Phase 1 room reservation FAILURE

[ghodges]

Once again, I have to wonder what is going on.....

I got the email with the codes for room reservations about 10mins til 1pm (EST, 11:50 CST), and clicked onto the Hilton downtown.

I REFRESHED that page a 1pm EST (NOON CST) when the reservations were supposed to go live, and it ALREADY said on the page "sorry we have no rooms for those dates" (July 16-21).

No matter how many times I refreshed it would not let me book a room and always said "no rooms available".

And of course IF you dial the hotel phone number provided it's busy, rings busy about 5 times and then hangs up on you.

SO WILL SOMEONE TELL ME HOW THERE CAN BE NO ROOMS AVAILABLE AT ALL WHEN IT WENT LIVE AT NOON? What the *&$* happened Madison? And note my post time.... it's only 1:15 (EST) now!

 

Gil 

Edited January 6 by ghodges

[Chris Bucholtz]

Yep. At 10:01, the Monona Terrace was unavailable on line and the phone wouldn't go through. I finally got a more expensive option 2.5 miles from the venue to work, so I have a hotel - but with more expense and less convenience. 

[EFGrune]

I got the email, changed the arrival date to the 17th and hit update.   Worked for me,  just need to change the room type from 2 queens to a king, but I figure that I can do that through my account Hilton Honors sometime later

[Chris Bucholtz]

I suspect it's the same phenomenon with messed up many of us last year at San Marcos - the dates for the blocks were provided as just the dates of the show. Anyone coming from the West Coast as a vendor, for example, needs to get there on Tuesday to be set up for the show's start. And yet, for the last few years in a row, that has not been possible with the hotels - Tuesday is not included as part of the bock so it kicks you out (or so few Tuesday rooms are included the block fills up and, again, you're kicked out).  It's an oversight that the e-board should address clearly in the parameters.

Meanwhile, after 76 attempts, I got through on the phone to the Monona Terrace. All booked. 

[tanksalot]

Had the same problem. Found out if you have a Hilton honors member number, it let you in, but by the time I found this out the only days left are Friday thru Sunday.  Ended up at the Clarion Suites, cheaper and free parking.

[ghodges]

I finally got through to the hotel operator (phone reservations STILL didn't work even then) and she confirmed ALL 150 rooms at the Hilton were sold out.....

BUT HOW DOES THAT HAPPEN IN LESS THAN ONE MINUTE?

Looking forward to hearing HOW it did!

 

Gil 

Edited January 6 by ghodges

[Ron Bell]

I used the link from the con site within a minute or two of noon cst and it worked fine for me. Arriv on 18(Thur) out on 21(Sun). Double room, one king bed. The Hilton web site is a bit clumsy/clunky, but it did work. Oh, I also got the No Rooms Available message at first, but then I clicked on "special rates" and got through. Like I said, the Hilton site is clumsy to use. 

Edited January 6 by Ron Bell

[ghodges]

Ahhhh.... (in my best Maxwell Smart voice)  the old "click on the SPECIAL RATES trick!"

THAT would have been nice to know ahead of time.... can you say Beta Test? I guess Madison didn't, even after my pleading months ago.... just scroll down if you doubt me...

 

Gil 

[Nick Filippone]

If you tried to book a reservation from the 16th to the 20 th, it would not let you probably because the block was only for reservations from the 17th the 20th. I ran into this problem last year when booking for San Marcos. I had to book the Wed. to Sun. then add the Tues. after. Nick

Edited January 7 by Nick Filippone
Hit save too soon by mistake

[Chris Bucholtz]

"If you tried to book a reservation from the 16th to the 20 th, it would not let you probably because the block was only for reservations from the 17th the 20th."

Having the first day of the event unavailable is inexplicable. As for Tuesday, the day before the event starts, I know a number of us mentioned that Tuesday needed to be available in the block as late as July, so I'm bummed no one swung this with the hotels. If you're coming from the west coast, you just can't hop a plane and be there Wednesday when the show starts - flights west-to-east are going against time zones even if you leave at the crack of dawn. And if you're a vendor, you need to be on site for sales on Wednesday - so getting there Tuesday is kind of important. 

Oh well. We live and learn (hopefully, next time). 

