Canceling group hotel reservation 10 days before reservation – Did I do anything wrong?
Tuesday, March 13th, 2007
Jordan P asked:
I negotiated a group rate at a hotel for a event our small non profit org. is putting on. Last year was our first year & we used about 15 rooms. This year I contacted a hotel at a different location & reserved 10 single rooms about 8 weeks before our event (we wanted doubles but they were already booked for those). The manager acted like it wasn’t any problem to put a courtesy hold on them up to 10 days before the event. About 20 days before the event she called concerned that they wouldn’t be able to let us have all our rooms & wanted to make sure we were taken care of since we hadn’t had any of our guests book rooms with them yet. It ended up that someone else in our company was able to negotiate a better rate at a closer hotel with better room availability for us this weekend so I called the manager today (the last day or our courtesy hold) to cancel them. After I told her, she said she didn’t know why we were canceling (all upset like) & hung up on me. Did I do anything wrong?
No contract signed, it was all over the phone. I assumed that was the point of a courtesy hold. She acted like if we didn’t reserve them they would automatically drop from the system and this was a very busy time of the year for them so they’d fill them up fast… or at least that’s the impression I had got.
Actually I found out about the other arrangements at the other hotel on Saturday. I called the hotel that same day and the manager wasn’t going to be in until today (Monday, which happened to be the end of our hold date). So basically I let her know as soon as I found out.
I negotiated a group rate at a hotel for a event our small non profit org. is putting on. Last year was our first year & we used about 15 rooms. This year I contacted a hotel at a different location & reserved 10 single rooms about 8 weeks before our event (we wanted doubles but they were already booked for those). The manager acted like it wasn’t any problem to put a courtesy hold on them up to 10 days before the event. About 20 days before the event she called concerned that they wouldn’t be able to let us have all our rooms & wanted to make sure we were taken care of since we hadn’t had any of our guests book rooms with them yet. It ended up that someone else in our company was able to negotiate a better rate at a closer hotel with better room availability for us this weekend so I called the manager today (the last day or our courtesy hold) to cancel them. After I told her, she said she didn’t know why we were canceling (all upset like) & hung up on me. Did I do anything wrong?
No contract signed, it was all over the phone. I assumed that was the point of a courtesy hold. She acted like if we didn’t reserve them they would automatically drop from the system and this was a very busy time of the year for them so they’d fill them up fast… or at least that’s the impression I had got.
Actually I found out about the other arrangements at the other hotel on Saturday. I called the hotel that same day and the manager wasn’t going to be in until today (Monday, which happened to be the end of our hold date). So basically I let her know as soon as I found out.