Hotel Room Block Attrition Charge, No Reduction - Wyndham San Diego Bayside

I don't have any experience with this, but I imagine that you should only be responsible for 2% to get them to maximum occupancy. Even then, I can't imagine it's fair to make you pay for other rooms that were canceled by people not invited to the wedding?

That is kind of ridiculous. My hotel is charging $20 per room deposit, and I get it back as the rooms are booked. Full rate is ridiculous.

And I'm staying in a Wyndham in Puerto Rico as we speak lol!

It will technically come down to what's in your contract. I'm a meeting planner and work with hotels and their nasty contracts daily (good luck to the hotel where I'm having my reception, LOL!!)

For such a small room block, it's not customary to have a block reduction clause in your contract. In fact, most hotels give courtesy blocks (no attrition) for weddings because it's so hard to know what they need, but they limit the size of the block until you can demonstrate you'll use more (you fill the initial block) so for this hotel to ask you to agree to a certain number in advance was unusual (for a wedding).

You did give them significant notice to try to resell the rooms, so even if you didn't have the official option to reduce, you were absolutely a good partner and if they were decent people, they should let you out of it. They reached 98% for gods sake...

Long story short, comb your contract for any possible negotiating power. Did you plow through your food minimum and spend more than they expected on the event? They can't charge you for more rooms than they would've needed to reach 100%. And at a maximum you would only need to cover the difference to get you to 16 total rooms, not the full 20.

Hopefully they back down and you don't owe anything!!! That is insane and not how you want to kick off your marriage!!

Oh man. I made sure my room block was a courtesy block for this very reason.

But that is ridiculous! So sorry you are having to deal with this, but I would definitely try to speak to a manager and get this sorted out.

Honestly, I've never heard of the bride being charged for rooms that are unused in their block. It isn't in my hotel contract, and I've worked in several large, high end hotels that did not charge for unused rooms as long as they were just blocked and not booked. Unless this is a newer thing since it has been years since I worked in hotels.

Most of the time they have a deadline for guests to call and book their rooms than they are released for other guests to call in for. I can understand if the bride had asked for the rooms not to be released at all.

We looked at 3 hotels, and 1 had a clause with us paying for the extra. We didn't pick that hotel for that reason.

It really will come down to what it says in your contract. Although you tried to do the right thing, and tell them early, if you have in the contract that you have to pay, I don't so much know if matters. You will likely have to pay.

I don't have any advice for how you should approach this but as a PSA for others:

Our "courtesy" block with a popular chain hotel actually states in the contract that if you, the person who reserved the block, cancels the block for whatever reason, you're charged for whatever isn't booked. However, if those rooms just aren't booked or if others have booked them and cancel the rooms themselves, you don't get charged for unused rooms. It's a really weird and shady clause, but this might be what happened to you. So if you make a room block and something happens where you have to reduce or cancel the block, just leave it and let the rooms be released at the predetermined date.

Thank you very much for all the support and the advices, I'm really glad I shared it here T^T

Although I really regret my decision on doing room block with Wyndham Bayside just because it was across from my reception venue...should have done more research..., I'll look into the contract again for more negotiations, and will also ask for legal help I'm really encouraged now and I won't let those shady people to ruin my special day! Thank you so much again