Hotel Room Blocks

NicoleR77

When did everyone start contacting hotels about reserving blocks of rooms? Also, I have heard that some hotels will offer a free room if a certain number of guests book under the block of rooms...for those of you who are already married or getting close to your wedding date, did you get any perks like this? Also, any tips for estimating how many rooms you will need? Most of my guests are from MN, but it would be a bit of a drive for a good portion of our family (~2 hours or so) so I'm guessing at least some of them would get a hotel.  Thanks in advance for any thoughts!

schmood

I called the hotel about 4 months before.  Our block is at a Country Inn.  They start the block with a certain # of rooms - in our case, I believe that it was 8 rooms.  Once those rooms get filled then they continue to add rooms at the same discounted price.   For each room that gets reserved, we get a certain % off our room, and if 8 are reserved, then we get our room for free.  This policy probably varies drastically from hotel to hotel... and also probably depends on whether or not there is any other big events on the same weekend of your wedding.   I have a friend getting married Twin Cities Marathon weekend and I know she had a tougher time getting blocks.   If your reception is at a hotel or maybe has an agreement with a particular hotel, the policy might be different.   There were not many options for hotels near my reception site, but if there are a lot near yours you may want to check with the coordinator at the reception site.

Muffers

we booked one block right after we booked our venue, so about a year out, but we also booked another block (different hotel) about 4 months before. Both places give us a free room if a certain number of rooms are booked (I think it was around 10-15 rooms).

My mom is handling the room blocks, but from what I gathered when you ask for a room block the hotel has a set # of rooms they will block off for you without requiring any payments.  we hit our block amount at the first hotel and they were not able to block any more rooms for us, so we called another hotel to create a second block.

 I would just call around to the hotels near your venue to ask about their particular policies, or as PP suggested, talk to your venue to see if they have recs. HTH!

golden1215

We booked a 15 room block 9 months in advance because its a popular hotel in a downtown area on the night of an MLB game and the hotel is right by the new stadium.   We came up with 15 by just literally talking through our guests list and seeing who was local and who was not.

We didn't get any free perks for us but rooms that are normally $130-140 are only $89 per night, so I think that's a good deal for our guests.  We are paying more for a honeymoon suite with late check out, champagne etc

Steph0871

We booked with Radisson on campus for $99/night.  We were able to block as many as we wanted, I think (but we made sure there wasn't a football game.... there is a home hockey series against UW though!)

Right now we have 25 rooms blocked, and we got 50% off any of the suites for the weekend.

kclepire

I would call right away, you never know what else might be going on the same weekend as your wedding.  We called about 11 months out and I'm glad we did as that wkd there is a trialtholon that always fills the hotels.

Neogotiate with them on the rate.  They gave us a rate and I thought it was really good and then called the neighboring hotel and they gave us a lower rate so we called the other back and they matched it.

As for how many rooms....I took our guest list and went down the list and put an X by those I thought needed a room (ppl we knew were coming from out of town or ppl in town who we knew would have some drinks and want to stay at the hotel).

I did get a little discouraged in how many people did NOT stay at the hotel.  It ended up only being the wedding party as many people found ppl they knew in the cities to stay with so I'd recommend not spending much time on hotel stuff.

beka0404

Basically everything kclepire wrote. I stressed about hotel blocks early on, but now I figure people can fend for themselves. 

We made our room blocks (2 diff. hotels) about 12 mos. out (but I'm an overplanner). About 1/2 our guest list is from out of town - I just put a check mark next to names on the guest list if I thought they might want a room, then totaled the check marks. As for perks, if a certain number of rooms in our block are booked, we get upgraded to a suite, and if an even higher number of rooms are booked, our suite is free.

LittleSweetie

[holy blue]

Check out the list of questions I put together on Scribd.com.  We locked in our room block when STDs went out so our guests could begin making arrangements - we used the Spring Hill Suites in Eagan.  We used their conference room for the guys to get ready in.  They gave us a jacuzzi suite for our wedding night too   They also gave us 3 trips in the shuttle - one there before the reception and 2 back at the end of the night.  HTH!

http://www.scribd.com/doc/5573894/Wedding-Hotel-Room-Block-Questions-to-Ask

KittE7

If you will be responsible for filling x% of the block, you should ask everyone you think might need a hotel by email if they will need a room in the block, not just guess. 
I needed a solid "estimate" b/c our hotel will charge us if we don't fill 80% of the block, so we emailed out-of-town guests. 
Of course, now, 1 month before, I think I need to add a second, more affordable block for the ppl not wanting to stay at Chambers. In addition to wanting to get them a good rate, I do want to give "welcome bags" to the OOT guests, even if they aren't staying at the "main" hotel. I'm not going to track them down beyond those 2 hotels tho!

PS, we probably won't get a free room for FI & I, but I'm still trying!