Blocking hotel rooms- pre-pay?

[regalada]

I''ve tried to block hotel rooms in the city where we are getting married in October and both times we have been asked to pre-pay all the rooms.

Has anybody encountered this when trying to block rooms? I was under the impression that rooms could be blocked without a charge.

TIA

 

[KimberlyH]

I blocked rooms for our August 5th wedding (in Inland San Diego) at both the wedding location (a small golf resort in peak season) and a local hotel that is a bit less expensive (Hilton Garden Inn). They each held the rooms until 1 month prior to our wedding at no cost to us, then the rooms were released back to the public. We included this information on or STD to OOT guests so they could book their room early at the discounted rates. I don''t know how many people took advantage of the room blocks but it makes no difference to me because I''m not being charged for the unreserved rooms. My advice to you is to keep calling around.

 

[regalada]

We don''t have many choices unfortunately since there just a handful of hotels in the city. We were trying to hold only five rooms. So we are going to call separately for each reservation since it looks like if it''s not a group it does not have to be prepaid.

I am just taken aback by this policy since I''ve never heard of it before.

Thanks for your reply, Kimberly.

 

[VegasAngel]

I used to work in reservations at a big resort. Here is how they did it. Once an x number of rooms were blocked for the event, it was up to each guest to call and reserve their room in the block. Usually they would have to pay the first night up front but if time allowed we we able to hold the reservation for 14 days without payment. If the guest didnt call back to pay the reservation was cancelled. For us 10 or more rooms was considered a group.

 

[FireGoddess]

I was able to reserve a block of rooms at a nearby hotel for my wedding until about a month prior to the wedding. After that the rooms were released. I did not have to pay a penny!!

 

[griffitk]

None of the dozen hotels I called would reserve a block of hotel rooms because March is their busy season. We ended up asking people to reserve their room when they got their save-the-date card (8 months out) and we put ~12 rooms in our name. We will use the rooms we are holding for those who don''t get around to booking their own rooms and as they aren''t a formal block, we can cancel them up until the day before the wedding for no charge. If we release all 12 the day before the wedding, that''s the hotel''s problem. They could have worked with us, but they didn''t so that''s their problem now.

 

[saturn]

That''s crazy!

I guess that if there are only a few hotels, then they can get away with doing stuff like that...
But even if you made reservations, you would be able to cancel a few days beforehand and not be charged. So why should they charge you for a block? Can you just make reservations for the five rooms you need? Then cancel the reservation if you don''t end up needing them all.

One of the hotels I contacted asked for a credit card number in order to block a group of rooms, but none of them asked me to prepay.

 

[flopkins]

when I was hotel block shopping, there were a few that requested this. I immediately nixed them from my list of possible hotels.

In my experience *most* hotels do NOT request pre-pay, unless they are a very small boutique hotel. Most should hold rooms free of charge up to 30 days before the event.