Hotel Blocks

It depends on the hotel. Some do have it so you have to book a certain percentage, other just release the rooms if they aren't booked by a certain date. You should check with the hotels you're considering.

If a hotel wants to charge you for unsold rooms, pick a different hotel.

Typically you can block a certain number of rooms (typically 10, but it varies) without any financial liability on your part. Then as people book those rooms you can request to have more added in, so you are never holding more than 10 that haven't been claimed by anyone. Then typically 30 days before the wedding any unsold rooms get released back to the hotel to be sold to whomever, no harm no foul.

Our reception is next to a resort. Our room block requires us to pay if 80% arent booked. We reserved 40 rooms. We need 32 to meet the 80% required. However in our contract if we increase our room block by any amount then we are required to meet 90% of the room block. If not then we pay the difference of the rooms that were held for our wedding.

My hotel blocked off 10 for the day before and 20 for the night of. They gave me little slips to add to my invitations that gave all of their info. If they people don't reserve all the rooms by like a week prior I think, they just remove them.

We blocked two. One we just had to sign a contract and the other hold on a card but has to be cancelled 48hours of the arrival date. It just depends

First of all, I second everything @StPaulGal said. I work in hotels, and she hit the nail on the head.

I would avoid doing anything except calling the hotel directly (which is a pain, I know). Calling and talking to the sales manager will get you the best price and the best perks (free room with X rooms blocked, complimentary breakfast, shuttle service, etc). Also, be aware of any events going on near your venue. I work in a city that just hosted Ryder Cup (an international golf tournament) and is hosting the Super Bowl in 2018. I know those are extreme events, but a concert at a nearby stadium can drive prices up. The last piece of advice I will give you is to trust your sales manager. They do a ton of these each year, and they know the market they sell in.

Good luck!

Don't go through skipper or third party sites. Most hotels will charge you more per room because they have to pay commission to the site.

Calling the hotel you're interested in is your best bet

With ours, we have to release unused rooms by a certain date or we have to pay for them. But there's no charge to get the block.

Yes, I completely agree with krclark - talk to the sales manager directly. We have hotel blocks at a few different hotels in the area. They're all courtesy blocks and we don't have to pay a dime. Any rooms that aren't booked will be released a month before our wedding date. The sales managers were extremely helpful. We got tours of the hotels and of each type of room that is available for guests. They also gave us a pretty decent discount IMO ($30+ off the usual price).

Sorry for the off topic, but @krclark7--sounds like we are in the same industry in the same city!

@StPaulGal - I work in downtown Minneapolis, so I'm guessing so!

@Jessica - she shouldn't need to worry about attrition with a wedding block. If a sales manager doesn't give it to her for free, she needs to find a different property. Any property that is going to charge attrition to a wedding block is too desperate for money.

I went through reservations.com and got an overall "contracted rate" with lots of hotels like a booking website. The prices were way lower then the best rates I've seen for the hotels and it gives you a variety of hotels rather then locking people into your choice. We have people who's budget is $75 per night to people willing to spend $200 per night so it's good to give a variety.

I think it depends on the hotel.

My hotel gave me a certain number for my guest count (20 rooms for 200 guests). If not all 20 get booked by a certain date they will just release the rooms. But if I wanted to start with more than the 20 I would have to pay a certain price if they didn't all get used.

I actually used the block tab on WW , they called , emailed and set everything up for me . I was given a list of hotels and prices they quoted and picked one. The only thing i actually had to do was call directly and confirm the number of rooms ,WW took care of the rest of it.

I know at the Best Western, if you block out a certain number of hotel rooms, and if 50% of them aren't booked for the day you reserved them, then you person who blocked the rooms out gets charged for 50% of the rooms. I didn't have enough out of town guests attending mine to justify needing to block out hotel rooms. I just provided a link to a nearby hotel that my few out of towners could book at if they needed to.