 

 

 

[CannonCocker]

After an hour of my wife and I trying on the web, on the Hilton app, and by phone, I finally cracked the code by playing with the dates.  I was able to reserve the 18th-21st at the IPMS rate and then did a separate reservation for the 16th-18th at a slightly higher rate.  Clearly the block wasn't set to a wide enough date range to accomadte the attendees from the west coast and the vendors.

This just should not be this hard.  Are we creating our own problem by not opening the reservations until H-Hour, D-Day?  This just creates a land-rush as 3,000 of us try to make reservations at the same time and overwhelm the hotel systems.  Why not just start allowing reservations when the contract is signed and avoid the land rush?

[Ron Bell]

Two things.

CannonCocker, Part of the problem may lie with the hotels' systems. Many cannot accommodate reservations too far in advance of an event. Thus, when you do get to the point where they will take reservations, you get your Oklahoma Land Rush for rooms. Our problem is not the system, its the fact that we take up too much exhibition space for the number of room nights we guarantee so the number of rooms a hotel is willing to commit to us is limited creating the crush for rooms. And while our room blocks have steadily increased, it's a crap shoot as to who will actually show up and the hotels will not gamble on that. Never mind we have no control over the hotels reservations systems and web sites.

And please, please, please, keep in mind that the people running these shows are not professionals. They are amateurs doing their best to give you the best convention they can. There are always glitches and some people may be inconvenienced but let's not crucify those that have stepped up to give us the best model show in the Western Hemisphere. As long as you mix hotels, venues and humans together you will have confusion and conflict. I did this for 18 years for IPMS/USA and not one of the conventions I worked with did not have some sort of problem with one or more of them. If you adapt to accommodate problem "A" in 20XX, believe me you'll have problem "B' in 20X1 that you didn't expect and the membership will vilify you for it. I wrote and rewrote the convention operating parameters for many years until they were eight pages long and took a Philadelphia lawyer to understand. (Ok, that reference may be a bit dated.) You just can't cover it all. The best I can say is take a deep breath, relax, remember that this is just a hobby and that some people that share your interest are trying to put on a show that you can enjoy and give them a break. 

Edited January 7 by Ron Bell

[CaptainAhab]

Not discounting anyone’s frustration with hotels, let’s look at the numbers. Jeff said the Hilton had 150 rooms in the block, 130 were available as of midnight Friday, last year there were around 800 registered for the convention, I can believe 200-250 people were chomping on the bit at noon to reserve a room at the Hilton, it just wasn’t going to work out for everyone at the Hilton no matter what.

Jeff reports there were people who called and bullied the reservation person, who only knows what is on the computer screen in front of them, and may or may not have access at the time to someone with more authority who “might” say no to them. This stuff has happened for years now and the options for changing it will not make everyone happy either, because in my opinion any of them will result in higher costs to go to the convention. And while that might be OK with some, it won’t be with others, so we are between a rock and a hard place, idiomatically speaking.

I really don’t believe there will be a good solution to this without raising the cost to convention attendees, and honestly, if growing the society (more members) and the national convention (more attendees) is the goal, and that has been the stated goal of the current e-board, then higher costs are inevitable and unavoidable. So, do we slowly pull the bandage off, and endure the pain for awhile? Or rip it off and hopefully get over it quicker? Seems either way there will be pain.

Good for Madison that they contracted with other hotels, and from what Jeff says there are still room blocks they will open in phases. So yeah, sounds like the convention is as popular as ever, and makes a good case for IPMS to seriously consider changing that bandage one way or the other.

[CannonCocker]

Ron,

I'm fully aware that this is a volunteer organization.  I run our local show and depend upon a cadre of about 80 volunteers to pull it off.  I truly appreciate the folks who spend a lot of time and energy to make the Nats successful.  I'm just wondering if we are creating our own problem.  I only recently started attending the Nats.  This will be my 4th.  I encountered no issue getting rooms at the Rio in Las Vegas.  For Omaha, the room block sold out in about 20 minutes; however, I was able to get a room at the Embassy Suites at a higher rate.  For San Marcos, the block also sold out in minutes.  I only got a room there when a friend had to cancel due to health issues and I took over his reservation.  

