Elite wait list doesn't work

[YYJMSP]

Helios (sorry, I know I said for you to report back, but I had a little time to kill) and I tried a couple of experiments and have determined the Elite wait list feature doesn't really work, or at least not the way it should.

He made a high demand reservation online, and we waited for that unit size/week to become fully booked. I called in, confirmed it was fully booked, and put myself on the waitlist.

He went in online later that night, after VSE office hours, and cancelled the week. It showed up again in online inventory, instead of being pulled aside to fill the waitlist request. In fact, he was able to go and rebook that week online.

He then went in online, this time during VSE office hours, and cancelled the week. Again, it showed up in online inventory instead of being pulled aside to fill the waitlist request. This time he didn't bother to rebook the week.

I didn't get a call in either case to be offered the week.

Sad thing is that I see that week sitting in the online inventory right now. It should have been pulled aside by now, even if that process requires a human to go through the list...

Makes me wonder how lucky I've been to get all of the waitlist requests filled that I have.

 

[DeniseM]

Ridiculous - why don't they have software for this?

 

[Ken555]

Why are you surprised?


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[okwiater]

Wow. Good job running the test. The results are surprising and quite disturbing considering this is marketed as one of the principal benefits of 4- and 5-star Elite.

 

[Helios]

Helios (sorry, I know I said for you to report back, but I had a little time to kill) and I tried a couple of experiments and have determined the Elite wait list feature doesn't really work, or at least not the way it should.

He made a high demand reservation online, and we waited for that unit size/week to become fully booked. I called in, confirmed it was fully booked, and put myself on the waitlist.

He went in online later that night, after VSE office hours, and cancelled the week. It showed up again in online inventory, instead of being pulled aside to fill the waitlist request. In fact, he was able to go and rebook that week online.

He then went in online, this time during VSE office hours, and cancelled the week. Again, it showed up in online inventory instead of being pulled aside to fill the waitlist request. This time he didn't bother to rebook the week.

I didn't get a call in either case to be offered the week.

Sad thing is that I see that week sitting in the online inventory right now. It should have been pulled aside by now, even if that process requires a human to go through the list...

Makes me wonder how lucky I've been to get all of the waitlist requests filled that I have.

Thanks for summarizing our test and for helping to conduct it. I think it is very accurate.

Like I had mentioned before, I think at least 3 reps had told me before that the checks were manual 2-3 times per day. So, basically, it is better to place a waitlist request if you don't plan to check yourself. Checking yourself will increase your chances. Of course, it is a gamble you just have to get lucky and look at the right time.

A funny thing, earlier this year I got a call about a waitlist that found a match. The waitlist had already been cancelled because I had found the match and I had cancelled the original resie...:rofl::hysterical:

 

[Helios]

Ridiculous - why don't they have software for this?

Because SVN was/Vistana is too cheap. The software developers need to make a living.:rofl::hysterical:

 

[Helios]

Wow. Good job running the test. The results are surprising and quite disturbing considering this is marketed as one of the principal benefits of 4- and 5-star Elite.

No kidding, I knew about this because I had asked SVN. I had run informal tests and highly suspected the outcome we just confirmed.

 

[pacman777]

So what is the explanation for those instances where I have cancelled in the past and inventory does not show back up right after cancellation? This has happened a few times. I highly doubt that someone booked just happened to book instantly within a few seconds after I cancelled. I thought all those times, they were holding onto the released inventory for them to manually check the elite waitlist before making it available for everyone else to book.

 

[Helios]

So what is the explanation for those instances where I have cancelled in the past and inventory does not show back up right after cancellation? This has happened a few times. I highly doubt that someone booked just happened to book instantly within a few seconds after I cancelled. I thought all those times, they were holding onto the released inventory for them to manually check the elite waitlist before making it available for everyone else to book.

A poorly designed and inconsistent system...:rofl:

All kidding aside, that has happened to me multiple times...

 

[YYJMSP]

Wow. Good job running the test. The results are surprising and quite disturbing considering this is marketed as one of the principal benefits of 4- and 5-star Elite.

I've never really thought about it because every waitlist request I've made over the last >5yrs has come through, other than WSJ, but we figured that was consistent with the difficulties we had booking it with SOs in the first place.

 

[YYJMSP]

A poorly designed and inconsistent system...:rofl:

All kidding aside, that has happened to me multiple times...

I think it holds/locks your attempted booking in progress for 5mins or something like that, so if you abandoned it or it failed somewhere along the way, it probably gets stuck in la-la land for a bit and eventually (manually?) gets released back in to inventory,

 

[YYJMSP]

funny, got a call today from the elite waitlist person to tell me my waitlist request didn't go through and it was being cancelled since it is now 60days out...

 

[vistana101]

Crazy! So is the waitlist system still a manual process?

 

[Helios]

funny, got a call today from the elite waitlist person to tell me my waitlist request didn't go through and it was being cancelled since it is now 60days out...

Sorry to hear that. Like we had proved, the waitlist is not the best thing since sliced bread...

 

[Helios]

Crazy! So is the waitlist system still a manual process?

As manual as it has always been...

 

[YYJMSP]

Sorry to hear that. Like we had proved, the waitlist is not the best thing since sliced bread...

my immediate issue was "is this a real call" as I couldn't remember waitlisting for something in late May, as that's not a time we go away anywhere, and the caller id came up as "private"

Been getting a lot more scam timeshare email/mail/calls recently, not sure why.

 

[rog2867]

I had a rep told me that I can do the exact same thing they can do for checking the waitlist. she said all we do is check it a few times a day for you, nothing more than you can do yourself. Would be great if it was computerized and just grabbed the week for you, but its not...

 

[okwiater]

This really isn't how any waitlist should work. They should really just remove it from the list of Elite benefits since it's borderline useless.

 

[YYJMSP]

This really isn't how any waitlist should work. They should really just remove it from the list of Elite benefits since it's borderline useless.

Before this test, I was happy with how this benefit worked as it appeared to secure what I needed almost all of the time, but I guess that was luck. in fact, I thought it was one of the most valuable reasons for going all in to 5*

Thinking of taking the entire extended family to WKORV next summer, so this benefit would have useful again, but will just keep looking myself (in addition to the waitlist staffers) to get what I want.

 

[DavidnRobin]

Only need 4* to get VSN WaitList benefit - such a deal...

 

[Helios]

This really isn't how any waitlist should work. They should really just remove it from the list of Elite benefits since it's borderline useless.

I've said the same during the last two presentations. Sales people were not happy...