Marriott

[destinyfroste.livejournal.com]

Alright, I just spoke with a very helpful gentleman at PassKey who told me:

#1 - The block sold out in 35 minutes
#2 - Only a few more rooms were opened up and those sold out immediately
#3 - The entire hotel is sold out.

Lovely. Alright all you room horders...start canceling and give the rest of us a chance! ;)

Seriously though, I am sure there will be a lot of room juggling as people find roommates and people cancel multiple rooms. There is also a chance of cancellations depending on when Star Wars Celebration V is held...it might be in August, which means a lot of the Star Wars fans will have to choose one or the other and as DCon is every year but Celebration is only once every...so many years...Celebration is looking like the choice for most of them.

Comments

[nisie.livejournal.com]

If you cancel, they do not go back into the roomblock. You would have to pay full fare

[nyreak.livejournal.com]

This. Anyone that wants to cancel a reservation should instead go to dragonconrooms to find someone waiting for a room. You can pass it off to them, and make another con-goer happy.

[ubiquitous-a.livejournal.com]

THIS. SO. MUCH.

[starbukthegrey.livejournal.com]

I hope your right. I had everything planned on this.

[sushithegreat.livejournal.com]

#3 - The entire hotel is sold out.

This is not correct. The rooms at the convention rate are sold out, but the hotel still has rooms at the regular rates. Just wanted to clarify in case some people really want the Marriott and don't mind paying full price.

[dizzydame.livejournal.com]

I tried calling at 10 am (central) and was told the entire hotel was booked, no rooms available at D*C rates or regular rates.

[ubiquitous-a.livejournal.com]

They lied. You can get a standard "special event" rate of $379 per night. If you are a Marriott Rewards member, you can buy a room with points (and you can even *buy* points to pay for the room if you don't end up having a enough.....though you can make the reservation now and earn points between now and then to cover it) though who knows how long rooms will still be available for that.

[dizzydame.livejournal.com]

Wow, that's good to know. Probably too expensive for me but at least something to throw out to the roommates. Thank you for passing that along.

[sushithegreat.livejournal.com]

Don't call, try using the Marriott's website:

http://www.marriott.com/hotels/travel/atlmq-atlanta-marriott-marquis/

[ubiquitous-a.livejournal.com]

Yeah, actually if you do the points thing, you can get it cheaper than $379/nt.

That category of Marriott (cat. 4) costs approx. 20,000 points a night if you use points to pay for a room. 4 nights is 80,000 points. You can buy points at a rate of $12.50 per 1,000 points, which brings it to just about $250 or so, per night.

You have to make the reservation with them knowing you're intending to "buy" the room with points. It actually ends up being even cheaper, since if you're paying in points, you don't also have to pay the taxes on the room (they're included).

Anyway, that's another route you can check. There certainly will be a limited number of rooms available for reservations that way, but it's perhaps a slightly more creative way of snagging a room at a realtively reasonable rate. :)

[littledrow.livejournal.com]

They didn't sell out within 35 minutes. Certain DAYS were sold out within less than that. When I tried making my reservation at 8:20am on the website, Thursday was not available, but Fri-Mon was. That is not acceptable to me.

I took the reservation just in case I couldn't get into one of the other hotels, but managed to get a BIGGER room at the Sheraton for just a little bit more a day.

I have two people lined up to take over my res at the Marriott for Fri-Mon. I will be trying to transfer that reservation to the first in line tomorrow when it is less crazy and never trying for the Marriott again. I will take the Hilton.

[geneticlemon.livejournal.com]

Yes. I heard from someone they tried to book Thurs-Mon at 8:11, and it was sold out.

[alaskan-blue.livejournal.com]

That's what we wound up doing. We needed three rooms at the Marriott and with the one from you and the two we managed to swing at the Hilton I think we're set. I think the worst was when people were saying that passkey was only letting people book one room per name. That is complete bullshit for a con like this. My group from Missouri ALONE is six people and I am NOT tripping and falling over people sleeping in the floor when I'm trying to get dressed in the morning and make it to a panel, combined with the OTHER four people that meet us there from other states we NEED more than one room, all under ONE name, so that it's easier to get them all together on the same floor with connecting doors.

Gahh.... Makes me so furious when I think about it all over again.

[littledrow.livejournal.com]

Yeah but I heard that people were booking 9-50 rooms for themselves. That is a bit excessive, IMO. This one girl I heard about who booked 9 rooms booked one of them strictly for herself. One room. All to herself.

I don't know what the solution is, but this really sucked and now puts me off staying at the Marriott. I don't want the frustration of a land grab.

