Who is selling their extra hotel room?

Started by ayeex3, March 09, 2014, 12:06:21 PM

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ayeex3

Apparently people booked 5 different rooms because they can sell it to other convention goers. So here I am looking for a room to buy from you. Preferably the hilton that can room 6 people. Friday through Monday is what I'm looking for.

Just post it here and I'll get back to you.

Kuudere

Don't do this! Scalpers are bad, and it only encourages them if you buy from them.

Contact Fanime housing and see if there's a way to be put on the waitlist. When people don't buy from scalpers, they'll end up having to drop the rooms anyway at the end of April, because they'd have to pay a fee to drop the room after that and they don't intend to keep the room for themselves. So those rooms go to people on the waitlist, without having to pay a scalper for them.

Anyway, do contact housing to see what your options are.

ayeex3

^ thank you for that, I wish there's a way that we can weed out these scalpers. I honestly hate the fact that the hotel bookings were open to everyone.

phr34kish

Everyone seems to forget that Fanime's hotel registration has always been open to everyone. There's never before been a mention of requiring a badge to reserve a room. While it's a sound idea, the execution was awful - one week warning to attendees isn't enough. But they're apparently in talks to implement the new system for 2015.

Kuudere

Quote from: phr34kish on March 09, 2014, 12:27:13 PM
Everyone seems to forget that Fanime's hotel registration has always been open to everyone. There's never before been a mention of requiring a badge to reserve a room. While it's a sound idea, the execution was awful - one week warning to attendees isn't enough. But they're apparently in talks to implement the new system for 2015.

Yes, it would be nice if they could find a way to implement it, but they're going to have to have all of registration (and artist alley / vendors / anyone else who needs to know if they're accepted to whatever before buying a badge) done way, way ahead of hotel listings. It's certainly possible to do with a lot of work and preparation, but I don't know if it's practical to expect of the con staff...

sjamison1427

Quote from: ayeex3 on March 09, 2014, 12:06:21 PM
Apparently people booked 5 different rooms because they can sell it to other convention goers. So here I am looking for a room to buy from you. Preferably the hilton that can room 6 people. Friday through Monday is what I'm looking for.

Just post it here and I'll get back to you.
I discourage giving scalpers your business. I have no respect for greedy people who feel the need to book extra hotels only to sell them later. Is there any way Fanime can regulate this next year? So many people are on waiting lists without a room, meanwhile you have scalpers squirreling away 5 rooms like vultures. It just isn't right.
Fanime 2014 Cosplays
========================
Watson - Sherlock Holmes
Ichigo  - Bleach
Zorro [lost a bet!]

ayeex3

Quote from: sjamison1427 on March 09, 2014, 09:40:52 PM
Quote from: ayeex3 on March 09, 2014, 12:06:21 PM
Apparently people booked 5 different rooms because they can sell it to other convention goers. So here I am looking for a room to buy from you. Preferably the hilton that can room 6 people. Friday through Monday is what I'm looking for.

Just post it here and I'll get back to you.
I discourage giving scalpers your business. I have no respect for greedy people who feel the need to book extra hotels only to sell them later. Is there any way Fanime can regulate this next year? So many people are on waiting lists without a room, meanwhile you have scalpers squirreling away 5 rooms like vultures. It just isn't right.

This is exactly the message I want the organizers to see, since they opened the housing to everyone people can do these type of things. I remembered back in 2012 that we were able to get a room at the Ramada. We chose that one because it fits our budget and the other hotels were just too much.

So to the organizers, this is actually happening as we speak. People who book these hotels try to get as much profit as they can so they'll have enough money for themselves. I know it's been done but hopefully this will give you a good enough idea that having that kind of housing system is faulty.

Anix

Did anyone pm you about selling a room. If so I'd turn them into Ewu or MPLE.
We are a little mad here.
The question is are you going to use your powers for good or for awesome

InsaneChan

Quote from: sjamison1427 on March 09, 2014, 09:40:52 PM
Quote from: ayeex3 on March 09, 2014, 12:06:21 PM
Apparently people booked 5 different rooms because they can sell it to other convention goers. So here I am looking for a room to buy from you. Preferably the hilton that can room 6 people. Friday through Monday is what I'm looking for.

Just post it here and I'll get back to you.
I discourage giving scalpers your business. I have no respect for greedy people who feel the need to book extra hotels only to sell them later. Is there any way Fanime can regulate this next year? So many people are on waiting lists without a room, meanwhile you have scalpers squirreling away 5 rooms like vultures. It just isn't right.

THIS SO MUCH! I mentioned it somewhere else as well, but this is a serious issue that absolutely needs to be resolved next year. There needs to be a maximum amount of rooms per person/card (maybe 2?). I don't see how this can not be arranged. If you need more than the maximum, you'll just have to have someone else in your group book in their name instead. This is the only way to make it possible for everyone to have a fair chance at getting a room.

