Booking a Block of Rooms - confused about this.

I would also LOVE to get some information on this!

Alot of times hotels will give a discount on a block of rooms....you call the hotel ask for a block of rooms for x # of guests for days, the hotel blocks the requested # of rooms for a certain period of time in which the guests can call and get the special rate after the alotted time the rooms go back up for grabs by anyone! you dont pay...i would just call whatever hotel you are looking at and ask about it because different hotels have different policys on how long they hold the rooms etc...

You don’t pay anything and your guests get a better deal. Usually, not a great deal but better. You can also get a free room (for you)if certain quantities are booked.

I guess-timated mine based on how many out-of-towners I thought would attend. If they don't get booked, they just go back to being a regular price--no charge to you.

What I like about it is that we'll all end up in the same hotel--fun!

BTW I went to my hotel and asked for a block and they told me the discount is the same as AAA--10%.

My guests are able to choose from two different venues. For the Best Western they required that I put down $50, if 80% of the rooms I blocked get reserved then I get my deposit back. I'm sure this will vary depending on the venue. I only put aside like 15 rooms, because I felt as if it were better to start small and then add more rooms if needed and I only really thought of the bridal party and the party-goers who will need a place to crash. For my second venue, they didn't provide a discount and there wasn't a deposit required. I would talk to the potential venues to see what they are willing to offer.

Ok that makes sense. Thanks Ladies. I guess I'll just have to go over my list and see how many I think will be travelling.

We have a block of rooms for our hotel what they do is put 10 rooms that are yours for your guest you yourself dont pay anything then the hotel gives your guest a special rate for the night

It really depends on the hotel. I've looked at two hotels so far. Yes, most hotels will offer a discount to your guests, as long as they book within an allotted period of time. One hotel I have been talking to doesn't make me pay anything, whether the rooms end up being reserved or not (which is super nice!). The other hotel requires that at least 80% of the rooms I originally want must be booked, or I have to pay for them. As far as how many rooms to get, it's a judgement call. I'd say start conservatively, because it's usually easier to add than take them away.

We booked a block of rooms at the Hyatt. We were able to get a reduced rate for our guests. We didn't have to pay anything, but we did have to sign a contract for the block. Basically, we need to have at least 80% of the rooms booked or we will need to pay a fee to the hotel. We figured that we'd be better off having fewer rooms in our room block than more because the more rooms we added, the higher the likelihood would be that we would have to pay a fee. We already hit our 80%, so that's good news for us. Fortunately, they can add on rooms to our block once we hit our numbers.

I used to work at a Holiday Inn and also booked at a Holiday. Call and talk to the sales department. They do give a discounted rate and hold a set of rooms. The guest have until a certain date to book the room. All the rooms that are left over go back to the general public. As they all say each place is different. It wouldn't hurt to make some calls. If we get so many bookings our room is free.

I used hotelplanner.com for one and that was super easy... hotels send their bids to you... and you accept or reject the bids.

As Kathleen and Andrea pointed out, just make sure about the hotels policy if some of the rooms aren't booked. One hotel I called said I would have to pay for any unbooked rooms. No way I'm doing that.

I went with Marriott, they don't charge a dime up front, the give a discount, if 20 rooms get booked the bride and groom get their wedding night free. They give your guests a deadline date and if they haven't booked by that date the rooms go back out to the public and anyone who hasn't booked doesn't get the discount.

I hope that made sense. Good luck!

I work for a hotel. Our policy is that a block of rooms has to be reserved 8-6 weeks in advance. You have to book at least 8 rooms to get any discount. All we do when we guarantee it with a credit card is run it for $1 to insure it is an active card. It’s that easy. When your guests call have them say they need to reserve a room from the “Smith” group. We have to have cancelations 24 hrs in advanced (4pm the day before you check in) we will not charge if you cancel in time. All hotels are going to be slightly deferent. I hope that helped a little bit.

Be very careful when blocking rooms because each hotel is different. The hotel where we're having the wedding is owned by Kimpton Hotels and they wanted to make us responsible for up to 75% of the rooms if they were not booked. We decided to block rooms at the Holiday Inn which is right down the street from the venue. The Holiday Inn will block rooms for us, at no cost, until March 20th, after the 20th the rooms go back to the public at regular price.

Both our hotels have special event depts, we just called the main #'s and got transferred over. We didn't have to guarantee/pay anything or give a CC #.

JW Marriott's published rate is $399 right now, and they gave us $219, which is a pretty sweet discount for a very nice hotel. We get a suite upgrade if 10 rooms are booked by our guests. We also get Marriott points for every guest who books a room under our block. Guests have to book 3 wks in advance. On our initial contract, it said we "guaranteed" the rooms would be booked. I asked them to remove that line, and they did.

Club Quarters was different - FH works with IBM a lot, so we negotiated a rate using IBM's corporate code. Regular rate is $179, our rate is $109. They don't hold rooms, but provided rooms are available our guests can get that rate anytime. They offered other perks too, like free rooms for our parents, parking discounts, etc.

Also for JW Marriott - they recommended starting out with 10 rooms in the block, and they said we can add rooms anytime before the 3 week deadline, as long as they still have availability. Most of our guests are OOT but they're staying all over the place since our wedding isn't right next to the hotel and I had no idea how to figure the size of the block. They said that's no problem.

We did a 10 room block and needed to put 75 deposit down, if 30% of our rooms were used we would get our deposit back if not we lose our deposit that was the end of our liability on that part. But just call and ask them if they do blocks and if they require deposits or not and policies etc.

A room block is when you reserve a number of rooms at a hotel for out of town wedding guests. The main reason you do this is that hotels will give a discount when all the rooms are blocked at one hotel. Room blocks are nice because sometimes the hotel will give you a free room with 10 rooms booked. So you can get your room for free.

There are 2 types of reservations you can make for blocks...

1) you get a group rate and the hotel holds it for you up to 3-4 weeks of your event. afterward the rate discount is over

2) you get a group rate you have to guarantee 80% of the rooms... meaning if you ask for 10 rooms and only 5 of your guests stay there, you have to pay.

I would go with the first kind (its called courtesy room block)

Here is a set of articles that you can read to get more information about blocking rooms at a hotel for a wedding: http://grouptravel.org/wedding/frequently-asked-questions-faq-about-blocking-hotel-rooms-for-a-wedding/

I've been in touch with Kleinfeld Hotel Blocks and am loving it so far! But, because they get a commission, would I get a better deal if I called the hotels directly myself??

I definitely recommend JC Room Blocks!!! We used their services for our August 2014 wedding and they were able to save us a bunch of money and get us some pretty good extra concessions like free breakfast, and a shuttle to the reception and stuff like that! I think now they're charging $30 for their services, but it's totally worth it! They will pick out several hotels in your area and gather some data about what different hotels are willing to offer and you pick and they take care of everything... When you are planning a wedding, you don't want to have to bother with all the extra little details like hotels!

http://jcroomblocks.com/index.html