BTW...will be calling the Marriott today with your info and will email you and let you know what's what! :)

[alexdelarge78.livejournal.com]

That is hilarious. I know it sucks for other people but really, booking in huge blocks is ridiculous and silly. Well, at least there may be cancellations next year for those still desiring the Marriot.

[littledrow.livejournal.com]

Problem is nobody, as far as I know, has gotten a confirmation number from any of the hotels whose reservations were handled by passkey. That means that the hotels know they are sold out, but not by whom. They couldn't even find me by my last name.

RE: Marriott

[glowingdome.livejournal.com]

I can only speak about the Hyatt, but you now know someone that got a confirmation number before getting a badge for D*Con 2009 on Thursday.

littledrow

Problem is nobody, as far as I know, has gotten a confirmation number from any of the hotels whose reservations were handled by passkey. That means that the hotels know they are sold out, but not by whom. They couldn't even find me by my last name.

Re: RE: Marriott

[littledrow.livejournal.com]

As I understand it, people who reserved through passkey at the Hyatt are having a much easier time of things...such as being found by their last name. I still haven't received a confirmation number for either the Marriott or the Sheraton.

[ningal61.livejournal.com]

I got an e-mail yeaterday morning within minutes of making the reservation through Passkey, saying it was my Hotel Reservation Acknowledgement. I haven't doublechecked anything.

[littledrow.livejournal.com]

Yeah. That's not the same thing as a confirmation. According to the Marriott, a confirmation number begins with an 8.

[cuppaco.livejournal.com]

They only allowed 1 room booking at a time (at least online), I don't think there are that many people (IF ANY) that are sitting on 2-3 rooms for friends (like last year).

[ninepointfivemm.livejournal.com]

I have a friend that has NINE (count 'em, NINE) rooms in the Marriott for friends.

[greenwitch.livejournal.com]

That's a bit much :(

[letsgomental.livejournal.com]

Just checked the rooms availability through the DC link for the Marriott....rooms available w/king bed Friday Sat and Sunday night..... we had one of those rooms this year and there is plenty of room for an air mattress......this was at 7pm EST

[carencey77.livejournal.com]

and now from the passkey site...

We're sorry.
This event is now closed to new reservations.
Due to the proximity of the event dates, please contact your desired hotel directly regarding availibility. Contact information, if available, is below.

[glasscannon.livejournal.com]

I'm still a bit of a DC noob ('09 was my first year), but for the life of me I can't understand why people put up with this shit from the Marriott, and indeed rush to book there.

My husband and I decided we wanted to go to DC'09 while DC'08 was in progress, so I read up on all the past posts on hotels, and booked a room at the Hyatt barely three weeks after con last year. I called later and requested a room in the Radius Tower, and we loved it. We didn't have to wait for an elevator once, not even during checkout -- having to use your room key to activate the elevator really helps. We had no trouble booking back in Sept '08, and they let us check in around 9am Friday morning (after an overnight flight and then waiting in line for our badges, oy). No noise problems, but we still felt like we were in the middle of all the action, about half way between all the stuff at the Hyatt and all the stuff at the Marriott.

I can only assume the wait for elevators at the Marriott was hellacious (I avoided them like the plague), but I'd be willing to bet that we could get from our room in the Radius Tower, down the elevator with no wait, through the food court and the hamster tubes and get to Sear faster than it would take most people staying at the Marriott to get an elevator and get to Sear.

Add to that the ease of getting reservations at the Hyatt both last year and this year (I've already booked a Radius room for DC'10, naturally) vs. Marriott's ridiculous Oct 1 firing pistol, and some of the unbelievable behavior that's been reported about the Marriott staff, and I can't really fathom why it's still first choice for a lot of people. So you have to use the tubes or cross the street to get there. Is it really worth this much trouble to get a room at the Marriott so you can avoid that walk?

Hyatt

[glowingdome.livejournal.com]

You and your husband need to meet us during D*Con 2010. It sounds like we would get along, and we can introduce to you to several friends that we typically only see there.

We host at least one party every year. Is there a way to PM on Live Journal? I really don't understand LJ very well.

G

[pixiekingtom.livejournal.com]

Please don't confuse PassKey with Mariott. After talking with a Mariott rep the rank and file at Mariott are NOT happy with how this was mishandled.

Passkey was only supposed to do one room at a time, if people were getting 9, 12, 50 rooms then the Passkey rep was not keeping with the contract with Mariott.

I'll be talking to Mariott's escalations department about this, since I handle the reservations for my group of friends and generally book 2 to 4 rooms no problem. Also keep in mind that there are more rooms to be released from the block in January or Febuary, but Mariott needs to know that PassKey is not equipped to handle this event.