The USQ Stay and Play policy applies to all USQ run tournaments, including National Qualifiers and US Quadball Cup.
The policy for National Qualifiers and US Quadball Cup states that all participating teams that are not located within 100 miles driving distance of the tournament site address are required to stay in a hotel within the competition’s designated city, county, or region.
Under USQ's current Stay and Play policy, teams must book 1 room for every 4 rostered players unless the hotel room allows higher occupancies, in which case teams must book 1 room for every n rostered players, with n being the maximum allowed (as defined by hotel policy) number of adults per room.
All teams are required to book at least 3 rooms for 2 nights. If the event/division the team is competing in is only scheduled to play on 1 day, teams are only responsible for booking for 1 night but still must book at least 3 rooms on that night.
Deadlines for stay and play exemption and details on how to book your hotels for a qualifier can be found on the '23-24 National Qualifiers Deadlines & Forms/Bookings' tab of this page. For the US Quadball Cup, they can be found on the USQ Cup page under the 'Deadlines' tab.
The only exception to this policy is for teams who are located within 100 miles driving distance of the tournament site address, using the shortest driving distance as reported by Google Maps. The goal of the exemption is to accommodate local teams who could safely drive home and spend the night at their place of residence before, during, and/or after a USQ run event.
Collegiate teams must use their school’s address as their location.
For club teams, they must demonstrate that a majority (half of their team members plus one, rounding down) of their roster (those who are registered adult players) live within 100 miles driving distance of the tournament site address.
Teams must fill out the 'Stay & Play Exemption Form' no later than the outlined deadline on the USQ Cup (under the 'Deadlines' tab) or the '23-24 National Qualifiers Deadlines & Forms/Bookings' tab of this page. USQ events staff will contact applicants via. email to issue an official approval/denial, provisional approval (subject to the roster review detailed below), or request more information on the exemption application.
If a team has their exemption denied, they will be required to book approved hotel accommodations by the registration deadline in order to be eligible to compete in that tournament.
A Stay and Play policy is among the most effective tools to ensure overall event quality. One of the main reasons cities bid on sporting events like ours is their positive economic impact on their area. A big driver of economic impact is hotel nights. With a Stay and Play policy, USQ can guarantee host cities that our events will have a tangible effect on local businesses within their service area. It encourages greater city support of our events in terms of both amenities and financial contribution. This commitment of room blocks also increases the number of potential hosts likely to submit bids.
Benefits for teams from implementing Stay and Play include:
Stay and Play allows us to negotiate collectively lower room rates for our blocks. Without Stay and Play, many hotels in the best locations would be available only at higher rates. With a fixed commitment to purchasing room blocks, our hotel partners can offer rooms for lower rates than if we had to reserve rooms on a team-by-team basis.
Hotels familiar with Stay and Play policies know their block will fill up and are willing to work with USQ to allocate rooms. This produces more rooms closer to the tournament location and at a wider variety of hotels and price points.
USQ contracts HBC for our hotel bookings for each event. The involvement of HBC means that teams will have points of contact who can assist in resolving issues regarding transportation, check-in, or hotel service. USQ & HBC also have relationships with the area tourism bureaus and each individual hotel, further enhancing the customer service experience for teams and players.
HBC has a 24/7 hotline - so if any issues arise (rooms not available, etc) please contact them immediately - working with HBC ensures that rooms booked for a USQ event are guaranteed, even if a hotel is noted as being sold out.
If you would like to speak with a travel consultant with HBC, please call +1 505-346-0522 during the following business hours: Phone Center Hours / Monday-Friday 7AM - 5PM MST / Emergency line available after hours: Call the office & dial extension 9
ABILITY TO BE INVOICED FOR YOUR HOTEL ROOMS
HBC provides an option on the booking portal for you to request to be invoiced for booked hotel rooms, if needing to provide an invoice to your university. Please go to your booking portal, click the 'contact' button at the top, and submit your request to be invoiced for that event.