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



## TravelMamma (Dec 16, 2012)

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!


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## gmarine (Dec 16, 2012)

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.


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## DAman (Dec 16, 2012)

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).


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## TravelMamma (Dec 16, 2012)

DAman said:


> 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.


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## Saintsfanfl (Dec 16, 2012)

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.


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## Larry (Dec 16, 2012)

*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.


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## dioxide45 (Dec 16, 2012)

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.


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## npey (Dec 16, 2012)

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.


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## dioxide45 (Dec 16, 2012)

npey said:


> 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.


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## npey (Dec 16, 2012)

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.


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## dioxide45 (Dec 16, 2012)

npey said:


> 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.


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## npey (Dec 16, 2012)

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.


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## dioxide45 (Dec 16, 2012)

npey said:


> 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?


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## npey (Dec 16, 2012)

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?


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## dioxide45 (Dec 16, 2012)

npey said:


> 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.


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## dioxide45 (Dec 16, 2012)

npey said:


> 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.


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## npey (Dec 16, 2012)

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.


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## TravelMamma (Dec 16, 2012)

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.


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## dioxide45 (Dec 16, 2012)

npey said:


> 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.


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## npey (Dec 16, 2012)

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 ?


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## TravelMamma (Dec 16, 2012)

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


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## npey (Dec 16, 2012)

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.


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## dioxide45 (Dec 16, 2012)

npey said:


> 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.


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## Saintsfanfl (Dec 16, 2012)

npey said:


> 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.


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## npey (Dec 17, 2012)

dioxide45 said:


> 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?


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## dioxide45 (Dec 17, 2012)

I think it comes down to how the matching process has to happen. Every time a new deposit comes in it has to be compared against every ongoing request. Think if there are 10,000 ongoing requests setup at any given time and 5,000 new deposits in a day. That is 50,000,000 comparisons that have to occur each day. That is a lot of transactions that have to occur on top of the already ongoing daily transactions that occur throughout the day. Having the match run in batch during the lower system load times only makes sense.


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## npey (Dec 17, 2012)

I imagine it might be more simple than that. What is offered and deposited is already categorized, so not every request has to be contrasted to. 
Nevertheless, I lean to the idea that matches occur any time but the delivery process starts early in the morning. I'd like to hear the expert's opinions on this.


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## dioxide45 (Dec 17, 2012)

npey said:


> I imagine it might be more simple than that. What is offered and deposited is already categorized, so not every request has to be contrasted to.
> Nevertheless, I lean to the idea that matches occur any time but the delivery process starts early in the morning. I'd like to hear the expert's opinions on this.



I don't think we are ever going to know how II does this. II isn't going to share this kind of proprietary information in a public forum like TUG.


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## npey (Dec 17, 2012)

I was talking about computer experts in general, not from II. I almost quit trying to get close to the criteria, but the matching time shouldn't be a big deal.


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## Saintsfanfl (Dec 18, 2012)

npey said:


> I was talking about computer experts in general, not from II. I almost quit trying to get close to the criteria, but the matching time shouldn't be a big deal.



Just a computer expert wouldn't be much help. They would also have to know how the II's system is programmed specifically. Modern computers could most certainly match in real time or any other desired basis so it is not a computer limitation.

We do know for a fact that matches do not occur in real time. There are gaps or delays where a requested week is available as an instant exchange. It happens all the time and that is just for those that happen to look.


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## Saintsfanfl (Dec 18, 2012)

dioxide45 said:


> I think it comes down to how the matching process has to happen. Every time a new deposit comes in it has to be compared against every ongoing request. Think if there are 10,000 ongoing requests setup at any given time and 5,000 new deposits in a day. That is 50,000,000 comparisons that have to occur each day. That is a lot of transactions that have to occur on top of the already ongoing daily transactions that occur throughout the day. Having the match run in batch during the lower system load times only makes sense.



A decent computer could do 50 million comparisons in only a few seconds. It is not a limitation of the computer, it is either a product of poor programming or intentional. I lean toward poor programming. 

