FAQ

The housing process is fast, easy, personal and provides immediate customer service response. Visit Indy has extensive experience in processing reservations for large conventions, and they have developed close relationships with Indianapolis and surrounding area hotels. This translates into better service for FFA convention and expo attendees.

By contracting rooms into the housing process for this event, FFA and Visit Indy provide attendees with increased availability, lower rates and a smoother process. If all attendees were left to book rooms on their own, they would have to compete with other groups and individuals (including non-FFA guests) for rooms with inflated hotel rates.

A quality assurance visit is conducted for each contracted hotel by one national FFA staff member and one Visit Indy staff member. The quality assurance visits take into account things like cleanliness, safety, security, location and more. We do not have any hotels under contract that we do not feel are appropriate. Quality assurance visits take place twice each year and are always conducted with a representative from both the National FFA Organization and Visit Indy.

All completed reservations in the housing process will generate a reservation acknowledgment at the time of booking via e-mail. If you are booking more than two rooms at one time, you will receive a Master Acknowledgment of your reservations in addition to an acknowledgment of each reservation.

By placing these housing options under contract, FFA and Visit Indy are able to negotiate year-to-year rate increase limits. This protects FFA attendees from having to endure excessive rate escalations during the course of the convention’s time in the host city. The current contract controls rate increases using a sliding scale based on the consumer price index each year.

The convention housing process includes a waitlist feature that enables users to request room nights on the front and/or back end of their reservation. The waitlist is only available for non-peak convention dates and does not include the nights of Wed., Oct. 30 or Thurs., Oct. 31. Nights for which a room is unavailable but eligible for waitlist will be denoted by a red exclamation point beside the date. After booking a reservation including one or more waitlist nights, the system will monitor inventory availability and automatically add the requested nights as they become available. Upon adding night(s) requested via waitlist, the housing system will send the reservation holder a confirmation message indicating the night(s) that have been added. Waitlist nights listed in your reservations are not guaranteed until you receive an updated reservation acknowledgment that shows those room nights have been added to your existing reservation.

The convention housing process includes a comment field to add special requests to your reservation. Please note that special requests are not guaranteed and will be determined availability at each hotel during check-in. If you make a special request, please contact your hotel directly after Sept. 26, 2019, to confirm availability. Hotels will not receive reservation information from the housing process until after Sept. 26, 2019, and cannot answer questions about your reservation until after that date.

Some hotels in the convention housing process may have higher rates if a room has three or more occupants. The additional charge per occupant will be listed in the hotel description on the housing website and also on your emailed reservation acknowledgment.

Credit cards used to make a reservation will not be charged until you check-in, unless you cancel your reservation after Aug. 5, 2019, when fees from the FFA Housing Cancellation Policy will apply. Credit cards that expire before Nov. 3, 2019, will be rejected by the reservation system. The credit card on the reservation can be updated via the housing system until Sept. 26, 2019, or via the hotel directly after Sept. 26, 2019.

To make a change or cancel a reservation prior to Sept. 26, 2019, please follow the instructions in the reservation acknowledgment email. All changes and cancellations after Sept. 26, 2019, must be made directly through the hotel. Please refer to the FFA Housing Cancellation Policy for additional information.

For reservations with two or more rooms, please note that if you attempt to cancel reservations via the button on your Master Acknowledgment you will cancel ALL rooms in your reservation. Only use the cancel button on your Master Acknowledgment if you want to cancel ALL of your reservations. To cancel one reservation or to make changes to your reservations (such as updating reservation names, contact information, credit card and guest information), use the “modify” button.

Once you complete a reservation and you receive a reservation acknowledgment email, you are not able to add rooms to that reservation. To make additional reservations, you must start a new search and make a new, separate reservation.

Yes, a visible timer and pop-up reminder will show you the length of time remaining to complete your reservation before the rooms in your cart will be released back to the available inventory in the housing system. If rooms are added to your cart and you complete the reservation before the timer expires, no other user can access those rooms during the reservation process.

Don’t worry! The housing system will take your Booking Contact information and pre-populate it to all rooms on your reservation. Once your reservations are confirmed, you may go back to your reservation to update names on each individual room.

Once you have a confirmed reservation, you cannot use the modify function in the housing process to change your housing location. If you need to change hotels, you must book a new reservation and cancel your original reservation.

If no hotels are shown as available for the nights you select, try adjusting your dates and resubmitting the search. Otherwise, check regularly to see if additional inventory has been returned to the system. The housing website updates availability in real-time. The housing process website will show all rooms available at any time. No additional rooms are available via the housing call center. You must book any available rooms online before contacting the housing bureau for assistance.

Rates posted when searching for available rooms in the housing system do not include tax. The total charge per room including tax will be shown on the screen before you confirm your reservation and on the acknowledgment screen when your reservation is complete. Reservations are not tax exempt.