ISTE 2011 > Travel > Avoid Housing Pitfalls

Travel      Avoid Housing Pitfalls

Act now to avoid ISTE 2011 Housing Pitfalls

By making your hotel reservation through official conference housing, you avoid some of the disruptive travel pitfalls that conference attendees can face when attending a large, global event like ISTE 2011.

ISTE guests booking through our housing bureau receive:

• guaranteed rooms protected from bumps and oversales. Hotels, like the airlines, regularly overbook to compensate for a percentage of no-shows and cancellations. Because of this, sometimes guests with legitimate reservations are relocated to another hotel. ISTE attendees booked through ISTE official housing are contractually afforded protection from this practice.
• complimentary shuttle service to and from the convention center (if service is offered at that hotel)
• protection from phishing scams (see note below)
• access to negotiated group rates and protected inventory at most hotels in the city
• By booking through official ISTE housing, you also help ISTE plan for future conferences by adding data about your room preferences, Internet needs, and more to the information used to select and book sites. Simply said, without accurate information about your needs, we can't plan to accommodate them!

A note about phishing scams

Any company or travel agency contacting you directly is not affiliated with ISTE in any way. While we may contact you for clarification once you've submitted a reservation, ISTE will not contact you by phone, email, fax, or mail to sell you a room.

Entities doing so will make a variety of claims to entice you, i.e. claim they can get you rooms not available otherwise, they can offer better rates, Internet is included, free upgrades, and other sales pitches. Typically, guests who fall prey to such schemes arrive at their destination to find that no reservation exists, or that it had existed at one time but has been cancelled at the last minute (leaving the guest both without a room and liable for a cancellation fee). To make matters worse, by freely giving a credit card number to such companies, attendees give up their ability to dispute any wrongful charges. In 2009, we fielded a situation where a guest arrived in DC to find no reservations (or availability) for her entire group — her card was also charged more than $5,000 for rooms reservations that didn't exist. Because she'd given her number out willingly, her credit card company denied her claim for fraud recovery.

Housing for ISTE 2011 opens November 10, 2010.
For best selection, rates, and your guarantee against scams and oversales, reserve your room early!