Housing Portal Opens on Jan 27th
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Posted by njseahawksfan
#1

Just FYI.  I thought it was this weekend and I was getting antsy about not having heard anything about it yet. 

I'm posting here because I didn't see it prominently posted anywhere on the front pages and figured I can't be the only one who thought it was this upcoming Sunday.

Cheers!

Posted by wmrickert
#2

First come first serve? And how do you get access to the housing portal?
 

Posted by llenlleawg wmrickert
#3

wmrickert wrote:
First come first serve? And how do you get access to the housing portal?
 
No. The way it works is this: First, purchase a badge. You cannot access the housing portal without a badge. Everyone who purchases a badge up to the opening day of the housing portal will be randomly assigned a time slot on Sunday, January 27, on or after which they will be able to enter the housing portal and request/reserve rooms. This is designed to prevent overloading the system. After the first day, when the smoke has cleared, anyone who has purchased a badge may access the housing portal whenever they like. Technically, you get put into the queue, but after the opening day, that's not really an issue.

A few things to note:
(1) The downtown hotels are snatched up within the first two hours of opening day. If you are not assigned an early time, you won't get a downtown hotel on opening day. It will remain possible in the intervening months to get a DT room, as plans will change and some people will drop their reservations. These will open open and can be grabbed by anyone lucky enough to find them when they enter the housing portal.
(2) Every badge purchaser gets a time slot. So...if you are going as a group, with a spouse, etc., and you want to maximize the chance for getting an early time slot on Sunday, you are advised, each of you, to purchase a badge on your separate GenCon accounts. I'll leave it to you to decide whether or not this is worth it.
(3) Most people do not get DT hotels and have a wonderful time at GenCon. So, while it's fine to be upset, even frustrated, about not getting a DT room through the housing portal, don't let that darken your excitement about the convention!

You can find all the details here.

Posted by del_grande llenlleawg
#4

llenlleawg wrote:You can find all the details here.

I noticed this text:

"When housing registration opens, attendees who have purchased badges will be tallied and randomly assigned housing registration access times, after which they can use their “Request Room” links to visit the online housing portal to request specific room assignments.
After the randomized scheduling occurs, a countdown timer for your unique access time will appear on the “My Housing” page of your Gen Con account."

This makes it sound like there will be no E-mails the day before the housing portal opens to tell everybody when they can enter the portal, but they're going back to the old method where pretty much everybody logs in at noon Eastern on Sunday to find out their access time, followed by the complaints from the people that had to set aside their entire Sunday only to find out their time is something like 4 PM.

Will there be E-mail notifications this year, and if so, at what time are the times assigned (and what happens if someone buys a badge between then and when the portal opens)?

Oh, and if anyone wonders why the message that you are put at the end of the queue if you buy a badge after the times are assigned is in bold, it might have something to do with a glitch the first time they tried the random time assignment (2015?), where anyone who bought a badge after the portal opened was given immediate access to it.

Posted by mamabarry
#5

This makes it sound like there will be no E-mails the day before the housing portal opens to tell everybody when they can enter the portal, 

There will be an email on January 26.  If you look under My Housing you will see how many room requests are available to you as well as the information about the upcoming email.

Posted by burthoovis
#6

First year trying to stay downtown.  Can anyone tell me how long each of the time slots are? 
We have 8 people, so I am trying to coordinate and organize everyone without having any experience myself.  

Posted by buffythecatslayer
#7

It's not really a "time slot", it's more of a "time I can get into the system".  After your assigned time, there is no end time by which you have to get your rooms.  So, if your assigned time is 3:20pm, you can get in anytime after that.

Posted by burthoovis
#8

Okay that's helpful.
Is the interface pretty easy to use?  Do you search by hotel name/distance/price or do they have to select a campus and hotel then see what's available in that hotel?
My group isn't comprised of idiots, but I know price will be a factor for some people so I am trying to figure out what to tell whichever two people have the best times.
Thanks

Posted by rayken llenlleawg
#9

llenlleawg wrote:
wmrickert wrote:
First come first serve? And how do you get access to the housing portal?
No. The way it works is this: First, purchase a badge. You cannot access the housing portal without a badge. Everyone who purchases a badge up to the opening day of the housing portal will be randomly assigned a time slot on Sunday, January 27, on or after which they will be able to enter the housing portal and request/reserve rooms. This is designed to prevent overloading the system. After the first day, when the smoke has cleared, anyone who has purchased a badge may access the housing portal whenever they like. Technically, you get put into the queue, but after the opening day, that's not really an issue.A few things to note:
(1) The downtown hotels are snatched up within the first two hours of opening day. If you are not assigned an early time, you won't get a downtown hotel on opening day. It will remain possible in the intervening months to get a DT room, as plans will change and some people will drop their reservations. These will open open and can be grabbed by anyone lucky enough to find them when they enter the housing portal.
(2) Every badge purchaser gets a time slot. So...if you are going as a group, with a spouse, etc., and you want to maximize the chance for getting an early time slot on Sunday, you are advised, each of you, to purchase a badge on your separate GenCon accounts. I'll leave it to you to decide whether or not this is worth it.
(3) Most people do not get DT hotels and have a wonderful time at GenCon. So, while it's fine to be upset, even frustrated, about not getting a DT room through the housing portal, don't let that darken your excitement about the convention!
You can find all the details here.

Downtown hotels were available for 3 and a half hours last year.

Posted by mikeboozer mamabarry
#10

mamabarry wrote:
This makes it sound like there will be no E-mails the day before the housing portal opens to tell everybody when they can enter the portal, 

There will be an email on January 26.  If you look under My Housing you will see how many room requests are available to you as well as the information about the upcoming email.

