Many of you have heard about your San Diego Comic-Con 2023 hotel placement fate. Many of you… still haven’t, and onPeak has announced that all confirmation e-mails are finished. New this year, there is only ONE round of hotel placements.

Here’s the good news: The waitlist will open on Tuesday, April 25 and there’s always options on the waitlist.

However, if you’re already concerned that you’re going to have to sleep on the ground at Comic-Con (and not by choice) – fear not. You have other options.

So what are your next moves?

• Wait… for Waitlist: As we said above, onPeak will be opening remaining inventory on the waitlist to everyone on Tuesday, April 25. CCI’s site states you can check their page on that date for the link. And trust us, there’s always inventory.
• Room Trade: One of the positive things about onPeak is that attendees have the option of changing the names on their hotel reservation, and it’s usually relatively painless. We recommend having the original owner of the reservation call if at all possible. But assuming you get through to a willing customer service rep (give them a call at 312-527-7270), this means that you can both give and receive any unwanted room reservations to someone who does want it, making two people happy. There are room swaps all over. Last year, onPeak started forcing some people to pay the deposit before they would transfer names on hotels, but it’s TBD on if that will be in effect this year or not.
• Cancellations: Some hotels will go back on sale. Deposits for the confirmed hotels are due by Thursday, April 20, 2023, at 9:59PM PT. Hotels (yes, even downtown hotels!) will be returned, as often, each roommate in a room will try for a hotel, and then if the group receives multiples, they can cancel the rest. Most of these will be Mission Valley options, but it’s a hotel, and it certainly beats sleeping on the sidewalk.
• Go Outside the System: So you didn’t get a hotel. You have other options that aren’t the Hall H line, we promise. Although downtown hotels basically want attendees’ first born in exchange for a room (the Hilton Bayfront has rooms starting at just $1,249 a night, kids!), with a quick search we were able to find several further out hotels and motels in San Diego for under $400 a night. You won’t be spending much time there anyway. However, we strongly urge you to use caution if considering a room sharing system like Airbnb or VRBO — you can read the good, the bad, and the ugly of using Airbnb during SDCC over here.
• Accept Your Fate: If all else fails, if you at least have somewhere to stay — make the most of it. So maybe you’re in Mission Valley instead of the Gaslamp District. There are plenty of Comic-Con shuttles that run, or you can even look into renting a car and buying parking (once it’s available). You now have a quiet hotel room to go back to, twice the dining options, and you can still hang around downtown as much or as little as you want. Getting that perfect downtown hotel isn’t the be-all/end-all of the Comic-Con experience, and it only means you won’t have a good time if you let it mean that. Now start planning the fun stuff.

What’s your strategy if you didn’t get what you wanted in the hotel sale? Let us know in the comments.