Hotelpocalypse returned from the dead for 2022!
This year saw the return of a full fledged Hotel Sale via Onpeak. Was it any different than years past? Not necessarily. We have seen utter catastrophes but this year seemed issue free.
It was the usual Onpeak sale with the exception of 12 choices as opposed to 6 . Then using a Queue-it system, people were let into the form.
9:00 to 9:01 and you probably got a hotel on your list, 9:01 to 9:02 you probably got something close by but not necessarily the BIG 6. 9:02 to 9:03 you may have gotten “something”. 9:03+ FUGGETABAHDIT.
We were fortunate enough to get our top pick, others not so lucky. Round 2 didnt fare much better with maybe half the participants receiving something far away in Mission Valley, a small few receiving leftover Gaslamp hotels. So now what?
Now that the disgrace of what was the "SDCC hotel sale" is over, a lot of attendees are either jumping for joy, ho hum about their Town and Country confirmation or simply about to go postal on every man woman or child that mentions SDCC, Hotelpocalypse or Travel Planners.
Confirmations went out yesterday, stopped for a few hours, then went on through the wee hours of the night. A few then began again this morning. Twitter was electric with #hotelpocalypse , #sdcc and #sdcchotels. Reports of random hotel reservations popping up here and there.
2014 saw rejection letters precede any hotel confirmations, and what followed were Hotel confirmations in alphabetical order. This year Travel Planners decided to keep with their theme of "clusterf%$k" and just toss out rejection letters with some hotels thrown in, in no discernible order. Attendees then received incorrect confirmations left and right. Bed #s were completely different from what was requested, People saw confirmations for hotels not on their list even when they only checked the "any downtown" hotel only box. Early confirmations even had issues with the deposit section of the reservations. It just didn't work. Reports came in of users getting 1:30 on their form submission time getting rejections, while their friends got 2 or 3 minutes and received #1 picks.
As far as I can tell, the confirmations were handled as sloppy as the testing of the form. Travel Planners seems to be having and issue with its staff it appears, or simply failed to properly train anyone on how to process reservations correctly. In any event ITS OVER!!!
Now what?........
Well if you got a hotel room, and your happy with it CONGRATULATIONS!........If not, you have a few options
1. Wait
One thing you can do is wait. If you are one of the users that got "waitlisted" you'll have to do just that. Just don't give up hope! TONS AND TONS AND TONS of spare rooms are cancelled and returned. Why?. well people tend to go to comic con in groups. It makes paying for a $2000 hotel room easier, the more people you throw in it. The thing is, ANYONE can participate in the hotel sale. It's simply in your best interest to have a few people trying to get a room. 4 people submitting a form each, for a room they are gonna split, means that if they ALL get rooms, 3 of them are most likely getting cancelled and going back into the Hotel sale on April 8th. I've seen people get waitlisted and then score the Omni or Bayfront in the resale.... it's not unheard of. The only problem is you had to choose the waitlist option on your form. If you're not sure, call Travel Planners and find out.
2. Non "hotel sale" hotels
Believe it or not, some Hotels do not participate in the hotel sale. Why? I dunno, who are they? I dunno. How much are they? I dunno. Are there still vacancies? Look... I dunno. (I wish I did know but I'm tired and only got a few hours sleep waiting for confirmations. I'm on the East Coast so was up a looooong time so I really haven't had time to search for them. I'm sorry, I'll do better next time.) But I'm sure you could find some on the outskirts of downtown. There's also Airbnb.com . Its a site used by owners of condos and houses that rent their dwelling out to vacationers. I've tried this option before. You'll possibly snag a really nice condo, which in many aspects is far more comfortable than a hotel room but the prices they request can be outrageous. They know their Gaslamp condo is in high demand for Comic Con week so they jack up the price. If you got the money, you're desperate, and all else has failed, this might be your best option.
3. Beg and pleed
Akin to the resale on April 8th for returned rooms, some users offer up their rooms on Twitter and Facebook. If someone is asking for money, tell them to F off and report them to Comic Con and Travel Planners right away. However, usually if you reach out to the Twitterverse, you may get a generous guy or gal that has a spare reservation that hasn't cancelled it through Travel Planners yet. Tweet and tweet some more. It can't hurt to tweet and ask the Twitter Gods for a little compassion.
4. Friends of Comic Con
Don't feel like putting in the Twitter effort, well you're in luck. A website group called "www.friendsofcci.com" has created a members forum for users to submit spare rooms being offered, people in need of a room or straight up trades. This is for members only so simply become a member and you should get approval shortly thereafter.
Instead of dumping reservations back to Travel Planners to screw up again, a lot of users simply transfer their spare reservation to other members in need of a room. My group used it last year to unload a few spare rooms we got. Its a win-win. Its a great forum and a great place to get into the conversation about SDCC. As a member you can join threads related to EVERYTHING in regards to CCI. They have hotel threads, Panel threads, Exclusive threads, Artists threads. You name. Stay up to date in the forum as we lead up to comic con to get any and all important info you wouldn't have otherwise.
I’d say FoCC is you're best bet to snagging an extra room. If you got NO hotel at all, you can probably easily snag a shuttle route hotel if you act fast. Confirmation deposits are due in 72 hours so that's how long these spares will be up. GOOD LUCK and Godspeed.