SXSW Housing & Travel highly recommends you confirm as many of your attendees as possible prior to purchasing your registrations to avoid transfer fees and forms later on. However, because we offer low early registration rates and our hotel rooms are in high demand, purchasing your registrations using placeholder names may be a good solution for your organization if fewer than 10 rooms are needed. Purchasing a registration at the lowest rate in September and paying the transfer fee in December can still be more cost-efficient than purchasing your registrations in December.
Should you decide to use placeholder names, you must transfer the registration and hotel reservation into the name of the person attending before they arrive in Austin. This ensures they won’t have trouble checking into their hotel or picking up their registration. A transfer fee is charged each time a registration name is changed. The fee is $125 USD. After the final rate deadline in early February, the transfer fee increases to $175. If fewer nights or room cancellation is needed within 28 days of arrival, the new registrant will be charged a $50 penalty by SXSW Housing & Travel. If a room is canceled within the cancellation period for the hotel, the new registrant will be charged the hotel cancellation penalty.
When you fill out the SXSW registration transfer form in the cart, be sure to select the option to TRANSFER the hotel reservation. This ensures the hotel reservation is transferred from the “placeholder name” into the actual attendee’s name.