hhoope01

I've had the same situation as you. I used to take a large group of teenagers to various events.

I've made reservations for 10+ rooms before online and didn't have any issues. What I might suggest would be for you to go ahead and reserve those rooms. If its not a problem, I'd make half of them under your name and half under your wife's name. The website used to allow you to reserve up to 9 rooms per reservation. So you shouldn't have any problems making 2 reservations for 5 or 6 rooms each. This has the added benefit of allowing you to get points for 6 rooms/night rather than just 3. (Note that if there are more adults who might want points/night credits, you could even put more reservations under their names as well. But that can be a bit complex and not worth the effort in a lot of cases.)

Then I'd call the Group Sales team back and tell them that if they want you to go through their services, they have to give you a rate lower than what you can get on the website. If they bite and give you something better, great, you saved some money. If they don't, you aren't out anything as you still have your existing reservations. Also note, one thing I always hated in dealing with Marriott's Group Sales team is that they want you to sign an agreement with attrition clauses and cancellation fees. Usually, the rates on the website have 6PM day of or the day before cancellation clauses. IOW, no attrition clauses and much more flexibility in removing rooms or changing your reservations if you need to.

One more thing to think on is breakfast. If you go through the Group Sales team, I'd try to negotiate free breakfast for everyone (assuming you wouldn't already get it.)