In previous posts, I talked about various book and writers’ conferences that interest me. I had it relatively narrowed down to ThrillerFest (in NYC every year) or BoucherCon (in New Orleans this year).

I really wanted to go to Thrillerfest because I love David Morrel and he was going to be there again this year (he goes every year). I looked at flights, had it worked out for some good options, and then went to book the hotel. Except I ran into a glitch. The main parts of Thrillerfest that interest me are Friday and Saturday. So I tried to book in Thursday and out on Sunday — four days, three nights. Except the main hotel is/was sold out. Well, dang it. Okay, it’s Manhattan, there are lots of choices. Except when I went to look for similar bookings, I was getting prices in the $1800 US range. Wait, it was only $300 a night at the conference. I started playing with options to maybe only go for one night (Friday), nd maybe fly down Friday morning, leave Saturday night. Quick down and back. I went back and was fiddling around with the main site and saw that you could see other room options even if sold out. By clicking on that, it showed me that the simple room I wanted was okay for Thursday and Friday night, it was really just sold out for Saturday night. In fact, all of the options that were jacking the price were because Saturday night was a premium night. The more I played with options, the more it looked like $2200 or so US to go for two days. That seemed a little steep. And since they ALWAYS do ThrillerFest in NYC because of traditional publishing being centred in NYC, I doubt I’ll make it to it in the future. Just too much for too little. Sigh.

Which made me think maybe I’ll just do a virtual thing this year in Vegas. Except BoucherCon has always been calling me.

Okay, let’s look. Registration is way cheaper. Hotels are way cheaper per night. And flights are more expensive. But I can go for seven days and six nights for not much more than NYC was going to cost me. Andrea said “Go”, so I paid my registration.

I’m going to the Big Easy.

Wait a minute

I start messing around with my flights. Monday or Tuesday, Monday or Tuesday. The conference really doesn’t get going until Wednesday, but if I’m going all that way, I should do SOMETHING touristy ahead of time, right? It’s LOUISIANA baby, and I’m not getting any younger. Maybe this will be my only chance to visit the area? I want jazz, I want Creole cooking, I want Canal Street. Hell, I may even drink some bourbon. And I want to see gators somewhere.

Except my flights were doing something completely wonky through Expedia. I am hoping to try and only do a carry-on this trip. But I don’t do “pick a seat, any seat on check-in”. I want to know I have an aisle seat. By upgrading to choose my seat now, it includes a checked bag. If I need it, fine; if I don’t, also fine. But all of the options include a carry-on. When I get to the final page ready to book the flights, the baggage details says, “No carry-on”. WTF? I go back, try different options, all say “No carry-on”. Like not even a personal item. Huh?

I switch over to booking direct with Air Canada. Routings either go through Chicago or Dulles, all looks fine, I get to the end, and it says I can only do personal articles (which are smaller than carry-ons). WTF? Again, multiple iterations. It took me quite a while to figure out that while it says carry-on in the first part, when it gets to the end, it says you can have a personal item of size X and standard article of size Y. The standard article of size Y is actually the carry-on. Which is why the first booking said “No carry-on”, because it isn’t classed as a carry-on, just a “standard article”. FFS. That was a lot of wasted effort. Booked, a bit more expensive than I would like, and put insurance on it to cancel for any reason. I don’t know what will happen between now and September.

Okay, on to hotels. Bloody f***ing hell. What the f*** is going on? It now says they’re sold out at the hotel. Like NYC, right, but I know now that it is NOT possible that they are sold out. The conference is 5 months away, only the annuals and writers have booked everything yet. They haven’t even announced the program yet and which panels will be offered. So I know they aren’t sold out. Similar booking options, click here and there, and it shows me that they aren’t in fact sold out, they just don’t show any availability on Tuesday night. Everything else is fine. So I’m wondering if maybe it just means no rooms at the conference rate are left for Tuesday? Even though the conference doesn’t really start until Wednesday. It’s a little sus, but what do I know?

So I call the Marriott and am sitting on hold for a wait time of up to 10 minutes. In the meantime, I am emailing the conference contact for hotel bookings to see if she knows why there’s no availability on Tuesday. I decide I’m going to pull a screengrab to show her in the email, so I go back to the email with the link, click through to the hotel, and there is the note…ummm, what? The note’s gone. It’s now showing me that the room type I want is actually fully available for my whole stay now. I don’t know if it didn’t take the conference code the first time or the website glitched or they added more rooms (having done some of this sort of logistics in the past, I know the hotel doesn’t always put all of the rooms as available from day 1, they have them held but only release them in stages, partly to encourage people to go for larger / more expensive room types although ostensibly to allow them to know which types of rooms are filling up first). I said no to the city view ($30 a night) or the river view ($40 a night). If I want to see the city or river, I’ll go out to the city or river.

They have what looks like a great deal for some coupons to add to your booking. It LOOKED like $20 for a coupon that reset every day. To get at least $20 at a burger place on Canal St. Or one of 4 other places. So even if I just go to the burger place, it looks like I’ll come out even. Nope. The wording on the booking is very deceptive…if you take the $20 coupon, it DOES replenish every day but they are charging you $20 for it every day anyway. So if you DON’T use it one day, you’re just out $20. It doesn’t roll over. And it turns out the 4-5 places are ALL IN THE HOTEL, facing Canal Street. So I’d just be prepaying them for meals? What a deal. Not.

Two more clicks, and it’s paid. There’s some basic refund options built-in to all three expenses if I eventually cancel, but for now, I’m booked for registration, air, and hotel. I’m going to New Orleans in September.

Andrea and Jacob will party while I’m gone.