Marriott Event Planning
 

I noticed some discussion on the Marriott Discount thread and it got me thinking about a recent meeting/event that I planned. (And I didn't want to take that thread OT.)

I recently had need to book about 19 rooms for a couple of nights at a local CY. So I checked online and found that I could make reservations for all 19 rooms (in chunks of 3) for a nice $109/night rate (includes breakfast) with the normal 6:00pm day of arrival cancellation for every one of the rooms. I was then reminded about the Marriott Events Planning group. So I called them and tried to work through them to see what they could do.

I talked with a Senior Sales Assoc. and he worked a "deal" for me. For a nice tidy sum of $133/night I would get a breakfast rate plus the great benefit of guaranteeing to Marriott that I would be using those 19 rooms or else I'd pay anyway. So basically, they wanted me to pay a cancellation fee if I made any room reductions, and pay extra for this guarantee?

Sounded fishy to me. The thing that really got me is that I literally couldn't get the assoc to call me back. He always seemed to be on the phone or out. In fact, I finally called and asked to speak with a supervisor who forced the assoc to talk with me. But of course he couldn't answer any of my questions and would get back to me (which he never did.)

I guess I just can't see why I would ever want to pay more for some rooms and lose flexibility at the same time and deal with this kind of service. Does anyone else here in FT actually use Marriott's Event Planning sales team? If so, why? I'm just not sure I see their benefit, except maybe more MR points. But points weren't worth enough to pay that kind of premium for.

We used them for our wedding. They basically matched the going rate and threw in breakfast for everyone. We had the opposite situation though: we had until a certain date to expand the number of blocked rooms, but after that we couldn't add more. We could always reduce the number at no penalty, but there were a few folks who didn't get into our block of rooms and by then the Marriott had sold out - they stayed at the Doubletree down the street.

I think if you're booking a weekend event at a property without high demand, the public rates are probably going to beat the rates that Event Planning gives you. There have been several times when I've gone to wedding receptions at a Marriott and intentionally didn't announce myself to the front desk as being there for the wedding - I either had a better rate already or wanted to apply a PP or EEO to the stay.