The block closed on October 8
The 2026 INFORMS Annual Meeting runs November 1 to 4. The meeting takes place at Moscone Center South, 747 Howard Street, and at the San Francisco Marriott Marquis, 780 Mission Street.
The organiser prints its room-block cut-off as October 8, 2026, in the same sentence that carries the sold-out condition. Rooms were available until sold out or that date. October 8 has passed, so a delegate booking today books outside the window the organiser set.
INFORMS expects more than 6,000 members, students, prospective employers and employees, and academic and industry experts.
The block covers two properties, and both are the designated hotels for the meeting: the San Francisco Marriott Marquis at 780 Mission Street and the InterContinental San Francisco at 888 Howard Street.
What INFORMS guarantees
The Hotel and Travel page states the guarantee without qualification: INFORMS only guarantees sleeping room rates or availability during the event dates for reservations made directly through our INFORMS hotel portal.
The same page names the booking route. The portal link at book.resiada.com/INFORMS2026/Attendee carries the official housing block, and the portal states that it is the only officially endorsed method of booking a room for the meeting.
A rate booked outside that link carries no organiser guarantee of the rate and no guarantee of the room.
Why the organiser pushes the block
INFORMS gives the reason on the same page. Booking inside the block keeps meeting costs low and funds items attendees use. The page names the Exhibit Hall coffee breaks and Wi-Fi as examples.
No nightly rate appears on the meeting site or in the housing record. Ask the portal or the property for the meeting-week figure in writing.
The nights the agenda demands
The agenda fixes the arrival and the departure. Pre-conference programming starts Saturday, October 31. Self check-in and registration run 7 a.m. to 5 p.m., and the Combined Colloquia, the 10th Workshop on Data Science and the 21st Workshop on Data Mining and Decision Analytics each run 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Sunday, November 1 opens with technical sessions at 8 a.m. and carries a Welcome Plenary at 9:30 a.m. The day closes with the Welcome Reception from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. and the Awards Ceremony from 7:45 to 9 p.m.
Wednesday, November 4 ends at noon with the Closing Plenary. Check-in that morning runs 7 to 11 a.m., so the meeting is over before lunch.
The arithmetic is four nights for the full meeting: October 31, November 1, November 2 and November 3, against a Wednesday checkout. A delegate who skips Saturday still needs the Saturday night to reach an 8 a.m. Sunday session. A delegate who arrives Monday morning needs the Sunday night. A delegate who leaves after Tuesday saves one night and misses the closing plenary.
No travel vendor is affiliated with INFORMS
The Hotel and Travel page carries the warning in the organiser's own words: we do not work with outside travel vendors and if you are contacted separately by a company stating they are the official travel vendor for INFORMS or the INFORMS Annual Meeting, this is a scam.
The exhibitor newsletters repeat the warning for the trade side. Exhibitors may receive emails and phone calls from companies offering hotel rooms at discounted rates or attendee lists for sale. INFORMS states that those companies are not affiliated with INFORMS and are not authorised to contact exhibitors, and it asks recipients to report the approaches to the Federal Trade Commission as fraud.
Treat a call or an email offering a discounted INFORMS room as the signal to stop.
If the block is gone, the walk is short
The hotelhuddle directory holds eight properties on the Moscone South corridor. Straight-line distances from 747 Howard Street: W San Francisco, 181 3rd Street, 170 metres; Canopy by Hilton San Francisco SoMa, 250 4th Street, 222 metres; The St. Regis San Francisco, 125 3rd Street, 227 metres; San Francisco Marriott Marquis, 780 Mission Street, 266 metres; Hyatt Regency San Francisco Downtown SOMA, 50 3rd Street, 332 metres; The Mosser Hotel, 54 4th Street, 363 metres; Four Seasons, 757 Market Street, 371 metres; InterContinental San Francisco, 888 Howard Street, 372 metres.
Those are straight-line distances. Ask the property for the walking route.
Both block properties sit inside that set, so the alternatives keep a delegate in the same corridor. The directory publishes no nightly rate on any of the eight properties, so the figure is a question for the property.
Ground, parking and the arrival night
Two organiser pages give different airport distances. The travel FAQ reads approximately 12.7 miles from the hotels and convention centre, with travel time typically ranging from 20 to 30+ minutes. The Hotel and Travel page reads approximately 14 miles over a 20 to 30-minute drive.
BART reaches Powell Street Station, about a 10-minute walk from either block hotel, at approximately $10 to $11 each way. A taxi or rideshare runs $45 to $60.
Parking carries two readings on the organiser's own pages. The travel FAQ states that Moscone Center South offers on-site parking in the Moscone South Garage at 747 Howard Street, entered on Howard Street between 4th and 5th, and it lists the 5th and Mission Garage at 833 Mission Street, the Mission Street Garage at 787 Mission Street, the Yerba Buena Garage at 750 Folsom Street and the Moscone North Garage at 255 3rd Street. The Hotel and Travel page states that the convention centre offers no on-site public parking and points to garages along Howard, Mission, Third and Fourth Streets.
A delegate staying at either block property can walk to Moscone South, so the garage is a driving guest's line item.
The front-desk script
Ask four questions. Is the INFORMS rate still open at either block property, and was the reservation made through the Resiada link? What is the cancellation deadline, in writing? Which nights does the rate cover, given the Saturday arrival the agenda forces? And what is the total with taxes and fees, since the organiser publishes no figure to compare?
Programme meals sit with the delegate. Coffee and snack breaks run daily and the Sunday Welcome Reception is included, and the travel FAQ states that all meals will be on your own.