Getting a badge to San Diego Comic-Con is only half the battle. Once you’ve crossed that hurdle, you’ll face your toughest challenge yet: the dreaded Hotelpocalypse.

The General Hotel Sale, or, as we lovingly call it, Hotelpocalypse, is set for Wednesday, April 17. This is essentially a lottery, in which you submit your top choices for a hotel, and the Comic-Con Gods (or onPeak) assign you something that may or may not have been on your list.

Anyone who purchased a badge should already be at least roughly familiar with the randomized waiting room process, as it’s the same waiting room system used for Comic-Con’s badge-buying events. Because it’s randomized, that means that speed in filling out your form is no longer a determining factor in getting a hotel.

According to onPeak in 2016, the order in which they process your form is based on the timestamp when you gain access to the form from the waiting room. This is clearly stated on this year’s page, “At 9:00 AM PDT, everyone in the waiting room will be assigned a random place in line. Guests will then be moved from the waiting room to the request form based on this order. Randomization will not take place until 9:00 AM PDT and is not based on the time at which you enter the waiting room before that point. No further randomization will take place throughout the process.”

So how does all of this work? How can you increase the odds that you get the downtown hotel of your dreams (and if you’re wondering why staying downtown is so great, check out our Case for Staying Downtown and In the Gaslamp Quarter)?

So here’s a look at how it works (on the sample form), as well as how the randomization process will work.

The Process

You can view the list of hotels and prices by clicking here, with prices ranging from ranging from $195/night for one person at the Days Inn San Diego Hotel Circle, up to $409/night for a Hard Rock Suite at the Hard Rock Hotel San Diego. Most attendees will be trying for a downtown hotel in the Gaslamp, but the General Hotel Sale also includes hotels at both the airport and in Mission Valley.

onPeak lets you submit up to twelve hotel choices (though you only have to select one hotel total in order for your submission to be valid – so you don’t have to choose more if you don’t want to).

These submissions are ranked, in order of preference. You are allowed to select a minimum of one hotel in either section, up to a maximum of 12. Research which hotels you’re interested in before the sale begins, so you’re not wasting valuable time. Before the sale begins, plan on having the following information handy:

• Your list of hotels for each section, in order of preference (write the name exactly as it appears on the Comic-Con hotel list)
• The amount of people staying in your room
• The names of any roommates who are staying with you

You should have received an e-mail with a link to onPeak’s SDCC site on Monday, April 15, though it won’t go live until 8AM PT on Wednesday, April 17. These links are not individual to the person receiving them.

Here’s where things get interesting. Just like last year, that link will take you directly to the onPeak Waiting Room. You can enter anytime between 8AM-9AM PT, though there’s no advantage to arriving early. At 9AM PT, you’ll be sorted into a random order.

When it’s your turn, you’ll be taken to the form. Here’s how the form will look:

You might be greeted with this screen:

 

You’ll need to select the Click Here to Start Your Request button. You’ll then be taken to the actual hotel request form, which will first give you a rundown of all the hotel options again:

 

Once you’ve scrolled down past this info, you’ll begin filling in your information, including your first and last name, address, phone number, and e-mail address.

 

 

The next step is filling out the information about the kind of accommodations you’ll be needing. You’ll select the number of total rooms you’re requesting, and then for each room, the amount of beds/people. You can choose between Single (One person with one bed), Double (Two people, one bed), Twin (Two people, two beds), Triple (Three people, two beds), or Quad (Four people, two beds).

Once you’ve selected this, you’ll be prompted to enter in the first and last name for each occupant. In years past, you’ve even been able to make changes to the names and amount of occupants in a room even after paying a deposit, but there is no guarantee it will be the same this year. You’ll also need to enter your arrival and departure date. You can arrive as early as Sunday, July 21 and depart as late as Monday, July 29.

 

After that, you’ll then be able to enter your hotel choices, with a drop-down menu. Put them in your order of preference. So if the Hard Rock Hotel is your first choice, select that hotel first.

Once you’ve entered all of your hotels, you’ll have to choose the worst case scenario: If none of your hotel choices are available, what would you like to happen? You have four options:

• Book me at a downtown hotel ONLY
• Book me at any hotel that is on the shuttle route, regardless of rate or location
• Book me at a hotel with the lowest available rate, regardless of location.
• Book me at a hotel with the lowest available rate, regardless of location and shuttle availability
• If none of my preferred hotel choices are available, disregard my request completely

Choose the option that makes the most sense to you, but it is worth mentioning that typically, some downtown hotels do open up after cancellations, though there’s no guarantee that will happen.

Finally, you’ll need to checkmark all six boxes at the bottom of the screen:

• I will provide a deposit equal to two (2) nights’ room rate plus tax by the published deadline on my reservation confirmation email or my reservations will be automatically cancelled.
• I understand that a non-refundable Service & Technology Fee equal to 3% of each hotel deposit will be charged to the credit card I provide for each reservation.
• I understand that an additional non-refundable Service & Technology Fee in the amount of 3% of the additional deposit amount will incur if a change to a reservation increases the required hotel deposit amount.
• I understand the number of beds in a room cannot be guaranteed.
• I understand that ADA requests are based on availability and have no bearing on my assigned hotel’s proximity to the Convention Center.
• I am submitting one form for all of my rooms.

 

All reservation requests last year were processed in order of the timestamp that you gained access to the form, with phone reservations being processed in a random order.

Once the maximum number of requests have been received the form will shut down and callers will no longer be able to submit a request.

Then comes the waiting game. Confirmation emails will be sent out this year in just one group, on April 22. If you choose to accept the hotel, you’ll need to pay a full two nights’ deposit plus tax before Thursday, April 25, 2024, at 9:59 PM Pacific Daylight Time (PDT)/11:59 PM Central Daylight Time (CDT).

Reservations without a deposit will be canceled and cannot be reinstated for any reason.

In the past, if you and a roommate each received a reservation, and your names are on both forms, onPeak will alert you that one of these reservations needs to be canceled, or they will cancel one for you.

Since implementing the online waiting room, the process has gone much smoother – and we’re hopeful that 2024 will continue in that direction.

It’s also important to note that each year, after the hotel sale, some hotels do open back up as there are cancellations. Those on the waiting list are placed first – and these usually don’t include many downtown options, but there’s always some hotels in Mission Valley or by the airport, and every year, some report being able to snag a downtown hotel off the live inventory that will launch at some point after the deposit deadline on April 25 (make sure you’re following @SDCCHotelTrackr on Twitter, who provides an amazing, free service).

If Comic-Con International or onPeak reveal additional information about this year’s sale, we’ll update you. For right now, have all of your information on hand prior to the sale, and maybe start praying to the onPeak hotel gods.

Also be sure to read all of Comic-Con International’s FAQ.

And the most important thing you can do? Use the sample form.

Will you be trying for a hotel? Let us know in the comments.