Most hotels offer free rooms when you reserve a room block at their hotel. Hotel sales managers know that a couple can block rooms anywhere so they try to offer a free room to the bride and groom in order to make their hotel more attractive.
So how do you get a free room when you block rooms at a hotel?
Step 1 – Get Group Hotel Rates First
In order to block hotel rooms, you’ll have to get group rates first. You can do so by calling hotels one by one or you can fill out this form and hotels in your desired city and price range will email you their group rates instantly for free. Just make sure you add the following in the comments section:
“Please include the complimentary room ratio in your quotes. I will give preference to the hotel that gives me a free room for my wedding. We are looking to decide in the next week or so. Thank you.”
Make sure to enter the correct email address as hotels will send their group rates almost instantly.
Step 2 – Compare Quotes and Free Room Offers
Within a few minutes of submitting the form above, area hotels will email their best group hotel rates. Details on the number of free rooms will be included. An example of a free room offer is the following:
We will be offering a comp room ratio of 15:1. This means that for every 15 rooms your wedding party reserves (and pays for), you will qualify for a free room – Hotel XYZ
While some hotels will offer you just one room free, many will offer you more
When hotels offer free rooms, they do so by giving you what is commonly called a comp ratio. This ratio tells you how many rooms your guests will have to reserve for you to get a free room.
Common comp ratios are 20:1 or 30:1. This means that for every 20 or 30 room nights reserved (and paid for), you will get a free room.
Let’s look at an example
If your wedding guests take up 40 rooms for two nights (i.e. 80 total room nights) and you comp ratio was 20:1, then you would be entitled to 4 free room nights. This could be 1 room for four nights, or two rooms for two nights etc.
The best part about the comp rooms (i.e. complimentary rooms) is that you can use them yourself or you can pass them out to any of your wedding guests. Most couples who don’t use them will give them out to the maid of honor or the best man.
Now that you understand the intricacies of how to get a free room when you block hotel rooms, you might be wondering what the catch is.
After all, why would hotels offer a free room when you block hotel rooms?
There is no catch really. Hotels that want your business will make their offer more attractive by offering you free rooms. It makes sense for them to do so because they can book a large number of rooms and put revenue on their books.
Moreover, the practice of offering a comp ratio is common at hotels that book conferences, meetings, reunions and other events that need a block of rooms.
But what if the hotel does not offer a comp ratio?
Most hotels do offer a comp ratio but if the one you are in love with does not, then find a competing hotel nearby that is willing to offer you a comp ratio. Once you have an offer from the competing hotel, use it as leverage with the hotel where you want guests to stay. Nothing makes a hotel sales manager change their mind than when they are about to lose business to a competitor.
Getting a free room at a hotel is not all that difficult. Get started by filling out this form.
What should you read next?
Since you’re looking at blocking hotel rooms, take a look at our frequently asked questions. It’s one of our most popular pages 🙂