2003-11-14 15:44![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
bigdamnnerd
bigdamnnerdSo, I'll be in downtown Chicago in early January for a week to finally get my RHCE. I'm not all that keen on certifications myself, but it makes the department look better on grant proposals, so, whatever.
The class and test are all paid for by the UW, however food & lodging are all up to me--I have to get reimbursed later. So, cheap is good (a week in a hotel anywhere can get to be kinda spendy). Not knowing Chicago really at all (the place I'm headed is on Monroe Street, wherever that is), I check the training facility's "recommended hotels", which all have specific discounts for people saying they're taking classes from this place. They're all .5 to .8 miles away (which is certainly walkable), and all of them are $130-$160. The price in and of itself isn't a big deal--the UW's max nightly rate for Chicago is $194, so I'll get reimbursed for all of it, but I thought I'd poke around elsewhere and see what else comes up. Besides, none of the recommended hotels had high-speed internet access, which is pretty much required if I'm going to be spending a week alone in a strange city. (I realize there's probably plenty to do in Chicago, but I'm not sure I want to be trekking all over the place).
One quick Orbitz search later, and I find the West Harrison street Holiday Inn, .5 miles from the training, with "Wireless High Speed Internet Access Now Available in our Guest Rooms". Apart from an egregious use of capital letters, that sounds good. The better part? $88.80/night. That's roughly two thirds the cost of the "recommended" hotels. To hell with them, I'm getting my own reservations, and saving a couple hundred bucks.
The class and test are all paid for by the UW, however food & lodging are all up to me--I have to get reimbursed later. So, cheap is good (a week in a hotel anywhere can get to be kinda spendy). Not knowing Chicago really at all (the place I'm headed is on Monroe Street, wherever that is), I check the training facility's "recommended hotels", which all have specific discounts for people saying they're taking classes from this place. They're all .5 to .8 miles away (which is certainly walkable), and all of them are $130-$160. The price in and of itself isn't a big deal--the UW's max nightly rate for Chicago is $194, so I'll get reimbursed for all of it, but I thought I'd poke around elsewhere and see what else comes up. Besides, none of the recommended hotels had high-speed internet access, which is pretty much required if I'm going to be spending a week alone in a strange city. (I realize there's probably plenty to do in Chicago, but I'm not sure I want to be trekking all over the place).
One quick Orbitz search later, and I find the West Harrison street Holiday Inn, .5 miles from the training, with "Wireless High Speed Internet Access Now Available in our Guest Rooms". Apart from an egregious use of capital letters, that sounds good. The better part? $88.80/night. That's roughly two thirds the cost of the "recommended" hotels. To hell with them, I'm getting my own reservations, and saving a couple hundred bucks.
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I submitted the dinner bill, but not the entrance fee, and when my boss heard about that (the guys that were on the trip with me were very amused by it) he told me to submit the entrance fee as well - since it was the only nearby place, they would reimburse that as well. So, in the end, my workplace paid for me to go hang out in a strip club. ;)