would surmise that that was a person who called up for the first time beginning on their 11 month window after I cancelled, thus depriving any one who had a wait list beginning on the 24th or later from getting it filled if their requested stay extended to include the night of the 28th.

Of course, it could be that there were no waitlists established for arrivals on or after the 24th, but I find that hard to believe, as I have checked every morning since 12/23 and rooms of this category have been full.

 

[KAT4DISNEY]

Of course, it could be that there were no waitlists established for arrivals on or after the 24th, but I find that hard to believe, as I have checked every morning since 12/23 and rooms of this category have been full.

And that may have just been other people walking too which may not have been required. It's virtually impossible to tell just from checking the website.

 

[BrerNashville]

Okay, call me naive, but if everyone "walked a reservation" as you did, those of us who wanted to arrive between xmas and new years eve could be potentially blocked out AT the 11 month window. I was just able to book a two bdm at BCV for a week (at 8:00am) starting Dec 28th (the day I wish to arrive) and I am starting to feel rather lucky, as I did not know this was so commonplace! I think I am glad I was ignorant, less to stress about!

Yes, well that's a two way street. If "everyone" booked the same day as you arrived, then those of us whose travel plans do not allow us to arrive until the next day would be blocked out AT OUR 11 month window.

In any event, I wouldn't lose any sleep over it. There's no way all of a resort is going to get filled up by walkers (time to call Rick, Daryl and the gang). Particular views, maybe. Which is why I decided to walk a theme park view at BLT to ensure I got it for NYE. Even then, I didn't do it until I saw two mornings in a row booked by 9:00 eastern.

 

[BrerNashville]

And that may have just been other people walking too which may not have been required. It's virtually impossible to tell just from checking the website.

Right, but I wasn't trying to determine if walking is necessary or helpful. I agree it is hard to tell.

I was just reporting that my experience tends to indicate that there is, in fact, a lag in the waitlist system. Because the only alternative explanation for the availability I noticed before and after my cancellation is that as of this morning, there were no active waitlists for this category for arrivals on or after 12/24. Perhaps I was observing that the sky is blue, but there it is.

 

[tripletsmama]

I cancelled a BWV 2 bedroom standard view for December 28 and 29 about 5 months out last year. I always book more nights than we will probably use so we can be flexible with flights. I'm sure that room category had a waitlist at 5 months, but out of curiosity I checked the inventory a few times after canceling. It stayed available for several hours. To me this says that the waitlists don't automatically match as soon as you cancel.

 

[jekjones1558]

I was the victim of the lag. We were waitlisted for a room and some friends called to book that exact room category and size (not even realizing that we were waitlisted). Our friends got the room, essentially jumping to the front of the waitlist line. So if you are on a waitlist that is really critical to you, it is important to stalk the member website for availability.

 

[Sandisw]

Right, but I wasn't trying to determine if walking is necessary or helpful. I agree it is hard to tell.

I was just reporting that my experience tends to indicate that there is, in fact, a lag in the waitlist system. Because the only alternative explanation for the availability I noticed before and after my cancellation is that as of this morning, there were no active waitlists for this category for arrivals on or after 12/24. Perhaps I was observing that the sky is blue, but there it is.

The other scenario is that any waitlists that were in place were for more than just those nights. The only wait lists that your freed up nights could have filled were each of those nights as individual nights, a combination of the two, or exactly and only those 3... If someone say had those nights attached to any prior or future nights as part of their wait list, then even if the system ran a wait list check, it wouldn't have matched.

I do think, though, that them showing up within 10 minutes, could very well mean that it doesn't snag them automatically for wait lists.

 

[csharpwv]

We have only walked one reservation, and at that, we deemed it absolutely necessary to get exactly what we wanted, when we wanted it, and for how long we wanted it.

That was for a 3BR Grand Villas at HHI over 4th of July week this past year - and sure enough, if we hadn't walked our reservation - we would have been totally out of luck!

