And there were still a number of rooms available yesterday… unless they all sold out last night, it looks like Travel Planners is once again scrambling to fix what they shouldn’t have screwed up in the first place. If your friend booked through the back door last Friday, that means it took them a week to figure it out and start (presumably) offering them to the waitlist instead.

Once again, they look incompetent – as if they just react to each new wrinkle as it hits them, rather than planning for the situation as a whole. It’s not like planning is in their name or anything.

I’m now wondering whether they didn’t realize the reservation form was still available (not to mention active). If you want to disable something online, you have to actually turn it off or block it, not just remove links to it, because you never know what’s been bookmarked, picked up by Google, etc….but given some of the other design flaws I’ve seen on their site over the last few years, it wouldn’t surprise me much.

One thing I should add that seems to have gotten lost in editing: When I emailed them, I asked specifically whether simply getting through on March 18 was enough to get someone on the waiting list, or whether there was another procedure. Unfortunately the form response I got this morning didn’t address this issue.

It’s possible they have another waitlist, I guess, although it would have been nice if they had let anyone know how to get on that waitlist, if so. I suppose it’s also theoretically possible they’re not offering me those hotels because they weren’t on my original list of 12… but I can’t say I believe they still have that list or are using it.

Also, the fact that you have to play games with their website to get it to fulfill its only function is…baffling, is a nice word for it. The empty white space where the “make a reservation” button should be (with no note or explanation anywhere) is a simple yet effective way of discouraging people from actually using their services, I suppose.

To those following along: if you follow the reservation link from the Comic-Con website, then click on the Group Reservation tab, then click on the Individual Reservation tab, you can fill out dates and look up room availability. Just leave the hotel selection on “View All.”

I’ve talked to two more people who are theoretically on the waitlist, but haven’t heard anything from TP. One of them gave this method a try and was able to book a room.

So I don’t know what’s going on with the waiting list at this point, unless the waitlist they’re using is different from the list of people who got through in March but didn’t get a reservation.

To be fair, I DON’T want any of those rooms (the closest one is two miles out), but someone on the waitlist probably does. Once again it seems that Travel Planners is saying one thing while doing another. As far as I’m concerned they’re either incompetent or evil, and at this point I don’t really care which.