Hotel fully booked for 4 months by group during Covid?
 

I made a reservation for 2 rooms, 2 nights in a Hyatt in Jacksonville, Fl for mid March about a month ago. I went back to look at the reservation and book more rooms and the hotel is sold out. I called and was told that a group had booked the entire hotel until April 15, and that he was not allowed to disclose the group. He did assure me that my reservation would be honored, as they would have already contacted me to cancel if they were going to. He also told me due to my status they would upgrade me (it is currently lowest level status, so that kind of surprised me).

How common is this? How about during Covid times? This surprised me.

Booked for quarantine purposes, to take homeless people off the streets or to house asylum seekers maybe? All of these have been reasons for block bookings like this here during COVID.

Sounds ominous.

Could be a flat earther convention? (occupy flat earth?)
After seeing the Netflix doc, I can't help but not be able to discount this possibility.

Depends how you roll...

David

There have been several articles recently about booking out a property as a Covid precaution. The "members" of the group all agree to the same Covid precautions in advance and thus lower the risks for all. Generally people who know each other, attend church or some other affinity. Not at all surprising.

OP - If you've ever been at a property which is close to sold out to a private group, it's not a place to stay. If you can maneuver yourself somewhere else, I would do it and that is without worrying about upgrades and the like.

Hopefully not off the edge (of the earth...).

This x1000, unless your plan is to party with them. Otherwise you will indeed hate your time there.

I say this as one with experience being part of the group - including 1,000 person events that basically turned the entire hotel into a party - and being someone with the misfortune to run into such groups a few times in my travels. It's one reason I avoid big convention hotels as a general rule, although it's clear you could run into a loud boozed-up event even in smaller properties that aren't traditional conference venues.

In the U.S., I believe it's done by for-profits in detention centres.

We are there for the Gate River 15k, and chose the location because we can walk to the starting line. We have no desire for a party hotel, but we also want this hotel for the location and for points/nights for status. I specifically booked the hotel right away once we signed up for the race to be sure we got it. Last year I was looking from across the river at this hotel wondering why we were not staying here. It was worse the next morning when it took nearly 20 minutes to go what would normally be 2-3, just to get to a parking lot around the Hyatt.

I get that groups might book out a hotel for a weekend or week long convention, etc, but I called yesterday and they are booked from now until April 15, at least. I doubt you have 4 months of a booked hotel for a convention/group like that.

I have been in hotels where a large group were coming in for a event, and often that decreased the number of upgrades available. I found it interesting that he brought up me getting an upgrade, which made me think that this group isn't going to be having people there taking the larger rooms/suites.

I used to stay in a hotel near BWI that had groups of interpreters coming in for 2 week training at the NSA building next door. They took a big chunk of the hotel for several years, with new groups coming in every 2 weeks. I guess it could be something like this, just kind of odd timing.

Thanks for the ideas and the info about staying at a hotel with a group. I had never thought of that before and will absolutely keep that in mind for future travel!

just like (some) airlines, they may be proactively limiting capacity due to C19

It could be some training event or it might be medical workers being brought into the area. Are there big hospitals or corporate headquarters within walking distance? However, it seems surprising that long term people aren't being put into an extended stay property if there's one nearby. The homeless, etc. tend to be placed in budget hotels, so I wouldn't expect to find them in a Hyatt.

Could someone from the 15k have booked the whole hotel with the intent to re-sell to the participants?

David

They are setting up a vaxine clinic at the convention center. Maybe using this to house workers?

Occam's Razor here. If you booked the Hyatt Downtown Jacksonville, I will assume that AEW Pro Wrestling booked the rooms.

AEW is owned by the Khan family, who owns the NFL's Jacksonville Jaguars and operate both TIAA Field (the stadium) and Daley's Place (the adjacent amphitheater), where their wrestling shows have been produced and aired live on TNT since May. There is a rumor that they will move to South Florida to tape in February and return to Jacksonville in March. They set a schedule for 2021 events which included Rochester and Philadelphia but there is little chance whose will occur there. AEW need to house their cast of entertainers/wrestlers, announcers, and production crew near the facility, thus the Hyatt.

Both AEW and the UFC use the downtown Hyatt as their base for events there due to the hotels' proximity to the sports/entertainment complex across the river.

Yes, like the time me and my daughters were among 4 other guests that were not part of the Furry convention at our hotel...