I'm only suggesting that we rethink how we as an organization handle the rooms for the convention.  We may be creating the problem by blocking the entire hotel until a certain date and time and be only releasing a portion of the rooms.  It encourages bad behavior, frustrates our members, and creates a s**t storm for the leadership on Facebook.  There has to be a better way of doing this.

Thanks,

Rick

[jcorley]

Over on the EB Minutes discussion this was said:

On 1/6/2024 at 9:19 AM, Jeff Herne said:

 

The sanctimonious, condescending behavior of the membership, the two-faced behavior of condemning someone then turning around and gaming the system (yes, all you people who are claiming to be E-board or NCC members to get your IPMS Nats hotels ahead of everyone else), disgusts me. 

 

That's why people couldn't get rooms. Some self-important "gentlemen", decided to lie to secure rooms ahead of the room block opening.

 

[Ron Bell]

Hotels usually have the date/time a reservation is actually made. If these "posers" made their reservations before the block was officially open it should be easy to check who made their reservations before the block opened and if they are or are not NCC/Board members. Whether at this point it is worth the time and effort to do so and who should do it and what would we do with that info anyway are other questions. However, in my 14 years on the board specifically working on conventions, I can say that at least during my tenure a special provision for NCC/Eboard members to get a room never existed. It is stipulated that the host/convention pays for the room of the President to attend (not travel expenses, just the room) and that is quite normal for all organizations, but no other officers have any special privileges, reservation-wise, that I know of. The hotel usually gave the host a few rooms as part of the deal and one of those was usually used for the President and any others for staff that need to be at the venue early and/or late. Now if the hotel on its own bought some cockamamy story from a person making a reservation is another question.  

 

And for the record, I agree with Rick. For what we are, our convention is WAY too complicated. I have already asked why, with the exception of the banquet and tours, we even have to register in advance and why do we need all that data and what do we do with it? Walk up to the registration desk, pay the fee, get your wrist band or whatever and move on. Yes, there would be a line, but there's already a line and this one would move way faster. Having worked the one day walk-in table several times at the national con I can attest that it usually took the average person less than 3 minutes, even if that, to pay and get in. In my local club's annual contest we used to collect all sorts of name/address/blahblahblah data on forms that people had to fill out until we realized that it was completely unnecessary. Once we ditched that, people just breezed through. Maybe this isn't a good/practical idea, but we do need to re-think a lot of how our con works. We're not professionals and we can't afford to hire professionals, who by the way usually take a rather substantial 'cut' from any income along with their base fee, so maybe we need to design and accept a simpler convention that part time amateurs can run.  

[Nick Filippone]

But there also are built-in inequities in our current “land rush” system. What about the person who is working (some of us sometimes do work on Saturday) or is otherwise unavailable or unable to get to a computer or use a phone for those critical, apparently, precious few minutes, after which all the most desirable rooms are gone? What about those who struggle to make the website work even if he or she is on time: those, for example, who didn’t know you could not book a Tuesday through Saturday night because that was not how the block was set up and by the time he or she figured it out, it was too late? What about those who called and got an incompetent reservation clerk, hung up, called back, got a knowledgeable clerk, but it was, again, too late? What about cyber challenged folks who just can’t do such things on-line: you know- older people (like a significant portion of our membership) for whom operating a computer is not second nature?

A system that simply allows members to make their reservation as soon as 365 days (the usual start date for hotel reservations)  before the show date rolls around would remove all this grousing. It would reward those who show individual initiative and assiduity, always admirable traits to be rewarded. It would eliminate the overloading of the reservation process in those first few minutes that it would seem no reservation system can handle. 

An additional benefit would be reducing the work for the host chapter that is required in setting up and monitoring an “equitable” reservation process that will never satisfy everyone, despite their best efforts.

As has been cogently pointed out, you cannot fit (legally or comfortably) 700-800 people into 150 hotel rooms. Regardless of what system is employed, there will always be a lot of disappointed people, many of whom will need someone to blame. With the system I am here suggesting, if you miss out, you got no one to blame but yourself! Nick

 

[jcorley]

A voluntary lottery where we enter our names here on this site using WA. Once the "winners" are chosen, via random draw (I will volunteer to administer this if need be) or a randomized spreadsheet using only the numbers (no names),  WA sends an email to the winners and a list to the hotel. The members then have a week to confirm with the hotels. After a week, if only 140 of 150 have confirmed, the next 10 get notified, and so on.

