They received the same lack of support from the group reservations.
I finally contacted conference organizers 24 hours before the reservation - as I haven't been able to get in touch with anyone. I spoke to some random extension, they said they would walk my name and number to group reservations, and I would get a call back within minutes.
Same thing happened the next 2 times I called. Noone picked up the phone for over an hour. When I called about 5 days before the conference to cancel, front desk forwarded me to group reservations.
When it wasn't clear if we would make it on the trip, I called the hotel to check cancellation policy for our conference group rate. Myself and my colleague were to stay for 5 days for a business trip, and I made both reservations.
