Links for the 2016 San Diego Comic Con Hotel Sale have begun going out via email today. They’re going out in waves, so be patient if you have not yet received an email and make sure to check your spam folder!
Tuesday April 5, 2016 at 9:00 AM PST
That’s the date and time you want to block out right now for the hotel sales. This year, Comic Con International is being safe and using the terminology about 9:00 AM PST (12:00 PM EST) as being when the forms will open up and people can begin inputting their choices. You can enter the waiting room as early as 6:00 AM PST, which brings us to…
Randomized Waiting Room
After last year’s slew of problems, onPeak — the new name for what was Travel Planners last year — has moved to a randomized waiting room system for anyone trying for a hotel room. Straight from CCI themselves, “All users will be given access to the hotel reservations form from the waiting room in RANDOM ORDER and requests will be processed based upon this order. Duplicate submissions will not increase your chances of getting your first choice hotels, if duplicate submissions are received, only the most recent submission will be processed by onPeak.“
That last sentence leads us to believe that attempting to submit more than one form for yourself will have your previous form (and time stamp!) overwritten. The San Diego Comic Con Unofficial Blog did confirm with onPeak that forms are processed in 3-second intervals in the order that they are received, so speed is still a factor in getting your top hotel choices.
Make Your Hotel Choices
Don’t wait until the last second to come up with your top six hotel choices! You are going to need to have six total and this chart, provided by CCI, is going to be your go-to resource for making your picks. Like CCI, we’ll remind you to be realistic in your choices and consider what is most important to you.
Being downtown at the Bayfront is fantastic for us at Nerdophiles, because of the ease with which we can get to press events held in our hotel, but three years ago as a regular attendee I stayed at the Hampton Inn along the trolley line. It was so easy to take 5 minutes to ride right into the heart of the outside events set up and the Hampton Inn offered breakfasts (as well as breakfasts to go that often became lunches and saved us so much money!).
We can’t stress enough that you should take a moment to consider price, distance, and amenities when making your hotel list!
Resources
Comic Con International
The Hotels Page – The most important information directly from the source!
Hotel Reservations Toucan Blog Post – Another good read directly from CCI about the process.
The Hotel Chart – Compare and contrast to pick your top six with this PDF from CCI.
The San Diego Comic Con Unofficial Blog
Information on the Randomized Waiting Room – See how SDCC Unofficial Blog predicts this new change affects the process this year.
Early Bird vs General Sale – A comparison of avoiding all the fuss of the open sale by booking your hotel early (and outside of downtown).
Visual Guide to the General Sale – For those who are visual learners and preparers!
Reader Poll – Get an idea of which hotels are most in-demand.
Friends of CCI
Hotel Room Exchange/Giveaway – Note, this is for members only, so join this awesome community today if you want to be involved with hotel swaps!
General Housing Discussions – Shared with parking and transportation info, this is a subforum with a lot of helpful information regarding hotels!
Practice Form – Again, for visual learners a practice form was made up to familiarize yourself with the process before the actual sales.
An Englishman in SDCC
Cup O Tea SDCC – A great discussion about the process and answering some of the more common questions that have come up this year.
HOTEL REVIEWS
WhenNerdsAttack – A large list of first-hand reviews.
Friends of CCI – Hotel reviews from forum member posts over the years.
Crazy4ComicCon – Helpful in deciding what hotel aspects are most important to you this year.
Nerdophiles – Two short reviews at the end of last year’s hotelpocalypse post.
Nerdophiles – Our love letter to the Hilton Bayfront and where we’ll be trying for a room again this year!
Reminders
- Team up during the buying process! Even if you’re just using your roommates to help you, every second counts. And this year, with the randomization, who knows what glitches we’ll encounter! Keep on twitter to keep up with the latest news about hotels.
- If you want to stay downtown, ONLY list downtown rooms in your choices. Typically they will place you somewhere else close by if you don’t make it into the top 6, but keeping those downtown locations is paramount because if you have one that is somewhere like Mission Valley they will place you in Mission Valley.
- Be aware of refund dates. Just be aware. The worst thing to be screwed over by is a deadline. This year the cancellation and full refund date is April 30, 2016.
- Read the details and FAQs provided by Comic Con International! For the most up to date information, always go to the source.
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