Hotels for Common in San Diego...

 >> Does the prices for the Common Hotels include the Common attendee discount?

(Don the comment for you is at the end if you don't wanna read my ranting)

Sorry Darlene but regardless of what the brochures may hint/say - the hotel
prices for COMMON (or for that matter most any other conference) very rarely
offer any kind of discount - the price may be lower than that posted on the back
of the room's door, but that's not saying much in California.

In fact it is not uncommon <groan> for the prices to be higher than you would
normally pay.  For example when I worked with IBM our corporate rate at the
Anaheim Marriott was something like $85 a night - but when we stayed there for
COMMON it went up to about $150.

Reason is the conference fee you pay would not cover all the expenses of the
conference if they had to pay full price for all the meeting rooms.  The hotel
either "gives away" or significantly discounts the cost of the meeting rooms in
exchange for the conference guaranteeing a number of rooms at the inflated
conference rate.  This is why conferences like COMMON try to get as many of
their conferences into hotel facilities rather than use Convention Centers - or
at least (as in the case of San Antonio and San Diego) do a mixture of the two.

Even if you try to book directly with the hotel they will charge you the higher
rate unless you lie about attending the conference.  I've even known hotels
refuse to honor the original agreed rate when they found that the guest was
going to the conference!

This is why Don is looking for non-conference hotels in the area.  If I remember
correctly though - unless you don't mind a significant journey, there is not a
lot of choice in the area of the Marina where the San Diego Convention Center is
based.  There are several condo properties close at hand, so a company that
rents vacation condos might be worth checking out.


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