Travel Tips

Travel Tip: When You Want to Book a Hotel Room During a Big Event

hotelWhenever you want to go to a city where there’s a big event—the Final Four, a national political convention, the Super Bowl, or the Olympics—there’s a good chance the hotels will tell you there are no rooms available.

Does this mean they are fully booked? Not even close.

More often than not, their rooms are fully BLOCKED, and there’s a big difference.

Almost without exception, big groups, associations, and advertisers block more rooms than they need.

So the key to getting that so-called unavailable room is to simply ask the hotel which companies or groups are holding the room blocks.

Then call those companies, ask to speak to the person in charge of travel, introduce yourself, and say “I know it’s too early to tell me now, but when we get closer to the date and you discover you’ve blocked more hotel rooms than you need, please call me at this number, and I’ll pay for one of those rooms.”

The hotel actually has nothing to do with it because they don’t control the rooms.

You’re dealing directly with the company that owns those rooms.

You’ll almost always get a room at a rate much cheaper than the hotel would have charged you.

You just need to be patient.

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