The reactive dividing wall column (RDWC) is a highly integrated process that enables savings in investment and operational costs. Nevertheless, the high grade of integration leads to an extremely complex process behavior, complicating the prediction of the advantageousness of RDWC for a given task during process design. So far, many applications have been proposed in literature for RDWC, but little general knowledge on the influence of reaction system properties on the RDWC has been published. Latter studies are limited to ideal reaction system properties. This article investigates the influence of non-ideal reaction system properties, focusing on azeotropic phase equilibrium. A comprehensive process understanding of how the non-ideal separation properties affect the energy saving potential of RDWC is developed. The results are combined in short heuristics, which allow the process engineer a quick and easy evaluation of the energy saving potential of RDWC for the investigated reaction systems during process synthesis.