Love. Life. fANIME.

ayeex3

Quote from: Anix on March 11, 2014, 12:52:18 AM
Did anyone pm you about selling a room. If so I'd turn them into Ewu or MPLE.

No one has, I think they know that what they're doing is wrong(in soo many levels) and don't want to take the risk. Thank you, if I ever come across these scalpers I'll report them ASAP.

Kuudere

There were scalpers on the forums a few days ago, but the moderators were very fast in getting rid of their threads for selling their rooms (good job, forum team!). They claimed they weren't scalping, but required a donation to be made in order to "find" a hotel room for people. So...basically scalping.

Staff said that they were monitoring room reservations to avoid mass reservations, so I don't know how many rooms these people can get away with booking without bringing attention to themselves.

To keep on subject with finding a room, did you also consider the hotels around the area that are not on Fanime's list? They won't have the discount, but some will be cheap without it, anyway. If you're really worried about getting someplace to stay and don't want to wait to book, that could be an option for you.

Amanojaku

Requiring a con registration to get a room would have cut down on scalpers.  Thanks guys!
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Admiral Donuts

Quote from: Amanojaku on March 11, 2014, 02:05:00 PM
Requiring a con registration to get a room would have cut down on scalpers.  Thanks guys!

I think that was the logic behind the planned change to housing. How much would a scalper make per room, though? An extra $55 per two rooms for four nights means you'd only have to add $7 per night for a dollar profit. Add something like $20 a night on top and you'd end up pocketing $105, which might make it worth it for people to register just to get the privilege of getting rooms to scalp.

Anybody know what kind of profit scalpers usually get?

Nina Star 9

I'm curious how much of Fanime's hotel issues has to do with scalpers, and how much of it has to do with the con simply not having enough hotel rooms for the amount of attendees. I think that scalping may be a symptom of a larger issue with this con.

Yes, there are scalpers (I've seen them post before, if not here, then on cosplay.com), and preventing people from booking more than a certain number (one or two have been proposed) of hotel block rooms would alleviate some of the hotel booking issues, because more rooms would be available for more people. However, I doubt that there are /that many/ scalpers (and non-badged attendees booking rooms, which is another group being blamed for this year's issues, etc.) that are booking /that many/ rooms that if those people were magically gone from the booking process, that there would be zero (or even significantly reduced) booking issues for everyone else. Yes, any improvement is still good, but how much of this is just people blaming easy groups (that, by the way, weren't even on people's radars until this year with the new and then retracted policies) and ignoring or being blinded to the real issue, which is the simple lack of rooms? Fanime is still a growing con, and gets significantly larger each passing year, and the facilities have not, and cannot, catch up.

I've been seeing a lot of talk around the internet that seems to be blaming scalpers (and non-badged attendees) for all or most of the room issues this year. As far as I know, other cons don't have as many issues with selling out of hotel rooms nearly as quickly as Fanime does, or at least, there aren't many that do. I don't think that Fanime has an unusual number of scalpers that buy up rooms just because. I think Fanime has a problem with scalpers (however much of a problem it is in reality vs. on the internet rumor mill, though even one scalper is too many) because people know that there simply aren't enough rooms for everyone, so they know that they can sell them. It's the same reason why a group of friends might have multiple people trying to get a room, more than one friend books one, and then they have to cancel -- it's because Fanime has an unusually small number of rooms for the number of attendees that it has.

Let's do a little bit of math: according to the websites of the Hilton, Marriott, Hyatt, and Fairmont (the Sainte Claire doesn't publish their total room number), there are 1903 total rooms in those four hotels, which are the ones within walking distance. I'll be generous and add another 500 as an estimate for the unpublished Sainte Claire, making an estimated 2403 rooms. Assuming each room has five people in it and that every single room will be filled by attendees, that's 12,015 people who can stay in these rooms. According to Wikipedia, there was a jump of over 4,000 attendees from 2012 to 2013, placing the 2013 attendance at 25,542. Not all of these people need rooms, and there is no indication that these are all unique attendees (as opposed to recounting the same people over multiple days), but as we can see, the con is growing faster than the facilities to house the people attending it. since the con broke the 10,000 mark, it seems to be gaining about a thousand attendees every year, except for two years (2010->2011 and 2012->2013) where there has been a gain of about 4000. Assuming that this year, the number of attendees will grow even more...there simply aren't enough rooms.

