TOPIC: GenCon 2017 Hotels Reservation Updates

It seems like you can get 1 room for every 2 people that you buy a badge for.

If each has their own account and email, the you can get 1 room for each individual. And one ticket for the lottery.

I believe, but am not completely certain, that each 2 badges on an account will get you one lottery ticket. So one or 2 is one ticket, 3 or 4 is 2 lottery tickets, etc. Again, I believe this, but that is recall, not a check of their policies.

Thanks Matt for the Info, didn't get it ether.

Looks like they are doing a lot of fees and penalties this year. I just got by badge and they charges a $9. "Admission Tax"

They are also charging $50 if you book a room then cancel it shortly after. Lots of fees.

I think those fees are the same as last year?

But yes the best strategy I think is get the badges separately on multiple accounts. On 2/11 each account will be emailed its random access time. Then on 2/12 just log in to the account(s) which got the best times.

Wade Schwendemann wrote: It seems like you can get 1 room for every 2 people that you buy a badge for.

If each has their own account and email, the you can get 1 room for each individual. And one ticket for the lottery.

I believe, but am not completely certain, that each 2 badges on an account will get you one lottery ticket. So one or 2 is one ticket, 3 or 4 is 2 lottery tickets, etc. Again, I believe this, but that is recall, not a check of their policies.

I'm just guessing, but it seems likely that you just get one lottery time for rooms no matter how many you're able to buy (i.e. no matter how many tickets you bought). I think you get a clock counting down the number of hours until you're able to buy tickets - unless you have multiple clocks running on the page, it's just one lottery time per person.

Donald Rients wrote: 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?

You can reserve 1 room for every 2 badges on your account (one reservation for 1 or 2 badges, two reservations for 3 or 4 badges, etc.).

HOWEVER! It appears you will get only one housing lottery entrance per account.

So, if you have 10 badges in your account, you'll get ONE entrance into the housing lottery. When that lottery comes up, you'll be able to reserve up to 5 rooms.

It seems much, much better to have everyone buy their own badges.

Matthew Hayward wrote:

Donald Rients wrote: 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?

You can reserve 1 room for every 2 badges on your account (one reservation for 1 or 2 badges, two reservations for 3 or 4 badges, etc.).

HOWEVER! It appears you will get only one housing lottery entrance per account.

So, if you have 10 badges in your account, you'll get ONE entrance into the housing lottery. When that lottery comes up, you'll be able to reserve up to 5 rooms.

It seems much, much better to have everyone buy their own badges.

Unless you get an awesome lottery time with that one consolidated time. High risk, high reward.

Rebeg wrote: Thanks Matt for the Info, didn't get it ether.

Looks like they are doing a lot of fees and penalties this year. I just got by badge and they charges a $9. "Admission Tax"

They are also charging $50 if you book a room then cancel it shortly after. Lots of fees.

The $50 charge was in place last year.

Matthew Hayward wrote:

Donald Rients wrote: 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?

You can reserve 1 room for every 2 badges on your account (one reservation for 1 or 2 badges, two reservations for 3 or 4 badges, etc.).

HOWEVER! It appears you will get only one housing lottery entrance per account.

So, if you have 10 badges in your account, you'll get ONE entrance into the housing lottery. When that lottery comes up, you'll be able to reserve up to 5 rooms.

It seems much, much better to have everyone buy their own badges.

That was my thought too. The kink in the armor is that I have the badges mailed to me. That costs $10 per individual account ordered. The dilemma!

Rebeg wrote: Thanks Matt for the Info, didn't get it ether.

Looks like they are doing a lot of fees and penalties this year. I just got by badge and they charges a $9. "Admission Tax"

They are also charging $50 if you book a room then cancel it shortly after. Lots of fees.

Same fees as last year. People/interwebs were about the major jump between prereg and onsite prices that it got buried.

Matthew Hayward wrote:

Donald Rients wrote: 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?

You can reserve 1 room for every 2 badges on your account (one reservation for 1 or 2 badges, two reservations for 3 or 4 badges, etc.).

HOWEVER! It appears you will get only one housing lottery entrance per account.

So, if you have 10 badges in your account, you'll get ONE entrance into the housing lottery. When that lottery comes up, you'll be able to reserve up to 5 rooms.

It seems much, much better to have everyone buy their own badges.

Unless your group wants multuple rooms in the same hotel...?

kurtreznor wrote:

Matthew Hayward wrote:

Donald Rients wrote: 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?

You can reserve 1 room for every 2 badges on your account (one reservation for 1 or 2 badges, two reservations for 3 or 4 badges, etc.).

HOWEVER! It appears you will get only one housing lottery entrance per account.

So, if you have 10 badges in your account, you'll get ONE entrance into the housing lottery. When that lottery comes up, you'll be able to reserve up to 5 rooms.

It seems much, much better to have everyone buy their own badges.

Unless your group wants multuple rooms in the same hotel...?

Sure - but it sounds like Donald will be buying 8 badges. I'm not sure how many rooms he's trying to get, but here are his options:


A. 1 lottery entry, good for up to 4 rooms.

B. 8 lottery entries, good for 1 room each.


You can always trade connected rooms for other connected rooms if it's a priority to get in the same connected hotel.

Assuming each lottery has a 1/4 shot of getting a connected room, and Dennis really needs:

1 room: A works 25% of the time, B works 90% of the time.
2 rooms: A works 25% of the time, B works 63% of the time.
3 rooms: A works 25% of the time, B works 32% of the time.
4 rooms: A works 25% of the time, B works 11% of the time.
5+ rooms: Only B can work

So - under those assumptions, unless Dennis needs exactly 4 rooms, B is a better option.

Yep, I think option B is the best, but hat will cost me $80 in shipping. Maybe I will do will call for the first time this year, then it won't cost for shipping.