Author Topic: CCI 2015 Guide to getting a Downtown Hotel Room (Travel Planners Hotel Lottery)  (Read 91102 times)

Offline retired

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Pretty sure you *have* to fill in all the names.  If you pick a double you must enter two names, triple three names etc.  Anyone remember for sure?

This is correct. If you pick "Quad" you will need to enter all four first and last names. you will get an error if you try to continue and leave any of the boxes blank.
Added this to the guide.

Thanks.

Offline Zero

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This is correct. If you pick "Quad" you will need to enter all four first and last names. you will get an error if you try to continue and leave any of the boxes blank.
Added this to the guide.

Thanks.

Thanks again for the hard work you put into this, jopari! ^__^d
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Offline Ghost6

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I'm not 100% convinced that Travel Planners purges duplicate names...doesn't it stand to reason there are multiple "Smiths", "Jones", etc???  I can't wrap my mind around how they would even have the capacity to purge repeat names.

I will say that I landed a Hard Rock Suite in 2011 by checking the "upgrade" box...I has previously stayed in standard Hard Rock rooms and submitted for that, but when they are booked, I got bumped to a suite.  Side note:  Once you stay in a suite, it's hard to go back to standard rooms.   O0

Offline Zero

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I'm not 100% convinced that Travel Planners purges duplicate names...doesn't it stand to reason there are multiple "Smiths", "Jones", etc???  I can't wrap my mind around how they would even have the capacity to purge repeat names.

That's why I'm personally under the impression that it may be an automatic search in their reservation system.  It many even be something accidentally or unintentionally done to try to prevent people from mass booking more than one or two rooms (not that you could with the way the hotel lottery is done, since it's very difficult to even get one room in Downtown!), but it's my guess that they have some sort of measure in place.

Whether it's true or not, for Comic-Con 2014, the reason Travel Planners provided to people with the same names but with different room reservations was that the reservations were "deleted" from the system.  Could it be a cover-up for human error?  Maybe, maybe not.
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Offline retired

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The data from the forms are saved to a database. They could have a report ran that compares occupant names in separate reservation requests (where reservationrequestNumber = * find occupant firstname = occupant firstname & occupant lastname = occupant lastname, value = PossibleDuplicate)

Then a human compares the two reservation requests to determine if they might be from the same group of friends or family. If it's obvious they might just cancel one, otherwise you might get an email.

That database query is wrong, but I think it's got the basic premise, "search all reservation requests for any occupants that have both a matching first and last name with other reservation requests, and flag them for review"
« Last Edit: March 05, 2015, 05:44:35 AM by jopari »

Offline sideproject

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Thanks Jopari for putting this together. I feel much more prepared now.

I never thought we'd get badges in the first place, so I'm a little unprepared for the hotel rush. Of course I don't know if I would have even known about the Hotel Lottery if I hadn't found this forum. We were just trying to stomach paying a huge amount for a hotel that was pretty far away. At this point I'll take anything that's cheaper than what we already have.

Offline zuko3984

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Thanks for the guide it's very helpful. I just want to make sure i understand one thing with putting in the names of the other occupants in the room. I am requesting two rooms. One room for me and one room for 2 friends to share. All three of us are putting in a request form. Should we not be putting in each others names in the occupant section to avoid any problems with the forms getting rejected. Should we just put in random names? If we use random names is it easy to change the names to the actual names of the occupants or is that going to be a problem. I'm just confused because the past 2 years we put in the actual names of the occupants of the rooms on the form and didn't have any problems. But now I am hearing about people who did have problems with using the real names on multiple forms and wonder if maybe we were just lucky the last few years and i don't want any problems this year.
Basically i just want to be sure if we use random names in the occupant section we wont have a problem changing the names to the real occupant names.

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Thanks for the guide it's very helpful. I just want to make sure i understand one thing with putting in the names of the other occupants in the room. I am requesting two rooms. One room for me and one room for 2 friends to share. All three of us are putting in a request form. Should we not be putting in each others names in the occupant section to avoid any problems with the forms getting rejected. Should we just put in random names? If we use random names is it easy to change the names to the actual names of the occupants or is that going to be a problem. I'm just confused because the past 2 years we put in the actual names of the occupants of the rooms on the form and didn't have any problems. But now I am hearing about people who did have problems with using the real names on multiple forms and wonder if maybe we were just lucky the last few years and i don't want any problems this year.
Basically i just want to be sure if we use random names in the occupant section we wont have a problem changing the names to the real occupant names.

My personal suggestion is to use your real name for the hotel lottery form (maybe use your middle name if it helps to differentiate it from other people with the same name).  However, it is possible to change the names listed under the reservation (particularly if you want to exchange or giveaway your room--before payment is due, which usually 48 to 72 hours after the rooms have been assigned--to someone else on the forums).
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Offline semigeekgirl

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I would definitely put in random names. You can change them with the hotel later, but Travel Planners DOES delete duplicate requests (at least some of the time, I have had it happen to me personally), so it's better to be safe than sorry.

I would just keep it simple and have everyone use their own last name for every one, like: request #1 is John, Jane, and Joe Smith. Request #2 is Jane, Joe, and John Jones. Request #3 is Joe, John, and Jane Moore. And so forth.

Offline newbie12

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I would just keep it simple and have everyone use their own last name for every one, like: request #1 is John, Jane, and Joe Smith. Request #2 is Jane, Joe, and John Jones. Request #3 is Joe, John, and Jane Moore. And so forth.

I do want to say though that putting in common names may bring trouble as the system may flag it as a duplicate. I have a common name, as my real name, and I was contacted repeatedly by travel planners that they were going to remove my reservation as a duplicate so I had to contact them each time just to be sure that they didn't. In the occupant names, I used names of friends that I know aren't going and I can enter quickly.

Offline semigeekgirl

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Oh, yes, I didn't actually mean use "common" names (they're just easy to type for an example). I meant, use the *actual* first name of the occupant/your friend, and then use the surname of the request-submitter for everyone. I.e., person 1 matches the credit card, and each subsequent person looks like a family member. And you don't forget who's who b/c you used everyone's correct first name.

Offline hipchick

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One year we got flagged for having a dupe entry.  My husband and I did two separate forms, on mine I put my name down first and on his form he put his name first.  I used my parents address where I still get some mail and he used our apartment address.  We both got offered MMM but they contacted us saying that they noticed we had a dupe reso and had to cancel one.  So I think they look for the same names in multiple forms regardless of the address (since we used diff addresses)

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So I think they look for the same names in multiple forms regardless of the address (since we used diff addresses)

That makes sense. My husband and I use different names but the same address (since I'm paranoid and want the requester's address to match the cc billing address), and we've never been flagged. The year I DID get flagged I was requesting 3 rooms and didn't have the mental energy to make up 8 names (each person used their own name as person #1, but after that there were duplicate names).
« Last Edit: March 05, 2015, 02:03:30 PM by semigeekgirl »

Offline NCDS

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If I have gathered this correctly they don't delete the duplicate entry without contacting you? 
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Offline semigeekgirl

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As far as I remember, they contact you to tell you it has already been deleted. But this was 2010, so the details are hazy...