Everyone who has purchased an Attendee type badge on their account will get an email about 36 hours before opening informing them of when their time will come up to search/reserve housing.

Mike Boozer
Customer Service & Event Team Manager 
Gen Cob LLC

Posted by mikeboozer del_grande
#11

del_grande wrote:
llenlleawg wrote:You can find all the details here.

Will there be E-mail notifications this year, and if so, at what time are the times assigned (and what happens if someone buys a badge between then and when the portal opens)?
Oh, and if anyone wonders why the message that you are put at the end of the queue if you buy a badge after the times are assigned is in bold, it might have something to do with a glitch the first time they tried the random time assignment (2015?), where anyone who bought a badge after the portal opened was given immediate access to it.

If you buy a badge after the time that the queue is randomized, or after opening you will be put at the back of the queue. 

Please be safe and purchase before the 26th to avoid being at the back of the queue.

Mike Boozer
Customer Service & Event Team Manager
Gen Con LLC
 

Posted by selene314 burthoovis
#12

burthoovis wrote:
Okay that's helpful.
Is the interface pretty easy to use?  Do you search by hotel name/distance/price or do they have to select a campus and hotel then see what's available in that hotel?
My group isn't comprised of idiots, but I know price will be a factor for some people so I am trying to figure out what to tell whichever two people have the best times.
Thanks

In the past, it always looked pretty similar to any other booking site. You enter the dates and number of people, and it gives you a list of hotels that still have rooms available. If you say you have 3 people, it should not show hotels that only have 2-person rooms left. Probably defaults to sort by price, you can change to sort by distance. You select a hotel, then a room type. Enter your name etc. and hope it hasn't sold out in the meantime.

Price list is here: http://www.gencon.com/attend/hotelmap . Your group can discuss it before Sunday.

Posted by selene314 llenlleawg
#13

llenlleawg wrote:
wmrickert wrote:
First come first serve? And how do you get access to the housing portal?
No. The way it works is this: First, purchase a badge. You cannot access the housing portal without a badge. Everyone who purchases a badge up to the opening day of the housing portal will be randomly assigned a time slot on Sunday, January 27, on or after which they will be able to enter the housing portal and request/reserve rooms.
[...]

I want to emphasize: you must buy your badge FRIDAY or earlier. 

You will be assigned a [random time on Sunday], but that randomization will happen Friday night or Saturday morning. Opening day is too late to buy a badge if you want to get into the lottery.

Posted by mikeboozer selene314
#14

selene314 wrote:
llenlleawg wrote:
wmrickert wrote:
First come first serve? And how do you get access to the housing portal?
No. The way it works is this: First, purchase a badge. You cannot access the housing portal without a badge. Everyone who purchases a badge up to the opening day of the housing portal will be randomly assigned a time slot on Sunday, January 27, on or after which they will be able to enter the housing portal and request/reserve rooms.
[...]

I want to emphasize: you must buy your badge FRIDAY or earlier.You will be assigned a [random time on Sunday], but that randomization will happen Friday night or Saturday morning. Opening day is too late to buy a badge if you want to get into the lottery.

Big thumbs up on this advice. Don't wait until late Friday night/Saturday to buy your badge, you may miss the randomization window. 

Posted by llenlleawg
#15

Thank you, Mike and Selene, for the correction/clarification on my post, re: purchase of a badge as BY FRIDAY AT THE LATEST to be sure to be in the queue by Sunday.

Posted by llenlleawg rayken
#16

Downtown hotels were available for 3 and a half hours last year.

Thank you, rayken, for the clarification/correction of my post. I'm glad to hear that the window for getting a DT hotel was that long last year, and I would certainly encourage anyone within the queue to check in to see what's available and not presume there won't be anything available.

Posted by majord2185
#17

If a friend uses the portal to get a room, is he able to use my credit card, to reserve the room?  

We did in the past, but theres some wonky wording in the policy now.

Posted by austicke majord2185
#18

majord2185 wrote:If a friend uses the portal to get a room, is he able to use my credit card, to reserve the room?

Yes.

Posted by radril
#19

Once the "Request Room" button is live on your 'My Housing' portal, what's the likelihood that you'll actually get into the housing portal at the time you are allowed to enter?  What does the screen look like if there's too many requests to enter into the portal at that time?

For example: Let's say I got 1:45pm as my time to enter into the hotel portal.  At 1:45pm, I hit "Request Room" but there's too many people that are trying to access the portal at that time - will I go to a separate waiting room, or will there be another timer showing when I can get into the portal, or is it "hit refresh"-fest until I get in to book my hotel?

Posted by cman811 radril
#20

radril wrote:
Once the "Request Room" button is live on your 'My Housing' portal, what's the likelihood that you'll actually get into the housing portal at the time you are allowed to enter?  What does the screen look like if there's too many requests to enter into the portal at that time?
For example: Let's say I got 1:45pm as my time to enter into the hotel portal.  At 1:45pm, I hit "Request Room" but there's too many people that are trying to access the portal at that time - will I go to a separate waiting room, or will there be another timer showing when I can get into the portal, or is it "hit refresh"-fest until I get in to book my hotel?
I haven't noticed any difficulties once they went to the current system.  Theyve really eliminated that kind of stress on the system. What happens is your button turns green (you may have to refresh), and upon clicking another tab opens up where you enter the dates of your stay plus how many people. You hit enter and it takes you to another page that lists the hotels. 

 

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