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.

Putting your hotel deposit down

1 MARCH 2013


Update: the link has been fixed.

If you too are getting that asinine "12 minutes" message when you click the link to make your deposit, call Travel Planners at 877-552-6642. They will take your credit card number over the phone and make the deposit.

I tried that link from multiple browsers, laptops, IP addresses and 2 phones, and got stonewalled every time. I know I'm not the only one, and Travel Planners answered my initial email with an automated "you'll hear from us within 3 days" - when of course, the deposit needs to be made in 3 days.

The Travel Planners woman didn't sound surprised at all about the link, but nor did she mention any plans to fix the issue. So don't count on it getting rectified before the cut-off period if you're having trouble - just call and lock down your room to be safe.

The upside of this irritation - she let me upgrade my room slightly for a mere fourteen dollars.