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New Marketplace Feature - Want to Rent Match Notifications!

TUGBrian

TUGBrian

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So, this idea came up a bit ago and we are happy to announce our first beta testing of this new feature. Might be amazing, might be a gigantic failure of rci/wyndham upgrade proportions....only time will tell!

What we have implemented will now send an automated email notification to members who have posted a RENTAL in the past that either matches the resort, or point system requested by a new want to rent listing. I realize this is a mouthful, and I actually retyped that line like 6 times before it made sense in my head....so hopefully this will make more sense if I map out the logic!


- TUG member posts "want to rent" listing for say "Marriott Grande Ocean"

the new automated system will then send out a notification to ANY current TUG member who has posted a rental for Marriott Grande Ocean in the past (or anyone whos posted a rental for MVCI/ABOUND points int he past) with a direct link to the want to rent listing so they can see if they are able to fulfill the rental request and make an offer to the TUG member looking for a rental!


Notes sofar!

1. we will continue to tweak the system to ensure we havent made any major logic errors (yes, we are testing in production....shhhh)....but one thing we did have to sacrifice was to ensure this notification only goes out now for NEW want to rent listings. if we tried to send it for all current want to rent listings, it came out to something like 6000 emails it would send...and honestly thats a bit ridiculous =)

for anyone with a current want to rent listing, if you want to test this out you would need to delete that listing (or keep it, no worries) but post a brand new one if you want the notification to be sent out.

2. this ONLY works for want to rent listings at a specific resort or points system...it does not currently work for want to rent in a specific area/location (yet...depending on how well this goes...we shall try to expand...but thats a bigoll ball of wax)


3. the emails are not sent instantly, but once per day (midnight or so)....also can be adusted depending on how well this goes.


please use this thread to post any and all glitches/errors/whatever you encounter here so we can continue to tweak the process, I truly hope this results in a much better way to match TUG members who want to rent...with TUG members in point programs or similar that are able to rent out unused weeks/points if they only knew people who wanted to rent from them!
 
and someone just posted a want to rent to test out our new feature....lets see how it goes! =) Thank you!

should be quite the first night of testing! Lets see if a few hundred notification emails generate a match!
 
who wants to post a want to rent listing tonight (for something other than marriott)... and help test? please only post a legitimate rental request as it is going to notify a ton of TUG members and i dont want people to get annoyed with these emails if they dont generate legitimate leads!
 
I received a notification during the week and was very pleased with the feature. Unfortunately nothing was available.

My bad, I got busy and did not let the requester know. I hoped someone wlse dod because this happens on the wanted boards often where I think I'll get back to that let person know and then someone else did.

Come to think of it. How can the person who posted the request stop the hit with lots of replies if there is nothing available? Maybe it is just one of those things that we have to grin and bear for the convenience of finding something.

Thank you Brian. I am sorry if it seems I want to give you more work. You can put a pin in the question above for the future and work on the current ideas you have to fine tune the nuts and bolt of this first.
 
Venter said:
I received a notification during the week and was very pleased with the feature. Unfortunately nothing was available.

My bad, I got busy and did not let the requester know. I hoped someone wlse dod because this happens on the wanted boards often where I think I'll get back to that let person know and then someone else did.

Come to think of it. How can the person who posted the request stop the hit with lots of replies if there is nothing available? Maybe it is just one of those things that we have to grin and bear for the convenience of finding something.

Thank you Brian. I am sorry if it seems I want to give you more work. You can put a pin in the question above for the future and work on the current ideas you have to fine tune the nuts and bolt of this first.
Click to expand...
Keep in mind that just because something isn't available today that it won't be tomorrow or the next day, week or month, etc. Also, there are numerous types of memberships that allow access to inventory at different times so just because you don't see availability doesn't mean that someone else won't.
 
Venter said:
I received a notification during the week and was very pleased with the feature. Unfortunately nothing was available.

My bad, I got busy and did not let the requester know. I hoped someone wlse dod because this happens on the wanted boards often where I think I'll get back to that let person know and then someone else did.

Come to think of it. How can the person who posted the request stop the hit with lots of replies if there is nothing available? Maybe it is just one of those things that we have to grin and bear for the convenience of finding something.

Thank you Brian. I am sorry if it seems I want to give you more work. You can put a pin in the question above for the future and work on the current ideas you have to fine tune the nuts and bolt of this first.
Click to expand...
good feedback, I will admit that my initial thought process was that even if someone posted a wish ad and it sent a notification to 100 members....if 99 of them didnt have the ability to fill the request they wouldnt actually send a message to the member who was looking for a rental? vs only contacting them if they COULD provide a reservation.

At worst case the TUG member could always delete the rental wanted listing and then noone would be able to contact them thru it.

I see some additional folks submitted want to rent listings today (likely from the newsletter post) so we will see how it goes moving forward and make any improvements as necessary!
 
What a great service to all of us. I do worry, a bit, because everything I see on my Marriott accounts now states that "club points my not be used for any commercial purpose"...... Can't figure out how that could be enforced! Thanks Joy Beckerley
 
joybeckerley1 said:
What a great service to all of us. I do worry, a bit, because everything I see on my Marriott accounts now states that "club points my not be used for any commercial purpose"...... Can't figure out how that could be enforced! Thanks Joy Beckerley
Click to expand...
I believe that is something they are only likely to make a stink about if you are booking a significant number of rentals "in someone elses name" vs your own. It was a discussion a few months back, though I have not heard of anyone getting their hand slapped due to it as of yet!
 
also just a reminder, this only works currently for specific resorts and point systems, not geographic locations (though I suppose we could expand if it becomes popular enough). I just approved a number of want to rent listings for areas/locations...and those wont trigger any notification emails.
 
TUGBrian said:
I believe that is something they are only likely to make a stink about if you are booking a significant number of rentals "in someone elses name" vs your own. It was a discussion a few months back, though I have not heard of anyone getting their hand slapped due to it as of yet!
Click to expand...
Wyndham also says you cannot rent for commercial purposes and I am aware of once or twice when renters have been scolded when they do several rentals a year. Of course that doesn't stop the sales person from telling you to buy more points so you can rent.
 
ii/rci also say you cant rent out exchanges, but it sure happens alot!
 
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