Room blocks - is this typical?

[basil]

So I went to try to set up some room blocks lately. I wanted to offer 2 choices - one hotel (boutique, very nice, kinda pricey) is 1.5 blocks from our venue. The other choice will be a chain hotel (hampton inn, best western, etc.) located about 10-15 min away by car.

Boutique hotel''s policy on room blocks is this: $15 charge per room to block (nonrefundable, not applicable towards rooms, etc), then can only release 10 rooms total 2 months prior to the date or else be charged full price. No discount given on room prices.

I really don''t know how many people are going to want to pay extra for the nicer hotel...honestly, knowing my family, probably not many. But I thought it would be nice to offer it. But paying $150 just for the privilege of blocking a few rooms seems steep.

Should I just list it as an option without doing an official room block? Will this make it difficult in terms of delivering guest baskets and such?

 

[kimberlina13]

150 is a lot of change just to hold the room and to not offer a discounted room rate, especially if you''re not sure if all the rooms would be filled? Is it a hotel that books up pretty quickly? I would just pass the word to your guests that might be interested in staying there to get on their reservations as it would book up quickly.

I personally haven''t heard of a room block fee and then no discounted rate. My hotel was just a run of the mill chain, and the rooms are very comfortable. They gave me 10 rooms initially, then after 5 rooms were booked, they would give me one more for every reservation that came in.

HTH

 

[hopefulheidi]

I''ve got about 40 rooms blocked off at two different locations for our wedding and I didn''t have to pay anything for either of them

The first set of rooms are all held on a block for free since they are at our venue....one of the perks of paying tons of money to have a wedding there.

The other set of rooms are about 6 miles from our location and I was able to block up to 20 rooms with no deposit. Anything over 20 would have required I pay for each room in advance, but 40+ rooms should be more than enough so luckily I didn''t have to bother.

Not sure I''d spend the $150 just to save the rooms with no guarantee that anyone will use them, but I guess that''s a personal call.

Is there any chance of negotiating with them?

~Heidi

 

[Jas12]

I''ve never heard of a charge for a room block (and I looked at several hotels prior to my wedding)

I would do as someone else suggested and spread the word about the boutique hotel...only if there seems to be a strongly expressed interest from some guests would i fork out the money to block the rooms

 

[Fancy605]

I have never heard of that either-not even at our boutique-y hotels. I would simply list it as an option and not worry about blocking rooms there. Plus, if it were me and the hotel were that unaccommodating, I wouldn''t particularly want to give it my business.

 

[cara]

It really depends what the hotel market is in the area you are in and the time of year.

Yes, most "normal" places will offer a discount for room blocks, and in most areas you should be able to find a place willing to release the rooms a few weeks out without much hassle, but if the market is different the hotels can have very different policies.

I got married on a summer weekend in an area that is very popular for weekend trips during the summer. Every hotel I spoke to said they anticipated selling out, and thus were unmotivated to allow me the priveledge of holding a block of rooms, and they certainly weren't going to give me a discount. Some hotels were entirely unwilling to be bothered with room blocks. Some charged a surcharge above their usual prices for hassle of reserving rooms, some required substantial non-refundable deposits for holding rooms. My favorite place waited quite a while into our discussion of reserving rooms before telling us that they required us to guarantee $200 in spa treatments per room (in addition to the normal room fee) for wedding blocks because they "lost money" on wedding guests who didn't use their spa as much as normal guests. We spoke to most venues in town, from the roadside motel to pretty pricy, and not one was offering a discount or made holding rooms at the normal rate a painless experience.

So we made a list of suggestions, sent STDs way early, and begged, threatened, and cajoled guests to make their reservations early and we were roundly ignored. We knew we had to hold something somehow because people otherwise would be screwed.

We ended up finding a place that would hold rooms and release them for a nominal fee, but we were supposed personally put down the first nights deposit on all the rooms six months out. Then as guests called in, they were supposed to bill the deposit to the guest and refund to us, less a $10 fee. Needless to say, it was a huge hassle. We had to front $1000s of dollars, credits were a huge hassle, and many guests called and were told that everything was booked (because we had already put down the deposit). However, we ultimately still sold out the hotel, and people that waited too long had to stay an inconvenient places far away so it was probably worth it.

You can certainly just do a suggestion list IF you think these places will not sell out. But if there is a sell-out danger, or not a lot of other lodging nearby, or you want to have all the guests at one or two locations for some reason (such as a shuttle), you might have to bite the bullet and pay the surcharge.

 

[basil]

I think the problem is that the boutique hotel is kind of the only game in town. There are 3 wedding locations close to it and no other hotels within 10 miles or so. But 10 miles away there are tons...

I don''t think I want to bother with a room block like that, since they also have a 2-night minimum, which I suspect may be inconvenient if people arrive Sat morning (wedidng is Sat evening). I just know if I were a guest I wouldn''t pay the extra, since people will have to end up renting a car anyways.