I'm SO glad we bought points there - if not, we would never get in during the summer weeks we want! HAHA

 

[fmer55]

I was the victim of the lag. We were waitlisted for a room and some friends called to book that exact room category and size (not even realizing that we were waitlisted). Our friends got the room, essentially jumping to the front of the waitlist line. So if you are on a waitlist that is really critical to you, it is important to stalk the member website for availability.

This is all too commonplace. I have done it twice in the last year. While waitlisted , the nights I needed became available and I booked them and my waitlist was not filled and I had to cancel.

My guess is there is a system run a couple of times a day. Another time I did get my waitlist, I was called early afternoon and I check every night and morning. My best guess is their is an automatic program that runs late morning/early afternoon.

But this is all just purely speculation from my very, very small sample size

 

[KAT4DISNEY]

Right, but I wasn't trying to determine if walking is necessary or helpful. I agree it is hard to tell.

I was just reporting that my experience tends to indicate that there is, in fact, a lag in the waitlist system. Because the only alternative explanation for the availability I noticed before and after my cancellation is that as of this morning, there were no active waitlists for this category for arrivals on or after 12/24. Perhaps I was observing that the sky is blue, but there it is.

Ok - well here's my anecdotal observation. I cancelled a VGC studio right at 31 days out - 8-9 pm pacific time for a Dec reservation. Just because I could I decided to check availability for those nights immediately after doing that and one night was gone but the other one or two were still available. Prior to cancelling none of the nights were available. I would have come away thinking that the waitlist may be more real time than not. Or maybe someone was checking at the exact second I cancelled.

 

[Breyean]

Ok - well here's my anecdotal observation. I cancelled a VGC studio right at 31 days out - 8-9 pm pacific time for a Dec reservation. Just because I could I decided to check availability for those nights immediately after doing that and one night was gone but the other one or two were still available. Prior to cancelling none of the nights were available. I would have come away thinking that the waitlist may be more real time than not. Or maybe someone was checking at the exact second I cancelled.

I'll add another one, also at VGC.

Last year we decided a few months out that the week of July 4th worked for us for a trip to DLR. So I started watching the on line availability. There was nothing in a studio or 1 bedroom for weeks.

Then one day the entire week opened up in a studio. From Sunday through Saturday.

I grabbed the nights I wanted and then posted on this board about the remaining nights in case someone else needed them.

Another poster responded - he had a studio on wait list for a few nights of that week and hadn't gotten them - I had instead.

That thread started some discussion about theories on how the wait list worked vis a vis on line booking of newly available rooms, but of course no one knows for sure.

 

[PatMcDuck]

I was the victim of the lag. We were waitlisted for a room and some friends called to book that exact room category and size (not even realizing that we were waitlisted). Our friends got the room, essentially jumping to the front of the waitlist line. So if you are on a waitlist that is really critical to you, it is important to stalk the member website for availability.

I thought the lag was common knowledge, that they run the waitlist matching program several times a day...... that the waitlist is not live, running continuous matches. (would be nice if it was i guess).

 

[maburke]

I thought the lag was common knowledge, that they run the waitlist matching program several times a day...... that the waitlist is not live, running continuous matches. (would be nice if it was i guess).

There is a disadvantatage of it running without a lag: longer waitlists would have a harder time matching. For example, if I have a waitlist for two nights, but those two nights came available from two different cancellations on the same day, I wouldn't get them. They'd go instantly to others waiting on just one and the other night. So it's a compromise. Unfortunately, the risk of the lag is that people can grab rooms before they match anybody's waitlist. This was just an occasional oddity when we were calling in, but now that we can see availability online, it's more visible.

 

[rock_doctor]

.

 

[jelwallace]

So the best way to get a wait list reservation for a week is to wait list it but while you are waiting for the waitlist to come through log onto the website and check to see if individual days comes through, book them as they become available, and then once you get your whole week cancel the waitlist? Could work but it is a lot of work. Could be worth it in the end.