I just want to get a clear understanding of the hotel wait list process, how it works, etc.  If anything is wrong below, please correct me.   And how did this work for people last year?

• Its my undertanding that there is no official "wait list" for hotel rooms.  If you book a hotel room for one night but are missing other nights, the server will attempt to fill-in those nights as rooms become available. 

• What if you only book a room for say, Tuesday night (the other nights were sold out).  If space becomes available for Wed-Sun, will it attempt to fill those nights?  Or will it only attempt to fill a night if you have say, a missing day in-between other booked days.  Like you managed to get Thurs/Fri and Sunday, and it will attempt to give you a Saturday as they become available?

• If it works as described above, how does the process know that you DON'T want a particular night?  Maybe you were leaving on Saturday and didn't want Sunday- will it attempt to book you a Sunday regardless?

• How does it allocate the rooms as they become available?  What's the algorithm?  Do you get priority based on the original lottery number?  Or will it first attempt to fill single-day missing reservations, and go from there?

• If this is how the process worked last year, can anyone confirm that this DID work for them?  Did anyone book a Tuesday and Wed night at a downtown hotel, and then wake up one morning to find a gift email that said they were allocated Thurs-Sunday?
  

You can't really book just a room for Tuesday night.  Per the housing FAQ:

http://www.gencon.com/attend/housing_travel

Nightly minimum stay restrictions are in effect for all hotels in the downtown area. Reservations for hotels in the downtown area must consist of three or more consecutive dates and must include the night of Saturday August 6, 2016. Nightly minimum stay restrictions will remain in place throughout the housing cycle. Reservations at suburban hotels are not subject to nightly minimum stay restrictions.

So if the hotel doesn't have a Saturday night free, you can't book it.

I mean....maybe theroetically you could at a nondowntown block hotel, but it's really not going to happen that they have only a Tuesday night free; those shoulder nights are rare.

Here's the paragraph about the auromated wait list thing, just so everyone can see it:

WAIT LISTAn automated Wait List feature will be activated within one week of housing opening. This feature will enable users to request room nights on the front and/or back end of their reservation that were unavailable at the time of booking. Nights for which a room is unavailable but eligible for wait list will be denoted by a red exclamation point (!) indicator beside the date. After booking a reservation including one or more wait list nights, the system will monitor inventory availability and automatically add the requested nights as they become available. Upon adding a night, the system will also send the reservation holder a confirmation message indicating the night(s) that have been added. Wait list nights listed in your reservation are not guaranteed.No manual wait list is available in 2016, and no wait list requests will be accepted by phone or email. Attendees hoping to book new reservations or modify existing reservations to change room types and/or hotels should check availability online periodically. As other guests modify and/or cancel their existing reservations, online inventory will change accordingly in real time. Modifications of hotel and/or room type do not carry any fees.

You're going to specifically request those shoulder nights; it's not going to give you a night you didn't request.

I do not know the algorythm.  My understanding is that Passkey handles that part, and I don't think they're going to tell us exactly how that's determined.

So no one's going to book Tuesday and Wednesday night at a downtown hotel and then get an email for the rest of the weekend.  This automated wait list feature is only for people who already have reservations downtown, and need "shoulder" dates, so you would already have to have booked at least a three night stay, inclusive of Saturday, to then request the wait list shoulder dates.  Make sense?

Yeah that works, thanks.

/Really/ like the "need 3 nights including Saturday" stipulation! 

When hotel rooms become available over the next few months do they only show up in the housing portal or are they then released to the public through Expedia etc....?

Anything that was booked through the housing portal, if dropped, will reappear in the housing portal.  Anything dropped that was booked outside of the block will show up, wherever it was booked likely.  Don't really have control over that, but it won't be in the block.

I have King Bed Room for 4 nights at the SPRINGHILL SUITES 601 West Washington Street.  It is connected to Gen Con Convention Center.  My wife could not get the days off in order to go to Gen Con, so I need to give up the room.  If you need a room, please call me at (270) 570-2003.  The room is $760 + $129.20 tax = $889.20 total.  Posted 21 June 2016