[CJAS Otakon] 4 person room

[James Kao]

I got a question about why it would be so hard to open a second 4-person
room, and wanted to lay out the problem to the whole group.

The issue is the cost when rooms aren't full.

So basically, we have 28 people, which can divide like:

1 4-person room: 4 slots
4 6-person room: 24 slots

Total: 28 slots
Wasted slots: 0


So for instance:

2 4-person rooms: 8 slots
4 6-person rooms: 24 slots

Total: 32 slots (If I only opened 3 6-person rooms, we'd only have 24
slots, which isn't enough for 28 people)
Wasted slots: 4
Total extra cost: $225

Now, dividing this extra cost creates a problem. One way would be to divide
the cost across everyone, which would mean $8 ($300/28) more for each
person. But this isn't entirely fair to the people who requested 6-person
rooms because they're paying more (without getting anything more) but
wanted the cheapest possible rate, which is the basic purposes of the group
hotel scheduling.

The way that I do it is to allocate the extra cost only to the people who
joined the designated 4-person rooms, which would mean $28 (225/8) more per
person for each of the people who join 4-person rooms, in addition to the
already higher base rate ($112, which totals to $140).

This turns out to not be entirely fair either, because those 4 extra slots
still go into the 6-room pool, which means that there are 2 additional
4-person rooms where the occupants get extra space that they don't want
(well, they'll probably enjoy it, but they didn't really desire it nor want
to pay for it).

The really perverse thing is that the uneven packing ends up costing the
4-person occupants more than if they had booked their rooms on their own
(e.g. not with me), which is why in general I don't guarantee the
availability of any 4-person rooms; these people are generally better
served by going out on their own.

So the question I'd want to pose to people who really want a 4-person room,
how do you feel about this extra cost, which comes to $140 for the weekend?

Thursday night is a whole different story, since we have a completely
different number of people for Thursday night. There isn't any guarantee or
even a request for any kind of room packing for Thursday. I just pack
people in the best I can for that 1 night.

Again, please reply comments to the list so that people can discuss.

Thanks.