Curious why rooms went quicker this time
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Posted by jedibcg 9 years agoon 1/25/2016 at 6:35 PM
#26

There were still downtown rooms available at 1:01pm.  They may not have matched the dates or number or guests but there were still rooms.  I had two friends get downtown rooms between 1:01 and 1:30.  There are Sunday night only rooms available right now downtown on the portal.

That said I do agree rooms seemed to go faster this year than last.  However since Gen Con won't tell us how many rooms there were.  How long people were given between getting assigned in the queue and a number of other things, it is just idle speculation as to why it went quicker.

Posted by mattnaik ryric 9 years agoon 1/25/2016 at 6:42 PM
#27

ryric wrote:
I'd argue with your basic premise - I had a 1 hour, 45 minute time last year and all the downtown rooms were gone. Hour and a half is extremely consistent with last year's outcome.
  Interesting. We had just over 2 hours last year and got a room at the downtown Marriott.

Posted by truelink 9 years agoon 1/25/2016 at 6:47 PM
#28

It's possible that someone dropped a room or didn't finalize their transaction. Two years ago (before the lottery), I was able to get a connected room an hour after housing opened because I got lucky with that.

Posted by ryric 9 years agoon 1/25/2016 at 7:14 PM
#29

I was able to find downtown rooms last year on Monday after the lottery - sometimes you get lucky and find a dropped room. There still were none available at 1:45 Sunday.

Posted by daveculp lore seeker 9 years agoon 1/25/2016 at 7:16 PM
#30

father bloodlust wrote:
I dunno about anyone else, but as far as looking for rooms right after last year's GenCon, when I checked Trivago the rooms either weren't there or were selling for the same inflated rates as they are now.
Getting reasonbly priced out of block rooms is getting more difficult.  Hotels have caught on to Gen Con and block out the dates almost immediatly.  In prior years I could easily find find a hotel downtown for a decent rate.  It might not have been connected, but it was an easy walk.

This year was more difficult, I had to expand the nights I was staying to 8 nights and hotels opened up for cheaper than block rates.  We use it as a family vacation so we always go early.  We walk to teh zoo, various museums and go to the Childrens museum Sun-Tues.  On Tuesday my wifes mother picks her and my daughter up and they head to Illinois for the rest of the week while I do Gen Con. 

Posted by mattnaik ryric 9 years agoon 1/25/2016 at 7:27 PM
#31

ryric wrote:
I was able to find downtown rooms last year on Monday after the lottery - sometimes you get lucky and find a dropped room. There still were none available at 1:45 Sunday.

This was widely reported on the message boards last year that many people were still getting rooms after the 2 hour mark. I was not the only one. One thing I noticed is that King rooms will not show up in the results if you put more than 2 people in for number of guests. Since Q/Q rooms will fill up first, this may make it appear like all rooms were sold out if you put 3+ guests in your search query.

Posted by jrob200 taymaria 9 years agoon 1/25/2016 at 7:49 PM
#32

taymaria wrote:
cbudoris wrote:
It did seem like the downtown rooms went quicker this year.  Since GC has never told anyone what % of the rooms the hotels dedicate to the block, its almost impossible to say that was a factor.  The one thing I noticed was that most hotels didn't even offer rooms in the months leading up to the hotel reg, even at the hyper-inflated rates; that doesn't support any kind of theory that the block shrunk. 

I do know, however, that a lot of people reserved their rooms in advance after last GenCon because they didn't want to go through the lottery system again.  This had to have made some sort of an impact somewhere.  I would imagine the percentage of people reserving at check-out was higher, and - therefore - less rooms in the lottery this year.  Can anyone confirm?

I have heard this as well and tried it myself last fall.  I was told all the rooms were blocked in their reservation system.  This was with the Marriott brand hotels.  I didn't call around to any others.

