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2017 Nats Hotel Reservations


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They said not until the 20th but we were able to make reservations today. Got a room - no problems. See you all in Omaha!!

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Embassy Suites says they only have the group rate for Saturday only.

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I made my reservation for all four nights at Embassy at the group rate yesterday. Did you try to make a reservation today? My experience is that it is always best to make reservations on a week day during normal business hours -9 to 5. Otherwise, you frequently get the second string and they do not know what they are doing.

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Nick,

 

Yep. I called today, a Saturday. And they said that I do not get the group rate for Wednesday/Thursday/Friday nights!!

 

Hopefully someone in Omaha will look into this.

 

Tim

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I also made my reservation yesterday online with no problems. Group rate for all 4 nights. Originally they said it would go live the 20th but glad it was a day or two earlier as I was traveling all day today.

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At the risk of sounding repetitive, the first thing I would do is re-call the Embassy on Monday. You will probably get a different staff member. At least you can probably talk to the " 1st string " Manager or someone in the Sales Department, which is usually closed on the weekend. We always seem to encounter these issues and they are almost always related to poor communication within the hotel staff. Good luck!

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I had to talk with the Reservations Manager (Embassy Suites Reservations Central) and he talked with someone at La Vista & was able to squeeze me into the Group Rate for the first 3 nights. Both said that the Group Rate was sold out for the first 3 days.

 

So good luck.

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Saturday night my wife tried to get reservations at Embassy Suites, and was told they "couldn't find the IPMS rate." I assume the convention rate rooms were gone by then..at least for all four nights. Fortunately last night we were able to snag a room at the Marriott next door at the convention rate, but only for Thu/Fri/Sat. Now that our foot is in the door, we may try to see if we can extend the reservation to include Wednesday night as well.

 

Steve Nelson

IPMS #30925

Edited by snelson
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Tried booking Embassy Suites at 9:15am 8/21. IPMS convention rates unavailable online or by phone. Hard to believe rooms went that fast. Either small block of rooms available or record attendance for Omaha 2017 ? Tried again today no rooms at any rate. Did I say hard to believe.

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When Tim first reported his difficulties with making a reservation, it fleetingly crossed my mind that the block was already full. But I dismissed that notion as being ridiculous. Could so many members have been so quick to make their reservations? Are the blocks too small? Anyway, my thanks to Bob for starting this thread and informing me I could make my reservation sooner than the 20th. It looks like I did not act a moment too soon! If nothing else, this episode points out there is a large and faithful subculture of IPMS USA that religiously makes the annual pilgrimage to the National. Next year in Jerusalem er, that is, Omaha. Shalom! Nick

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Most hosts go with a room block that will accommodate the average attendance of the last (within 5 years any way) convention in their area. This is mediated by the size of the block that the hotel is willing to commit. Sometimes they hold back at first until they see the demand, and then expand it. Other times, the hotels have a policy that a certain percentage of the rooms must remain uncommitted, and in some cases they've given all they've got so can give no more. I believe Omaha went with a block large enough to accommodate the size of the group they had last time, so barring some other variable, one of the above reasons might be in play. Oh and never rule out just plain screw-ups by the hotel. Sometimes in a chain operation, your reservation is taken by someone at a reservation center located God knows where and they may not have the correct info and even if you call direct to the hotel, they've been known to miscommunicate.

 

Finally, people are also booking their rooms early now whether they know they're going to come or not because since there is no deposit, there's nothing to lose if they don't. So people who in the past who had waited until much later to make sure they would be able to get time off or the kids games/recitals weren't that weekend, now reserve right away. This has led in some cases to conventions just making their room block obligation because of late cancellations when people find out that they actually won't be able to come. Then sometimes the hotels put those cancelled rooms back in the reserved room block for others to use, but other hotels may not. That means sometimes you can get a "cancelled" room at the convention rate at the last minute and other times not.

 

Oh, and one other complication is that some hotels will alert you when your block is full and others won't, so the host may not even know there's a problem until someone brings it to their attention. If Omaha is monitoring this board, they know now and just to make sure, our 2nd VP is going to alert them. Now what,if anything, that can be done about it is yet to be seen.

 

Some of this planning is science, some is best-guessing and some is just plain voodoo.

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I just got off the phone and Embassy was sold out for the Wed thru Sat. They were willing to let me have the room for my extra Sund thru Tues, and I would be on the list if there was a cancellation.