I encounter bugs in just doing simple searches online. Like hitting an error and having to start over when switching down in unit size to exchange with using the same search. Someone started programming by allowing the change in the size of the request but they never finished it. It is a sloppy system. That said at least it updates in real time. Marriott's online system can take days to register changes.


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## npey (Dec 18, 2012)

Saintsfanfl said:


> Just a computer expert wouldn't be much help. They would also have to know how the II's system is programmed specifically. Modern computers could most certainly match in real time or any other desired basis so it is not a computer limitation.
> 
> We do know for a fact that matches do not occur in real time. There are gaps or delays where a requested week is available as an instant exchange. It happens all the time and that is just for those that happen to look.


I am talking "computer limitations". I'd like to hear an expert's opinion to confirm what dioxide45 told me abt the quiet time the system seems to need or take advantage of at midnite to process the matches. II proudly refers to their state-of-the-art- computer system, so how come it is unable to do the matches in real time if the necessary data is entered? Let's say it is not instantaneous but it takes 1 or 2 hours to find the match, fine. But if the actual match is deposited at 1 a.m, how come the beneficiary has to wait 24 hours to receive the email notification? 
I don't have a problem with the gaps or delays you mentioned because someone will always benefit, it might be you, me or another person, and whoever it is the gratification is instantaneous. Not sure if it is as frequent as you said. Once in a while I heard someone complaining about the issue, but not all the time.


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## TravelMamma (Dec 18, 2012)

*Update*

Well here's something else to throw into the mix of matchings.  So, I did go online Monday morning after seeing a week that should have been matched to my request but instead was available for instant exchange.....and I had no confirmation email, nothing in exchanges and I was still able to do my search using the week with the request on it.  So, it appeared as though I had no confirmation and missed out on the week listed online. I called II and I spoke with a rep. that I have been speaking with on several occasions about my request and this "spotting", before I could finish he told me I _was_ matched and that before II can send me the confirmation, they had to get a verbal acceptance from me that I would agree to the surcharges.  He said this is done with resorts that are under construction and ones with extra charges (in this case, cayman islands with large energy fees).  It actually wasn't the week that I had seen online, it was a different one (which I can't say for sure or not that it wasn't online with the other week I had seen, as I was so shocked to see an april 2013 week, I didn't even scroll through all the dates).  So, do I believe him?  Since it wasn't the same week offered online, than yes, it makes sense, but I did find it awfully odd there were many weeks, many resorts that morning and then they all seemed to have disappeared at the exact same time (maybe a coincidence, maybe a glitch in the system).  But since the week was actually a better week for us than the one that was showing online and also a 2 bdrm instead of a 1 bdrm that we own, I was pretty happy and back to being a happy customer once again, a little suspicious, but happy.  So, around 9:15 am in this case, I was emailed a confirmation certificate.  Now, if I hadn't of called at 9am monday morning, I wonder how long it would have taken II to call me to let me know of the match. Oh well, guess there are always those exceptions to the normal matching process anyway, which I personally think changes often.


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## PassionForTravel (Dec 18, 2012)

Wonder why they didn't send you an email that your week was available pending approval or some such thing.

Ian


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## npey (Dec 18, 2012)

TravelMamma said:


> I called II and I spoke with a rep. that I have been speaking with on several occasions about my request and this "spotting", before I could finish he told me I _was_ matched and that before II can send me the confirmation, they had to get a verbal acceptance from me that I would agree to the surcharges.  He said this is done with resorts that are under construction and ones with extra charges (in this case, cayman islands with large energy fees).  .



I understood you were confirmed to the Cayman and told the amount of the energy fee, so it is probably true, but I never heard about those phone calls before.

Why did you call Mark infamous (in your first post)?


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## TravelMamma (Dec 18, 2012)

Me neither, never heard that before that's why I said I was suspicious.  If you've ever read posts in interval's community mark is referenced all the time, all positive feedback from those that have dealt with him.


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## npey (Dec 18, 2012)

TravelMamma said:


> ...all positive feedback from those that have dealt with him.



That's what I thought, but infamous has a negative connotation.