How about, instead of everyone blaming groups that probably do exist but not in large enough numbers to make that much of an impact (and there is really no way to get accurate numbers on this, unfortunately), people focus on the larger issue with this con -- it hasn't caught up to its own growth. I'm hoping that someday soon, the con will get out of its "awkward and lanky teenager" phase where it isn't used to its own growth yet and learn how to handle its size. There was an attempt made this year, with the new and then soon retracted policies, but they were not implemented well and may not have helped much, anyway. There has to be a better way to handle this.

Getting a room has gotten gradually and progressively worse every year. This isn't anything new, but obviously, the old ways aren't working.

I think that maybe having a very reliable shuttle service and negotiating cheap rooms out near the Doubletree area might help, since it would add more rooms. Also, maybe a small price increase on the rooms near the convention itself to make the distribution of room demand a little more even (people will want to balance closeness with price). Also, dare I say it -- get everything up sooner. Open up rooms sooner. Open up rooms in stages. Get registration up as soon as possible after the previous con. Get AA registration, panel registration, and other types of registration that impact whether people will get a badge or a room out early so that people won't hoard rooms in hopes they get accepted. Do something so that there isn't a sudden rush on rooms that causes the server to crash and rooms to sell out within minutes, since that is a large part of the problem. Find a way to increase supply and decrease demand, or at least the very sudden demand that there is currently. No one should have to worry about going to this con because hotels sell out too quickly, and they'll have no where else to stay.

...aaaaaaaand that was quite the tangent. But still relevant.


tl;dr: don't buy from scalpers. Report them. But don't put 100% of the blame for the room issues this year on them, since they are only symptomatic of a much larger problem.

Admiral Donuts

Quote from: Nina Star 9 on March 11, 2014, 03:19:05 PM
tl;dr: don't buy from scalpers. Report them. But don't put 100% of the blame for the room issues this year on them, since they are only symptomatic of a much larger problem.

That's the real problem, yes. If a 30,000 person mega-hotel sprung up overnight obviously there'd be no need for scalpers because everyone could just get a room by themselves.

However, if you don't have a room and you find someone scalping, there's not a lot of motivation to turn them in. Best case scenario, they get caught, and someone on the wait-list gets their room. If you're willing to deal with them, you might get the room yourself.

firstcultural

San Jose isn't a tourist destination, and there are no other events that would justify further hotel construction.  This is actually a blessing - convention hotel prices are often double the price in other cities.  The shuttle bus program could probably be expanded significantly though... after all, all those tech buses aren't being used on the holiday weekend.

sjamison1427

Addressing Nina Star 9. I concur that con attendance has skyrocketed exponentially in the past few years. With the limited number of rooms combined with the large quantity of attendees I can definitely see the issues presented.

Nevertheless even the smallest number of scalpers can cause inconvenience. I want to compliment the Fanime staff in taking an active role in this convention. Without their time and effort the issue of scalpers would be much larger than it is currently.

In addition I want to reference again what everyone has been stating. If you're approached by a scalper send the information to forum moderators and absolutely do not give them your business.
Fanime 2014 Cosplays
========================
Watson - Sherlock Holmes
Ichigo  - Bleach
Zorro [lost a bet!]

Hachimitsu

Quote from: sjamison1427 on March 09, 2014, 09:40:52 PM
Quote from: ayeex3 on March 09, 2014, 12:06:21 PM
Apparently people booked 5 different rooms because they can sell it to other convention goers. So here I am looking for a room to buy from you. Preferably the hilton that can room 6 people. Friday through Monday is what I'm looking for.

Just post it here and I'll get back to you.
I discourage giving scalpers your business. I have no respect for greedy people who feel the need to book extra hotels only to sell them later. Is there any way Fanime can regulate this next year? So many people are on waiting lists without a room, meanwhile you have scalpers squirreling away 5 rooms like vultures. It just isn't right.

I dont know if you noticed this but the system for preventing scalpers is still being used today.. The usage of having to charge on the same card is prohibited. if you have like multiple cards well thats another flaw system..

it's a first step in progress

Lucifargundam

Quote from: Hachimitsu-ink on March 16, 2014, 02:36:13 AM
The usage of having to charge on the same card is prohibited. if you have like multiple cards well thats another flaw system..
Awesome scalp-preventing tool, next would have to be weeding through addresses, emails or something like that.


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Entirely then that he him tell,
That he the craft ably may know,
Wheresoever he go under the sun.

sjamison1427

Quote from: Hachimitsu-ink on March 16, 2014, 02:36:13 AM
I dont know if you noticed this but the system for preventing scalpers is still being used today.. The usage of having to charge on the same card is prohibited. if you have like multiple cards well thats another flaw system..
I am aware of this, yes.

Addressing Gundam, I concur with your suggestion. I think weeding through billing addresses is a great idea.
Fanime 2014 Cosplays
========================
Watson - Sherlock Holmes
Ichigo  - Bleach
Zorro [lost a bet!]