I did get a room at the Nats rate with Marriott for the Wed. thru the following Tues.

 

Are the Nats getting that popular? I remember being able to wait until the New Year to get the room. But now...

In a way it's sorta not right ppl snagging rooms on spec only to give them up a few months from now...

Edited by Roktman
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The Embassy Suites makes for a really nice venue - the hotel is attached to the contest/vendor rooms, and the room rate includes a really good breakfast bar (omelettes to order) and free-drink happy hour, perfect if you don't want to waste any time traveling between models and food and drink. That probably makes the Embassy a lot more in demand than the overflow locations - I knew a few people making plans to book as soon as the rooms went on sale.

 

Don

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I tried to reserve a room (on the 20th) for the Convention from Tuesday to Saturday (5 days) like I do every year. The Marriott only had rooms from Thursday to Saturday at the IPMS rate. The Embassy Suites only had rooms on Wednesday and Saturday at the IPMS rate. I figured I'd try to get something at the Embassy Suites until Wednesday and then go to the Marriott. I went directly to each hotel's site and looked if there were any rooms available at any rate. The Marriott was completely booked with no rooms at all available. The Embassy Suites had rooms available every day at different rates and discounts. Actually, the AAA discount rate was lower than the IPMS rate if I checked in Saturday. Unfortunately, if I changed the check in date to later the rate went up and I couldn't book a room thru Wednesday night at any discount. It seemed I had to book in defined date blocks and none of them included Wednesday, which would leave me without a room on Wednesday unless I paid full price at the Embassy Suites. I called them on Monday to see if I could work something out since rooms were available. It was a waste of time. All I got were excuses of why they couldn't work any kind of deal, even tho rooms were available. I couldn't get the lower AAA rate unless I checked in on Saturday and I couldn't extend it until Wednesday.

So I called the Marriott. Completely different story. The first person I talked to said there were no rooms available at all but connected me to Rochelle in Reservations. She found rooms were available at the IPMS rate from Sunday on, even tho the booking link from the Convention site only listed Thursday thru Saturday but couldn't explain why they were not available on line. I successfully booked from Tuesday to Saturday and asked how many more rooms were available. It varies with the day but if you call the hotel directly and ask for reservations you'll be able to get more days than those listed if you try to book on the web. Rooms is otherwise completely unavailable.

 

As a side note, I've never seen rooms not available for the days I want gone on the day reservations open. If reservations open on the 20th why were people able to book their rooms days earlier and lock out people who actually waited until the 20th? Who should I be mad at; the hotel for making the reservations early? IPMS for saying reservations open on the 20th? People who reserved earlier than the posted start date for reservations? Or myself for actually waiting until the 20th?

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Folks the Embassy is sold out! All 250 rooms went by Saturday afternoon. The Courtyard has about 75 rooms left. These are the two attached hotels. There are three other hotels across the street (one under construction) so there's no shortage of rooms. We will work with those hotels for rates. The Vendors Room is also approaching a sellout with over 300 tables sold and less than 30 tables left. We are amazed and humbled by the response to Going Downtown. To have this kind of response from both the vendors and the members is fantastic. Let us know if we can be of help. The website is up ipmsusa2017.com

 

Scott Hackney

Chairman

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Folks the Embassy is sold out! All 250 rooms went by Saturday afternoon. The Courtyard has about 75 rooms left. These are the two attached hotels. There are three other hotels across the street (one under construction) so there's no shortage of rooms. We will work with those hotels for rates. The Vendors Room is also approaching a sellout with over 300 tables sold and less than 30 tables left. We are amazed and humbled by the response to Going Downtown. To have this kind of response from both the vendors and the members is fantastic. Let us know if we can be of help. The website is up ipmsusa2017.com

 

Scott Hackney

Chairman

 

Hi Scott,

 

Just a heads up that on your Accommodations page it has the two hotels that we have been talking about. On the bottom of the page there's a title "Other Area Hotels," and below that is blank. If it were me, I'd get other hotels listed there ASAP. ;)

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Is the Embassy willing to set up a waiting list for cancelations? A good number of people make reservations and then cancel them. Thanks to the Omaha group for all the work they have and will do to host the convention! The last time was a great convention and I am sure this time will be too!

 

Michael

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