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## dioxide45 (Dec 18, 2012)

I too have been a victim of the pending request issue. We had a pending request out for Oceana Palms for last November. One day when I first got up, I checked and the exact week we were looking for was sitting online. I was able to confirm the week, so we got the week, but still concerning because if I hadn't have looked I don't know if it would have ever matched.


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## TravelMamma (Dec 19, 2012)

npey said:


> That's what I thought, but infamous has a negative connotation.



I meant famous but for some reason I can't edit that post.


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## MALC9990 (Dec 19, 2012)

npey said:


> I imagine it might be more simple than that. What is offered and deposited is already categorized, so not every request has to be contrasted to.
> Nevertheless, I lean to the idea that matches occur any time but the delivery process starts early in the morning. I'd like to hear the expert's opinions on this.



I worked for 37 years in the IT business and what you suggest is just not how it will be working. The "System" does not "know" anything. 

Requests for exchanges will be recorded and stored in a "Request" Database. Each "Request" will have its attributes - dates, resorts etc.

As a new deposit is made - it would require a search of the pending requests database to see if the deposit "matched" any pending request. Whilst an intelligent search for matches would be how it would be done - reducing processing requirements it would still require a significant amount of processing. Since this would need to be done for every single deposit the numbers would soon mount up - requiring a massive over investment by II in Computing capacity.

The sensible and cost effective approach would be to place all deposits in a holding deposit database. Overnight a batch process would then sweep through the held deposits to see if any pending request would be matched. Once that process is completed, any remaining unmatched deposits in the holding database could be released to the general database of available deposited weeks. There would still be some criteria that would impact a manual search also - e.g. Developer preference, trade power of the week being used for the search etc.

My experience is that my pending requests are always processed overnight when matched. 

What I believe happens with II is that deposits are not held back before matching occurs but are just placed in the deposited weeks database and so it is possible for a new deposit to be spotted and taken before a match process is run at whatever time of day this occurs. It is also possible that the  matching process is run many times each day.


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## TravelMamma (Dec 19, 2012)

I like your theory, from what I seen over watching multiple times a day over the course of a year, it seems as though I have witnessed to a degree of what you are saying.  I also think I have seen similar patterns with inventory being released, then sometimes it changes.  It's probably better that way or else no one would get their requests filled because everyone would be grabbing the best weeks and resorts if they knew when deposits were always released.


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## Saintsfanfl (Dec 19, 2012)

So it looks like the true issue here is the releasing of inventory for instant exchanges before the batch process matching takes place. This would be so easy for II to change if they cared enough. This goes without saying but it's quite poor to have a customer that prepaid an exchange fee get passed over by someone up trading in size using a Studio or 1BR through instant exchange.

I think I am going to run a macro that will email me a list of what is available through instant exchange. I will run it at 10 PM and 4 AM. I am going to do this to find an exchange I am after and also to track the timing of availability.


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## TravelMamma (Dec 19, 2012)

I wish I knew what a macro is, but be sure let us know of your results it's very interesting.


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## Saintsfanfl (Dec 19, 2012)

TravelMamma said:


> I wish I knew what a macro is, but be sure let us know of your results it's very interesting.



A macro would be a repeated series of commands. I would use a macro program to record the specific actions used in a search on II and then extended actions that would copy the data into an email or a text file. For tracking purposes it could copy the data every hour into a log. Macro programs are readily available and easy to use. I would not be surprised if a TUGGER is not already doing this for instant searching purposes. A spam protect would hinder or eliminate this ability but I don't see it as being a big deal.


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## Dean (Dec 22, 2012)

TravelMamma said:


> 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!


I've actually had one of those calls from II where they want to get you a different resort or time and it be the EXACT item that was in the search they were calling me about.


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## JanT (Jan 23, 2013)

Well this issue is definitely alive and well, whatever the problem is.  I put in an on-going search 2 1/2 weeks ago for Marriott Ko Olina - studio and up for November.  I didn't really want a studio but I want to have *something* lined up so I can except the studio.  

I had two on-going searches going actually.  One with my Hyatt Sunset Harbor week and the other with my SDO week.  Nothing had matched as of this morning which didn't surprise me.  I knew it would take awhile but was confident something would turn up.

