Kleinfeld Hotel Block - Scam or Steal?

I'd actually start with talking to your venue - mine provided the names of a couple of nearby hotels that many of their weddings used. It's really easy to just call the hotel, ask for the sales department, and get a contract directly from them. Most courtesy blocks will be for 10-15 rooms per night BUT once those are filled, more can be added to the block - this way you won't be held liable for unused rooms. If you're concerned about running out of rooms, ask your VIPs to book their rooms as soon as the block is available so you can add more rooms to the block ASAP.

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My venue actually recommended this service too, but now that I know what hotels I like, I may just do it directly myself. I'm trying to figure out if anyone else has experienced similar frustrations with Kleinfeld's hotel block service. Thanks for your reply!

Honestly, I agree with the consultant and wouldn’t have 4 hotel blocks. The purpose of blocks, at least in my social circle, is to keep your guests mostly together. Having 4 different ones is going to get complicated if you’re trying to arrange anything related to the hotel block (welcome party, transportation, after party are a few that come to mind). Can you add rooms once the first ones get booked up? Most hotels let you book 10-20 in a courtesy block and then if those get booked up, they offer 10 more or something similar.

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2 of the 4 hotels are across the street from each other, and the other 2 only a two block radius or so apart, so 'separating' people isn't really a concern for me I guess, but I will ask the hotel to build in a way to add additional rooms once the rooms I have booked fill up. My immediate concern is that I don't want to be on the hook for unused rooms at any point in this process, and picking 4 different hotels seemed like the best way to do that! Thanks for replying!

I can’t comment on this service directly, but I’m not terribly shocked you have to pay if rooms aren’t filled. My venue was a resort (in Baltimore, not NYC), so we had rooms on site and, with our block, we were required to fill 80% of our block. If we didn’t, we were responsible for paying for the rooms we did not fill to get up to 80%. (So if we blocked 10 and filled 6 with guests, we’d still have to pay for 2 additional.) We wound up starting with a lowball number and then just added on as necessary as rooms booked up. A little stressful but wound up working perfectly for us and we filled all our rooms.

We've had a weird experience with the Kleinfeld Hotel Block service. We asked them to look into nearby hotels for our destination wedding, and at the same time, our venue gave us the contact information for a nearby Marriott hotel. The prices that Kleinfeld gave us were on average $10 more per room per night, and $100 more expensive for the presidential suite; which over the course of 2 nights and 10 rooms in the courtesy block would amount to a $400 difference before tax and amenity fees. This price difference made us very wary of their "free" service.