Affiliate Summit sues hotel booking firm
Organizers say defendants are tricky conference attendees into booking hotel rooms.
Many people in the domain name industry that go to January’s NamesCon conference will stick around Vegas for the Affiliate Summit conference, which starts January 18.
If you are going to the show, beware: organizers of the conference say a firm is misrepresenting itself to attendees in order to sell hotel bookings.
In a lawsuit (pdf) filed in U.S. District Court on Tuesday, Affiliate Summit claims that Los Angeles-based Exhibitors Housing Services, LLC is cold calling conference registrants and claiming they are “handling the hotel bookings for Affiliate Summit West 2015.”
Affiliate Summit alleges that the firm charges high booking fees to people that book hotels through them.
It’s usually advisable to book conference hotel rooms through links on the official show site.
Update: Jothan Frakes, one of the organizers of NamesCon, stated he has also dealt with this hotel booking firm. It hurts conferences in multiple ways. It often creates confusion and client service issues among conference attendees. It also means fewer rooms booked on the conference’s hotel block, which has a financial repercussion for the conference. Often times the booking firm deal will sound better, but it excludes resort fees.
