Please put all housing problems/complaints in this thread so we can track them as quickly as possible.  Thanks!

Well at the risk of sounding like a jerk, your telling me that 6793 rooms within walking distance of the convenstion center were all gone within an hour? This is insane. Stayed in the 'burbs last time and had a hell of time getting in and out each day. The shuttle service was poor and left me stranded multipkle times. What is the process to get on a wating list? I may have to cancel if I can't get something downtown.

Bought my gencon badge at 12:00, on the 22nd.  Logged into the housing at 1200 on the 24th.  Put over 2 hours later into the queue for getting a room and they are all sold out.  Some have Thursday available even sunday.  But you can't book unless you get the 3 nights so its useless.  This system is a joke

My friend just looked and he can get a room still in the block, just not downtown.

How does the wait list work? If there aren't shuttles available this year. Now I have a badge and no room. WHat are the options?

You can book now, in the block, out of downtown, and taxi/uber in, finding other gamers to possibly share with.

You can keep checking the online system for room drops.

You can check the room trade forum here for room drops.

You can book either downtown out of block now for a LOT, or you can book somewhere else close but out of block, like a Southport hotel.

There is no, I repeat, NO waitlist for your situation.  It is only for people who have reservations to add shoulder dates.

I booked two rooms during my time slot but when I try to review reservation for the second one from my housing page I get ERROR 404 nothing found!?!? Why?

You can email customer service to verify, but that's I believe how it works; and as long as you have the two reservation emails you should be fine.

Thanks, I figured it out.

When I log in and go to www.gencon.com/housing I see the following:

Total reservations you can make for the following badge holders:1
Reservations remaining for the following badge holders:0

As far as I know, I haven't made any reservations yet, and when I check the "Existing Reservations" link on the housing portal, it says "The information supplied does not match a reservation."

So why do I have zero reservations remaining?

Thank you!

You.....don't have a green button that says "go to housing portal"?

Yes, and I can get into the housing portal with no problems.

E-mail customer service. I think this is a known bug where folks were being told they had 0 reservations left even though they should have had 1. 

Will do, thanks!

The big problem for me was that, after buying a 4 day badge, which I have done for 17 of the conventions since 1982 and then waiting 2 1/2 hours in the queue, I saw that rooms downtown or by skywalk to the ICC were sold out, or I couldn't get 4 days in a row because the onesy twosy attendees took those days. I think that the system should have been smart enought to allow for the 4 day badge holders first access to the housing portal, since we stay the longest, most likely will spend the most money and it gives the hotel staff less headaches for checkins and checkouts. I would be less upset if I lost out a downtown or skywalk hotel to any other 4 day attendee, at least it would have made sense and I would have lost out fairly in the queue. But, attendees, driving in for 1 maybe two days, takes that privelege away from the 4 day attendees with this version of housing.
Very disappointing. So currently, the best I can do is 11.8 miles out, which means I have to drive in every day, since apparently, according to previous posts, the shuttle service is gone.

To be fair, they do not specify four day badge holders explicitly (although, it may be the requirement), but the three night limitation seems to restrict it to that fairly well. If you are looking at people buying three nights (four days) worth of hotel space while only intending to stop in on Gen Con for one day, well, that's that's got to be a pretty small market.

But keep checking the site and the trade/giveaway thread. Rooms do come up. If all else fails, driving isn't so bad; just make sure you head in early.

I'm just a wee bit salty.  Taking a cautious approach to registering may end up costing me $20.

The very first thing I wanted to do was see if I could find housing nearby BEFORE I bought the tickets, as I needed to be sure I could attend the convention without going to the poorhouse (gross exaggeration).  So I began searching online for hotels and everything seemed to be booked, $600 a night, etc.

Then I saw it, the hotels are all reserved for the convention and you have to register before you can attend.  SURE, that makes sense, prevent people from pre-booking a whole hotel and ransoming off rooms to everyone else.  Great idea.

So I bought my badges and lo and behold the only room I could find I could afford at $100 a night (and split with 4 people I can take that financial hit no problem).  So I begin booking it for 4 people, and it tells me I need the names and proper emails of everyone else aside from me, the one paying for the room.  So I take a half an hour gathering info, only to have it booked out from under me.

Now I cannot find a room I can afford, even split with 4 people (because it's always best to assume others will cancel last minute and I'll shoulder all the burden).

Fine, I guess I cannot go, I'll have to cancel.  What's the refund policy... OH great, I lose $20, even for a same day cancellation, because I booked for me and my SO in advance since I tried to be responsible and have her on my docket so I could ship our badges at the same time and save $10.

Please, for the love of god next year, let us see what housing is available.  Don't con people out of administrative fee money so they can look at the hotels and realize they cannot go.  In fact, maybe even let people register simultaneously as booking rooms, to avoid the fiasco entirely.

EDIT: After talking with the guys at customer service I was given the assurance rooms are very, very fluid, and to look again, and so I found the room I needed.  I'm glad I could find a room but stand by the idea that we should be able to look at rooms in advance of registering, and perhaps should be allowed to book a room simultaneously with our badge registration to ensure they understand the whole cost up front.

It is simply not a fair statement to say that Gen Con is conning you out of money, because you were unable to book the hotel room of your choice right away.  It is unfortunate,  but housing is tight.  Yet and still, I was able to go on Hotels.com an hour ago, and I can see multiple hotel rooms available for Gen Con dates in Indianpolis, with a 15 min drive or less to downtown, for around $100 a night.  Not to mention, as you were told, rooms drop all the time in the housing block.  I'm glad you were able to find the housing you wanted.

Marian McBrine
Event Coordinator
Gen Con LLC