Hotel Blocks

Hi! I have a few questions about reserving hotel blocks of rooms -

How far in advance do we need to do this? I'm getting married Sept 2009.

When we reserve the block, do we have to put a credit card down and pay ahead of time anything? Or do we just reserve the block and as each person books the room, they put their own cards down?

Any other info would be helpful. TIA!!!

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Posted by debzy

Hi! I have a few questions about reserving hotel blocks of rooms -

How far in advance do we need to do this? I'm getting married Sept 2009.

When we reserve the block, do we have to put a credit card down and pay ahead of time anything? Or do we just reserve the block and as each person books the room, they put their own cards down?

Any other info would be helpful. TIA!!!

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We did our block shortly after our invites went out but it's better to take care of that before...so you can include the info in the invites I would take care of it about 6-9 mos in advance to be safe...as far as your credit card we blocked rooms at the Hyatt- they did require a credit card and we had to sign a contract that the mininum amount of rooms would be blocked or we would be charged for them. We crunched our numbers and made sure of the guests' commitment, and we only signed for the absolute mininum (10 rooms per night). Other hotels don't have you pay for any nonbooked rooms though so I would check out other ones if you aren't sure of people's commitment to avoid paying When the guests call to reserve the rooms they put it on their own credit card unless you are paying for their rooms-if you are paying for any rooms you would just let the hotel know when you block them.
HTH Feel free to FM me of you need any other info

I did mine already (getting married in June) but thats bc I am getting married the same weekend as the US Golf Open, which is close to my hall.


I blocked 20 rooms but if they aren't used they don't charge you. I would say do it as soon as they let you so you lock into a price.

Do it now just to be safe. This was my biggest headache so far because there are so many hotels by my hall and I wanted to get the best deal that I could. Make a list of all the hotels by your RH and call them each up and ask to speak with a sales rep about blocking rooms for your wedding and they can help you.

Make sure you ask price, max. number of rooms you can block off without finiancial obligation from you (mine was 15), do they have shuttle service for your guests to the RH, do they have a deal for the bride and groom if you are staying there, is there a bar if you have guests who want to continue the partying after, free continental breakfast available or info. about doing a breakfast if that's something you want to do.

I think that is the list of things that I wanted to know. What I liked to was that my hotel (the Hilton in Westbury) gave me a website that I can give to my guests to book their rooms online and also gave me login info so I can see how many rooms have been reserved and who booked them.)

This was a headache for me to keep track of so I made a chart in Microsoft work so that I could write notes as I spoke with people and then I went back and reviewed by my FH the best deal.

Good luck!

I'm getting married in November '09 and reserved my room block yesterday because we have a very large number of OOT guests and I wanted to include the hotel information with the save the dates since we have people coming in from all over the world.

The hotel should not ask you to put anything down. The hotel I'm using (the Huntington Hilton) just asks that we guarantee 1/2 of the rooms we block - so if you block 20, you have to guarantee 10. As mentioned, the Hilton gives you a website to log into to see who booked rooms.

Hope this helps

You can go to hotelplanner.com and put in your info and then hotels in the area you want bid on your business. This made my life so easy. I picked the one with the best deal both in price and 'perks' I wanted a hotel i did not have to guarentee anything or leave a CC# and I didnt. I blocked with the Hilton Garden inn.

My wedding is a few weeks b4 you. I blocked 2 months ago becuase most my guests are OOT and i wanted to include info in save the dates.

When your guests reserve thier rooms, they will need to put down a CC.

Also, if you want to stay there too look for things like 10 rooms blocked = a free room. We are getting (hopefully) a suite comped for the amount of rooms we need.

Also, check over your contract with a fine tooth comb, i found an issue with the wording in mine and made her re-write it to CLEARLY state we are not responsible for unused rooms.

HTH!!

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Posted by debzy

I'm thinking of blocking rooms in the Marriott (in Uniondale) and the Hampton Inn for less expensive rooms. Anyone have experience with those?

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The Marriott makes you provide credit card information at the time you block the rooms. You are responsible for 80% of the rooms that you block- Meaning if you do not fill them you must pay for them anyway...The hotel staff is really nice. The rooms are well kept but the hotel does not have any suites.