Comic-Con International has announced on the Toucan Blog that the San Diego Comic-Con Hotel Sale, also known by SDCC attendees as Hotelpocalypse, will take place on Wednesday, April 26 at 9:00 am PT. Read on for more details!
If you are a badge holder for San Diego Comic-Con 2017, you should have received an email from CCI on April 21 with a link to the onPeak hotel reservation waiting room.
This year’s Hotel Sale will operate much like last year’s Hotel Sale, and similarly to SDCC badge sales, where you enter a waiting room before the sale begins, and are put into random order at the start of the sale regardless of what time you got into the waiting room. You can enter the waiting room via the link in your email as early as 8:00am on April 26, though the sale does not start until 9:00am.
Once you are randomly selected for a registration session, you will fill out a registration form, in which you may select up to 6 downtown hotels AND up to 6 non-downtown hotels, each list in order of preference, for a total of up to 12 different hotels. However, you are only required to select one hotel.
Forms will be processed based on the time which you are granted access to the form, rather than the time that you submit the form, so don’t feel like you have to rush through it. You can click here to a look at a sample form so that you can see ahead of time what you’ll be dealing with. Additionally, the SDCC Blog has a great visual guide to the Hotel Sale.
If you’ve been placed at a hotel, you’ll get an email notifying you of your placement either on May 1 or May 8. If notified on May 1, you must make a deposit for 2 nights plus tax by Friday, May 5 at 12:00am. If notified on May 8, you must make a deposit for 2 nights plus tax by Friday, May 12 at 12:00am. Otherwise, your reservation will be canceled. If you make the deposit, but need to cancel your reservation, you’ll have to do so before May 16 if you want a full refund. If you cancel between May 16 and June 6, you’ll be charged for one night plus tax from your deposit. After that, your deposit is non-refundable.
If onPeak is unable to place you at a hotel, you’ll be notified no later than May 15.
The prices for downtown hotels range from $195/night (1 adult/1 bed at Best Western Plus Bayside Inn) to $375/night (Hard Rock Suite at Hard Rock Hotel San Diego), while non-downtown hotels start at $178/night (Days Inn San Diego Hotel Circle South) and run as much as $392/night + Resort Fee (2 adults/2 beds at Hotel Del Coronado). Click here for the list of hotels and prices, shuttle travel times, and additional hotel information.
One good tip is to find roommates and team up with them. Friends of CC Forum has a thread for finding roommates.
If you’d like to avoid the stress of Hotelpocalypse, and don’t mind staying in the Mission Valley area rather than downtown, the Early Bird Hotel Sale still has rooms available. It is unclear whether the Early Bird Hotel Sale ends on April 25, as the Toucan Blog has recently stated, or on May 1, which is stated in the fine print when you access the Early Bird Hotel Sale. In the past, the Early Bird Hotel Sale has usually ended just before the Hotel Sale begins, so it’s possible that you may not have the Early Bird Hotel Sale to fall back on if you end up having a later entry time into the Hotel Sale.
For more info about the Hotel Sale, check out Comic-Con’s Hotels FAQ page.