Posted by dontadow 9 years agoon 1/25/2016 at 8:05 PM
#33

More rooms went into the VIG block. VIG participants had the opportunity to book twice as many rooms as they had last year 2 per vig badge.  
 

Posted by hawkeye dontadow 9 years agoon 1/25/2016 at 8:11 PM
#34

dontadow wrote:
More rooms went into the VIG block. VIG participants had the opportunity to book twice as many rooms as they had last year 2 per vig badge.  
Renewing VIGs were allowed to book 2 rooms last year as well, so there were no additional rooms added to the VIG block this year over last year.

Posted by mattnaik dontadow 9 years agoon 1/25/2016 at 8:33 PM
#35

dontadow wrote:
More rooms went into the VIG block. VIG participants had the opportunity to book twice as many rooms as they had last year 2 per vig badge.  
 

Yeah as far as I know its been 2 rooms per VIG badge since it started.

Posted by remnant dontadow 9 years agoon 1/25/2016 at 8:41 PM
#36

dontadow wrote:
More rooms went into the VIG block. VIG participants had the opportunity to book twice as many rooms as they had last year 2 per vig badge.  
 

I'm curious how VIGs got more rooms to pick from compared to last year or what that's based off of, unbooked rooms would not sit idle for long though if you're a hotel that's not good for business, I don't have the dates on when VIGs needed to have their reservations in by off the top of my head.  But I'd assume if VIGs didn't reserve them at the various hotels they get opened up for anyone to reserve at a certain point.  Hop that helps.

Posted by maijstral2 ryric 9 years agoon 1/25/2016 at 9:19 PM
#37

ryric wrote:
I'd argue with your basic premise - I had a 1 hour, 45 minute time last year and all the downtown rooms were gone. Hour and a half is extremely consistent with last year's outcome.
I had an hour 45 minutes last year and got the Westin, this year 2.5 hours and nothing. I think, at least last year, the sweet spot was 2 hours this year I have no idea since I was shut out.

 Meh, I knew the odds I won last year I lost this year I'm not going to cry about it there are always more people than downtown rooms and I know that. I really want a downtown room but I'm not going to let not getting one destroy my favorite vacation.

Posted by taymaria lore seeker 9 years agoon 1/26/2016 at 10:17 PM
#38

father bloodlust wrote:
I dunno about anyone else, but as far as looking for rooms right after last year's GenCon, when I checked Trivago the rooms either weren't there or were selling for the same inflated rates as they are now.

I actually got lucky and looked on Trivago about three weeks ago.  I was able to get a Deluxe King (occupancy of 4) for $354/night at the Conrad Indianapolis.  We have 7 people that will be staying in the room.  We just didn't want to "play" the lottery this year, and it happened to work out.  

If you have a big group, it's worth it to keep checking AirBnB, hotels.com, Trivago, etc. from fall until late December.  

Posted by taymaria jrob200 9 years agoon 1/26/2016 at 10:38 PM
#39

johnsroberts wrote:
taymaria wrote:
cbudoris wrote:
It did seem like the downtown rooms went quicker this year.  Since GC has never told anyone what % of the rooms the hotels dedicate to the block, its almost impossible to say that was a factor.  The one thing I noticed was that most hotels didn't even offer rooms in the months leading up to the hotel reg, even at the hyper-inflated rates; that doesn't support any kind of theory that the block shrunk. 

I do know, however, that a lot of people reserved their rooms in advance after last GenCon because they didn't want to go through the lottery system again.  This had to have made some sort of an impact somewhere.  I would imagine the percentage of people reserving at check-out was higher, and - therefore - less rooms in the lottery this year.  Can anyone confirm?

I have heard this as well and tried it myself last fall.  I was told all the rooms were blocked in their reservation system.  This was with the Marriott brand hotels.  I didn't call around to any others.

You had to have done it at the same hotel you were checking out of in 2015 at the end of your GenCon stay.  From those who I know did this, it was at check out at the same hotel or nothing.  Maybe that's why?

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