Transferring rooms: some precautions

Some people's plans inevitably change at the last minute, and there will always be a few people who have a hotel reservation for which they have paid a non-refundable deposit who now want to find a way to transfer it to someone else so that they do not lose their deposit.

First off, two very important points:

1) The hotel cannot transfer the reservation for you to another person. They simply do not have a mechanism for it.

2) We are very sorry, but Anthrocon cannot help you with such a transfer either. Please do not ask us to.

We do not recommend transferring the reservation to a person you do not know. If you made the original reservation, then you are going to be held responsible for that room. Do you really want to have a stranger staying in a room that you are responsible for if you are not going to be present?

If you still wish to let someone else stay in the room in your stead, the only thing you can do is have the person who originally made the reservation call the hotel and ask to add the "new" person to the reservation. The original person's name will still be on the registration, but the new person will be able to check in and get a key. It will be up to the two parties involved to work out how any repayment for the deposit will be handled.

For next year (2009), all hotel reservations will require a one-night deposit at the time the reservation is made. That deposit will not be refundable if the reservation is canceled. We cannot stress it enough: do not make a hotel reservation until you are absolutely certain that you will be making the trip if you do not want to lose your deposit.