Botcon Registration is up.

[jaydisc]

Woo hoo!

The 1 page fax you sent through eFax.com to 18174489843 was successfully transmitted at 2008-02-01 02:04:47 (GMT).

[griffin]

Shoulda known they would put up the registration form just before the weekend. Lucky I don't have work tomorrow, so I can go to the post office and fax it off.
I checked their website last night after work (their daytime), and it wasn't there yet. If I had imagined that they would put it up at such an odd American time, I would have checked again during daytime Friday. Probably a good thing though, as I'm not sure how reliable the post office would be with retrying for a lengthy period of time.

Just a bit worried about how soon they will process the payment, as I won't have enough on the Credit card until wednesday to cover it (I just paid for the airfares on thursday).
Last year I held off until I had the money and ended up missing the Hasbro tour, and they ended up taking a couple of weeks to charge the credit card anyway.
Knowing my luck, they'll try to charge my credit card straight away this time (before wednesday) and it will be declined.
I don't think the pre-con tours usually sell out, or fill up quickly, because they are middle of the week, and very few people spend the extra two days before BotCon due to the extra time and expense of it. Still, I'd like to get into both tours though, because I booked my travel to accomodate them - I couldn't wait any longer, as waiting for confirmation of getting onto the tours would mean missing out on the cheaper tickets.

[jaydisc]

I got an email moments ago acknowledging receipt of my fax:

This email confirms that we received your BotCon fax.

It does not confirm that you have been processed.

It does not confirm that your forms are error free (if there is a
problem, we will contact you).

It does not confirm that we have accepted your requests or have reserved
anything for you.

Hard copy confirmations will come in the mail starting at the end of February.

Class and tour confirmations will come via email when your request is
processed.

Again, this email is only to let you know we received your fax.

BotCon Staff

[griffin]

It's never easy... for me at least.
I guess if I had read the FAQ when it was up the other day, I'd probably have picked up on the hint that the forms would be up before February 1st, and prepared for it.
So there I am last night, trying to figure out how I can fax off the registration form without the risk of having it rejected if they charged my credit card before Wednesday (when I get paid). The only credit I had left after paying for my airfares was a GE creditline card (for interest free purchases), but it couldn't be used as a credit card for the registration form. Getting a cash advance was the easy bit (but would be expensive at 28% interest), I just had to get the money into my NAB account somehow, while the banks were closed. Then I remembered that the Post Office is an agent for NAB (and probably the other major banks), because some time back I got charged an 'branch teller' fee ($3) instead of an eftpos fee (25c) on my statement when I used my keycard to pay for posting something.
Okay, so the problem was almost solved... almost.
Since the GE card was one I have only used a couple of times ages ago for interest free furniture purchases, I didn't want to be tempted to use it, so I never activated the new card that was sent when the old one expired. So I rang up the number last night to activate it, and the automated system wasn't working. It told me to ring when an operator would be in. I hung up as it started listing times, expecting Monday to be the first chance I could get this done.
I went to sleep, planning to just fax off the form first thing this morning at the post office, and just hope that they didn't process it until Monday.
When I got up and filled out the registration form, I rang the number again, and got someone (yay), who activated the card for me (yay).
Heading off down to the post office, I then had to see if a deposit would go straight into the account, or take a day or two to process (since they were just an agent). I withdrew enough money to cover it, and deposited $50 first to check if the balance immediately reflected the deposit.
It did. (yay!)
So I deposited the rest of the amount, and faxed off the form (plus had to post something), but they were having a problem with the fax.
The number was coming back as invalid.
They tried again, and said to come back in a few minutes.
I went shopping, and came back to hear that it was still not going through. All that stuffing around was about to be wasted if their fax machine wasn't working.
The manager came and had a go, and a minute later, I got the confirmation that it was sent. (phew)
Now I just have to get confirmation from the BotCon people, and I might just calm down from my current panicked state.
I signed up for the two pre-con tours, the boxed set and the loose set. As long as there wasn't any errors on the form, I should get everything. Even though there are a lot less loose sets, I don't think they sold out as fast as the boxed sets last year. I could be wrong though.
Fingers crossed.
I now just have to cover accomodation costs (have 12 weeks to save up for that expense), and the rest of what I save up during that time is mine to spend on toys...

[Tetsuwan Convoy]

Wow, what a drama.

I managed to get mine through on the second time. Although I was faxing it at about 6pm west aussie daylight time. This time, I managed to fill the form out just fine as last time I forgot the postage (hey, it was so small). Now I wait. I hope I am in the first 200!!

[Soundwarp]

I now just have to cover accomodation costs (have 12 weeks to save up for that expense), and the rest of what I save up during that time is mine to spend on toys... FOR SOUNDWARP

Gee your nice Griff!

[griffin]

Got an email from MC to say that they received my fax (yay). Now just gotta hope I didn't stuff up on it somewhere and get put at the bottom of the pile.

[Paulbot]

I don't like the tone of their customer communications: "if you make a mistake that we have to spend time fixing then too bad you'll suffer for it".

[Tetsuwan Convoy]

Yeh, they don't like making them easy to read and write on much do they? Last year I forgot to add the postage. Not this year!! I notice the price for the figure set has gone up by $6 too.

[Saintly]

just glad that you got through, Griffin... don't want to be a lonely first-timer at botcon