Our service books wedding room blocks on behalf of couples for free, but a big portion of what we do is also education on what to expect from the hotel, how the contracts work, etc.
So let us welcome you to Wedding Room Blocks University! The first of it’s kind we are former hoteliers turned wedding room block extraordinaries.
Today we’re going to learn about some key words that every couple needs to know when booking a wedding room block:
COURTESY BLOCK
A courtesy block is a block of rooms that a hotel will hold without any financial obligation to you. With a courtesy block the rooms are pulled from hotel inventory and reserved for your group at a discounted rate. Because hotels are removing inventory without a guarantee they like to start with 10-15 rooms and will often add on to the room block as the rooms start to get booked. There is no guarantee that a hotel can add to the room block since it’s based on their availability but if you have your guests book early it’s likely the hotel will have the availability to add more rooms to your block. You may not be able to get all of your guests to book early but you could probably get immediate family and friends in the wedding party to lock in their rooms early and then you can reach back out to the hotel to add more rooms to the block.
Of course if you’re using our service we would take care of this for you.
LETTER OF INTENT
Similar to a courtesy block, a Letter of Intent (LOI) states that you’re not financially responsible for any guest rooms but in this case the hotel isn’t pulling rooms from inventory for your group. With an LOI the hotel will provide a discounted rate and your guests can book at that rate until then hotel has maxed their inventory for group rooms.
ATTRITION
Unlike the aforementioned types of contracts, an attrition block means there IS a financial obligation. In most cases the obligation is scaled to 90% which means in a 10 room block for 1 day, you’d be guaranteeing that 9 will book.
This type of room block is common in Europe and Hawaii but in the continental U.S.A. it’s likely you’ll be able to find a hotel that will offer a courtesy block or LOI. This may vary based on whether there’s a citywide event that has every hotel booked up, but in most cases you will not need to worry about attrition if you’re booking your room block with our free service.
CONCESSIONS
Now that we understand the types of contracts you’ll come across when booking a wedding room block, let’s talk about the perks. The perks of booking a room block are called concessions and this is the freebies the hotel will give you. This can include champagne to the room as a gift, suite upgrades or comp’d suites, upgrades for VIP guests, waived facility fees, etc.
Concessions are negotiated prior to contracting with the hotel and should be listed in your contract.
CUT-OFF DATE
The cut-off date applies to all contracts whether you’re financially guaranteeing the rooms or not. The cut-off date refers to the last day guests can book in order to lock-in their discounted room rate. Typically hotels require guests to book their rooms 15-30 days before the wedding and after that the discounted rate disappears.
This doesn’t mean the hotel can’t accommodate anymore guests but your discounted rate will no longer be in the system so it’s really handled on a case-by-case basis. We recommend telling your guests the cut-off date is a day or two earlier than the actual cut-off date so they don’t miss it but in the case that the cut-off date has passed and you have a guest that still needs to book, ask the hotel if they can accommodate.
Again, if you book or booked your room block with our service we take care of this for you as well.
And that concludes our lesson! Those are the key words everyone who books a hotel block should be familiar with before booking their room block.