This morning I did my morning ritual of checking II - both the status of the searches and just to see what was available on line.  There was a bulk deposit of Ko Olina weeks for April and May.  Ok, nothing for November.  But, before I closed out I checked one more time and there it was - a studio for my exact check in date requested.  

*Neither* of my on-going requests caught it.  I was able to book it and will continue to look for a larger unit to do an up-trade.  I'm glad I was looking because I'm one of those people that need closure.  I'm still confident a larger unit will show up down the line but I'm not sure I'm going to waste my time and money with an on-going request.

I cannot figure out why II cannot fix this issue.  I'm happy but I think of the many people that lose out on exchanges they really want and need because the system doesn't do the match.  Why???  And more importantly, WHY????


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## Saintsfanfl (Jan 24, 2013)

JanT said:


> Well this issue is definitely alive and well, whatever the problem is.  I put in an on-going search 2 1/2 weeks ago for Marriott Ko Olina - studio and up for November.  I didn't really want a studio but I want to have *something* lined up so I can except the studio.
> 
> I had two on-going searches going actually.  One with my Hyatt Sunset Harbor week and the other with my SDO week.  Nothing had matched as of this morning which didn't surprise me.  I knew it would take awhile but was confident something would turn up.
> 
> ...



Because ongoing requests are not matched in real time. This is understandable so the real problem is having the units available for instant exchange prior to the batch matching taking place. Look at it this way, you very well may not have been next in line. You may not have gotten that studio even if it was held back for the batch.


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## JanT (Jan 24, 2013)

Saintsfanfl,

You know, I am always amazed at some of the sound advice given here on TUG.  You are absolutely right - I should just feel happy to have gotten the trade because I might not have otherwise.  Thank you, TUGGER friend for giving me a new perspective on that.

Jan



Saintsfanfl said:


> Because ongoing requests are not matched in real time. This is understandable so the real problem is having the units available for instant exchange prior to the batch matching taking place. Look at it this way, you very well may not have been next in line. You may not have gotten that studio even if it was held back for the batch.


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## Beefnot (Jan 24, 2013)

Saintsfanfl said:


> Because ongoing requests are not matched in real time. This is understandable so the real problem is having the units available for instant exchange prior to the batch matching taking place.



I don't really why it is understandable that ongoing requests aren't matched in real time.  Conceptually, it seems pretty straightforward.  There could be an intermediary data base of ongoing requests that inventory releases get queried against prior to being thrown out into the general exchange population. Granted, batch matching procedures are efficient, but I don't understand how real-time matching would bog down the system.


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## Saintsfanfl (Jan 24, 2013)

Beefnot said:


> I don't really why it is understandable that ongoing requests aren't matched in real time.  Conceptually, it seems pretty straightforward.  There could be an intermediary data base of ongoing requests that inventory releases get queried against prior to being thrown out into the general exchange population. Granted, batch matching procedures are efficient, but I don't understand how real-time matching would bog down the system.



Understandable because that is how they set it up. I agree I think there is a way to do it. Look at the Sabre Travel Network. That seems far more complicated and it is real time. I'm not an IT professional but certainly if there was enough money involved it would be real time. All that said, it's not, so the issue with weeks popping up that were requested is not a missed match but a release to instant before matching takes place. At least that's what it looks like.


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## dioxide45 (Jan 24, 2013)

I understand why it is setup the way that it is, however the way it is setup doesn't fit the needs of their customers. Their customers don't care how it is setup to work, they just want it to work and to get their matches. They don't want to have to babysit their requests.

The system is inept and doesn't work. Saying that is just how it is setup doesn't cut it. I have defended why it is setup that way, but I am sure there are other ways around this. Why do new deposits just get dumped in to the general exchange pool before getting pulled back for match processing? They could have al new deposits go in to a separate pool that goes through batch request matching before getting released to general inventory. II needs to find a way to fix it, because it is broken. Regardless of how it is done, it needs to be done better.


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## Saintsfanfl (Jan 25, 2013)

I am in complete agreement.


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## jimkin (Jan 31, 2013)

npey said:


> 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 ?



