Simon Schus

Hi all,

Has anybody ever had any experience with block-booking at Hilton Hotels in the USA? My wife and I are hosting an event nearby to a Hilton hotel next year, and we're thinking of asking that hotel to host our guests for the overnight stays - our guests can then book the rooms, hopefully with a preferential code.

Our event won't be huge, a family event with around 40 rooms for our guests who will be visiting from the UK and also from within the US. Some will be HHonors Gold and Diamond members. The hotel isn't in a major US city but is nearby to one.

If you did make such a booking, did you tend to get preferential rates? Did the guests get the points still? We've emailed the hotel but I thought I'd compare to others' experiences because I've only dealt with UK hotels for this type of booking in the past.

Simon

travelwithross

You'll probably find this best answered in the Hilton HHonors section of Flyertalk.

Just from my experience, I'm booking with the Hilton for a large event, 7 days + in total, and I've been able to secure a preferential rate code in a large city (outside UK), guests still get points and upgrades, and they can book direct via the website. This is during the busiest time of year for the hotel, and we are expecting to take up 50-70 rooms.

NWIFlyer

As this has nothing to do with BA, we'll move it over to the Hilton HHonors forum where it'll receive more expert advice.

NWIFlyer
Moderator
BA Forum

Simon Schus

Hahah, whoops what an error on writing this in the BAEC forum! My bookmark took me to BAEC (where I hang out most!) rather than HHonors - I didn't even think to check! (sorry)

Nonetheless, my question still stands!

writerguyfl

When you secure a block of rooms, virtually everything is negotiable. If you want your guests to earn HHonors points and to be eligible for possible space-available upgrades, make sure you tell your Sales Manager.

As for discounted pricing, it will depend on many factors. The most important of those factors is the hotel's expected occupancy on the days for your group. If they anticipate being sold out, it would be unlikely that they will offer a discount. (In some cases, a hotel might even decline to offer any group rate.) Conversely, if the hotel will be half empty, you may get a great deal.

I used to be a hotel Revenue Manager. Part of that job was coming up with rates for the Sales Managers. Usually, people who weren't professional meeting planners were disappointed with the rates we offered. They always wanted massive discounts because they were giving us "so many rooms". But, 50-100 room nights really isn't much.

Example: A 150 room hotel has 54,750 room night to fill each year (150x365). A group of 40 rooms for three nights is 120 room nights. That's only 0.22% of the total room nights. Very few businesses will offer massive discounts to someone who only provides 0.22% of total yearly revenue.

The hotels in which I worked were very aggressive with group rates. Not all hotels are like that. So, you may get a great rate. There's no harm in asking for a better rate during the negotiation process. If the hotel won't drop the rate, ask if they will do something like offer some food & beverage discounts. We sometimes provided 2-for-1 drink coupons (alcoholic or non) for groups. That's a win for both sides; the group gets something and the hotel got some revenue.

Simon Schus

Thanks writerguyfl and rxfleming!

I appreciate your guiding of my expectations (I hadn't expected to receive much/any of a preferential but I can now understand some of the reasoning, dynamics behind it!). Really helps - I've contacted the hotel in question and so just wanted to know what would be a 'good' response or a 'standard' response (there really is no 'bad' response apart from 'no rooms at the inn'!)

Simon.

jerry a. laska

As noted above it depends upon what you are able to negotiate with the hotel. This is the minimum deal:
http://hhonors3.hilton.com/en/events/planner/index.html

Also see:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/hilto...e-rewards.html

Often1

Call (do not email) and speak with the sales manager directly. It is all about revenue and everything is negotiable.

Hospitality suite, meals, local transportation? If all you are doing is providing a recommendation to your guests and suggesting that they may want to stay at a given property, there may well not be a discount at all.

On the other hand, if you guarantee the rooms, maybe you get more.

For 40 rooms, it's going to be a pretty much set menu.

Simon Schus

Wonderful, thank you for the suggestions all I shall follow up with a phone call tomorrow I think!

cdancer20

I have a Hilton hotel block secured for my wedding next year. We only requested 20 rooms for 2 nights because I didn't want to be caught footing too high of a bill if we didn't fill the rooms. (Though I honestly suspect we will double that number). Some hotels will do courtesy holds for you but Hilton has an attrition rate. This means that for any rooms not filled, the planner is must pay the hotel for these rooms UNLESS the hotel can sell them. However, those rooms are placed at the end of the list and the hotel has to be sold out to even touch them.

Nonetheless, like they said everything is negotiable. Sometimes, they will give you free rooms for every 50 you book or give a free suite to the organizer. After some back and forth, we didn't get much. We got 2 suites upgrades for the price of the block room rate. However, the discount was substantial! We got a $100 discount off the current price along with a guarantee that if the BAR drops below our rate, that our guests will get that discount.