[2012] Beware-II's request matching system doesn't always work.

[TravelMamma]

I put in a request on Jan. 4, 2012 for several resorts in the Caribbean for a time period of 6 weeks and I still haven't been confirmed and my travel dates are about 4 months away. To my surprise this morning when checking manually I see one of the resorts on my active request for a week in my travel period available for instant exchange! I can't believe it, it wasn't matched to my request and it should have been. I wasn't able to grab the week as it disappeared before I could confirm it. I have no faith in Intervals request system anymore and I wonder how times this happens without people noticing it. If I hadn't of looked this morning and saw the unit available I never would have known. Of course I will be calling interval tomorrow. I know it's not an issue with my request as I have talked to Mark (the infamous II rep.) about it several times and he said I did everything correctly, so I know the problem lies on their end!

 

[gmarine]

Unfortunately this is nothing new. It happens all the time with both II and RCI. You also should check manually when you have an ongoing request in case this happens.

 

[DAman]

This exact same thing happened to me yesterday. Spotted a ski week studio at Marriott Timber Lodge while searching with Marriott(I don't have a unit to trade now). I went into Hyatt II account and saw the same week there. I have an ongoing request in Hyatt II so I went to check to see if it was matched. It wasn't. I got distracted for a few minutes by my children and went back to manually confirm it and it was gone.

You would think this would not happen but we have confirmed that it does. I guess that's why the advice of this board is to put in ongoing requests but keep checking. I'm hoping that magically my request will be confirmed tonight(isn't it Sunday nights when a lot of matches are done).

 

[TravelMamma]

This exact same thing happened to me yesterday. Spotted a ski week studio at Marriott Timber Lodge while searching with Marriott(I don't have a unit to trade now). I went into Hyatt II account and saw the same week there. I have an ongoing request in Hyatt II so I went to check to see if it was matched. It wasn't. I got distracted for a few minutes by my children and went back to manually confirm it and it was gone.

You would think this would not happen but we have confirmed that it does. I guess that's why the advice of this board is to put in ongoing requests but keep checking. I'm hoping that magically my request will be confirmed tonight(isn't it Sunday nights when a lot of matches are done).

I was actually able to put the unit on hold, then I was talking about it with my husband, went back to follow through with the exchange process, but it must have timed out and then it disappeared, I tried checking for it again but it's been gone for hours now. I did the same as you did and checked my email, checked my exchange tab to see if was listed as being confirmed, but nothing there. I haven't posted this on II's community yet, as I figured I too would wait to see what happens overnight since it is Sunday. I have heard others post similar and always thought, something must have been wrong with their deposit or their request wasn't correctly done. But, since I know all things on my end have been checked and double checked with Starwood and II on numerous occasions through this past year that the search has been in, I know it's not on my end, but rather an error on II's end. I actually noticed all kinds of weeks this morning that I never see as well and was wondering if it was a glitch where numerous inventory was released rather than going through the matching process.

 

[Saintsfanfl]

It literally happens every single day. It's not an error. The exchange systems do not auto match in real time. I have heard it matches at midnight but I am not sure. It may not be logical or desirable for it to work this way but its how the system is programmed. Complaining to them about it is fruitless. You just have to accept it and use it to your advantage if possible.

 

[Larry]

same here but got the exchange

I had a similar situation a couple of months ago where I had an on going search for over 8 months with no match. What really bothered me was I was using a week that was going to expire in February for a January 2013 exchange back to my own resort where I have priority for an exchange back to Aruba. I already had the prior week confirmed with RCI and wanted a specific check in date back into Aruba for the following week.

I was really po'd when someone at Timeshare forums listed my home resort on their sightings board for the exact date that I wanted. It was about 1/2 hour after the posting and I checked in II and it was gone. I called II and asked why It was available on their website when it should have automatically been confirmed with my on going request. I was also po'd since my deposited week was expiring in February 2013. The guide checked for me and for whatever reason she was able to see the exact week and resort per my on going request and confirmed it for me.

Perhaps someone had wanted the week and either never confirmed it on line or they confirmed and canceled but either way I got the week and then finally booked my airline tickets for consecutive weeks in Aruba.

