It seems like everyone is missing the point of greengirl22 actual argument: The housing portal requires a Saturday booking, but once Saturday is sold out at any given hotel, it doesn't relax that restriction. So once a hotel sells out of Saturday, if it still has other rooms, those rooms are in a "limbo" that is completely unavailable based on the rules of the housing portal.
That does seem like an issue. Greengirl22, feel free and correct me if I've misinterpreted your point.
ryric and jobeth66:
Yes, that is exactly the key point. Really not sure why A) customer service people seem to have a hard time understanding that or B) don't see it as an issue.
I understand a desire to not allow people to cherry pick key nights, and block people who want to stay for the whole event, but that's EXACTLY what they've done.
Case in point: If not for GenCon Rules, I could have made Wed-Thur reservations for one of the hotels (several in fact) that I wanted, and I would have had a good chance of extending that into Fri-Sun given the way cancellations work.
BECAUSE of the GenCon restrictions I now have ZERO days booked, and no hope except to happen to snatch up a room totally by chance--at some unspecified later date. There is no access to a waiting list at all, no "system" at all to assist would be attendees.
Clearly, GenCon is not interested in helping people in my situation (I suspect there are lots of us) in the slightest, and in fact, their policies are literally hindering me from attending.
None of it makes sense, unless they are trying to force people into the block hotels on the outskirts, which I suspect is what this policy is all about. Otherwise it makes no sense to PREVENT people from filling open rooms.