JohnnyColombia

What is the best way of booking this and getting a decent discount? Do I approach hotels individually or go through head offices of the franchise?

chgoeditor

Do you do a lot of corporate meeting/event planning? If so, there might be a corporate nationwide sales manager who would handle your account. If this is a one-off happening, call the specific hotel location and ask for the meeting/group sales department.

Antonio8069

You deal with the hotel(s) directly. Typically, for a convention, you are looking at x room nights gets you y meeting rooms complimentary. Hotels will also comp a certain # of room nights, depending on the # of revenue nights you guarantee.

toomanybooks

If you are looking to save money, pick a time way out of demand. Good example is Orlando in September.

Pay with CC from hotel chain, such as Surpass if Hilton.

JohnnyColombia

Thanks for the input guys, I have been out this PM to find out the who the negotiators are at the main hotels.

We often book groups but normally <30 so use independent hotels.

There is no conference or meeting room requirement, just B&B

Thanks

JohnnyColombia

It needs to be Bogotá, but the CC angle is interesting. This could net me about 60,000 LANPASS kms

cacic

You may want to check with your company to make sure they don't use a meeting planning company or have staff on hand that negotiates group contracts and has standard clauses for your company that would need to be incorporated into an agreement per the legal department. In many cases, companies have national sales offices that will then reach out to the local sales reps and then the hotels. Circumventing this process can create complications, especially if you encounter problems on-site. In some companies, you could be in a great deal of trouble if you skip over this process leaving the company liable for your obligation. By negotiating directly with the hotel you may not be aware of any negotiated rates or concessions (such as comp rooms or free internet, etc.) that chains would offer to your company as part of their group sales volume and sometimes sales people either aren't aware or don't give those concessions. You could also be responsible for up to 100% of the sleeping rooms whether or not they are utilized. This means that if your event is cancelled or rescheduled, you could still be responsible for paying for 125 rooms over the dates you have picked. You will need to notify the hotel if you are paying for all the rooms or if guests are individual pay only (IPO) since you could be receiving a very large credit card bill due within 30 days of the last day of your sleeping room block, which could also send up a red flag with your expense report if you are not in compliance with your company's policies. One more note - make sure you are allowed to accept points since in some companies it is a violation of their gift policies.