ProtoCon and Free Hotels
August 28, 2008:
I've known about ProtoCon for years, but I've never managed to make it up to College Station for it. I just didn't think it was worth it to drive up to college station for maybe a dozen different board games they run. That is, until I found out about free hotel rooms through Wyndham hotels.
I've thoroughly tested their Guarantee and they are certainly good for it. I used it while going to Fort Worth for a wedding this summer. I got a free night under my name Friday night, and had my wife get a second free night under her name Saturday night. Of course we had to check out between nights, but that was a minor inconvenience for saving $150 on lodging. My bargian-hunter friend Dan also used it to get a free night (two $170/night rooms) in Hershey, PA on a recent road trip. In fact, he's who I heard about the deal from. All it takes is a little time researching hotel prices and you can find one 60-70% of the time within 20 miles of your destination.
But anyway... As I do every three months or so, I check out upcoming board game cons (yes, I'm a nerd) and ProtoCon came up again. I looked more into it and found that it was only $10 for the entire weekend. I did a quick check for a free-night-guarantee hotels. Surprisingly quickly, I found a Knight's Inn across the street from Texas A&M on priceline.com for $67.50 (price on Wyndam was $72.00).
This news was delivered to Oliver, and I walked him through the steps of getting a free hotel room on Saturday, to compliment the one I was going to get on Friday.
The number-one rule of filling out forms for free stuff is to be very careful that all the information is right. I failed. Twice. The first time I filled it out, I accidentally put travelocity instead of priceline as the competing site. When it came back to me as unapproved, without re-reading my submission, I responded with what I thought was the PDF screenshot of the priceline price (thinking they were trying to pull the old "well I don't see it" trick). Instead I submitted an old one in a different directly not even related to the hotel, which I saved a few months ago. Realizing this, I quickly sent the correct PDF. Then I realized I had the wrong website from the original request.
Oliver, who filled it out correctly, got the free room.
My whole process was so screwed up that I just resubmitted the form again with all the correct information. Luckily, I got the free room after all.
So there you have it. An entire weekend of fun in College Station (I feel dirty just saying that, having grown up in Austin) for $10 plus $22 in gas, round trip.
If anyone else wants to go that weekend, grab your free night now! Just book it (risk free through Wyndam Rewards) and fill out the form in the link above. Be sure to double check the prices before you do.
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