My experience has been that you have to contact the normal VC and they will submit a request to the in house people that will actually do the booking. Your record of the booking is the email confirmation. Of course, what you see, now, may not be visible at the exact moment that the in house person attempts to do the booking. I've been successful 2 times. I sent in a request yesterday and have received no feedback. What I requested is no longer available (at least not available per the website) but the specific request was sent. If it can't be filled, I'll have yet another comment for Michael Brown, ie. I want to be compensated for loss of use. He likes to talk about being fair to owners. well, put your money where you mouth is and be fair to me.
While I'm saddened that you are in the situation, at least we can follow each other and know when something changes.