Hotel FAQs

Yes, GSA has reserved hotel rooms for the dates of 31 Oct.-7 Nov., 2018. If you try to reserve a room online and certain nights are not available, you will be placed on a waitlist. Waitlists occur when one or more nights of your stay cannot be immediately confirmed. VisitIndy routinely works with hotels to add room inventory outside of our “official” dates. Your waitlist will be cleared within seven business days and you will receive a “100% confirmed” confirmation. In the event that VisitIndy cannot confirm your entire stay, you will be notified via email and offered alternatives.

Only hotels that have availability for the DATES you requested will show up as an option to make a reservation. Some hotels only have king rooms, so if you requested a room with 2 beds, the hotel won’t show up as an option. The smaller hotels (those with 100 rooms or less) are sometimes the least expensive. They will fill up quickly, resulting in limited availability. You can try modifying your search by entering different arrival and departure dates. You can also check at a later time to see if any rooms have become available due to cancellations.

Please indicate this when making your reservation – there is a check box for an ADA room. Please provide specific information on what you require in your room in the Requests section of your reservation. This will assist the hotel in making sure they block the specific type of room for you to meet your needs.

When selecting a hotel, select a hotel that offers a specific bed type (1 bed or 2 beds). Some hotels have provided us with a specific number of rooms with one bed or with two beds. Other hotels only offer “run of house” inventory. If booking a hotel with run of house inventory the hotel will assign a specific type of room upon your check-in at the hotel. You can request a room with 1 or 2 beds but it is a request only. The hotel grid on the web site indicates which hotels offer room inventory by bed type and which offer run of house room inventory. You can also look at the bed type when reserving a room. Different hotels have different bed types (1 bed room could be a king or queen and a 2 bed room could have 2 double beds or 2 queen beds). On another note, if you request a room with 2 beds but you only have 1 name on the reservation, there is a higher chance you might be placed in a 1 bed room, if the hotel is running low on rooms with 2 beds. They will give priority for their rooms with 2 beds to reservations that have 2 or more people listed on the reservation.

Everyone staying in the room must be listed on the reservation. This is to allow everyone staying in the room to have access to a key and for safety. The hotel must be able to account for every guest in the event of an emergency or evacuation (i.e. hotel fire). If you are not in the hotels registration system you also have no way of gaining access to your room in the event you get locked out or lose your room key. There are numerous safety and security reasons everyone staying in the room needs to be on the reservation. On another note, if you request a room with 2 beds but you only have 1 name on the reservation, there is a higher chance you might be placed in a 1 bed room, if the hotel is running low on rooms with 2 beds. They will give priority for their rooms with 2 beds to reservations that have 2 or more people listed on the reservation.

The hotels will not download any of their GSA reservations until after 24 October. Prior to this time, a reservations agent at the hotel will show that all the rooms in the GSA block are still available in their system. The rooms won’t appear to be “filled” until after 24 October, once they receive the room reservations from VisitIndy.

This year in Indianapolis, we do not have hotels in our room block at the government per diem or lower. If you must have a government rate, the best option is to contact the hotel directly and see if they are offering the government rate. Another option is to share a room; please visit the Roommates & Rides community.

Hotels will not allow GSA to reserve their entire room inventory. They retain a portion for transient business and other contract business.  The Hotel may charge variable rates based on demand. If they make any of these rooms available to the public over our dates, they may raise the prices on those rooms due to limited inventory and increased demand. GSA has no control over hotel room pricing outside of the reserved housing block.

Each hotel manages their own policies regarding member rewards. In most instances, GSA’s group discount supersedes hotel rewards program benefits, meaning you may not be able to apply existing points toward your room bill. If you want to know how a particular hotel handles rewards points in association with their GSA group rooms, please contact that hotel directly.

No, we cannot assist with individual reservations made outside of the GSA housing block. If you choose to book outside of the block, you will have to pay the going rate and deal directly with the hotel regarding special requests and/or changes to your reservation. The GSA Housing Bureau cannot access reservations booked outside of the block and, therefore, cannot change the rate on a reservation made directly with the hotel.

In our contracts, hotels agree to provide GSA with the lowest GROUP rate. When GSA reserves rooms, we are reserving a large percentage of that hotel’s rooms. The hotels have other contracts with wholesalers that allow them to offer discounted rates. Many times, there very few rooms available at this lower rate. If you find a lower rate, and it is through a trusted source, then please go ahead and reserve the room. One thing to mention is that the group rates for GSA include Internet in guest rooms.

Per our hotel contracts anyone who has made a reservation through VisitIndy/GSA Housing Bureau will NOT be relocated to another hotel. Occasionally, the hotel is in an oversold situation and the person working at the front desk hasn’t been made aware of this policy. In the event you are relocated, please contact the GSA Annual Meeting Office located at the Indiana Convention Center (see program book for location and phone number) and ask for Becky Sundeen. Please contact us as soon as possible and do not wait until the end of your hotel stay. We have provisions in our contract regarding GSA attendees who are relocated, and we will work with to you resolve the issue and make sure you receive all accommodations outlined in our hotel contracts.

Passkey is the name of the organization that develops the GroupCampaigns reservation system used by VisitIndy for managing reservations. GSA has been using housing bureaus that utilize Passkey for the past 12+ years. Your hotel acknowledgement will come from the email address: . Each time your reservation is changed or updated you will receive an updated acknowledgement. Please do not reply to this email address; any inquiries should be sent to .

If you would like to reserve a suite, please contact VisitIndy/GSA Housing Bureau directly (). They will check with the hotel to see if they have availability and let you know the rate.

After 24 October. We ask that you do not call the hotel to check on your reservation until after 24 October. The hotel(s) are holding all of our rooms under the Geological Society of America. Most hotels download their room lists on the 25 October and they will have the individual names on the reservations at that time.

After the housing deadline of 10 October, please check our website for updates. VisitIndy can provide you with an up-to-date list of hotels that have availability and give you a rate range, but it will not be at the GSA Group rates. If you still have questions about hotel reservations, contact Becky Sundeen at GSA, +1-303-357-1041, .

If you do not arrive at the hotel on your scheduled reservation check-in date, the hotel will charge you a “no show” fee equal to one night’s room/tax AND they will release your room for the remainder of your scheduled stay. To avoid this, contact the hotel directly if you cannot arrive on your scheduled arrival date. Even if it is after 6 p.m. the day of your arrival—contact the hotel to change your reservation arrival date to avoid cancellation of your entire reservation. If you experience issues onsite, please contact the GSA Annual Meeting Office at the Indiana Convention Center. We will try to assist you in finding alternate accommodations.