TOPIC: GenCon 2017 Hotels Reservation Updates

My friend got an announcement from GenCon about their room update policies, and I didn't - so I think their bulk email might have gone wrong.

Anyway, there are some changes to 2017 room reservations that are mentioned here:

www.gencon.com/attend/housing_travel


In particular, they are assigning badge holders start times in the hotel lottery before hotel registration opens, so you'll know when your time will open up.

Interestingly, they have also instituted a $10 no exceptions cancellation fee on all badges (previously you could cancel badges at no penalty, or maybe just the 2.9% credit card fee if you did it early enough I believe).

I sort of wonder how this will play out - now that:

1. Badges get you a slot on the lottery.
2. Your lottery slot determines whether you get a connected room.
3. Badges can be bought and refunded for $10.

It's essentially equivalent to them just charging $10 for an entry in the housing lottery, and giving one free entry away to badge holders.

I'm seriously considering buying several badges to get more chances in the housing lottery. I asked on the official GenCon forums if that is permissible - they also note in their housing faq that: Gen Con reserves the right to cancel any room reservations made in violation of show policy without refund.

I'd hate to get an email in July that they were cancelling my room reservation because they determined my earlier purchase and refund of 10 badges was a "violation of show policy."

When I read it, I got the impression that you only get one entry in the lottery per account that buys at least one badge. The number of rooms you can get when your account gets its turn is dependent on the number of badges that account buys.

Fiddy wrote: When I read it, I got the impression that you only get one entry in the lottery per account that buys at least one badge. The number of rooms you can get when your account gets its turn is dependent on the number of badges that account buys.

So you buy badges on different accounts.

jedibcg wrote:

Fiddy wrote: When I read it, I got the impression that you only get one entry in the lottery per account that buys at least one badge. The number of rooms you can get when your account gets its turn is dependent on the number of badges that account buys.

So you buy badges on different accounts.

Yeah - accounts are free to get, they don't cross check credit cards (or they haven't in the past), and you can just load up:

minmaxer+001@gmail.com
minmaxer+002@gmail.com
...
minmaxer+999@gmail.com

I agree that the $10 cancellation fee makes this not very appealing, but I'd still do some back of the envelope math like:

Estimated number of badges when hotel reg opens: 40,000
Number of connected hotel rooms: 4,000
Odds of getting a low enough random room selection: 10%

Number of badges needed to have a 95% chance of getting a connected room: 29.

I can get 29 badges by paying for 29 badges, and then refunding any that don't work out, less $10 per badge.

Would I pay $290 for a 95% chance of a connected room?

Probably.

Also, considering that I'd probably end up with 2-3 connected rooms, and I could probably find someone willing to pay me for yielding my room reservation to them, this begins to look very reasonable.



Of course, if many other people are doing this the math changes - if 1,000 people all decide to buy 30 badges this way, then the odds of getting a connected room drop to around 6% per badge, and you end up with only like an 83% chance of getting a connected room...

The decreasing chance of getting a nearby hotel through the block is why I make sure now to have a non-block hotel reservation as a back-up just in case.

This part

Matthew Hayward wrote: I could probably find someone willing to pay me for yielding my room reservation to them, this begins to look very reasonable.

and this part

Matthew Hayward wrote: Gen Con reserves the right to cancel any room reservations made in violation of show policy without refund.

cause an issue. They've been pretty clear on the gencon forums in past years that anything given in consideration for transferring an in-block room is a violation of con policy by both parties.

Obviously if you're careful about it they wouldn't detect it, but it would be pretty hard to justify as ethical.

Aegoce wrote: This part

Matthew Hayward wrote: I could probably find someone willing to pay me for yielding my room reservation to them, this begins to look very reasonable.

and this part

Matthew Hayward wrote: Gen Con reserves the right to cancel any room reservations made in violation of show policy without refund.

cause an issue. They've been pretty clear on the gencon forums in past years that anything given in consideration for transferring an in-block room is a violation of con policy by both parties.

Obviously if you're careful about it they wouldn't detect it, but it would be pretty hard to justify as ethical.

Are you sure that applies to any transaction, or just transactions on the forums?

I know they stomp out all commercial behavior on the forums.

There is nothing about exchanging hotel rooms for consideration here:

www.gencon.com/attend/policies
www.gencon.com/attend/faq

Do you have a link to where this has been discussed in the past?

Swapping with another attendee used to be allowed on the forums and was extremely common place. A few years back they closed out all room swaps that used the housing group and stopped allowing room swaps on the forums. I expect people were taking advantage of the system and exploiting it for personal (financial) benefis or something similar.

Arcanist Kolixela wrote: Swapping with another attendee used to be allowed on the forums and was extremely common place. A few years back they closed out all room swaps that used the housing group and stopped allowing room swaps on the forums. I expect people were taking advantage of the system and exploiting it for personal (financial) benefis or something similar.

Last year there was a whole section of the Gen Con forums for swaps/trades/etc.:

www.gencon.com/forums/20-roommates-and-housing-trades-giveaways-needed

They say "NO SELLING" - but I'm fairly sure that refers to the general forum policy of not listing goods for sale in the forum - not an embargo on non-forum transactions.

Hmm. we missed last year. I guess they let up a bit of it.

I have my wife, six kids (all nine and above now), and me to buy for this year. My in-law and friends will be buying theirs separately. I was trying to figure out how to do it best. I already had one friend buy his separately. For the others I usually buy them all-together under my account (have them associated with my account to do so). But I think that may limit the number of chances. I didn't see this year where the number of tickets that one account buys would qualify you for more than one room. It was this way last year but you had to buy the rooms separately thus after getting one room and then going back in the system for another, you were not guaranteed there would still be rooms available in the same hotel. Which way to go, have each of the badges bought separately?