Hotel Day glitches

24 MARCH 2015



Currently hotel reservations are closed online; Travel Planners was accepting them as of 11:03 am PST but not for downtown hotels.

It appears there were a number of glitches this morning such as:

- The hotel picks appearing in a wheel
- Once someone removed a hotel pick, they couldn't select another
- Some forms submitted before the person completed them
- Seriously egregious load times
- Some people could only pick 1 hotel

Here's what Travel Planners says. If you received a "Thank you for your request" note, you will get a recap later today - and you can reply to that email with your 6 choices and they'll try to help you. If you didn't get the "thank you," you won't get the recap.

But obviously you shouldn't just accept your fate; email CCI and call Travel Planners right now at  1.877.552.6642 or 1.212.532.1660 with your story. Make yourself known so they can try to compensate you as best as possible.

This is really disappointing. Last year's hotel sale didn't have nearly as many problems.

If you experienced a glitch or issue I didn't list, please share in the comments.


ETA: If all the glitch talk is making you nervous because you haven't gotten any kind of email confirmation yet, you can relax. I know we live in a world where an email pops up in your inbox the second you buy anything online, but this is CCI and theirs is a very different world. Just be patient and remember that your badge barcode email didn't come right away either. You'll get your confirmation email eventually. It's like this every year.

ETA: I'm hearing multiple stories of how Travel Planners and CCI will resolve the impact of the glitches. The common thread seems to be that an email will be going out later today or tonight to address the issue. Hang tight.


ETA 4:50 pm: So emails are going out. If you had trouble with the form this morning, but there is a timestamped record of your activity, you should get an email from Travel Planners asking you to submit your 6 choices.

Will this slow down the process in general? It might - it wouldn't be fair of them to start assigning rooms until all the glitched people are factored into the mix. I expect we'll know more tonight and over the next few days. All we can do is be patient.

For you first-timers,  this all might strike you as stunningly chaotic and incompetent. But it's practically the status quo for SDCC online sales - almost every year has some catastrophe of a sale. Last year actually ran quite smoothly for both registration and the hotels (Ace's parking sale was another story) and I hoped the same would hold true for this year. But here we are.

12 comments:

  1. What's so frustrating is that last year they didn't have any of these problems with submitting, but this year they changes to this electric beanstalk server and now there are issues. I hope they switch back for next year!

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    1. I wonder what motivated the switch. I thought last year was pretty smooth - for an online Comic-Con sale.

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    2. I wonder if this will up the chances for those that were able to register ie they'll take priority. I feel for those that had issues, but I hope I fare okay and wish those that had issues all the best!

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    3. I'm guessing they'll wait until they have all the emailed choices tomorrow, and then start assignments.

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  2. Apparently (according to SDCCblog's twitter) TP will be sending out an email tonight with a update,

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  3. Last year I received my "Thank for submitting your request" email at 2:52m PT. So hopefully this afternoon (pacific time).

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  4. Email received! "Dear____, Thank you for submitting your Comic-Con housing request today. According to our records, we realize that you may have experienced a problem with the hotel drop down menu on the form. To ensure accuracy of your hotel preferences, please click on the link below to submit your six (6) hotel choices in order of preference. Once you have submitted your choices we will process your request based on the time stamp from your original submission.

    To complete the reservation process quickly and efficiently, your form submission must be received no later than 5:00 PM Eastern Time on Wednesday, March 25th. Hotel choices cannot be processed via telephone.

    We are sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused you.

    Sincerely,
    Travel Planners"

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    1. Thanks for sharing that. I'm glad they're doing something to resolve the issue.

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  5. I managed to control click 6 hotels on the wheel so wonder if they went thru? I got a submission accepted page. But then after realizing something was wrong - reloaded - resubmitted and got another thank you. First form submission was by 12:05. Second probably 12:10. No emails fromTP so hopefully first one went thru.

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    Replies
    1. It sounds like the wheel ones went through. Fingers crossed.

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