 

[dioxide45]

It is possible that the match will come through. What happens is the weeks go in to the general exchange pool and then that pool is swept for new deposits and put in a hold for the overnight matching process. So it is possible that the week is still out there just waiting for the overnight process. So watch your inbox tomorrow as if you are at the top of the list for the exchange, you would get it. Of course this is all speculation.

 

[npey]

What would be the reason for an overnight match? If the requested resort is deposited at 3 pm, it will be automatically match up. It is not that hard for a computer to do that. Waiting for midnight has not sense for me.

 

[dioxide45]

What would be the reason for an overnight match? If the requested resort is deposited at 3 pm, it will be automatically match up. It is not that hard for a computer to do that. Waiting for midnight has not sense for me.

Many large companies use overnight batch processing to perform certain functions that heavily utilize system resources.

 

[npey]

So it is possible that the week is still out there just waiting for the overnight process.[/QUOTE]

This is different to an overnight batch process. If some companies prefer to deposit at midnight, it doesn't affect the automatic matching process.

 

[dioxide45]

So it is possible that the week is still out there just waiting for the overnight process.

This is different to an overnight batch process. If some companies prefer to deposit at midnight, it doesn't affect the automatic matching process.[/QUOTE]

True, but that isn't how it works. Deposits happen throughout the day, from individual owners and developer bulk banks. There seems to be a period of time where the weeks appear in the general inventory pool and then get swept and held for the overnight batch matching process.

 

[npey]

There seems to be a period of time where the weeks appear in the general inventory pool and then get swept and held for the overnight batch matching process.[/QUOTE]

I check the inventory daily and often, and only occasionally, I see a sough-after resort. If all the weeks appear in the available list before being held, we would see all of them throughout the day. Why II would slow down the matching process purposely? I think you are confusing an isolated case with the process itself.

 

[dioxide45]

I check the inventory daily and often, and only occasionally, I see a sough-after resort. If all the weeks appear in the available list before being held, we would see all of them throughout the day. Why II would slow down the matching process purposely? I think you are confusing an isolated case with the process itself.

We pretty much know that request matches happen in batches in the middle of the night. Always notice how confirmation e-mails from II for requests always arrive sometime in the early AM?

 

[npey]

That is not my experience. I have received confirmations in the afternoon. Do we have any data to confirm your statement? Also, why II would deny the midnight happening?

 

[dioxide45]

That is not my experience. I have received confirmations in the afternoon. Do we have any data to confirm your statement? Also, why II would denied the midnight happening?

There is also a manual matching process where II employees do manual matches. It is my understanding that matches done within flexchange are done manually. Confirmations from manual matches can be sent at any time of the day.

 

[dioxide45]

That is not my experience. I have received confirmations in the afternoon. Do we have any data to confirm your statement? Also, why II would denied the midnight happening?

I went back through the confirmation e-mails where I received a confirmation from an ongoing request. Of the 7 I could find, 6 of them were received some time between 11:30pm and 4:45am. More seemed to happen around the 4:30am time frame. One happened during regular business hours.

 

[npey]

Flexchange is another story. I'm only talking about regular exchanges, not flexchange.
I know a lot of confirmations are received in the early morning but not all, so we shouldn't state the matching process takes place only at 12. Apparently, there is also a delivery process of the email confirmation.
If the matching only occur at midnight eastern time (Miami office), members in Cali would received their confirmations at 9 pm the day before.

 

[TravelMamma]

An interval rep. told me matching can happen at any time of day, as deposits happen, but it does seem as though bulk deposits happen and request confirmations mostly in the wee hours of the night. I also check multiple times a day at different time periods and have only on a few occasions seen weeks that I thought were sought after resort/weeks, like what I saw this morning, multiple weeks at multiple different resorts and then they all vanished and it was back to the "normal" inventory that I usually see, almost like it was a mistake.

 

[dioxide45]

Flexchange is another story. I'm only talking about regular exchanges, not flexchange.
I know a lot of confirmations are received in the early morning but not all, so we shouldn't state the matching process takes place only at 12. Apparently, there is also a delivery process of the email confirmation.
If the matching only occur at midnight eastern time (Miami office), members in Cali would received their confirmations at 9 pm the day before.