Not on the list? No room until all the slots have been given out.

[Ron Bell]

It may not matter when the date reservations are permitted is. On that date, whenever it is, you could still have the same rush as now as people try to get a room.  This problem will not go away until we have enough members attending the show year after year for the hotels to feel confident in giving us larger room blocks.  

[ghodges]

I have no confidence in getting larger room blocks from any of the hotels in the future. It's not in the hotel's interest since they're offering a lower room rate than they otherwise would, and I believe they're granting the smallest block they can and still get the contract. Unless there's some stiff competition nearby that we can use as leverage (one against the other) then they're going to limit their losses to the least number of rooms they can. And it doesn't seem to matter that IPMSUSA can point to several consecutive years of selling out that many rooms and more. They're not interested in selling out that many rooms at a lower rate!

At this point I have to agree with Nick (dear Lord, did I just say that? 😁) and simply have the reservations open whenever the hotel is willing to start taking them; be that 1 year out, 18mos, or whenever. Perhaps "rewards members" for those hotels might even be able to book a room 2 years out.... but so what? Whether there's still a "rush" or not (and I believe there would be less of one) it makes for at least one less thing for the Nats host to worry about or try to regulate.

As for a "lottery".... the idea could work, but it too would require more work either by the host or IPMSUSA, and it wouldn't be long before the validity of the lottery or its administrators would have their integrity questioned, even under the best of circumstances.

It's a knotty problem, but I have to side with Ron's idea of looking at the Nats and applying the KISS principle in every area, including Nats room registrations.

 

Gil 

[Nick Filippone]

Gil and I in agreement on something- it’s going to be a great year! 🙀😉🤔

[jcorley]

Dogs and Cats, Living together ... Mass Hysteria!!

[Highlander]

I am a rare one who followed the rules and got a Hilton room.  I calculate that I must have been the last or next to.  There were clearly hundreds who followed the rules, but did not get a room.  However, now, a conundrum presents itself.

If the Hilton is the location wherein various scofflaws, malefactors, bad actors, and such shall reside ... do I want to be associated with them?  It is true that some who have reserved IPMS block rooms are key participants in the Nats and were vetted early into the room block.  And it is true that some (well, a few) got lucky in getting one of the few rooms left after the miscreants had poached rooms in violation of the well advertised rules.  However, it is also true that many IPMS Hilton block rooms will be occupied by reprobates who obtained their room duplicitously.

So ... while at the Nats ... if I am asked where I am staying, I would be hesitant in saying, "The Hilton".  If my questioner know that I am not a Nats key participant they might conclude that I obtained my room underhandedly.  It would not be unreasonable for them to come to that conclusion.  After all this hoopla, I know that I will look askance at Hilton residing attendees ... especially if I see them hiding a luggage cart in their room.  I ask myself whether I want to become suspect merely by staying in the Hilton.

It might be best to enter the Embassy Suites lottery.  Assuming that even more reprehensibles do not find a way to scam themselves into that room block, I might luck out, get an ES room, cancel my Hilton room, and reside amongst the pure of heart.

It's a thought.

And, yes, I like playing with words.

 

[Ron Bell]

I think you'll find that the average attendant has no idea about this whole thing. Just remember that a large percentage of the people at the show will be either walk-in registrants or day passers who have little to no interest in where you're staying. You state that "It is true that some who have reserved IPMS room blocks are key participants in the Nats and were vetted early into the room block." What is your source for they were 'vetted early' and I'm wondering by whom were they vetted? I'm just curious as to what your source of info was as usually the Nats staff use rooms given to the host chapter by the hotel as part of the whole convention deal and not rooms from the actual room block. There is just so much about this issue that is very meandering with unknown sources cited that I'd like to be clear on what is actually going on. 

[Highlander]

Mr Bell:

With an imperfect memory, I believe I read it in a post by the Madison Nats Chairman .... as he was explaining the circumstances for the annual rooms fiasco.  Again with an imperfect memory, I recall that the room block was about 200 rooms and that about 20 were reserved for the Nats staff and various other potentates.  I don't recall now many rooms were purloined before the room block was released ... or even if it was possible to determine how many.