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I just got off the phone from a very weird conversation with the Madison Concourse Hotel.

The short version of what y'all need to know: they've changed reservation systems, and some reservations may have gotten lost. So if you have a reservation at the Concourse, please call and confirm ASAP. And please spread the word to other WisCon attendees.

Detailed version:

They had gotten some things wrong about my and Mary Anne's reservations, and I was concerned that Mary Anne might have two reservations in addition to my reservation, and we've decided to share a room so we only needed one, not three.

So I called them a few days ago to resolve this, but I didn't have my confirmation number handy. It sounded like everything was okay, but there were some oddities that made me suspicious: the Concourse said there was no record of any reservation in Mary Anne's name. It hadn't been canceled; it just didn't exist as far as their system was concerned.

Last night, I found the printed paper confirmation letters they mailed me, so I called just now to make absolutely sure everything was the way I thought it was.

And they have no record at all of the confirmation number for the reservation that was in my name. And the one that was in Mary Anne's name now has my name on it instead of hers.

I said (politely), "Okay, we only need one room, so that's okay, but I'm concerned. I have a printed letter from you that has this confirmation number on it. How can you not have any record of it?"

The woman said (paraphrasing here), "Sorry, sir, I have no idea. We have a new system, so maybe it got lost in the transition."

There's one other weirdness in all this: they have another reservation for WisCon weekend, in the name of Mary Jane Mohanraj. I was certain that was just a typo and that it was one of Mary Anne's reservations that had disappeared--until the reservations person told me the person lived in Wisconsin. (She also told me the town name, but it feels a little weird to post that here.) I have no idea what to think of this. Presumably there's no such person; it sounds to me like they mixed up M's (mis-written) name with someone else's reservation. But I don't feel like I should cancel that reservation, since it might belong to someone.

Anyway, the upshot of all this is that at least one confirmed reservation has completely vanished from their system, and various other problems seem likely to have happened as well. May well be just a fluke, my customer service demon popping up again, but I nonetheless recommend checking your reservations.

P.S. added later: I've now notified WisCon's Hotels/Rooms group and Registration group about these issues, so people who know much more than I do about the system will be looking into this stuff. If you run into any problems with reservations, might be a good idea to get in touch with the Hotels folks.