I am not sure that I stated that the matching process can only happen at 12:00. Though it seems that the e-mail delivery process tends to happen more often than not in the middle of the night. That means that there are batch processes happening behind the scenes at II.

Whether the match happened in the middle of the day or at 4:00am isn't really what is important in my initial post. I was indicating to the poster to watch their inbox tomorrow as that is when they would find out if their week somehow matched. I have never seen in my II history the day before an e-mail confirmation that my week was actually matched mid-day and I just hadn't received the confirmation yet.

 

[npey]

The fastest the matching occur, the better for II. Less members complains, a more effective system and faster results, should'n be these some of II goals? Why waiting for a whole day to match rquests ?

 

[TravelMamma]

I'll post again on whether or not I receive a confirmation tomorrow.

 

[npey]

I was talking about members that live in California and Oregon for example, 3 hours (time) behind Miami.
I agree that some companies would rather deposit at midnight, but bulk deposits also happen in the afternoon as reported by some II members.

 

[dioxide45]

The fastest the matching occur, the better for II. Less members complains, a more effective system and faster results, should'n be these some of II goals? Why waiting for a whole day to match rquests ?

I agree, but that isn't how it always works. With II (and RCI), there is a lot of mystery about how and why they do things the way they do. They aren't alone in batch processing transactions, financial institutions do it every day. Deposits and payments post every night, not during the day when you make them. They show up as pending, some payments show up as $1 pending until they post for the actual amount (ex. gas stations). I am sure this causes some customer service issues also but this is how they still do it.

The issue is the amount of load on the infrastructure to complete the transactions. I am sure that II doesn't have systems the size of financial institutions, but they too have to balance their system load over the course of a 24 hour period. During regular business hours, there are employees in the system performing transactions, people online doing the same thing. In the middle of the night there is probably very little system load, so they use that time to run batch transactions. We don't know what kind of strain having these systemic matches happen during the day would cause.

 

[Saintsfanfl]

The fastest the matching occur, the better for II. Less members complains, a more effective system and faster results, should'n be these some of II goals? Why waiting for a whole day to match rquests ?

Your questions are valid and make sense but there are so many reports all the time where people check manually and see a week sitting there that they have an ongoing request for. These posters aren't making this up. For whatever reason it is obviously an imperfect system.

 

[npey]

I agree, but that isn't how it always works. With II (and RCI), there is a lot of mystery about how and why they do things the way they do. They aren't alone in batch processing transactions, financial institutions do it every day. Deposits and payments post every night, not during the day when you make them. They show up as pending, some payments show up as $1 pending until they post for the actual amount (ex. gas stations). I am sure this causes some customer service issues also but this is how they still do it.

The issue is the amount of load on the infrastructure to complete the transactions. I am sure that II doesn't have systems the size of financial institutions, but they too have to balance their system load over the course of a 24 hour period. During regular business hours, there are employees in the system performing transactions, people online doing the same thing. In the middle of the night there is probably very little system load, so they use that time to run batch transactions. We don't know what kind of strain having these systemic matches happen during the day would cause.

I know II ferociously protects its exchange criteria. I think your bank analogy is the only guess I have heard so far that might be viable. I see those developers or resorts dumps made at midnight, as personal decisions of them, as when merchants opt not to send information ahead of time about their transactions but at 12 am. If the bank doesn't have the proper info, it cannot give the client who pays with a check account the real available balance (gas stations $1 case). But in the debit card illustration, usually transactions are instantaneous. If I make a transfer of funds to my debit card online, I can use it immediately. So I have thought of that when the deposit verification process is finished, the matching of my week should perform as fast and effective as my debit card.
Unfortunately, I don't know much about computers, but I think it is not that much of a deal to do matches based in criteria already entered. I can imagine the system might get a glitch sometimes when things escape the criteria, e.g. the comp receives two exact matches at the same time; that might be an occasion when we see for some time as available a resort that was requested months before for a member, as Saintsfanfl said.
Also, why II doesn't openly recognize its midnight shut off as banks do?