The exchange companies appear to be mainframe centric and batch processing is still very common in that environment.  Comparing each individual deposit against every outstanding requests could easily be a resource hog and degrade performance, especially during peak times.  So it makes perfect sense that ongoing searches are matched in a batch process in an off peak processing time (midnight to 5 AM).


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## Beefnot (Feb 1, 2013)

jimkin said:


> The exchange companies appear to be mainframe centric and batch processing is still very common in that environment.  Comparing each individual deposit against every outstanding requests could easily be a resource hog and degrade performance, especially during peak times.  So it makes perfect sense that ongoing searches are matched in a batch process in an off peak processing time (midnight to 5 AM).



I am skeptical that it need be such a resource hog. But even so, then they should not release new deposits into general inventory until the following day after batch matching has occurred.


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## TravelMamma (Aug 23, 2015)

Wow,  I originally started this thread over 2 years ago and I'm sad to report that the exact same thing happened to me again this year! Put in a request, waited for months and one day when searching manually online I see weeks available for instant exchange that should have matched my request.  Wasn't able to confirm the exchange myself quick enough so the week disappeared.  Contacted II the next day and they agreed I should have been matched.  The Rep. manually searched for me for about a month and finally found an exchange for me.  Glad they were able to fill my request eventually but so disappointed their system still doesn't work the way it should.  I couldn't believe it happened to me twice!


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## cali-gal (Aug 29, 2015)

Would it be more advantageous in this environment to do a Request First?


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## Marathoner (Aug 29, 2015)

Beefnot said:


> I don't really why it is understandable that ongoing requests aren't matched in real time.  Conceptually, it seems pretty straightforward.  There could be an intermediary data base of ongoing requests that inventory releases get queried against prior to being thrown out into the general exchange population. Granted, batch matching procedures are efficient, but I don't understand how real-time matching would bog down the system.



I have some experience with computer systems built in corporate environments.  Limitations such as this generally has nothing to do with compute power. 

First, the real limitation is that good computer programmers are very expensive.  The best and the very good computer programmers are employed by high tech firms in Silicon Valley, internet startup firms, large financial institutions who pay high bonuses, and large corporations that have high job security and nice benefits.

It is difficult for small and medium size firms (such as Interval) to either pay for such IT talent or to even convince them to join their companies.  Moreover, given the expense of computer programmers, an IT department at a medium size firm will be relatively modest in size.  The IT department will need to not just employ programmers but also hardware and database specialists as well.  Plus the IT department have to not only build the externally facing system (such as the Interval website) but also service their internal IT systems and infrastructure (such as their telephone systems, corporate network, financial accounting system, etc).  

Second, given that there is a fixed number of computer programmers at Interval, their time and the features they build need to be carefully prioritized by the business managers.  And the features that the business managers will tell their tech staff to focus on will be the features that generate revenue for Interval.  Features such as eplus.  Also prioritized will be high priority requests from Interval's major clients such as Marriott and Starwood.  Other priorities will come from Interval's own service department because their agents need alot of system functionality to be able to look up issues that people are calling in about and then to be able to fix them. 

Third, as soon as a computer system is built, it becomes legacy.  Servers, databases, networks, and computer code has to be upgraded constantly.  The matching system on Interval's website may have been built 15 years ago as a batch process when the cost of compute power and memory was very expensive.  At some point, they will upgrade the matching process to be real-time and instantaneous but the question is when will they do that when they have so many other priorities to juggle.

Bottom line is that since TUG has people who are obsessed at maximizing their exchanges on Interval, we can clearly see that the OGS is not instantaneous and this causes us angst.  But if you look at it from an Interval corporate perspective, they are looking to maximize their limited system development capability by ensuring they correctly prioritize across all their needs, 95% of which we can never even see since we can only see issues which are evident with their website.  But from Interval's perspective, I bet that they think that the matching process works fairly well and the only complaints they get are from a small minority here on TUG.

This is also why we see quirks and bugs on Interval's website.  Writing computer code can be complex and so their programmers make small mistakes that make it into their public website and it sometimes takes a long time for them to get around to fixing it.  

This is my opinion only and I have no idea what happens within Interval.  But hopefully, this can provide some insight into the complexity of what Interval is likely dealing with.


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