My team is about to put in a VexPro order for parts that we need at the Championship Event. Since our robot has already been picked up for shipment, there’s not much use in having the parts shipped out to New Jersey - not to mention they probably wouldn’t arrive until after we left for Houston!
I contacted Vex about this and they said that shipping to our hotel was the best option. For shipping instructions, they suggested including room number, date of stay, and name on the hotel bill. Has anyone done something similar to this for parts orders? I’m sort of hesitating about doing this. For instance, I’m not sure we would know our room number until we checked in.
Would there be a way to instead send the order to the venue? Or to some sort of PO box where we could get access and pick it up (similar to Amazon Lockers)?
I thought I’d ask here to get some ideas since it seems like this would be a thing teams may have had to do in the past. I’m aware that some other FRC suppliers have direct-to-pit delivery, but Vex does not do this.
I’ve never done this with robot parts, but I do this often with clothes when I’m too lazy to pack a suitcase before a trip, or if I’m ordering something that doesn’t ship to Canada but does ship to the country of my trip. For your address, put the hotel address and “C/O April 20th guest John Bottenberg”. Then call the hotel and let them know you’re expecting a package and call them again once you get a delivery confirmation to make sure it’s being held for you.
Definitely call the hotel though and let them know. We have some items being delivered for students with food allergies and the hotel just needed expected delivery times, reservation name, and some other basic info.
I’m just curious, when people have done this, shipping to the hotel, has the hotel typically charged a fee? We had buttons delivered to our hotel in 2018 and Hilton charged us quite a bit to give us the package.
I don’t remember ever being charged a fee for this, but I may have missed it. Often if you have status with the hotel they bend over backwards to accommodate you.
For what it’s worth, I called Hilton Americas across the street from GRB to try to understand their shipping/receiving prices. They have a FedEx store in the building that manages all packages for guests, and charges a handling fee based on the weight of the package. Buttons being fairly heavy in bulk meant they wouldn’t give us our package until we paid them about $50
I remember being charged about $10 to release a package when ordering to Hyatt Regency in 2018. However, that was a FedEx office inside the hotel, so I guess that’s why a payment was needed.
As a team that air travel to almost all of our events, we always mail items to the hotel we’re staying at. Never had an issue of them accepting our packages in the hotel lobby or guest services.