Waitlist advice

[HomerHog]

Good evening. I'm looking for some input from some of you experience with waitlisting. We have stayed at AKV twice since purchasing with the fortune of getting our room requests at 11 months with no problems. I thought we were all set for our third trip and booked our room at the 11 month mark. However, we had a change of plans in the size of our party and won't need the 2BR we originally booked. We were trying to finalize our plans before the 7 month mark hits. I've intentionally labeled the categories X & Y because I'm not looking for comments on which view is worth it, etc., just the mechanics of booking.

We now plan to split our stay between a studio at AKV and a 1BR at a resort we haven't stayed at before. We tried to book AKV for the first 4 nights of our trip this morning. We were unable to get the studio cat. X that we wanted. It was available for the 1st night, but not the next three. We booked category Y and waitlisted for all 4 nights for the cat. X

How would some of you handle this? My understanding is that all 4 nights would have to open up for us to be granted our waitlist request. If we feel confident that the other categories won't be hard to get later on or don't care which of the others we get, could we take the first night that was available for cat. X and individually waitlist the others? Is there another way? Any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[msabol01]

I've been pretty lucky with wait list and gotten every one I have ever made. That being said, I always plan for the wait list not coming through. So in your situation, would you be happy with splitting your AKL stay between cat X & Y during your 4 days if you try to individually wait list each day? Also, what if you got day 1 in X, but then days 2&3 in Y and day 4 came through with X again leaving you with 3 moves?

If I were in your situation, I would leave your wait list as is, you already will be moving once, take time to enjoy the vacation.

Like all things your mileage may vary. Hope that helps and good luck with the wait lists!

 

[HomerHog]

If I were in your situation, I would leave your wait list as is, you already will be moving once, take time to enjoy the vacation.

Like all things your mileage may vary. Hope that helps and good luck with the wait lists!

Thanks for the response. I don't really want to complicate things. We'll be fine with any room at AKV. You are right, we will not want to make multiple moves. Hopefully, it will all work out.

Also, just read the DVC waitlist procedures more carefully, requests for consecutive nights cannot be split into seperate requests.

 

[ChickieToo]

My success rate with waitlisting has been pretty good too. That being said, since they changed the waitlist rules it is more difficult, so I've had to change my tactics. I now waitlist in segments, a couple of days at a time.

For example, I've been waitlisted for 5 nights at BCV at the end of September. We made our own ressie for the same 5 nights at about 8 months out, but at about 4 months out we asked friends to come with us. I was able to get them a room at BWV for 4 nights, but not BCV for 5. Over the course of four months I have waitlisted for the last night at BWV and got it, and waitlisted in segments for BCV, two nights at a time. About 3-4 weeks into the waitlist I got the first 2 nights at BCV. After they came through I waitlisted for the next 2 nights, and two days ago they came through. So today I added the last night to the waitlist. Will it come through? Who knows. My friends may have to move the last night, but I have found that waitlisiting in segments, not the entire time works well if you have the time to wait it out.

If I read this correctly you are more than 7 months out right now--I would go for it a day or two at a time, but that's just me. In order for this to work to your satisfaction, you must be comfortable with moving if you must. In our case, our friends were willing to do that, and so far the waitlisting a couple of days at a time has worked out for us.

Good luck and I hope you get what you want.

 

[bookwormde]

You cannot waitlist for contiguous days (or chunks of days) in the same room size, resort and type typically, of course it never hurts to try. If you want to try to pick up individual days the best thing to do is to call regularly and check. If you have enough points without borrowing there is nothing technically that keeps you from having your Y reservation and the first day of the X reservation (you have to have a different primary name on each), although there may be “moral” issues of tying up room that someone else might want. If you have the points you can book day X1, waitlist for X2 call for X3 and waitlist for X4, but be sure that the waitlist is listed as an additional room needed so they do not cancel you Y backup reservation until you have all 4 days.

If you are wait listing for Kidani there is a good chance of getting it since in the next 7 months there will be more units declared, even Jambo may be likely as people who are in Jambo and Waitlisted for Kidani get filled.

bookwormde