Room Block 101

In order to get the best deal possible, reserve a room block for your corporate or special event group. A room block refers to (10) rooms or more. You can either charge all the rooms to a master account or have your guests provide their credit card upon check in for room payment or incidentals only.

If you decide to pay for your guest’s rooms, we recommend having them provide a credit card upon arrival for any room charges or incidentals. Although you want to pay for their room, you might not want to end up paying for breakfast, lunch and those $20.00 snacks.

Before signing the room block contract here are a few terms you should be familiar with:

Allowable Shrinkage Clause: This number relates to the percentage of rooms that are allowed to go un-booked.  
Target Percentage: Between 10-20%. Meaning if you booked 20 rooms but 2-4 go un-booked you will not be penalized with a fee.
Attrition Rate or Minimum Commitment: This number refers to the percentage of rooms that must be filled in order to avoid paying a penalty fee.  
Target Percentage: Between 80-90%. (Note: Attrition rate should be high; allowable shrinkage should be low)  
Sample Excerpt: If the entire room block is not used, you will owe the hotel damages for all unused rooms based on a minimum commitment of 80%. This means if you do not book the minimum amount of rooms agreed to, you will owe for up to 80% of the room block.
Mitigation Clause or Re-sell Clause: The hotel must try to book unused rooms in your block so that you are no longer responsible for them if they are later sold to other customers. In short: You should not be paying for rooms that other guests are paying for.