I’m pleasantly surprised that Comic-Con International and/or Travel Planners has gotten their act together for next year’s convention. Before attendance (and hotel rush) went completely insane, they used to send out hotel info with their fall newsletter or in a postcard around December (or maybe January), but over the last two years it’s been pushed later and later. For 2009, they didn’t even announce a date for hotel reservations until February…a month before they opened. The list of hotels went up even later — the day before, IIRC.
The fall newsletter, now an online magazine, went up today, and along with it not just the date for reservations, but a list of hotels…including distance, prices, and shuttle stops. Hotel reservations go online March 18, 2010.
Additionally, they’ve made some interesting changes that may help combat the craziness:
- Reservations will now require an immediate deposit of one night’s stay
- Deposits are fully refundable until May 14.
- From May 15 to June 17, there’s a $75 cancellation fee.
- From June 18 onward, deposits are nonrefundable.
With luck that’ll cut down on some of the “just in case…” extra reservations, now that there’s an actual financial commitment to it.
See Also: Convention Photos & Write-Ups
I stumbled upon your blog in 2008 when I was looking for sane perspectives on the SDCC hotel reservations mess. Every year they change the format and it doesn’t seem to improve. I was just wondering if you’d seen the latest “note” from Travel Planners at the CCI site? My initial read is that it will be just as bad as last year, except we’ll have even less accountability from Travel Planners (which I didn’t think was possible). I was kind of hoping you’d post some thoughts on it… hint, hint.
I’ve skimmed it, but haven’t had a chance to really think about it in detail. Maybe tonight or tomorrow.
[…] December they announced that they would require a deposit at reservation time, and a cut-off point in May after which it […]
The lack of accountability is showing. We were looking for 4 rooms. Three of us were on the phone when we hit the submit button, and supposedly the requests would be time-stamped. The first person to hit submit, at 4 minutes after the appointed time, heard last and got a room way off the shuttle route (Mission Valley). The last one in heard first, and got the only one of the 4 rooms on the shuttle route, and it wasn’t even on the requested list of 12. Since we all heard in reverse order of how we submitted, and none even got close to our list of 12 requests, even though we put in our requests within 8 minutes of the appointed time…needless to say, it ended up as a random lottery, one that we lost. Four requests, entered in 4-8 minutes of the link appearing, and only one halfway decent room.
I got my first hotel pick, one of the Headquarters Hotels, then I logged into the reservation system yesterday (Friday) afternoon to pay for the first night with my credit card, to secure my room. After entering my information I was taken to a screen that informed me: “RESERVATION HAS ALREADY BEEN CANCELED”. and there was no way to proceed. So I am screwed, with NO hotel for ComicCon. What were they thinking giving us 5 days to pay with a credit card when 2 of those days are a weekend, and “customer service”, both email and phone are closed on weekends? They were pretty confident that there would be NO problems that needed to be addressed on the first weekend after hotel registration opened. The “new” system stinks, last year was much smoother for me.